Attendance scaling broken

[Plachy]

I'm in 2037 playing as a Welsh side and have achieved the following for the nation of Wales:

Welsh Premier League Reputation @ 3 stars

Welsh Premier League ranked 17th in Europe (above the Championship/Switzerland Super League, more or less tied with the SPL)

Club reputation @ 3 stars

At least one other Welsh side @ 3 stars (fluctuates depending on season)

Qualified for the CL group stages multiple times

Qualified for the EL group stages multiple times

Been to the last 16 of the CL

Been to the semis of the EL

Another Welsh side has reached the EL group stages and picked up a few points

Fielded a lot of players with 3.5 star reputation who are internationals for some huge national sides (World Cups/Copa America/European Championships starters)

Fielded some of the most talented Welsh players of the last 20 years

Finally... had a chairman who has sold no less than 18 players in 5 years over my head to some of the best sides in Europe for 6 figure fees

I'm confused why my attendances in that time have moved from 200 to just 500 for league games with the Welsh League as a whole barely moving as well.

My chairman persistently sells players above me which has prohibited my progress in Europe the past few years but our European attendances barely break the 2k barrier, unless they're in the CL group stages in which case they move over 4k (which I would wager is away fans).

Aside from that, the other sides in the league have players valued at over 1m and there's a huge amount of foreign players now playing in the league across all teams.

It is simply not realistic that the entire division doesn't have one side selling out over 40% of their stadium with the highest opening day attendance being less than 650. The dynamic league reputation is clearly working but I've got 20 seasons worth of data showing that the attendances simply do not budge as one would expect.

In addition my team made 300k from the Welsh TV deal last year and only 200k in prize money. This makes sense only if the prize money is linked to the number of fans watching the division. If it were defined in terms of reputation, this league should be pulling in crowds similar to the Danish League does irl which I would have around 7000.

Not really sure what can be done about this now, but some clarity on whether other have experienced the same and whether my TV deals/Prize moneys would get bigger if I were to make the league even bigger (I feel like I'm plateauing).

EDIT: A somewhat laughable example of how broken this is would be that my 4th choice keeper is out on loan to Cardiff and is playing in every match for them - they are currently 3rd in the Championship.

[mack4ever]

I'm in 2037 playing as a Welsh side and have achieved the following for the nation of Wales:

Welsh Premier League Reputation @ 3 stars

Welsh Premier League ranked 17th in Europe (above the Championship/Switzerland Super League, more or less tied with the SPL)

Club reputation @ 3 stars

At least one other Welsh side @ 3 stars (fluctuates depending on season)

Qualified for the CL group stages multiple times

Qualified for the EL group stages multiple times

Been to the last 16 of the CL

Been to the semis of the EL

Another Welsh side has reached the EL group stages and picked up a few points

Fielded a lot of players with 3.5 star reputation who are internationals for some huge national sides (World Cups/Copa America/European Championships starters)

Fielded some of the most talented Welsh players of the last 20 years

Finally... had a chairman who has sold no less than 18 players in 5 years over my head to some of the best sides in Europe for 6 figure fees

I'm confused why my attendances in that time have moved from 200 to just 500 for league games with the Welsh League as a whole barely moving as well.

My chairman persistently sells players above me which has prohibited my progress in Europe the past few years but our European attendances barely break the 2k barrier, unless they're in the CL group stages in which case they move over 4k (which I would wager is away fans).

Aside from that, the other sides in the league have players valued at over 1m and there's a huge amount of foreign players now playing in the league across all teams.

It is simply not realistic that the entire division doesn't have one side selling out over 40% of their stadium with the highest opening day attendance being less than 650. The dynamic league reputation is clearly working but I've got 20 seasons worth of data showing that the attendances simply do not budge as one would expect.

In addition my team made 300k from the Welsh TV deal last year and only 200k in prize money. This makes sense only if the prize money is linked to the number of fans watching the division. If it were defined in terms of reputation, this league should be pulling in crowds similar to the Danish League does irl which I would have around 7000.

Not really sure what can be done about this now, but some clarity on whether other have experienced the same and whether my TV deals/Prize moneys would get bigger if I were to make the league even bigger (I feel like I'm plateauing).

EDIT: A somewhat laughable example of how broken this is would be that my 4th choice keeper is out on loan to Cardiff and is playing in every match for them - they are currently 3rd in the Championship.

What would you like to see? How many people do you think should be coming to attend your games? Would you want to be selling 10,000 tickets? 20,000? 30,000? How high do you think your attendance should be?

I do agree that it doesn't scale enough at the moment but no matter how successful you are I don't think that attendances for league games should break past about the 2,000 level.

No matter how successful your club is you're still going to be from a town with a tiny population, a long way from any other towns with a tiny population and even further from any big cities. There are going to be very few locals around to watch your games, and even if you are massively successful in real life it wouldn't be enough to make lots of people drive a long distance to watch you put a dozen goals past a side that's a country mile worse than you are.

As for your comparison to Denmark, I couldn't disagree more that the two should be the same. Let's look at where the Danish Superliga clubs are based and their population.

Club - Based - Population

AaB - Aalborg - 112,000

Aarhus Gymnastikforening - Aarhus - 264,000

Brøndby IF - Brøndby - 35,000

Esbjerg fB - Esbjerg - 72,000

F.C. Copenhagen - Copenhagen - 591,000

FC Midtjylland - Herning & Ikast - 63,000

FC Nordsjælland - Farum - 19,000

Hobro IK - Hobro - 12,000

Odense Boldklub - Odense - 175,000

Randers FC - Randers - 61,000

SønderjyskE Fodbold - Haderslev - 22,000

Viborg FF - Viborg - 35,000

Now let's compare to the Welsh Premier League clubs.

Club - Based - Population

Aberystwyth Town F.C. - Aberystwyth - 13,000

Airbus UK Broughton F.C. - Broughton - 6,000

Bala Town F.C. - Bala - 2,000

Bangor City F.C. - Bangor - 19,000

Carmarthen Town A.F.C. - Carmarthen - 14,000

Connah's Quay Nomads F.C. - Connah's Quay - 17,000

Haverfordwest County A.F.C. - Haverfordwest - 12,000

Llandudno F.C. - Llandudno - 20,000

Newtown A.F.C. - Newtown - 11,000

Port Talbot Town F.C. - Port Talbot - 37,000

Rhyl F.C. - Rhyl - 25,000

The New Saints F.C. - Oswestry - 17,000

Now yes the average attendance in Denmark is around 7,000 but if we actually break it down by team we see the same pattern through the whole league. The average attendance of each club is between 2 and 11% of the population of the city/town in which they are based.

Now if we apply that to the Welsh Premier League, at best if you say that Port Talbot are attracting 11% of their towns residents that gives them an attendance of only 4,000 but that's best case scenario, worst case it could be down at the 2% end of the scale and only 740 fans show up, and that's with the biggest centre of population of any of the Welsh clubs.

At the end of the day a Welsh club, no matter how successful they are, is still going to be from a small Welsh town, a long way away from any large populations and simply is not going to attract fans from far and wide.

[KUBI]

The main issue is that a Welsh club qualified multiple times for the Champions League Group stage.

As mack4ever explained, there is a limit when fantasy meets reality. Your success with that club is far from being realistic. You can not demand, that the game should acknowledge this as the new reality or world order. In reality a manager who is that successful in Wales would become a manager of a top european club over the years.

It's your decision to stay your whole career with a club that can't really progress, just because there is a lack of fanbase and money and will ever be.

There is always a difference between a manager career and club success. If you really want to be successful as manager, you need to move from smaller leagues to the big leagues.

[Guest]

I'd have to check the editor but Wales could have a lower importance factor for football which could limit attendance, as will the limited population. As an example none of my Welsh relatives have any interest in football & for them Wales is still a Rugby nation.

[forameuss]

I'd have to check the editor but Wales could have a lower importance factor for football which could limit attendance, as will the limited population. As an example none of my Welsh relatives have any interest in football & for them Wales is still a Rugby nation.

That's probably a big part of it. On my long-term Gibraltar save, I had no issue with attendances/prize money/TV money rising, often by too much. As far as I'm aware they have game importance set to its maximum. Think I ended up with an ~18k stadium, while Gibraltar United had one roughly the same size. That's in a nation of 30k (currently, I'd imagine by the time I had those stadiums, the population would have increased, although not massively). If anything, my experience is the opposite of the OP. Theirs seems far more realistic.

[Plachy]

What would you like to see? How many people do you think should be coming to attend your games? Would you want to be selling 10,000 tickets? 20,000? 30,000? How high do you think your attendance should be?

I do agree that it doesn't scale enough at the moment but no matter how successful you are I don't think that attendances for league games should break past about the 2,000 level.

No matter how successful your club is you're still going to be from a town with a tiny population, a long way from any other towns with a tiny population and even further from any big cities. There are going to be very few locals around to watch your games, and even if you are massively successful in real life it wouldn't be enough to make lots of people drive a long distance to watch you put a dozen goals past a side that's a country mile worse than you are.

As for your comparison to Denmark, I couldn't disagree more that the two should be the same. Let's look at where the Danish Superliga clubs are based and their population.

Club - Based - Population

AaB - Aalborg - 112,000

Aarhus Gymnastikforening - Aarhus - 264,000

Brøndby IF - Brøndby - 35,000

Esbjerg fB - Esbjerg - 72,000

F.C. Copenhagen - Copenhagen - 591,000

FC Midtjylland - Herning & Ikast - 63,000

FC Nordsjælland - Farum - 19,000

Hobro IK - Hobro - 12,000

Odense Boldklub - Odense - 175,000

Randers FC - Randers - 61,000

SønderjyskE Fodbold - Haderslev - 22,000

Viborg FF - Viborg - 35,000

Now let's compare to the Welsh Premier League clubs.

Club - Based - Population

Aberystwyth Town F.C. - Aberystwyth - 13,000

Airbus UK Broughton F.C. - Broughton - 6,000

Bala Town F.C. - Bala - 2,000

Bangor City F.C. - Bangor - 19,000

Carmarthen Town A.F.C. - Carmarthen - 14,000

Connah's Quay Nomads F.C. - Connah's Quay - 17,000

Haverfordwest County A.F.C. - Haverfordwest - 12,000

Llandudno F.C. - Llandudno - 20,000

Newtown A.F.C. - Newtown - 11,000

Port Talbot Town F.C. - Port Talbot - 37,000

Rhyl F.C. - Rhyl - 25,000

The New Saints F.C. - Oswestry - 17,000

Now yes the average attendance in Denmark is around 7,000 but if we actually break it down by team we see the same pattern through the whole league. The average attendance of each club is between 2 and 11% of the population of the city/town in which they are based.

Now if we apply that to the Welsh Premier League, at best if you say that Port Talbot are attracting 11% of their towns residents that gives them an attendance of only 4,000 but that's best case scenario, worst case it could be down at the 2% end of the scale and only 740 fans show up, and that's with the biggest centre of population of any of the Welsh clubs.

At the end of the day a Welsh club, no matter how successful they are, is still going to be from a small Welsh town, a long way away from any large populations and simply is not going to attract fans from far and wide.

I stated I thought around 7000 for my team. My team is not listed on there, it's Pen-y-Bont (based in Bridgend according to the game, pop of 50k).

I think the Denmark comparison works as Wales is quite a difficult country to compare with anything - they have residual population from the UK. I know from living in the North West that you will find lots of Welsh folk in those areas, some of whom might well support a reasonably sized Welsh team. Denmark is slightly bigger in terms of population with perhaps a similar level of interest in football.

Also you make massive assumptions about my play style, I'm not pumping sides 12-0. I have never even won a league game by double figures. Sure, occasionally a side gets promoted to the division and I pump them for 6 or 7, but the vast majority of my games are won by between 1 and 2 goals. Think Celtic rather than some Youtuber you watch who is playing on an unbalanced edited database who is exploiting parts of the game.

Wales can quite comfortably get 30,000 to travel to a national team game (I mean, they can get 70k, but 30k is a reasonable average) - there is a base of fans there that would allow a domestic side to pierce at least 2000 fans if the league's reputation was enhanced. I would expect this to raise to around 7000 fans in Champions League games, plus a few thousand away fans.

I do massively resent the Gibraltar saves as they are totally unrealistic in how they scale up, but there does has to be a happy medium as clearly my side pulling in 400 for some league games simply would not happen. While the 'Welsh team doing this well is unrealistic too' argument does have some weight, I kinda thought this was the purpose of Dynamic League reputation in the first place and it would make far more sense to me that a small element of that allowed increases in attendance to expected levels.

Of course we can play fast and loose with the numbers here, I don't really know what would happen if Pen-y-Bont suddenly became a solid European side, but the reality has to be that attendances would raise by more than 150 fans over the 20 years. I'm still getting lower attendances than Bangor who are a yo-yo side who inexplicably remain semi-pro despite every other promoted side being pro.

Some info about what my ceiling is would be great Barside, as well as what the specific causes of this are. I feel dirty about the editor so no interest in mucking around with it.

[Guest]

I'll have a look at the data when I get home.

[Welshace]

Personally, I'd agree with OP here.. It's not an overnight success really, it's sustained improvement over 20 years.. Have a think of what clubs have achieved in that sort of time frame.

The club is the main football club in a borough with the population of 140k almost, and frankly, football is only getting bigger down south with the relative rise in reputation of welsh clubs on the whole.

[Guest]

It's certainly worth a deeper investigation.

[Plachy]

Thanks for articulating that point, I think it's a very important one to reiterate. I did a bit of googling and the premise of lots of posts was "I won the Champions League in my 4th season as a Welsh side, why no attendance/prize money increase". I do think that over 15 years of solid European finishes (last night I finished 2nd in my Europa League group after losing in the 3rd Quali of the CL) that there should be some movement there. It's totally understandable if I was 5 seasons into the game, but 20 is long enough for football fans to be born, grow up and support a local side if they are achieving remarkable things.

Pen-y-Bont, looking at Google Maps, would also be an ideal place to start a club given the boroughs population (as you kindly informed me of) and it's placement equidistant between Swansea and Cardiff (a 30 min drive).

I do want to separate myself from the people who exploit the game massively to achieve the things I have done in Wales, I spent at least the first 7-8 years signing mostly Welsh/English/Scottish players, slowly getting better and better players and I have experienced some pretty dire seasons mixed in with the good ones (we have lost our 2nd CL spot recently thanks to my dire performances). I would say at least 90% of my players are sourced by scouts. I spent 11mil on a Wonderkid keeper from Spurs last week and also got a Wonderkid striker for 2m from Bayern II (surprising for that price but he needs about 11 chances to score a goal). This shows I'm not skimming the youth academies for players but more signing players from established teams and thus competing on a footing with them rather than solely as a feeder club - though my chairman has sold some players who are now worth 15m+ to top sides. Sure, I occasionally get a sign a regen from Africa or Australia but of my first XI, this is the rarity rather than the norm.

I think having high rep players, in a high rep league, for a high rep team in a borough of 140k people should be able to attract more than 500 fans to a league game and more than 1000 home fans for European games.

I'm going to push on with the save as I can really feel the other sides in the league pushing me and I sense some of them are on the verge of the breakthrough but I did want to canvass whether I was being unrealistic about the level of support at the club.

[mack4ever]

I stated I thought around 7000 for my team. My team is not listed on there, it's Pen-y-Bont (based in Bridgend according to the game, pop of 50k).

I think the Denmark comparison works as Wales is quite a difficult country to compare with anything - they have residual population from the UK. I know from living in the North West that you will find lots of Welsh folk in those areas, some of whom might well support a reasonably sized Welsh team. Denmark is slightly bigger in terms of population with perhaps a similar level of interest in football.

Also you make massive assumptions about my play style, I'm not pumping sides 12-0. I have never even won a league game by double figures. Sure, occasionally a side gets promoted to the division and I pump them for 6 or 7, but the vast majority of my games are won by between 1 and 2 goals. Think Celtic rather than some Youtuber you watch who is playing on an unbalanced edited database who is exploiting parts of the game.

Wales can quite comfortably get 30,000 to travel to a national team game (I mean, they can get 70k, but 30k is a reasonable average) - there is a base of fans there that would allow a domestic side to pierce at least 2000 fans if the league's reputation was enhanced. I would expect this to raise to around 7000 fans in Champions League games, plus a few thousand away fans.

I do massively resent the Gibraltar saves as they are totally unrealistic in how they scale up, but there does has to be a happy medium as clearly my side pulling in 400 for some league games simply would not happen. While the 'Welsh team doing this well is unrealistic too' argument does have some weight, I kinda thought this was the purpose of Dynamic League reputation in the first place and it would make far more sense to me that a small element of that allowed increases in attendance to expected levels.

Of course we can play fast and loose with the numbers here, I don't really know what would happen if Pen-y-Bont suddenly became a solid European side, but the reality has to be that attendances would raise by more than 150 fans over the 20 years. I'm still getting lower attendances than Bangor who are a yo-yo side who inexplicably remain semi-pro despite every other promoted side being pro.

Some info about what my ceiling is would be great Barside, as well as what the specific causes of this are. I feel dirty about the editor so no interest in mucking around with it.

Honestly if you're not winning most of your games by half a dozen goals or more then you really are terrible at this game! Not saying that based on "some youtuber watch" but based on my own experience of having a long term save in Wales.

Ok sure, they do attract some OK crowds to their home games, nothing special but not tiny, but you can't say that just because a decent number go and watch the national team means a decent number should go and watch league games. If they can't even sell out a 40,000 seater stadium for their own countries games, why exactly do you think that you'll be able to sell thousands of tickets for your club? Last few home games for Wales have attracted crowds of 22,000 against Northern Ireland, 26,000 against the Netherlands, 33,000 against Andorra and 32,000 against Israel so I don't quite know where you're getting "they can get 70k" fans from!

Also, have you ever been to Wales? If you have then you'd know that Wales is not a country full of people who care about football, it's a Rugby nation and football is a tiny sport in comparison. The number of fans you can get is always going to be restricted by that because no matter how good you get, you ain't gonna persuade a Rugby fan to go and watch your games.

As I said before though, I do agree that attendances should scale better in some cases such as this, however I don't think it should get past a couple thousand people watching your league games.

[Welshace]

What a massive generalisation Mack... and I speak as a Welshman and a fan of both sports.

Wales has a huge football fan base and in fact, the big football teams in Wales have more than triple the average attendances than the big rugby sides do.

Cardiff and Swansea average 20k+ every home game.. Wrexham average around 6-7k ...

What we're talking about here, is a team that over 20 years has become a regular in europe and has been in the top 16 in the CL, playing in a league with a higher standing than most european leagues around.

Wales is a massive National rugby country sure, but the whole rugby vs football argument went out in the early 2000's when it comes to welsh football which has grown massively.

Where I grew up, football was always the first point of call for most sports fans, as was it at college, university and beyond.

[Plachy]

Honestly if you're not winning most of your games by half a dozen goals or more then you really are terrible at this game! Not saying that based on "some youtuber watch" but based on my own experience of having a long term save in Wales.

Ok sure, they do attract some OK crowds to their home games, nothing special but not tiny, but you can't say that just because a decent number go and watch the national team means a decent number should go and watch league games. If they can't even sell out a 40,000 seater stadium for their own countries games, why exactly do you think that you'll be able to sell thousands of tickets for your club? Last few home games for Wales have attracted crowds of 22,000 against Northern Ireland, 26,000 against the Netherlands, 33,000 against Andorra and 32,000 against Israel so I don't quite know where you're getting "they can get 70k" fans from!

Also, have you ever been to Wales? If you have then you'd know that Wales is not a country full of people who care about football, it's a Rugby nation and football is a tiny sport in comparison. The number of fans you can get is always going to be restricted by that because no matter how good you get, you ain't gonna persuade a Rugby fan to go and watch your games.

As I said before though, I do agree that attendances should scale better in some cases such as this, however I don't think it should get past a couple thousand people watching your league games.

I'm sorry, but I do win more or less every game (again, think Celtic c. 2014) - I win the league every year but given my chairman sells any player that receives a bid >2mil I'm always rebuilding. There was a couple of years when I battered everyone by a couple more goals than I do now but with the league reputation growing, there are some very good sides competing in my division. I have to play a huge amount of games with 15+ internationals and a small squad, rotation is necessary and the players of required quality to beat the better teams (for me that is Bala/TNS) 5-0 every time are simply not there.

I also don't think I'm so terrible to have a side make the EURO semis, losing Dortmund on away goals in the Semis. Clear baiting. Every save is massively different, and I would wager that there is something fundamentally different in how we play the game if you have had such a long term save. The truth is, once the league starts improving and far better players start joining up, you shouldn't be battering those sides 10-0. If you are, the database is clearly massively broken.

This is my first time attempting a Welsh League save, having been doing the non-playable to Premier League/win the CL shtick since FM 2007, always completing it. I would be interested what your club raised in income in a long term save, because it's nigh on impossible to get more out of my current squad given the finances and the 'selling club' mentality of my previous 3 chairmen.

I used to live in the NW, right on the border of Wales and visit Wales probably 3-4 times a year for road trips. Yes, I have been there. It is correct to say I haven't seen many football fans while walking in the Brecon beacons though. To address the point, I think over a period of 20 years you would see a shift in Welsh people, and with any country that has a successful football side. Same argument was used regarding Wigan, they averaged 18k in the Premier League despite being from a rugby city that only broke 10k fans once before making it to the PL. Someone clearly convinced 'some' of those younger fans who would have gone on to support the rugby side that football was also quite interesting. Cardiff/Swansea also a possible argument but that was made by the above poster.

Source on Wales getting 70k fans - http://www.11v11.com/teams/wales/tab/stats/option/attendances/

It's happened a couple times this century, a reasonable enough proof for a ceiling. Your kindly provided numbers show 30k a reasonable average. Not sure what objection you had there.

[Guest]

No need to go down that path, let's wait until myself or someone else posts details on the core data settings & from there we can speculate as to possible causes.

[Plachy]

Excellent - I'll post some concrete data regarding the league attendances when I get home as a reference (average attendances each year for my team and a couple of others as well as some European attendances for the better sides in Wales) if it would be helpful/let me know if anything else would be useful as a comparison as well.

I'm running (from memory) a large db with about 20 divisions (Down to L2 in England plus top flights in the top 12 UEFA leagues (based on coefficient) + Brazil/Argentina + Home Nations + Ireland). All on playable, nothing on View-only.

[forameuss]

If Wales have a low game importance, which would make sense I guess, then I'm guessing that's not one of the dynamic values, so will stay the way it is no matter what.

It's not as if everyone in Wales hates football and loves rugby, but whether the attendances are close or not, football is still surely not the national sport. Maybe its regional, but anyone I've known who has spent time in Wales - my wife grew up in South Wales largely - has said that the focus is on Rugby. To the point where she usually stays away from Facebook whenever there's a Welsh Rugby game on because a) she hates sport and b) she hates the reaction to said sport that it elicits. There isn't that same reaction for anything related to football. Small sample size, of course.

But say one of the Welsh league sides suddenly goes on a bender and in twenty years time they've consistently got to the latter stages of competitions, then game importance (in the way FM defines it at least) should be dynamic to cover that. Wales have got to the latter stages of World Cups in Rugby, but if there was sustained success in football then the often fickle nature of football fans there would surely change.

I would also add that these things are very difficult to get "correct", because there is no basis to tell what is correct. Take any small country - Gibraltar or Wales let's say - who is to say that if the level of success that has been achieved in some saves happened in real life that more mental things might happen. There's no real way to predict how things would grow.

[sc91]

I had a similar issue a few years ago when playing as Lanzarote. Despite regularly winning La Liga and reaching the last stages of the CL (over 30 years period), I never had attendance that above 4,000 and only generally sold out on nights where Barcelona/Real or one of your big European Powerhouses come to town. This I found to be wholly inaccurate considering the attendance of real life neighbours of Tenerife and Las Palmas. I took into my own hands and edited the attendance and gave up the save not long after but I found it massively did kill the immersion for me.

[Plachy]

Agree x100 forameuss. You might not get it correct but you can definitely get it wrong and I think this is probably a case where the consensus is that if the Welsh League was as well regarded as the SPL, we would see an upturn in attendances beyond 400 people. It might not be massive, but 250 > 400 is just no increase at all.

I wonder about game importance too - I found a thread from '10 which stated Wales' is pretty high. Possibly to be taken with a pinch of salt given that it's 6 years old.

[forameuss]

Agree x100 forameuss. You might not get it correct but you can definitely get it wrong and I think this is probably a case where the consensus is that if the Welsh League was as well regarded as the SPL, we would see an upturn in attendances beyond 400 people. It might not be massive, but 250 > 400 is just no increase at all.

I wonder about game important too - I found a thread from '10 which stated Wales' is pretty high. Possibly to be taken with a pinch of salt given that it's 6 years old.

Yeah, think Barside was going to check that out. To me it would make sense if it wasn't at its highest. As has been discussed, it's not the national sport (or if it is, it's extremely narrow). In Scotland and England, it's easily the national sport by a considerable distance. Historically, it's always seemed as though there's not too much interest in the Welsh National Team until they're doing well. There was that play-off a while back that sold out the Millennium Stadium, but now they're permanently in the considerably smaller stadium across the city. That's not to say they couldn't sell out the Millennium (or whatever it's called now) if they wanted to, and I suspect they could with how well they're doing, but there does seem a lack of concrete, regular interest. Much as it's masochistic, Scotland games that aren't against a complete diddy are probably always going to come close to selling out, and we've been terrible for a while.

The low cap suggests that there is some presumably static value that is throttling it. Attendance will be a pretty complicated function involving a lot of variables, but if Wales have a static value that always comes into that sum, then it's never going to grow massively. I know for a fact that Gibraltar was set to Very Important for game importance, which makes me think it might be down to that if Wales is set lower. No idea though.

[Plachy]

Gibraltar is a custom db though right? I don't consider that to be 'canon' for the game if someone has made such an erroneous database. If anything, the Gibraltar league should be throttled as mine is. I don't count the Gibraltar saves I've seen/read about as having equal value to those using the proper db, it's always looked far too easy to do things with the game working with you in the way the most popular databases appear to.

That's not meant as a dig, just that if you play in a league with Very Important as a value, that's going to be easy enough with years of FM experience behind you.

[mack4ever]

If Wales have a low game importance, which would make sense I guess, then I'm guessing that's not one of the dynamic values, so will stay the way it is no matter what.

It's not as if everyone in Wales hates football and loves rugby, but whether the attendances are close or not, football is still surely not the national sport. Maybe its regional, but anyone I've known who has spent time in Wales - my wife grew up in South Wales largely - has said that the focus is on Rugby. To the point where she usually stays away from Facebook whenever there's a Welsh Rugby game on because a) she hates sport and b) she hates the reaction to said sport that it elicits. There isn't that same reaction for anything related to football. Small sample size, of course.

But say one of the Welsh league sides suddenly goes on a bender and in twenty years time they've consistently got to the latter stages of competitions, then game importance (in the way FM defines it at least) should be dynamic to cover that. Wales have got to the latter stages of World Cups in Rugby, but if there was sustained success in football then the often fickle nature of football fans there would surely change.

I would also add that these things are very difficult to get "correct", because there is no basis to tell what is correct. Take any small country - Gibraltar or Wales let's say - who is to say that if the level of success that has been achieved in some saves happened in real life that more mental things might happen. There's no real way to predict how things would grow.

You're not dealing with the "fickle nature of football fans" though, you're dealing with having to try to convert rugby fans into football fans and as you well know rugby fans are nothing if not loyal to their sport.

[forameuss]

Gibraltar is a custom db though right? I don't consider that to be 'canon' for the game if someone has made such an erroneous database. If anything, the Gibraltar league should be throttled as mine is. I don't count the Gibraltar saves I've seen/read about as having equal value to those using the proper db, it's always looked far too easy to do things with the game working with you in the way the most popular databases appear to.

That's not meant as a dig, just that if you play in a league with Very Important as a value, that's going to be easy enough with years of FM experience behind you.

The version I played was created by SI, so it's as official as you're going to get without it being packaged by the game. There are custom versions that changed a few things, but I wasn't using them. There was nothing "erroneous" about the data in the way you're implying.

You seem to have a massive chip on your shoulder about the Gibraltar leagues. Just because a league has "Very Important" as game importance doesn't mean it's an instant win. I imagine football's pretty important in San Marino and Andorra, doesn't mean it's easy to become a powerhouse.

You're not dealing with the "fickle nature of football fans" though, you're dealing with having to try to convert rugby fans into football fans and as you well know rugby fans are nothing if not loyal to their sport.

But a fickle fan who likes both sports might decide that he'd be better off following football if he was guaranteed to see Champions League football most seasons. I imagine anyone "loyal" to Rugby won't be interested regardless of what's happening in football. But then they wouldn't be fickle would they?

[Plachy]

You're not dealing with the "fickle nature of football fans" though, you're dealing with having to try to convert rugby fans into football fans and as you well know rugby fans are nothing if not loyal to their sport.

That reminds me the argument about cyclists/drivers hating each other being put to bed when it's pointed out that a large number of cyclists are also drivers. Truth be told, sports fans tend to dabble quite a lot in a few sports. What percentage of rugby fans watch Wimbledon, the Olympics, Boxing, UFC etc. Probably quite a lot, the same applies to football - sure a bunch only want to watch the Rugby and would rather watch the local pub rugby side than Swansea vs. Barcelona in the Champions League final but no doubt that a solid number would tune in/be interested/attend. And sport is massively generational, it's quite hard to look at this being from a country like England/Wales that has always had massively successful (relatively speaking) sports teams in massive sports (Rugby for Wales, Football/Cricket/Rugby for England) as the talent pool always has something to be inspired by growing up.

If you look at a sport like snooker however, the number of young people who became excited by Hurricane Higgins/Jimmy White/Ronnie O'Sullivan has meant that snooker has fostered a massive long term following in older generations, which is sure to dry up without a young, charismatic British player in the next few years. However, the game is booming in China thanks to Ding Junhui and the next generation of snooker fans/players are likely to come from China as a result. That's perhaps a little besides the point for FM but I think fans are massively influenced by what was huge in their formative years, and if that thing whether it be football, rugby, snooker is still an attraction in their adult years, they will buy tickets, follow that team/sport.

[Plachy]

You seem to have a massive chip on your shoulder about the Gibraltar leagues. Just because a league has "Very Important" as game importance doesn't mean it's an instant win. I imagine football's pretty important in San Marino and Andorra, doesn't mean it's easy to become a powerhouse.

I actually don't know the database, I've just seen a few screenshots/read a few threads referring to massive TV deals and attendances being far bigger than I can seemingly achieve. Apologies if that came across badly, but I genuinely do think, based on my limited knowledge, that the Gibraltar database is probably an easier one to play than the hand I've been dealt in Wales. (EDIT: That is in no way to say it's easy, it's still going to be tough as a box of rocks, just maybe the Wales one has slightly harder rocks)

It could well be I simply haven't played enough seasons to get a TV deal/improve attendances. I have no experience of it and maybe should've kept my mouth shut on that one!

Or better yet, rephrase it as a question: Can those playing the Gibraltar league expect, with identical achievements to my own to be making more TV money, prize money, higher attendances. I know the work permit rules are very lax, so if the prior 3 things are true (or even equal), I would suggest it's a somewhat easier challenge.

EDIT2: I've rootled around on the Steam workshop, we could be talking about 2 entirely different DBs, in which case apples and oranges, ignore the above!

[mack4ever]

I actually don't know the database, I've just seen a few screenshots/read a few threads referring to massive TV deals and attendances being far bigger than I can seemingly achieve. Apologies if that came across badly, but I genuinely do think, based on my limited knowledge, that the Gibraltar database is probably an easier one to play than the hand I've been dealt in Wales. (EDIT: That is in no way to say it's easy, it's still going to be tough as a box of rocks, just maybe the Wales one has slightly harder rocks)

It could well be I simply haven't played enough seasons to get a TV deal/improve attendances. I have no experience of it and maybe should've kept my mouth shut on that one!

Or better yet, rephrase it as a question: Can those playing the Gibraltar league expect, with identical achievements to my own to be making more TV money, prize money, higher attendances. I know the work permit rules are very lax, so if the prior 3 things are true (or even equal), I would suggest it's a somewhat easier challenge.

EDIT2: I've rootled around on the Steam workshop, we could be talking about 2 entirely different DBs, in which case apples and oranges, ignore the above!

The Gibraltar database is an unofficial edited database that in no way reflects reality.

I know that what's happening in your game in Wales is also unrealistic in that your attendances don't rise to the kind of level that they should, but the Gibraltar database is so far in the other direction that it's laughable.

It's easily possible on the Gibraltar to get regular attendances greater than the population of Gibraltar itself!

[Guest]

I've just fired up the editor & the game importance factor for Wales is set to important which the 2nd of 4 levels, on its own this will not be an issue as the same value is set for nations such as Russian, Poland, Japan & Ukraine, what might be an issue is that when linked to the overall national population those other nations will still have a large number of football fans whereas Wales has fewer residents than Moscow & Tokyo, similar to Kiev & a little less than double that of Warsaw.

What I have also noticed is that the nation HR has not set values for the current, min & max attendance values for Wales, they probably should input those values as my expectation would be for the game code to take an average of the values for other similar size nations with the same game importance value which would likely be much lower than than the real life national team attendances, although not directly linked this could define how many Welsh residents are considered to be football supporters. (Just a guess)

As for the club Pen-y-Bont are also lacking attendance data figures & looking at the club data as a fairly recently (2013) formed club there is very little in the the way of fan history or general data to drive much growth, to me it just looks like the club are not setup to grow much beyond their current modest existence & your success on the pitch has been nothing short of miraculous to the point that the dynamic systems built into the code just can't cope, a possible aspect will be sanity checks to prevent ridiculous scenarios (bugs) being created. (again, that is just an educated guess)

Although there will be no changes that will help your current save of you do have save points that cover the development of your time at the club I'm sure the test team would like to take a look to assess the growth of Welsh football in your save & whether any potential tweaks to the dynamic system are feasible & to also see if my assessment that the missing starting data played a part in creating a situation where you could never grow the club or nation all that much due to a lack of football fans. Ideally you'd want to have saves shortly before the season update day for each year.

[Plachy]

The Gibraltar database is an unofficial edited database that in no way reflects reality.

I know that what's happening in your game in Wales is also unrealistic in that your attendances don't rise to the kind of level that they should, but the Gibraltar database is so far in the other direction that it's laughable.

It's easily possible on the Gibraltar to get regular attendances greater than the population of Gibraltar itself!

Yeah, that was my initial thoughts - I do apologise to the guy above though, I read his Gibraltar story and his looked very similar to my Wales progression. I didn't mean to pick on GIB though, sorry!

I'll post some screenshots shortly to show the Welsh League's lack of progress.

[Plachy]

I've just fired up the editor & the game importance factor for Wales is set to important which the 2nd of 4 levels, on its own this will not be an issue as the same value is set for nations such as Russian, Poland,, Japan & Ukraine, what might be an issue is that when linked to the overall national population those other nations will still have a large number of football fans whereas Wales has fewer residents than Moscow & Japan, similar to Kiev & a little less than double that of Warsaw.

What I have also noticed is that the nation HR has not set values for the current, min & max attendance values for Wales, they probably should input those values as my expectation would be for the game code to take an average of the values for other similar size nations with the same game importance value rather which would likely be much lower than than the real life national team attendances, although not directly linked this could define how many Welsh residents are considered to be football supporters. (Just a guess)

As for the club Pen-y-Bont are also lacking attendance data figures & looking at the club data as a fairly recently (2013) formed club there is very little in the the way of fan history or general data to drive much growth, to me it just looks like the club are not setup to grow much beyond their current modest existence & your success on the pitch has been nothing short of miraculous to the point that the dynamic systems built into the code just can't cope, a possible aspect will be sanity checks to prevent ridiculous scenarios (bugs) being created. (again, that is just an educated guess)

Although there will be no changes that will help your current save of you do have save points that cover the development of your time at the club I'm sure the test team would like to take a look to assess the growth of Welsh football in your save & whether any potential tweaks to the dynamic system are feasible & to also see if my assessment that the missing starting data played a part in creating a situation where you could never grow the club or nation all that much due to a a lack of football fans. Ideally you'd want to have a save shortly before the season update day for each year.

All useful info, big thanks for that. I only do 3 month rolling so nothing doing at present. Would it be useful going forward to keep records, or no?

[Guest]

Might be a case of stable door open, horse long gone with the current save but any save data you can provide to SI could help identify potential issues that can be incorporated into future test plans, during my time at SI a number of my saves during early testing were done with a view to recreating issues identified late in the life of the previous FM or from a single user submitted save that showed up an issue but with no obvious cause.

[Plachy]

http://imgur.com/a/xk1S7

Here's an album of stuff anyway. There was an interesting bug in our first ever European game. The game built a European stadium for us and then we sold it out for 40k fans before it regressed to tiny numbers again.

Rest might pique people's interest. You can also see how little the league attendances have moved from season 1 to season 20.

[enigmatic]

Not that the attendance jump would make any more sense, but was that game moved to the not-too-distant Millennium Stadium for some reason (eg ground upgrade)

[Plachy]

Was actually at the 'Bridgend Community Arena' which has a capacity of 40.5k and was constructed in 2025. We still use it for home Euro games now as our poxy 1.5k stadium doesn't meet UEFA regs.

[Guest]

Was actually at the 'Bridgend Community Arena' which has a capacity of 40.5k and was constructed in 2025. We still use it for home Euro games now as our poxy 1.5k stadium doesn't meet UEFA regs.

Not being able to get rid of or improve that feature before I left SI remains one of my annoyances, seeing new stadia being built in small nations that already have established venues fit to host major finals is bad enough but then to see them become unoccupied white elephants just adds salt to the wound.

[mack4ever]

Not being able to get rid of or improve that feature before I left SI remains one of my annoyances, seeing new stadia being built in small nations that already have established venues fit to host major finals is bad enough but then to see them become unoccupied white elephants just adds salt to the wound.

Look on the bright side, Darlington have made it possible to use the "it happens in real life" argument in this case

[Plachy]

Not being able to get rid of or improve that feature before I left SI remains one of my annoyances, seeing new stadia being built in small nations that already have established venues fit to host major finals is bad enough but then to see them become unoccupied white elephants just adds salt to the wound.

Is it possible I could move into this stadium in the future or would the board decide to build a new one instead if demand was high enough.

[Guest]

It is supposed to be possible, with 1000s of seasons that I've personally played or soaked since the feature was introduced (iirc FM12) I have never seen it happen.

[Seb Wassell]

Hey all,

Just wanted to pop in here and say thank you for bringing this to our attention, it is certainly an interesting subject.

Following the post in the bugs forum (http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/457968-Attendances-in-Wales-as-Competition-Improves) we are taking a look.

Cheers,

Seb.

[martinji]

Just playing Devil's advocate here because I agree the attendance progression does seem too low. But one of the drawbacks of being between Cardiff and Swansea with those two cities and clubs being relatively accessible, is possibly that even though you have grown your club to a decent stature, Cardiff/Swansea may be in the English Premier League/championship (and may be in Europe themselves?) which would be more of a draw for many people? whereas in eg Denmark that you compare to, most teams would not be competing with teams from another league for support. NB don't know if the game is sophisticated enough to model it, just suggesting it as a real life factor.

[Plachy]

Sorry to bump this one, but I've just had the weirdest thing happen. Still zero change in the game giving me TV money, prize money or importantly attendances.

But this just happened: http://i.imgur.com/GnvZ6kB.png

We were projected to fail FFP by 40m this season and inexplicably I've been pumped with a massive sponsorship deal. Huh?

[forameuss]

Sorry to bump this one, but I've just had the weirdest thing happen. Still zero change in the game giving me TV money, prize money or importantly attendances.

But this just happened: http://i.imgur.com/GnvZ6kB.png

We were projected to fail FFP by 40m this season and inexplicably I've been pumped with a massive sponsorship deal. Huh?

That pretty much always happens. I've never ever failed financial fair play at a club, because every time you're on course to, the board pumps in money to stop it.

[Plachy]

That's a sponsorship though?

I always get the board injecting money into the club but this sponsorship one is new to me.

[forameuss]

That's a sponsorship though?

I always get the board injecting money into the club but this sponsorship one is new to me.

Yeah, it's always sponsorship. You're about to fail, mystery sponsorship comes in, you don't fail anymore. Happens regularly.

[Plachy]

That's a little uhhh..... rubbish?

So the game incentivises financial mismanagement? Not too impressed with that. I was planning for a stiff January.

[Spurs08]

The sponsorship is effectvely your board cheating the FFP rules much as Man City and PSG do in real life. They or some director/business affiliate buys/sets up some tiny foreign company and gets them to pay the club a ridiculously inflated sponsorship deal to pass FFP.

[Plachy]

I'm such a mark for finances that I've been selling players each summer for 15m+ to resolve any FFP issues ahead of time. Will show a much more flagrant disregard for the rules in future

[Guest]

That type of deal should be limited to sugar daddy clubs, I agree that it's a poor system & TBH is a method that simulates an FFP workaround that UEFA ruled out after the first wave of FFP checks.

I'm also a mark for finances & the current approach is very unsatisfying so I really hope SI address the lack of depth & realism with how they simulate FFP & other areas of finance.

[lemeuresnew]

Agree with the finances part of this, frustrating seeing big clubs that drop down the table still spending the same as if they hadn't while I play fair at the top.

I know man u did this for a year or 2 now, but it shouldnt be sustainable on fm for 10+ years without seeing a leeds effect