The Addition of Dutch Lower Leagues (HELP thread)

[Wolf_pd]

At which version are you?  

[BMNJohn]

2 hours ago, Wolf_pd said:

At which version are you?  

I have no clue really. I don't do version numbers: I save a new file each time with the step I'm at in the title, so I know just by looking at the file name where I was. The problem is that the Editor cannot validate the database, so I actually have to play the database myself to see if there's a problem somewhere. Just now, I've noticed there are a couple of stray B/Jong teams in the Derde Klasse because it was almost empty, so I'll be updating the previous post quickly and pray for the best. You'd think that setting a competition like the Derde Klasse to Extinct would automatically clear the teams in it since they can't compete in a competition that no longer exists, but nope.

I'm also unable to make major changes to the db myself since I speak the language and the information on certain things is pretty scarce. For example, there's missing history for the Eerste Klasse, so technically it doesn't make the database unplayable at all, but it's obviously not accurate. But I've seen too many Dutch projects like these face-planting themselves halfway through, I figured I could at least make it workable. Also, I don't have much interest in playing the vanilla FM database (as you could've guessed from the Yugo threads), so something like this is a bit more interesting to me, even though I can't really manoeuvrer inside the Editor all that well.

Also, most of the previous post aren't release versions, they're status update with full disclaimer but shhhh.

Edited April 3, 2020 by BMNJohn

[Wolf_pd]

In a few seasons I think the Dutch football landscape will be a lot simpler when everybody plays on Saturday. It will probably mean a rearrangement of districts as well (although I haven't heard plans for it) as all those extra clubs coming over from the Sunday competition will add extra levels to the pyramid.

[BMNJohn]

24 minutes ago, Wolf_pd said:

In a few seasons I think the Dutch football landscape will be a lot simpler when everybody plays on Saturday. It will probably mean a rearrangement of districts as well (although I haven't heard plans for it) as all those extra clubs coming over from the Sunday competition will add extra levels to the pyramid.

Hopefully they'll do something about the Periods system. In one of my tests, I had this team just doing well enough in the third period to save their skin after doing absolutely nothing at all for 2/3rds of the season. It's fun... when you're not trying to avoid relegation yourself.

[Wolf_pd]

The same way Heerenveen won promotion to the Eredivisie years back. They had one flashy Period, did nothing for the rest of the season and got promoted.

Btw, what happens if a team wins a Period, but also ends up in the relegation zone??? I mean, based on your screenshot, it is possible, despite being very unlikely.

[BMNJohn]

On 03/04/2020 at 19:45, Wolf_pd said:

The same way Heerenveen won promotion to the Eredivisie years back. They had one flashy Period, did nothing for the rest of the season and got promoted.

Btw, what happens if a team wins a Period, but also ends up in the relegation zone??? I mean, based on your screenshot, it is possible, despite being very unlikely.

As you said, the screenshot tells everything: you can't both be relegated and promoted; promotion takes prevalence over relegation. FM automatically skips one relegation spot. So yeah, if you win one period and play like a relegation candidate for the rest of the season, you're safe. FWIW, Woundenberg had the decency not to make a mockery of the league and finished 12th at the end of the season, just above the two relegation spots. To be honest, you really, really have to play like trash to end up in the relegation spots despite winning a period. IIRC, Woundenberg simply made the right transfers at the winter window to save their skin. The fact that the league has so few matches (only 26 matches!) and that beyond the top two teams everyone is pretty close together did help their case.

Additionally and I doubt I'm telling you anything new, if a team both wins a Period and gets into an automatic promotion spot, their Playoff ticket goes to the next best placed team in the league. In the picture above, KonHFC's ticket went to Huizen as the Haarlem side got into an automatic promotion spot by winning the league.

EDIT: On a different topic and for those who care, there are 653 teams in the "Lower Leagues", so it should be possible to create a Tweede Klasse (22 groups of 14 teams = 308 teams), but not a Derde Klasse without creating teams. That said, the Reputation level and player quality at those levels is... well, it's not the absolute worst I've ever played, but it's still pretty bad and not very enjoyable football. If you look at the database, the Reputation of the competitions and clubs in the Netherlands tanks really quickly when you go below the two vanilla leagues, and in the Eerste Klasse you already have many teams that have a Reputation at around 400 to 500, which is beyond Obscure. Also, the inflation in the number of players would tank performances pretty poorly is you don't remove leagues as you move up the pyramids. But hey, the Eerste Klasse still isn't the worst league I've ever managed in, so there's that!

Something quicker however would be to expand the Districtsbekers to include far more teams. For example, there are 171 teams in District Noord, but the Districtsbeker Noord only includes 63 teams. Even though it excludes every team from the Derde Divisie and above, there's still something to be done there to add a bit more density to the calendar at the lower levels. It would add about a round for the Districtsbeker Noord, most likely in March during the Intl. break.

Speaking of the Districtsbeker, you as a human do know that qualifying for the final also qualifies you for the KNVB Beker, but the AI does not know that. So there's two ways I can think of to force the AI to take it a bit more seriously: A) increase its Reputation so that they're enticed to play it for glory (which I have done, and it works) or B) force the AI to notice that you can qualify for the KNVB Beker by playing the Districtsbeker. For the latter solution, I think a really fancy thing to do would be to add Fate Actions to all of the Districtsbeker, saying that semi-final winners are qualified to the KNVB Beker, and ask the KNVB Beker to summon the two qualified teams from stage 0 of the Districtbekers. In my head it sounds nice, I'm not sure I can make it work without screwing up nor that it would solve the issue; but it's worth trying.

Edited April 7, 2020 by BMNJohn

[BMNJohn]

@Wolf_pd: Asking for advice... My save wasn't fun enough anymore, so I decided to toy with the Editor some more. 

I'm starting to cut the clubs in 6 Districts for the sake of the Districtsbeker. I think this repartition works in terms of the number of clubs. It's roughly equivalent; Districts West II and Oost have the bigger number of teams, and there are a few clubs in the db with no (correct) cities that I'll have to assign manually, but they shouldn't change the repartition too much. Obviously only clubs below the Derde Divisie (D4) play in it, so if certain regions are overrepresented in the upper echelons, trying to split the clubs roughly evenly means little. At least I tried!

The way to read this is that for example, South-Holland clubs who are located south of Rotterdam (including Rotterdam) are assigned to District Zuid I. Clubs from Gelderland south of Arnhem are in District Zuid II. It doesn't take huge effort to do so conditionally. For example, you'd search for: "Clubs", "Region is  Zuid-Holland", "Latitude is at most (insert Rotterdam's latitude)"; and edit everyone to have Districtsbeker Zuid I for Secondary Division.

Edited April 7, 2020 by BMNJohn

[Wolf_pd]

This means you don't take the saturday/sunday division?

[BMNJohn]

29 minutes ago, Wolf_pd said:

This means you don't take the saturday/sunday division?

It's a different thing. "Regional Divisions" are their own category in the Editor, and you can add as many as you want. They were not used in the original project, and neither did I use them. That being said, each of the Eerste Klasse sub-divisions have boundaries for each cardinal point, as you can see below. None of the Tweede Klasse groups have boundaries, and to be frank my knowledge of Dutch geography ends there. That being said, the vanilla database has all divisions down to the Tweede Klasse filled with the correct teams, so you shouldn't have to worry too much about that. Some of the Derde Klasse groups are filled, some are not, but the Derde Klasse isn't being used anyway so all these teams are going to the Dutch Lower Leagues.

Here, the District system is merely used to spread teams in roughly equivalent groups for the Districtsbeker, the Amateur cup that qualifies its finalists to the big boys' KNVB Beker. That's all there is to it. I guess you could use them as regional divisions on top of that. The short of it is that indeed, I wasted hours making groups for an amateur cup. It's not really meant to replicate reality, it's a practical tool inspired by reality.

Edited April 7, 2020 by BMNJohn

[Wolf_pd]

Ah ok, that way. Hey, you have to do something during Corona.

[BMNJohn]

4 minutes ago, Wolf_pd said:

Ah ok, that way. Hey, you have to do something during Corona.

To be honest, that was the hardest part, as well as adding cities to clubs that were missing cities. For some reason, some clubs that are in a division were not assigned to given cities, so I had to track them down. Some of the lucky clubs that don't have a city now have at least a kit: the information was on Dutch Wikipedia, so I didn't have to search too far.   Now it's essentially porting the league and cup system over since it already works. You just need a second screen or second computer and it's pretty straightforward.

Ready for leagues.fmf

Edited April 7, 2020 by BMNJohn

[Wolf_pd]

Why do you think I have a three screen setup?

[BMNJohn]

8 hours ago, Wolf_pd said:

Why do you think I have a three screen setup?

I put my laptop on a makeshift stand next to my desktop.

Anyway, I'm done with the db down to the Eerste Klasse, and it validates better than my previous one. That being said and as I've tried to add the Tweede Klasse, I have a mismatch between promoted and relegated teams between the Eerste Klasse and the Tweede Klasse, I have trouble figuring out why. The promotion playoff rules for the Eerste Divisie and the inactive Tweede Divisie work since they were lifted straight from claassen's db. However, when I try to add the actual Tweede Divisie, I have too few Tweede Klasse teams promoting compared to the number of Eerste Klasse teams relegating. If you have time to take a look, here's the file.

Fate Actions EK-TK.fmf

[BMNJohn]

I've done the guess work on a sheet of paper. The end result is that I have no clue how Claassen got his rules to actually validate. It's not a diss on him, I really have no clue at all. Which also means I have no clue how my rules, that are lifted from his, actually validated either. His rules have three rounds in the playoffs between the Eerste Klasse and the Tweede Klasse. As I will explain, there literally is no need for three rounds in those playoffs.

For example, let's take the Zaterdag groups. There are 5 groups above that have 10 teams in it, two per group. Below, there are 10 groups with 30 teams in it, three per group. That's a total of 40 teams, 10 of which will play in the Eerste Klasse... And that's very dividable in two twice: 40 teams enter, 20 lose in the first round, another 10 lose in the next round and the 10 winners play in the Eerste Klasse. That's two rounds. Yet, the rules have three rounds of playoffs. So there was indeed too many teams being relegated. The maths are about the same for the Zondag groups, with slightly different numbers. I've yet to make the necessary modifications, but I suppose it will be pretty straightforward. I suppose.

I really question how those Playoffs even work in real life... Or why the Editor thinks it's alright that it doesn't work as long as you don't add any league. Perhaps there are not three Periods n the Tweede Klasse but only two... but then the rules in the Editor files wouldn't make much sense since they specifically ask for three playoff teams per group. Anyway, I'm missing information that I can't find easily online.

 

EDIT: Still not quite there though.

Edited April 9, 2020 by BMNJohn

[Wolf_pd]

Looking at the reallife rules at the moment

Promotion rules from 2nd class to 1st class:
Champions promote directly to 1st
The period champions play with the numbers 12 and 13 for 1 place in the 1st class.
Number 14 (last) from 1st class relegates directly to 2nd.

This is based on regions, so one specific 1st class will play playoffs with 2 specific 2nd classes. Your system works on a aggregated level sounds like it (didn't check the file yet)

Schedule:
1e round
a. Nr 13 1st class plays Second Lowest Period Champion 2nd class A
b. Nr 12 1st class plays Second Lowest Period Champion 2nd class B
c. Highest period champion 2nd class A plays lowest Period Champion 2nd class B
c. Highest period champion 2nd class B plays lowest Period Champion 2nd class A

2nd round
e. Winner b versus winner d
f. Winner a versus winner c

Final (neutral ground)
g. Winner e versus winner f

So that's three rounds indeed.
For the numbers
1 team is directly relegated
2 teams are directly promoted
2 teams from class 1 and 6 from class 2 fight it out over 1 remaining place
 

This is btw from an official download from KNVB

[BMNJohn]

1 hour ago, Wolf_pd said:

Looking at the reallife rules at the moment

Promotion rules from 2nd class to 1st class:
Champions promote directly to 1st
The period champions play with the numbers 12 and 13 for 1 place in the 1st class.
Number 14 (last) from 1st class relegates directly to 2nd.

This is based on regions, so one specific 1st class will play playoffs with 2 specific 2nd classes. Your system works on a aggregated level sounds like it (didn't check the file yet)

Schedule:
1e round
a. Nr 13 1st class plays Second Lowest Period Champion 2nd class A
b. Nr 12 1st class plays Second Lowest Period Champion 2nd class B
c. Highest period champion 2nd class A plays lowest Period Champion 2nd class B
c. Highest period champion 2nd class B plays lowest Period Champion 2nd class A

2nd round
e. Winner b versus winner d
f. Winner a versus winner c

Final (neutral ground)
g. Winner e versus winner f

So that's three rounds indeed.
For the numbers
1 team is directly relegated
2 teams are directly promoted
2 teams from class 1 and 6 from class 2 fight it out over 1 remaining place
 

This is btw from an official download from KNVB

Which means checking out the file is nonsensical, I'm not even close and frankly, I'm unsure I'm able to recreate specific cup-ties like these.

What is in the file is a bog standard and much, much simpler playoff. Two teams per group of the upper echelon (Eerste Klasse) are directly relegated, two teams from that same echelon are qualified for playoffs. The upper echelon has a maximum of four overall relegation places. The champions of the lower echelon are promoted, which for Saturday clubs make 10 teams and 12 teams for Sunday. The lower echelon has three period winners per group, and they duke it out against the relegation playoffs teams from the upper echelon. On Saturday that makes a total of 40 teams, and 48 on Sunday. And basically a quarter of those teams will play at the upper level once all is said and done.

I still have trouble wrapping my head around the real-life rules to be honest... They look more complex that what I'm personally able to recreate. I'll try to think about it some more.

 

EDIT: Oh well. I made a simple change in the rules to account for there being only one straight relegation spot to from the Eerste Klasse to the Tweede Klasse, and now it works. I cannot swear that the cup-ties are the right ones, but the Editor likes the changes. In league settings -> Qualification Rules, I went from 4 to 3 Maximum Overall Relegation Places, and from 44 to 33 Maximum Relegation Places for All Child Comps.

Edited April 9, 2020 by BMNJohn

[Wolf_pd]

35 minutes ago, BMNJohn said:

I still have trouble wrapping my head around the real-life rules to be honest... They look more complex that what I'm personally able to recreate. I'll try to think about it some more.

Yup, they are complex. In a regional reallife way they make sense. But implementing them into the editor is ..... not an easy task (understatement of the week).

That's probably why the Claassen rules were so much different. Can't blame for it.

[BMNJohn]

22 minutes ago, Wolf_pd said:

Yup, they are complex. In a regional reallife way they make sense. But implementing them into the editor is ..... not an easy task (understatement of the week).

That's probably why the Claassen rules were so much different. Can't blame for it.

At least now I have something that works and validates, and is at least in the spirit of the real rules even if it's not 100% accurate. There's minimal cross-talk between the groups, the Eerste Klasse has regional boundaries. What would be left is a lot of Wiki love to add full names, foundation dates, kits and colours to the boat load of clubs that don't have any. It does break my immersion to see huge chunks of teams with that same blue and white kit, but I (for once!) really cannot be arsed to add real kits to about 3/4ths of a thousand clubs, give or take. I'll probably add a simplified reserves/U19s system and call it a day.

Edited April 9, 2020 by BMNJohn

[BMNJohn]

The periods system is getting ridiculous. This is with one match left BTW.

I haven't seen or at least not understood if there's some bit of rule I could use to prevent teams below the 9th place from qualifying to the playoffs. Haven't seen it.

EDIT: Also, new feature: I discovered that during the first few seasons, the promotion/relegation playoffs between the Eerste Klasse and Tweede Klasse have inconsistent dates... most likely because not every team has a stadium (as well as potentially waterlogged pitches but shhh). The playoffs for the Zondag teams can start up to one whole week later than the Zaterdag teams. It streamlines itself after a few years when everyone has built their own stadium.

Edited April 13, 2020 by BMNJohn

[Wolf_pd]

That's impressive. I mean, you play one period really good and the rest of the year you play like you are on rollerskates....

The stadium issue is a known one yeah. Especially annoying in lower league cups and in less developed countries if no stadium is assigned.

[BMNJohn]

40 minutes ago, Wolf_pd said:

That's impressive. I mean, you play one period really good and the rest of the year you play like you are on rollerskates....

The issue is exacerbated because you have so few matches per season in the lower divisions. Often, there's little difference in points n a team placed 6th and a team basically fighting against relegation in 12th position. The result of matches is much more determined by Morale and Reputation than actual player quality, and each point is worth a lot more. There's essentially no difference between an Eerste Klasse (D6) and Tweede Klasse (D7) team, as well as most of the Hoofdklasse (D5) although the level increases a little bit. Meanwhile on the current simulation I'm running, there's exactly one Period winner in the Eerste Divisie (D2) in 5 seasons that has finished relatively far from the top, finishing 10th. FM really scales poorly when you go down the leagues.

That being said and after looking at it, I'm still not aware of a flag I could use to prevent teams that finish too low in the league from qualifying to the playoffs. I don't see such a rule in the vanilla Eerste Divisie rules either.

50 minutes ago, Wolf_pd said:

The stadium issue is a known one yeah. Especially annoying in lower league cups and in less developed countries if no stadium is assigned.

At first I thought that I messed up the playoff dates since the Zondag clubs were essentially starting their playoffs only once the Zaterdag clubs were done, but as I moved through the years, I noticed that it smoothed out. That being said, you still have the occasional water-logged pitch in late April/early May when the league ends or worse, during the playoffs. Then a few clubs don't finish the league on the last scheduled matchday like the others, finishing the next day instead (weather permitting)... and the whole train goes off rails. At least the Hoofdklasse/Eerste Klasse playoffs and Eerste Klasse/Tweede Klasse playoffs aren't two-legged.

[Winski]

Is there already a working file that I can use? I would like to start a LLM career in Holland in the near future

[Jeroen Thijssen]

if it's any solace for FM21 we have been adding all stadiums and kits through to the Derde Klasse (although some Sunday leagues are still missing and not sure if that'll be done as its low priority)

[BMNJohn]

On 25/04/2020 at 14:56, Winski said:

Is there already a working file that I can use? I would like to start a LLM career in Holland in the near future

I do have one down to Tweede Klasse. There's a few caveats, but I don't think there's anything so wrong with it that it would be noticeable or would ruin a save. I just wish that SI would fix the issue with .fmf files with the Gamepass so I could put my money where my mouth is!

On 25/04/2020 at 15:23, Reddiablo said:

if it's any solace for FM21 we have been adding all stadiums and kits through to the Derde Klasse (although some Sunday leagues are still missing and not sure if that'll be done as its low priority)

That's good to hear. To be honest, just having the home kit and club colours would be good enough to bring depth to the lower leagues.

Edited April 26, 2020 by BMNJohn

[Xavier Lukhas]

 

[Timetxu]

I don't know if I'm horribly bumping this thread, but regarding the winning a period, but ending in a relegation spot:

I'm almost certain that I've read in the KNVB's official league rules that if a period champion ends in a relegation spot, their promotion playoff ticket will be revoked and given to the highest ranked team in the final table. So in that case relegation playoffs would go over promotion playoffs.

[Slabbekoorn]

I'm glad to see people that people took this over. Normally I'd help out but I didn't buy last 2 games because all the errors the editor gave and a lot was still hardcoded. That was really timeconsuming and made it impossible to create a realistic copy of the dutch leagues. Especially the prize money bothered me because clubs got really rich a few seasons in if I didn't edit it but that was hardcoded.

I might pick up next version though. But it depends on the new features. Although I see that the info of lower leagues is created aswell which is nice.

If you ever want to create promotion relegation with Jong teams then I can always help out. I used to move stage 0 to stage 1 and make a hidden stage 0 that drew 1st teams in Group 1 and Jong teams in Group 2 which I could use to relegate Jong teams seperately from the main competition. That might be useful with the upcoming u21 competition.

[Xavier Lukhas]

TL; DR of what's written below: Need to redo the Districtsbeker system from scratch. Could be worse. I'm not hopping on the FM2021 train just yet.

Il y a 1 heure, Xavier Lukhas a dit :

I've been taking a look at importing the database to FM 2021.

The good news:

• There have been very few (if any) rules changes to Dutch football in FM that I'm aware of, so there's no need to redo most of the rules. There may have been changes IRL, but I don't see anything in FM that catches my attention.
• The Dutch researchers have delivered on their promise to add a bit more comprehensive team names, stadiums and especially kits. "Only" two clubs were assigned no cities, but that was a quick fix.
• Teams as low as the Derde Klasse are in their correct sub-division. Not that I ever plan to do that division; the Tweede Klasse was already painful enough in terms of playoffs.
• The Netherlands have their own bespoke Lower Division. It's empty, but it's going to be useful.
• I was thus able to remove about 7,000 db changes before likely adding some more. Always remove changes you've added, do not delete them, the Editor is extremely finicky like that.
• I can't believe I had never found or never heard of www.hollandsevelden.nl. Not that it's particularly useful since most clubs are in their correct group with the correct info and kits, but it's nice. 

The bad news:

• The entirety of the Districts system I had created is gone. The Districtsbecker weren't imported, nor were the Districts to which each club belonged. They just don't exist in the db anymore, period. This is a big bummer: while the delimitation of each district weren't the same as IRL, it allowed to have a fairly even number of clubs per district and rather fair Districtsbeker groupings. Nevermind that was a huge pain in the butt to make. The rules are completely gone as well.
• One of the Hoofdklasse groups only has 15 teams when the three other groups have 16 teams. When you consider both Derde Klasse had exactly 17 teams last seasons, it just makes sense that it wouldn't be so simple. I'm more likely to drop a team in there than make a 15 teams group.

It's not a lot of negatives, but the first bullet point is a big one, as one of the most time consuming endeavours is gone just like that. That being said, it could've been worse I suppose, and there still are positives. I'm not sure I'm going to invest a lot of time in FM 2021 just yet (I've yet to actually boot the game, I just went straight to the Editor); we'll see what happens.

 

Le 16/05/2020 à 16:52, Slabbekoorn a dit :

If you ever want to create promotion relegation with Jong teams then I can always help out. I used to move stage 0 to stage 1 and make a hidden stage 0 that drew 1st teams in Group 1 and Jong teams in Group 2 which I could use to relegate Jong teams seperately from the main competition. That might be useful with the upcoming u21 competition.

Well that's a late reply; I simply hadn't monitored this thread at all after releasing the file for FM20. Glad to see you here. The Jong team promotion/relegation was actually something I had thought about when deciding whether I should limit the amount of Jong clubs in the Tweede Divisie or not, as I read that IRL there can only be two Jong clubs in the Tweede Divisie. I was planning not to: I'm not good enough with the Editor to create a separate relegation stage for Jong clubs, I had made a simplified Reserves league system for simplicity's sake, and in my experience on a long term save, Jong teams just fall off a cliff very quickly. The AI just just as good as managing youth as you can expect, and while you start off with 4 Jong teams in the Eerste Divisie, there only are two teams in there by the end of the 2028/2029 season: Ajax's and mine, the two biggest clubs in the Netherlands. There are two more in the Tweede Divisie (AZ and Utrecht), and the lower divisions aren't loaded. There's also that if a Jong club is relegated to the Lower Divisions, they go to the Reserve leagues system the following season and can no longer compete in the main pyramid.

However, for someone who has started a save with their Jong club in a reserves division, it would be neat for them to have the opportunity to see their Jong club be part of the pyramid. It's one of the biggest complaints I hear about B clubs in FM: those who are lucky to have their B club in a playable league, or had the foresight to add them to a playable league in advance enjoy the best reserves system in FM. Those who don't have to loan away their players, with all the caveats it comes with. But it also means creating a system that takes in account all the clubs in the country so that there's perfect fluidity in the system and everyone gets a chance, even if your club started in the Tweede Klasse. Not impossible, but certainly very ambitious.

Edited November 27, 2020 by Xavier Lukhas

[Slabbekoorn]

5 hours ago, Xavier Lukhas said:

TL; DR of what's written below: Need to redo the Districtsbeker system from scratch. Could be worse. I'm not hopping on the FM2021 train just yet.

 

Well that's a late reply; I simply hadn't monitored this thread at all after releasing the file for FM20. Glad to see you here. The Jong team promotion/relegation was actually something I had thought about when deciding whether I should limit the amount of Jong clubs in the Tweede Divisie or not, as I read that IRL there can only be two Jong clubs in the Tweede Divisie. I was planning not to: I'm not good enough with the Editor to create a separate relegation stage for Jong clubs, I had made a simplified Reserves league system for simplicity's sake, and in my experience on a long term save, Jong teams just fall off a cliff very quickly. The AI just just as good as managing youth as you can expect, and while you start off with 4 Jong teams in the Eerste Divisie, there only are two teams in there by the end of the 2028/2029 season: Ajax's and mine, the two biggest clubs in the Netherlands. There are two more in the Tweede Divisie (AZ and Utrecht), and the lower divisions aren't loaded. There's also that if a Jong club is relegated to the Lower Divisions, they go to the Reserve leagues system the following season and can no longer compete in the main pyramid.

However, for someone who has started a save with their Jong club in a reserves division, it would be neat for them to have the opportunity to see their Jong club be part of the pyramid. It's one of the biggest complaints I hear about B clubs in FM: those who are lucky to have their B club in a playable league, or had the foresight to add them to a playable league in advance enjoy the best reserves system in FM. Those who don't have to loan away their players, with all the caveats it comes with. But it also means creating a system that takes in account all the clubs in the country so that there's perfect fluidity in the system and everyone gets a chance, even if your club started in the Tweede Klasse. Not impossible, but certainly very ambitious.

Just say the word I can always write out ways to do it. That way the number of jong teams are fixed. There are multiple ways to draw them. You could let them promote/relegate through stage 0 but that route is bugged and eventually amateur teams will be drawn for no good reason.

The second option is to create a stage 0 which you use to draw only first teams (remove jong teams from competition) and no matches. Then create a stage 1 where you draw all Jong teams in groups of 4, 2, 8, 8, 8, 16 and "fool" the system by drawing Jong teams like you the game draws international cup competitions. Then create a stage 2 where you draw all teams from stage 0 and the group A teams from stage 1. For the Tweede Divisie you create the same stage 0 as the Eerste Divisie. But in stage 1 you draw the teams from stage 0 and from Group B from Eerste Divisie stage 1 etc. That way your Jong team can climb to the Eerste Divisie.

Or you can go for the easy version where you draw the Eerste Divisie Stage 1 Jong teams like I explained earlier but based on reputation. It requires a lot less work and your Jong team will be distributed based on club rep. If you play better your Jong team will automatically get "promoted".

 

[Xavier Lukhas]

Il y a 8 heures, Slabbekoorn a dit :

Just say the word I can always write out ways to do it. That way the number of jong teams are fixed. There are multiple ways to draw them. You could let them promote/relegate through stage 0 but that route is bugged and eventually amateur teams will be drawn for no good reason.

The second option is to create a stage 0 which you use to draw only first teams (remove jong teams from competition) and no matches. Then create a stage 1 where you draw all Jong teams in groups of 4, 2, 8, 8, 8, 16 and "fool" the system by drawing Jong teams like you the game draws international cup competitions. Then create a stage 2 where you draw all teams from stage 0 and the group A teams from stage 1. For the Tweede Divisie you create the same stage 0 as the Eerste Divisie. But in stage 1 you draw the teams from stage 0 and from Group B from Eerste Divisie stage 1 etc. That way your Jong team can climb to the Eerste Divisie.

Or you can go for the easy version where you draw the Eerste Divisie Stage 1 Jong teams like I explained earlier but based on reputation. It requires a lot less work and your Jong team will be distributed based on club rep. If you play better your Jong team will automatically get "promoted".

Thanks for taking the time to explain. I'm trying to wrap my head around it and try to understand how it's done, but honestly I'm having a headache. I was not aware that you could configure group sizes that way. I'll put the preliminary file below; it's a basic file that stops before doing the Districts system and adding an extra team to the Hoofdklasse.

Netherlands v7.fmf

[Xavier Lukhas]

Since I'm lazy and didn't want to add stages to the system, I was attempting the following in the Eerste Divisie:

• Remove all Jong teams from the Eerste divisie;
• Get all teams from division;
• Get Best Reserves teams (Use Reserve League), Team Type is B, Maximum Number of Teams is 4.

The after that for each subsequent division, "Get Best Reserves (Use Reserve League)" but exclude the first 4 before getting the next 2 (Tweede Divisie), then exclude first 6 and get 4+4 (Derde Divisie), so on and so forth. Obviously then you exclude B teams from Promotion or Relegation and other adjustments. Or do not get teams from a given division. It does validate; however I suspect that it will create rotation in the Jong teams. Basically since Jong teams that will play in the Eerste Divisie will not play the reserves league, they won't be eligible to play in the Eerste Divisie the following season. For a club like Jong Ajax, it means playing one season out of two in the Eerste Divisie (since I suspect they would handily win the Reserves league should they play in it). Since I'm not very willing to load FM 2021 just yet to test, I'm not sure if it's going to be the case, but it's one thing to take in account. Other options include:

• Get Best Youth Setup teams;
• Get Best Teams from Division, B Team, Netherlands.

All of those validate fine. I'll leave those files below. Also, I do note that the Tweede Klasse Zaterdag C has 13 teams. I added a team to it as well as the Hoofdklasse group that also was missing a team for the sake of validation.

Get best reserve.fmf Get best teams from Division.fmf Get Best Youth Setup Teams.fmf

[Xavier Lukhas]

Quick update: By once reading one of the sticky threads, I managed to import and merge Districtbeker rules and database changes. I will most likely still have to divide clubs into each Beker more or less evenly regardless, but at least I get to keep something from the old database. The cool thing about Hollandsevelden is that there's a map that shows you how the districts are split IRL, which is a good basis to use for further editing. The way I had done it in FM20 was to choose a few key cities and use their latitude and longitude as frontiers. It's not very clear, so let's try explain it another way: for example, District Noord contains every club in the Groningen and Drenthe region as well as every club in Friesland that is east from Leeuwarden. I'll put a map below so you can see how it works graphically.

In reality, the split looks more like this IRL. Remains to be see if it makes sense in Football Manager to do so if you want a fairly even distribution of clubs in each District.

However and considering the current issue with regen/newgen generation in FM21 among other issues the game has or may have, I've decided to infinitely delay any work on the database until further notice. It's a bit disappointing that the cynical saying is true: FM may be better played with the final patch released after the winter transfer window. There's no ETA, and I'm not currently working on it. It may change at any given point, in which case I'll update this thread. That being said, I was kinda suspicious that it would happen, as I've written before.

Edited December 7, 2020 by Xavier Lukhas

[Wolf_pd]

The border between Zuid I and II is a bit too far to the West. It usually runs through Helmond rather than through Oirschot/Moergestel

[Xavier Lukhas]

Il y a 2 heures, Wolf_pd a dit :

The border between Zuid I and II is a bit too far to the West. It usually runs through Helmond rather than through Oirschot/Moergestel

Ideally you'd follow the exact lines, but in practice... There are 1297 non-extinct Dutch clubs in the DB. Ideally there would be about 216-217 clubs per District. There are 83 clubs in Limburg which is a region that would be entirely in Zuid II, so ideally you'd need an extra 133-134 clubs from North Brabant. If you take every North Brabant club that are eastwards of Eindhoven (latitude of 5.470), you'd have 53 clubs. If you take every club from that region that are eastwards from Tilburg (latitude of 5.092), we'd have 108 clubs. We're closer to 133-134 clubs, but not quite there. Which must've been why I had added clubs from Gelderland to District Zuid-II. Which is why the District map for and from FM2020 looks the way it does: Gelderland and South-Holland are indeed very densely packed with clubs.

That being said, that's without taking in account that all clubs geographically in Zuid-II that are in the Derde Divisie or better will not participate in the Districtbeker. So with a theoretical Zuid-II district that contains all clubs in Limburg and all North Brabant clubs eastwards of Tilburg (which is quite west already), you remove 16 clubs from that. It's not much, but it becomes a bit more important when considering districts located in the West of the Netherlands, which are more densely packed with clubs.

Or one could just not care and just eyeball the districts, who cares if the number of clubs is uneven, it's not like it's an exact science.

Edited December 11, 2020 by Xavier Lukhas

[Xavier Lukhas]

I've decided to do a District separation aiming to spread the clubs evenly and geographically. However, there's a twist: I've purposefully ignored every club which isn't currently eligible to the Districtsbeker, so every club which division level is inferior to 4 (Eredivisie, Eerste Divise, Tweede Divise and Derde Divisie) was not taken in account. Excluding those clubs, the regional spread looks like this:

• Friesland: 70 clubs;
• Drenthe: 58 clubs;
• Gronigen: 57 clubs;
• Overijssel: 109 clubs;
• Flevoland: 15 clubs;
• Utrecht: 74 clubs;
• Noord-Holland: 152 clubs;
• Gelderland: 162 clubs;
• Zuid-Holland: 209 clubs;
• Zeeland: 41 clubs;
• Noord-Brabant: 157 clubs;
• Limburg: 77 clubs.

And after using a ruler to cut regions apart, the spread looks as such:

• Noord: Friesland + Drenthe + Gronigen + north of Rouveen = 199 clubs;
• West 1: Noord-Holland + remains of Flevoland + north of Leiden (both in Zuid-Holland and Utrecht) = 197 clubs;
• West 2 : North of Ridderkerk + remains of Utrecht = 197 clubs;
• Oost: Remains of Overijssel + North of Heteren (Gelderland)  = 194 clubs;
• Zuid 2: East of Waalre + remains of Gelderland = 199 clubs;
• Zuid 1: The rest = 195 clubs.

On a map, it looks like this:

While it doesn't look too different from the FM2020 split, there are tweaks here and there, especially regarding the northern regions of the Netherlands. Also, it would not be fun if there weren't a number of clubs in cities that are not assigned to any local regions.

There's actually a number of Dutch cities in the database that indeed are not assigned to any local region; nor do they have coordinates (latitude and longitude) or inhabitant range. Most of these seem to be very small villages in the middle of nowhere, often attached to a bigger city (like Spaarndam, part of the Haarlem gemeente); they could make for interesting challenges for those looking to bring glory to a small city. I'm probably going to look these up, but unless there's a huge imbalance, I'm unlikely to redo the spread from scratch. In hindsight I should've taken care of that before cutting the map apart. Maybe a couple of tweaks, but I'm really hoping that most of these clubs aren't from Zuid-Holland...

Edited December 12, 2020 by Xavier Lukhas

[Wolf_pd]

On 11/12/2020 at 23:28, Xavier Lukhas said:

Ideally you'd follow the exact lines, but in practice... There are 1297 non-extinct Dutch clubs in the DB. Ideally there would be about 216-217 clubs per District. There are 83 clubs in Limburg which is a region that would be entirely in Zuid II, so ideally you'd need an extra 133-134 clubs from North Brabant. If you take every North Brabant club that are eastwards of Eindhoven (latitude of 5.470), you'd have 53 clubs. If you take every club from that region that are eastwards from Tilburg (latitude of 5.092), we'd have 108 clubs. We're closer to 133-134 clubs, but not quite there. Which must've been why I had added clubs from Gelderland to District Zuid-II. Which is why the District map for and from FM2020 looks the way it does: Gelderland and South-Holland are indeed very densely packed with clubs.

That being said, that's without taking in account that all clubs geographically in Zuid-II that are in the Derde Divisie or better will not participate in the Districtbeker. So with a theoretical Zuid-II district that contains all clubs in Limburg and all North Brabant clubs eastwards of Tilburg (which is quite west already), you remove 16 clubs from that. It's not much, but it becomes a bit more important when considering districts located in the West of the Netherlands, which are more densely packed with clubs.

Or one could just not care and just eyeball the districts, who cares if the number of clubs is uneven, it's not like it's an exact science.

You are right, team numbers have more impact than real border lines. Otherwise the only thing you can do is start adding teams to fill up the ranks.

[Xavier Lukhas]

@Slabbekoorn @Wolf_pd Could you guys help me diagnose this error?  I'm getting a Nations Rules error about a wrong number of Eredivisie clubs. The problem is that I have not changed those rules, and I even have multiple versions of the exact same untouched rules working just fine posted above in this thread (November 28th). I actually never touched the Eredivisie rules at all, be it in the previous FM or this one!

 

Completed Districtsbeker.fmf

[Wolf_pd]

Odd one this one. The Dutch rules verify without issue in the default game setup, so that's not it.

According to the test tool in the editor, the issue turns up at the end of the 2020/2021 season and is in the Euro teams competition. I expect that the editor/game uses that version and ignores the default version.

Based on the error it is the amount teams for the setup of season 2021/2022, so it looks like the promotion and relegation isn't working properly. The weird thing is that I would expect 3 teams to miss then, not four. 16th place from Eredivisie and 2 first two from Eerste Divisie.

Based on the dates in the Relegations Cup, it ends on May 31st, while the end date of the Dutch Eredivisie is June 1st, I would have expected an error saying it doesn't fit in the timeframe.

Anyway, that's just my first findings. I am digging a bit more.

[Xavier Lukhas]

Il y a 2 heures, Wolf_pd a dit :

Odd one this one. The Dutch rules verify without issue in the default game setup, so that's not it.

According to the test tool in the editor, the issue turns up at the end of the 2020/2021 season and is in the Euro teams competition. I expect that the editor/game uses that version and ignores the default version.

Based on the error it is the amount teams for the setup of season 2021/2022, so it looks like the promotion and relegation isn't working properly. The weird thing is that I would expect 3 teams to miss then, not four. 16th place from Eredivisie and 2 first two from Eerste Divisie.

Based on the dates in the Relegations Cup, it ends on May 31st, while the end date of the Dutch Eredivisie is June 1st, I would have expected an error saying it doesn't fit in the timeframe.

Anyway, that's just my first findings. I am digging a bit more.

Additionally, if I try to validate any other division that you think wouldn't be affected, the Eredivisie doesn't finish in time for season update. For example in the screenshot below, I tried validating the Tweede Klasse on its own, and this is the error that was returned to me.

I might run the Editor in Sandboxie again at some point: if you have a large enough monitor (or two monitors), you can run two instances of the Editor side by side and check for differences between two files. I can't for now as I'm busy today, but I'm throwing this out there anyway.

[Wolf_pd]

I really have to look at Sandboxie, as I am working a 3 mirror setup and I am currently working on several re-edits from files. Having to load them up in FM21 to edit in FM20 isn't ideal.

[Xavier Lukhas]

il y a 26 minutes, Wolf_pd a dit :

I really have to look at Sandboxie, as I am working a 3 mirror setup and I am currently working on several re-edits from files. Having to load them up in FM21 to edit in FM20 isn't ideal.

Sandboxie really works great for that purpose. You can't really have two instances of the Editor side by side on a single 1080p monitor since the Editor has a minimum width, but if you have a 1440p monitor you can; nevermind if you have multiple editors. That being said, it's not thanks to Sandboxie alone that I found the error this time: it was by exporting files and comparing them in VS Code. I found two errors: there was a porting error in the rules of the Eredivisie (Euro), and there was a mistake in the rules of the Eerste Divisie because I'm dumb. Now it validates properly, and I expect the rules to work as they used to back in FM20 at least. Not much more but not much less. If people don't care beyond that, I could put some fancy gift wrap around that file and release it.

Now the only real question is if I'm going to bother with making fancy rules for Reserves teams or not. I had thought of a couple of options as posted last month that match my (lack of) skill using the Editor, but also as mentioned I'm not too hot on testing them in-game since FM21 isn't exactly doing too hot at the moment for the playing style I prefer, and I'd rather keep my options open.

FM21 Baseline.fmf

Edited December 20, 2020 by Xavier Lukhas

[Xavier Lukhas]

I'm testing the db posted above. Considering the rules are the same as last year, there shouldn't be any bad surprises at all that haven't been caught over the last overall year of this project. I'll have to add "Virus Restrictions" to the Eerste Divisie though.

Edited January 13, 2021 by Xavier Lukhas

[Xavier Lukhas]

I've been looking at the three different B team setups I posted about a month ago earlier in this thread. First note: with the way I set the teams up, B teams in the Eerste Divisie also play in the Reserves league during the same season, as shown below for Jong Ajax.

• "Get best reserves (Use Reserves league)" file: Teams in the Eerste divisie do rotate, but I can't see the relationship between the finishing position and the presence in the Eerste divisie. Maybe it's based on Reputation, but it's not based on finishing position.
• "Get best teams from Division" file: summons random B teams from the lower divisions, so nope.
• "Get best youth setup" file: youth setup is a pretty static parameter, therefore it doesn't allow for much fluidity. There's a bit of movement here and there though.

I'm not sure in which proportions I'm willing to revisit this. I didn't want to resort to adding stages to the leagues as suggested by @Slabbekoorn since it would have required adding stages and making corrections in stage assignments (for playoffs, periodes, etc.) for all 46 divisions and sub-divisions, which is a pretty big amount of work. It may be necessary if I am to pretend to even experiment with it though, even if it's just for the Eerste Divisie as a proof of concept.