FM13 AI Player Development Project

[Erimus1876]

Have you thought about expanding this format to include school academy teams from Germany, France, Italy and Spain. That was going to be the next phase of this project for me if i could have got the flow of players working properly. The cup setup you've made would work well in a europe-wide tournament - sort of like a champions league for school teams.

The idea behind this whole project is to give AI clubs a boost so the game is more challenging in the long term. The senior academy leagues for the top 5 nations I made and linked in post#1 are the main files where that occurs, but your idea of expanding the grass roots level would be a good complimentary system - another added layer of AI player development.

You're more than welcome to take this project on if you want. I think some fresh ideas and impetus is needed since I'm a bit burned out with it. The Cuba file will probably be my last bit of work on this now until FM14

[Adebola9]

Haha thanks Erimus but I must admit I've only done this bit to satisfy my own appetite for some more School competitions - just thought I'd share it should it go well.

By all means though I will look into doing more to it - should this work and should I have the time alongside my job. It just so happens I have nothing on this friday night!

I've all sorts of little ideas going on in my head though, so we'll see what pops up!

[Adebola9]

I might have encountered the first problem with this. I'm now past July 1st and no players have been created for any of the Schools - could there be something I'm missing within the editor when I made the leagues playable again?

[Erimus1876]

No problem

If the feeder team issues could be resolved I have some ambitious plans for this, but like I say it'll probably be for FM14 now. I've been working on this project since early December and I don't think I can take it any further until one or two bugs are fixed in the editor by SI.

The long term plan would have been to add those school academy teams from around Europe to the UK school teams, and put them all on the same file - like Cuba, and set their based nation to whatever country they come from. They would play in continental youth tournaments and each academy would have affiliate links to professional clubs around Europe - like the current system has with the UK.

If it worked as well as I envision it to it would be an interesting addition. Youth players would have 'histories'. Instead of just appearing out of nowhere and joining a senior clubs youth team like they do now, they'd actually have a history of what school they came from and what academy they attended, along with their playing stats and hopefully boosted early development having played competitive football from aged 14 & 15.

Its still all penciled in for FM14, so fingers crossed that editor isn't as bugged as this current editor is!

[Erimus1876]

I might have encountered the first problem with this. I'm now past July 1st and no players have been created for any of the Schools - could there be something I'm missing within the editor when I made the leagues playable again?

It could be the dates you've set. Take a look at the Cuba file and use those dates as they generate players from July 2012.

[Erimus1876]

Also what affiliate settings have you used between the school academy teams and the individual school teams? If you've left them as B-teams then the school teams won't generate players. That's the annoying bug I've been moaning about for weeks now.

Other affiiliate settings may generate players but those players will just stay at their school team - eventually the school team will become bloated with over aged players. That's the other bug I've moaned about for weeks. Welcome to the FM13 editor

[Adebola9]

Ok I've changed back to the first Cuba dates, and also changed the season to Option 2.

I hadn't changed the affilations so I'll do that now and hopefully be able to run a season before the morning. I'm also going to try changing league rules to mean players who are over 18(?) cannot play - this should hopefully mean they should leave the Schools and be picked up by other teams (hopefully!).

[Erimus1876]

Don't waste too much time trying different affiliate settings. I've spent weeks trying each and every setting and they don't do what they're supposed to do. Like I said, some affiliate settings won't generate players, while others will generate players but won't feed them to their parent clubs. I think its a case of deciding what you want to do. Do you want real players in the school teams so you can be a school team manager? If so I'd recommend setting all the school teams to be normal affiliates or even remove affiliates altogether, give the school teams semi-pro status and set their contract types all to youth contracts - then on the "General" tab on your nation rules set max age for youth contracts to 16 - that should ensure schoolboys will only stay at their school team until they're 16 or 17 before leaving the game. You don't want 20 year olds in your school teams

If you're not too bothered about the school county leagues then you can leave them as b-team affiliates and just have the school academy and school association teams as playable with real players. In that case its the Cuba file in its current format you need.

[Adebola9]

Well now I've just set the game to run again. It's running on Option 2, with an added 'Schools Charity Shield' at the end of the season between the Cup Winner and the League Playoff winner.

All teams are now normal affiliates with the Academy teams. At start up no players have been created for the teams, but hopefully come the end of the season, then regens will pop up on the squad lists.

I've changed the league rules to make sure nobody Over 18 can be named in the squad for the teams in either the cup or league - and added a registration for the league so that any players that do not get registered as they are over-age, should hopefully move on.

Will report back when I can

[Erimus1876]

"...and added a registration for the league so that any players that do not get registered as they are over-age, should hopefully move on."

How have you done this? I can't seem to find the option for this, is it on the advanced editor options?

[Adebola9]

On Fixture Rules under the league, I've ticked both options for Matchday and Squad limits to not allow any Over 18 players. I've not been able to try out the registration yet, but it does come up on the league rules that no players over the age of 18 can play - so even if there are over aged players at the school team, they will not be able to play in any competitions.

I'm hoping it will work like the Hyundai A League, where unregistered players are automatically released. Whether this will be different because all these school teams are currently listed as Amateur or not, I'm not sure.

If this doesn't work out well, I'll try setting them up as Semi-Pro like you recommended.

[Erimus1876]

Ah right. Yes that's what I do on mine. I thought you meant a squad registration like the premiership registration option that appears on August 31st where you pick and choose what players are going to be part of your 25-man squad. That would have been a useful option to have for the school teams and the senior academy teams too. But we're stuck with doing it via squad rules like you mentioned.

RE unregistered players: I think if you leave them as amateur the teams fill up with lots of ineligible players. What happens is your squad rules will exclude all over aged player eventually and because they won't get picked up by academy teams, they just sit in the school teams for season after season. I think going to semi-pro status and using youth contracts works better as players will leave the game once their youth contract expires.

[Adebola9]

Yeah I think the semi-pro is the way forward. Teams have generated between 5 and 8 players each during the season, and I guess that's all they will get for each season. The competitions all seem to be running well though - hopefully tomorrow night I'll be able to give this a better shot.

[Jorgen]

If I may do a suggestion: The Dutch FA has one of the most structured and indepth youth-leagues in the world of football. There are more registered football players (in %) (pro, semi, amateur, youth) than in any other European nation. That is why such a small nation can be so effective producing quality players. If you would choose to expand your project, I would suggest to add The Netherlands as one of the candidates for this.

Keep up the good work

[greco]

so, has this project helped regarding ai player development.?

i havent played the game yet, still waiting for transfer update and patch, so i´m folowing this project closely, as this is a part of the game which imo is ruining long term saves.

[Erimus1876]

If I may do a suggestion: The Dutch FA has one of the most structured and indepth youth-leagues in the world of football. There are more registered football players (in %) (pro, semi, amateur, youth) than in any other European nation. That is why such a small nation can be so effective producing quality players. If you would choose to expand your project, I would suggest to add The Netherlands as one of the candidates for this.

Keep up the good work

The Netherlands is definitely one of the nations that will be included when I expand this. There is even a new category in the editor called 'Dutch Jung Team' this year, although its a bit bugged in FM13 hopefully for FM14 it'll work as intended and those will be used for the Dutch youth academy teams.

[Erimus1876]

so, has this project helped regarding ai player development.?

i havent played the game yet, still waiting for transfer update and patch, so i´m folowing this project closely, as this is a part of the game which imo is ruining long term saves.

There's a couple of posts you may find interesting:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/329719-AI-still-unable-to-develop-young-players?p=8290304&viewfull=1#post8290304

This one is where this idea was conceived. Its where I made a few small academy leagues for about 6 or7 European nations and made them available to test. Some people said they noticed an improvement so that's what lead on to expanding it to this larger project. I haven't gotten very far into my own save to say for definite there is boosted AI player development going on as that will take 15 - 20 seasons to know for sure. So its still early days yet with this one.

There is another post in GD where The Hand of God is running a long term test in FM to find out how well players are developing - that's with a normal database.

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/342744-30-Years-of-Full-Detail-Analysis-of-Long-Term-Player-and-Squad-Development

So far it looks quite positive that SI have improved AI squad building in FM13, with or without the need to use extra academy leagues. These leagues should provide an extra boost but overall the game should be more of a challenge in the long term than previous FM's whether you use them or not.

[greco]

There's a couple of posts you may find interesting:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/329719-AI-still-unable-to-develop-young-players?p=8290304&viewfull=1#post8290304

This one is where this idea was conceived. Its where I made a few small academy leagues for about 6 or7 European nations and made them available to test. Some people said they noticed an improvement so that's what lead on to expanding it to this larger project. I haven't gotten very far into my own save to say for definite there is boosted AI player development going on as that will take 15 - 20 seasons to know for sure. So its still early days yet with this one.

There is another post in GD where someone is running a long term test in FM to find out how well players are developing - that's with a normal database.

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/342744-30-Years-of-Full-Detail-Analysis-of-Long-Term-Player-and-Squad-Development

So far it looks quite positive that SI have improved AI squad building in FM13, with or without the need to use extra academy leagues. These leagues should provide an extra boost but overall the game should be more of a challenge in the long term than previous FM's whether you use them or not.

thats quite interesting erismus, with the b-team strcture, you were able to give the young guns a chance in official games.

which countries have you used to experiment with.?

does reputation within b-team leagues matter.? one problem could be, if the rep was too big, that the ai would use 1st team players.

This is imo very very interesting, perhaps some of those who have played 15+ seasons, could elaborate on how the future looks in their games ?

[Erimus1876]

thats quite interesting erismus, with the b-team strcture, you were able to give the young guns a chance in official games.

which countries have you used to experiment with.?

does reputation within b-team leagues matter.? one problem could be, if the rep was too big, that the ai would use 1st team players.

This is imo very very interesting, perhaps some of those who have played 15+ seasons, could elaborate on how the future looks in their games ?

The first set of academy leagues where just for England, Italy, Spain, France, and Germany. The reputation of the b-teams was adjusted and followed pretty much what the reputations were for the normal b-team affiliates in the Spanish leagues on the default SI database. The AI would use their b-teams properly from what I could tell, often fielding fringe players, youth players, and 1st team players lacking match fitness.

The problem with b-teams though is they are bugged - every b-team appearance is duplicated so players would be recorded as playing twice as many games as they really had. So I decided to switch the academy teams from being b-teams to being reserve teams as there isn't that bug to worry about when doing that.

I don;t think it really matters what team setting is used though. Its the type of competition these players are playing in that counts. Normal reserve leagues don't seem to help much with development, so changing the reserve leagues to be recognized by FM as being full competitive competitions is the key as far as I know.

[Adebola9]

Right a small update - I've edited all the school teams to be Semi Pro - and as a test I ticked the option on the game to have players added to all playable teams.

I set the limits on each school team to have players between the age of 14 and 18 only. And also added the rule for youth contracts to go up to age 18 - so that in conjunction with the league rules, players should leave the clubs from 18 onwards and hopefully move on to professional teams.

Players have been generated for day one of the season because of the ticked option at the start - using FMRTE, the potential abilities look very good on a select few - will be interesting to see how many players are generated through the youth systems of each team.

[sammyt93]

Sounds like it probably won't be needed now but you can change what kind of contract has to be offered for each role (key player, backup etc.) either club by club and it was either league by league or nation by nation so it would be possible to make them all have to be youth contracts or non contracts through that if you run into any more problems with the contracts.

bear in mind that might be slightly wrong as it's from memory and I haven't opened the editor since before christmas.

[CurnRaisin]

So, thinking of trying this out looks interesting any one get any long term saves going to 2020/30ish how is it working out? Just wondering is there any awards on these leagues? and if not can you put in any, as surely if players in these leagues win say a player of the year or top goal scorer then will that not help their development or at the very least get a boost to reputation witch might get teams to notice them more and either play or buy? If it does give a nice boost to reputation then you could even have multiple awards for each leage,(GK, DEF, MID, SC) of the year award, top goal scorer ect, also be a nice touch to see a young player come though and win lots of these awards at youth level then move on to win the Ballon d'Or

[janis]

So what is the latest db?

[Adebola9]

Erimus' latest database has the Regional Academy leagues based in Cuba and is on the first post of this thread I believe.

I'm currently working on making the school leagues active, with a school cup system and a super cup. I will be adding some awards for players once I'm happy with the database. I've got as far as 2018 on a test run, and it seems like I need to increase the school's training and youth facilities a little bit as the players are all coming out with a PA of around 30, and therefore just being released at 18 and retiring. We've had plenty of players move on from the Academy teams though into the professional league system though, still not sure on how we can make the academy teams bring in players from school teams - but maybe that will change when the schools generate players with better PA.

[janis]

Ok, thanks for all the effort! I like db's like this

[Erimus1876]

So, thinking of trying this out looks interesting any one get any long term saves going to 2020/30ish how is it working out? Just wondering is there any awards on these leagues? and if not can you put in any, as surely if players in these leagues win say a player of the year or top goal scorer then will that not help their development or at the very least get a boost to reputation witch might get teams to notice them more and either play or buy? If it does give a nice boost to reputation then you could even have multiple awards for each leage,(GK, DEF, MID, SC) of the year award, top goal scorer ect, also be a nice touch to see a young player come though and win lots of these awards at youth level then move on to win the Ballon d'Or

No long-term data yet unfortunately.

There are two awards for the school academy leagues. which are Player of the Year, and Most Scouted Player (which is really just the player with the highest reputation). There are no awards for the senior academy leagues, though its something I'll look to add if there's a future version released.

[briankirk]

Where do i put these files in order for it to work?

[Erimus1876]

Copy them to the following folder:

C:\Users\YourName\Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2013\editor data

Then when you start a new game, click on change database. On your editor data files screen, tick all the files you want to load. Then on your choose nations screen tick the nations you want to include in your game.

[briankirk]

Copy them to the following folder:

C:\Users\YourName\Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2013\editor data

Then when you start a new game, click on change database. On your editor data files screen, tick all the files you want to load. Then on your choose nations screen tick the nations you want to include in your game.

Thanks

[peterb93]

Are there no academy leagues at all on your game, or are there academy leagues as well as the normal reserve leagues?

Sorry when i looked the only one was missing was the English leagues so when i checked for some reason that hadnt been extracted too the data editor.So deleted all the files and downloaded the latest ones and everything is ok now.

[rossbalch]

Is there a thread that is dedicated to playing this database? Like tips for Uber low league managers? I'm having trouble keeping my reserve team competitive and wondered if anyone had any advice.

[Erimus1876]

I would treat your reserve team with as much importance as you do your 1st team while down in the lower leagues. Basically think of it as another 1st team. That means managing the team yourself and building up a squad of players that are just as good as your 1st team squad is, so you effectively have two 1st teams that can interchange the players between them depending on the importance of the next game. For example coming to the end of a season if my 1st team has little to play for, I often allow my best players to play in the academy team if the academy team still has a chance to clinch promotion.

The reason I do that on my game is because Reserve team managers at that level are pretty poor so I don't usually hire one until I get my reserve team up to about level 6 in the reserve/academy league pyramid.

Once I'm playing at level 6 I concentrate mainly on my first team squad and just keep an eye on the reserves to make sure they aren't in danger of being relegated to a lower level.

[rossbalch]

I do manage the reserve team myself, I even bought a group of players, admittedly no quite as good as my first team, but I figured that because most reserve teams are full of the grey players, any actual player should be of better quality. I have noticed that the reserve team tactics progress is still basically as it was at the start of the season (I'm at the start of september in this save) I'm sure that has something to do with it as well.

[Erimus1876]

Its not actually true about grey players being worse than real players when down at the lowest levels. Some grey players have good stats. The problem is FM seems to have a minimum skill threshold that even virtual players are generated from. So even if you're up against a team of virtual greys, they could still cause you problems.

Physical skills - especially pace and acceleration - are the skills that will give you the biggest advantage at levels 8 and 9. Mental skills would be next, and technical skills very last on that list to look for since the players down there really are all as bad as each other on the whole Higher up the leagues it obviously balances out more, but at that level buying quick and strong players and playing a direct passing game should give you the edge.

Another advantage would be to get both squads as fit as possible as soon as possible. If you have a long pre-season with plenty of friendlies for both your 1st team and reserve team, you can go into the first league game of the season with your players twice as fit as the AI. The AI don't seem to schedule enough pre-season friendlies in the lower leagues, but this is an issue in FM13 as a whole and something SI are aware of. I guess its a bit of an exploit but if you want to give yourself an edge its something to think about.

[Tinky]

Copy them to the following folder:

C:\Users\YourName\Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2013\editor data

Then when you start a new game, click on change database. On your editor data files screen, tick all the files you want to load. Then on your choose nations screen tick the nations you want to include in your game.

Erimus - I did this at the start of my save - new league appearing to replace the reserve league - but as soon as we come to the first academy game i couldnt select anyone for it.....just made-up players were selected...

Installed correctly and ticked on extra files and choose nations......can this be rectified in-game or am I faced with starting over???

[Erimus1876]

You need to tick 'add players to playable leagues' on the choose nations screen too. As far as I know that has solved that issue when others have done it.

[janis]

When is the youth intake in cuba?

[filmriss]

When is the youth intake in cuba?

According to this website it´s 26th January.

[janis]

Yes i know but i think for this it is different,no?

[Erimus1876]

The season update day is May 16th. Youth intake should be around about that date.

[Tinky]

You need to tick 'add players to playable leagues' on the choose nations screen too. As far as I know that has solved that issue when others have done it.

I'm guessing you can only tick that option at the start of the game....not midway through a saved game?

[Seftinho]

I was able to use real players before 30.8.12 but from then onwards only fake players were being used. I havent edited the file :s

I'm having this problem too. It happened every now and then in previous season but now in my 4th season (just been promoted to the top reserve league), and it's happening quite often now.

It's not consistent though, it's bizarre.

Friendlies - works fine.

Game 1 (AoE) - fine

Game 2 (AoE) - fine

Game 3 (NextGen) - fine

Game 4 (AoE) - greyed players

Game 5 (AoE) - greyed players

Game 6 (NextGen) - fine

Game 7 (AoE) - greyed players

Game 8 (NextGen) - four actual reserves, rest greyed

Game 9 (AoE) - greyed players

All of the matches with greyed players, I had no option to make anyone available for the match either. I'm wondering if the problem has something to do with appointing a Reserve Manager, which I did last season and it seems to have started happening since then.

[Erimus1876]

Is this just happening to your reserve team or does it happen to AI reserve teams too?

I've never had this issue on mine so can't recreate it. The reserve team manager could be at fault though since I don't usually have one - I manage the team myself.

Here's how I set my game up...

• Tick "add players to playable leagues" when setting up the game.
  
• Once my game is underway I make every player in my 1st team - except the first 11 - and all my U18's available to play in the reserve/academy leagues. That gives me a wealth of real players to use in those secondary matches.
  

If its the AI reserves manager not selecting real players then I'll report it as a bug to SI - although it seems this year the editor issues are at the bottom of a very large list of priorities so I don't hold out much hope they'll fix it any time soon.

[Seftinho]

It's very odd.

Just looked and it does seem to be happening to all the other teams as well. EDIT: The English Football Academy division is fine - it's just the Academy of Excellence division that isn't working.

I set up my game as you did, and had no problems in first two seasons.

Since those games, when I get the first 'Available first team players for Reserve match' message, it tells me 'there are no players in reserve team who are lacking match fitness' when I have about 10 players (tutors) who definitely are not match fit.

The real players are getting picked for the NextGen series continental matches (which are seen as non-competitive games) but it seems (maybe as a direct consequence?) no-one is available for the Academy of Excellence games. The players stopped getting picked after he first NextGen match (as you can see above).

I'll try removing the Reserve manager and see what happens. And I'll try managing them myself and seeing who I'm allowed to pick.

(Btw U18 players will be selected to play reserves anyway, regardless whether you set it manually or not. Quite frustrating when my 16yo newgen with 1* potential is picked ahead of my 19yo 4* potential goalkeeper!)

[Erimus1876]

I've just finished season 2018-2019 on my current game, and the academy teams are all full of real players.

For example, here's Chelsea (School of Excellence), and Everton (National Academy League)...

Chelsea have a reserve team manager whereas Everton don't. So if its that, it doesn't effect AI clubs.

The further down the reserve/academy pyramid I go the less real players are listed in the reserve team roster - like Woking (National Reserve League Div 3)...

I think that's normal as the smaller clubs have smaller squads. But even clubs that only have a handful of players in their reserves don't fill them out with virtual players. They use the real ones from the roster and fill up the rest of the starting 11 on matchday with U18's or players from the 1st team roster.

What size database do you use? I use medium and have around 20,000 players on game start up that goes up or down as I add/remove leagues during my career game.

Also, do you have any other databases ticked other than the 5 academy league databases linked in post #1 ?

[Seftinho]

The problem's not with the clubs filling our their reserve squads, but rather oddly none of the real players being picked for the reserve matches. The game seems to see them as ineligible for some reason.

I'm playing on a large DB, using all your files and one other (just minor edits to players).

[Erimus1876]

I was Macclesfield Town in season 2018-19 and I've checked my reserve fixtures and the match reports against who we played. My opponents used real players against me.

I'm wondering if its got something to do with the match detail level. Do you have it set as "All" in your Detail Level options? In there you can set the Academy School of Excellence to be fully simulated or not.

[Seftinho]

I just tried manually picking the team and got this message.

All of those players are registered to play for the reserves.

What's the NextGen series competition? My players are all allowed to play in that, but not the Academy of Excellence.

[Erimus1876]

The NextGen series is a default competition for a select number of U19 teams from round Europe. Its an invitation only tournament made by SI as far as I know.

I've never had that message before. Do you have a Europa League match on that Thursday night?

The rules for the academy league are there must be at least 6 U23's in the first 11, and a minimum of 10 U23's in the Reserve squad.

[Seftinho]

As you can see there are 10 U23s in the first 11 and I have 13 in the squad, not including about 10 others out on loan (but including players in the U18s who I've manually ticked to be available for reserves).

I don't have one a Europa League match this particular night, although I have on previous nights.