[FM21] USA Lower Leagues Extension v21.5.3 *Updated 05/04/2021*

[Palk]

I've decided to have fun with FM Editor and developed my version of USA extension with lower leagues, got inspired by all the USA database creators that had done a great effort so far.
UncleSam is out of office (I'm not aware of any release for FM21) and other users releases haven't been updated for FM's newest version and looking to their topics seems that there'll be no updates.

USA Extension Lower Leagues v21.5.3

USL Championship
- 4 divisions (28 games total with teams playing against other divisions - some divisions)
- 2 conference (grouped based in division games)
  - top 10 teams qualify for the conference finals
- Regular Season (league with all teams, games from divisions) 
- League Cup (2 teams - winner of each conference)

USL League One
- League (12 teams)
- League Cup (top 6 teams from the league)

USL League Two
- 12 divisions (14 rounds each one)
- 4 conferences (3 divisions per conference)
    - 4 teams (winner of each division and the best 2nd of conference)
- League Cup (4 teams - each conference winner)

NISA
- 2 tournaments, Fall and Spring, both with 2 groups of 5 and final cup to qualify the winner to the global final
- Final Cup (2 teams - each tournament winner)

NCAA
- 24 conferences divided by 4 regions
- Each conference wnner get automatic bid for region finals + best region qualifiers to create the remaining for 12 teams
- Each region winner goes to college cup

Database Additions:
- All missing divisions
- Missing teams this year present in League Two
- All Teams and competitions for NCAA

USAExtension v21.5.3: https://www.mediafire.com/file/qmj91bx1dcxeza9/USAExtension_v21.5.3.fmf/file


Note: I recommend to select the option in FM to add missing players to the teams so NCAA teams can have proper players
FM doesn't allow to generate only players u23 so you might see teams with +24 in NCAA teams


Thanks a lot @Fmfan00 for updating NCAA team's info

 

Edited April 5, 2021 by Palk

[dbrown6]

Does this league include the expansion teams for the various leagues. Also thank you 

[Palk]

6 minutos atrás, dbrown6 disse:

Does this league include the expansion teams for the various leagues. Also thank you 

Sorry forgot to mention and to add to Todo list.

It doesn't have right now but I'm planning to. However I might need help because USoccer documentation is...zero

[Number seven]

What about the NPSL, it is at the same level as the USL League Two?

[Palk]

1 hora atrás, Number seven disse:

What about the NPSL, it is at the same level as the USL League Two?

For now no, it will be going with the rest of the leagues.

Some leagues right now are unclear due to pandemic situation. But I'll try my best to get those rules correct

Edited March 12, 2021 by Palk

[dino88]

hi if i can ask. 

- these are real rules/structures no fantasy?

- what is the eta for the ncaa leagues, so i estimate when to start my new save?

thank you.

[Palk]

52 minutos atrás, dino88 disse:

hi if i can ask. 

- these are real rules/structures no fantasy?

- what is the eta for the ncaa leagues, so i estimate when to start my new save?

thank you.

Hi 

I tried to create the most authentic structure to real life so I feel comfortable to say that they are real ones.

Not with expansion teams on future years.

 

I'm planning to start NCAA next week ahead of NPSL and USL which those rules are unclear.

It will take sometime because all leagues and teams most be created, I'll create the base team information without team colors for start.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[dino88]

37 minutes ago, Palk said:

Hi 

I tried to create the most authentic structure to real life so I feel comfortable to say that they are real ones.

Not with expansion teams on future years.

 

I'm planning to start NCAA next week ahead of NPSL and USL which those rules are unclear.

It will take sometime because all leagues and teams most be created, I'll create the base team information without team colors for start.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

hey, i tested your file and it's spot on - better than everything else ive seen. 

will the unique ids match with uncle sams to use his graphics?

[Palk]

1 hora atrás, dino88 disse:

hey, i tested your file and it's spot on - better than everything else ive seen. 

will the unique ids match with uncle sams to use his graphics?

Thanks,

Regarding the graphics I'm not sure since FM generate those ids, someone will need to adjust it.

[Palk]

Update 21.0.4

- Added NISA league structure, unfortunately the first fictionally structure due to pandemic situation and unclear rules in US Soccer.

- FM Editor didn't recognize the default NISA Structure so I marked that as expired and Duplicated to a new custom created with the same information (except history for now).

League Structure:
- Fall Season
 - 2 groups of 5 teams, first 2 qualify for a elimination round
 - Elimination round of 4 teams being the winner qualified to the Final of NISA

- Spring Season, same as Fall Season with the condition if the winner of Spring Season is the same as Fall it will qualify the finalist of Spring.

- NISA Final with the Fall Season winner vs Spring Season winner

Note: No expansion Added
Link in the first post

[dino88]

are you using wikipedia?

[Palk]

3 minutos atrás, dino88 disse:

are you using wikipedia?

Yes, the most reliable source  , but trying to look at oficial competition websites.
It was unclear due to pandemic since some teams played Fall but not Spring and they needed to adapt Spring to that.

So to don't complicate structure just created both the same with kind of Fall 2019 structure.

For the NCAA I'll try to use 2019 season structure

[dino88]

53 minutes ago, Palk said:

Yes, the most reliable source  , but trying to look at oficial competition websites.
It was unclear due to pandemic since some teams played Fall but not Spring and they needed to adapt Spring to that.

So to don't complicate structure just created both the same with kind of Fall 2019 structure.

For the NCAA I'll try to use 2019 season structure

I can't wait for the NCAA... that's where the real fun begins! 

[Palk]

No main changes done, just verifying with the new update from SI.

NCAA still on-going process

EDIT:
I'm trying to advance as fast as possible but FM Editor is crashing a lot, which is compromissing for now the NCAA structure

Edited March 16, 2021 by Palk

[dino88]

Hey! how are you progressing? Need any help from us?!

[Palk]

3 horas atrás, dino88 disse:

Hey! how are you progressing? Need any help from us?!

Hey.

Struggling trying to identify one problem with qualifying teams between rounds.

But so far I have all the teams (without proper colors, equipments, reputation, morale, stadium)

I've all the 24 conferences and their rules (with what I understood) and all the Region rules and college cup.

However there's a problem qualifying the 12 teams to south region finals.

Testing in the editor and tracking the 'team rules' of that stage it looks weird because there are 30 line items where 29 are 0 teams found and the last line are the 12 teams that were qualified but don't understand why it has so many entries with the same data.

Already tried to change here and there but don't understand and when I try to fix south it happens then in western. So I don't think if the missing Stadiums in each team have anything to do with it.

 

But honestly it took me 1,5 week to have all setup and I've redone it twice already :!

 

 

[Palk]

Update 21.4.9
 

- Added NCAA and all sub competitions (due to pandemic the rules are a mix of 2019 and 2020-21)

Known Issues to be fixed:
Wrong information under teams
No history saved in NCAA Division I

Edited March 22, 2021 by Palk

[dbrown6]

39 minutes ago, Palk said:

Update 21.4.9
 

- Added NCAA and all sub competitions (due to pandemic the rules are a mix of 2019 and 2020-21)

Known Issues to be fixed:
Wrong information under teams
No history saved in NCAA Division I

Well done  

[Marinho]

Quick Questions that's likely a bit more gameplay related but seems both relevant and kinda unique to the database due to the Reserve Teams now being actually playing games etc. Just simmed the first season almost top the end and then took controll of DC United (dead last with 3 games to go). How do i go about managing Reserve Players as compared to Europe ? If i try to renegotiate their (Loudon Uniteds) contracts, i have to offer them MLS contracts. Since that is not really an option: Do i just pick my staff to handle it and they can then offer non-MLS contracts ? Do i do nothing and the manager/their board takes care of things ? And what about Academy players ? Ideally they'd play for the Reserve Affiliate but if i have to sign them to MLS contracts first that means you have to be way more 'choosy' obviously.

Or can i sign them and just not register them ?

Looking at the transfer tab it seems like the unaffiliated Teams are the only ones making any signings, so seems likely that the Reserve Teams will pretty much get emptied out soon and not be functioning anymore really aside from me being able to send down players (to then play with largely greyed out players) ?

Edited March 22, 2021 by Marinho

[Palk]

39 minutos atrás, Marinho disse:

Quick Questions that's likely a bit more gameplay related but seems both relevant and kinda unique to the database due to the Reserve Teams now being actually playing games etc. Just simmed the first season almost top the end and then took controll of DC United (dead last with 3 games to go). How do i go about managing Reserve Players as compared to Europe ? If i try to renegotiate their (Loudon Uniteds) contracts, i have to offer them MLS contracts. Since that is not really an option: Do i just pick my staff to handle it and they can then offer non-MLS contracts ? Do i do nothing and the manager/their board takes care of things ? And what about Academy players ? Ideally they'd play for the Reserve Affiliate but if i have to sign them to MLS contracts first that means you have to be way more 'choosy' obviously.

Or can i sign them and just not register them ?

Looking at the transfer tab it seems like the unaffiliated Teams are the only ones making any signings, so seems likely that the Reserve Teams will pretty much get emptied out soon and not be functioning anymore really aside from me being able to send down players (to then play with largely greyed out players) ?

Hi,

Is that something that happened with this update and not with the FM default content?

I did nothing related with reserves of MLS teams and about your question I'm not able to answer properly.

[Marinho]

11 minutes ago, Palk said:

Hi,

Is that something that happened with this update and not with the FM default content?

I did nothing related with reserves of MLS teams and about your question I'm not able to answer properly.

Started with this DB, but mostly a general question, asked here because i assume those also using the DB would be able to answer it with it being more relevant vs using default (where the Reserve Squads don't play games)

But good to know it isn't sth related to the DB, because i quite like the adition of lower leagues regardless.

Edited March 22, 2021 by Marinho

[Marinho]

OK, one more serious issue: Decided to holiday ahead to check out a few things and noticed that there is sth iffy going on with Charlotte: At the beginning it says "will not enter before 2022" (so far so good) but once you holiday ahead a season it then says "will not enter before 2023".

The 2022 Superdraft also simply does not work. Charlotte picks first and when you click the "see next pick" button, nothing happens.

 

[Palk]

11 horas atrás, Marinho disse:

OK, one more serious issue: Decided to holiday ahead to check out a few things and noticed that there is sth iffy going on with Charlotte: At the beginning it says "will not enter before 2022" (so far so good) but once you holiday ahead a season it then says "will not enter before 2023".

The 2022 Superdraft also simply does not work. Charlotte picks first and when you click the "see next pick" button, nothing happens.

 

How many players were available to draft? 

It's something that I need to confirm because some teams doesn't generate players, probably because of Institute.

But in my simulation it went to pick 12 without problems and then there were no more players.

[dino88]

AMAZING work bro.. are you going to add the stadiums for each ncaa team? and how do we add players for the ncaa teams as well? thank you. 

[Palk]

43 minutos atrás, dino88 disse:

AMAZING work bro.. are you going to add the stadiums for each ncaa team? and how do we add players for the ncaa teams as well? thank you. 

I'll not create the stadiums and the players you will need to select the FM option to create players for teams.

[Marinho]

2 hours ago, Palk said:

How many players were available to draft? 

It's something that I need to confirm because some teams doesn't generate players, probably because of Institute.

But in my simulation it went to pick 12 without problems and then there were no more players.

The List looked pretty normal best i can tell. It was just that there was no way to advance past Charlotte picking first. And combined with the Charlotte entry date being pushed a year (when adding new manager it tells you before selecting them) my best guess would be that the problem is more to do with Charlotte and less with the draft as such (which works fine in 2021 directly after the start of the save). This was with the DB without the latest NCAA update btw if that helps.

When you said that you are still to "add expansion teams", i suppose you did not mean Charlotte, which i thought was hard coded ?

And is there any way to have the Reserve Teams act more autonomously, i.e. signing players etc ? I have since read up on some threads and this happens with the base game as well, so would be sth that you would have to 'fix' for SI in a way. Would be awesome if you could

I suppose i will leave it be for now and come back to it at some point, more looking for a quick and dirty short save anyway now. Keep up the good work

Edited March 23, 2021 by Marinho

[dino88]

1 hour ago, Palk said:

I'll not create the stadiums and the players you will need to select the FM option to create players for teams.

ok thank you! can i ask will you create logos for the teams? thank you.

[Palk]

13 minutos atrás, dino88 disse:

ok thank you! can i ask will you create logos for the teams? thank you.

Could be probably one of the last things but will be based on the package of other updates if I can find them

[dino88]

2 minutes ago, Palk said:

Could be probably one of the last things but will be based on the package of other updates if I can find them

thank you my friend, your work is top! last thing, uncle sam created the derbies within the mls on his game as competitions which ran throughout the mls season. is this something you can do? as well as pre-season tournaments usch the tuscon cup etc. 

[Palk]

1 hora atrás, dino88 disse:

thank you my friend, your work is top! last thing, uncle sam created the derbies within the mls on his game as competitions which ran throughout the mls season. is this something you can do? as well as pre-season tournaments usch the tuscon cup etc. 

At least for near future no, I'm not aware of all the games and tournament of American league.

 

Honestly I might not add the NPSL and even expansions on USL leagues since it's very unclear what will be the strucutre the season after and I'm not american and even don't have such knowledge on how america change stuff

 

So basically next update will be with NCAA team color and ranking (based on uncle sam) and here and there configurations of possible transfer rules for and from NCAA.

[Marinho]

@Palk Are you sure you haven't done anything to the Reserve Teams, even in a roundabout way ? Because i just simmed ahead a couple season with the Default DB and the Reserve Rosters get fully populated with the MLS Teams signing excess players and then sending them down but also giving guys on the Roster new contracts. But alas, there the reserve teams don't play any games. So it's kinda not very useful either way

[Palk]

24 minutos atrás, Marinho disse:

@Palk Are you sure you haven't done anything to the Reserve Teams, even in a roundabout way ? Because i just simmed ahead a couple season with the Default DB and the Reserve Rosters get fully populated with the MLS Teams signing excess players and then sending them down but also giving guys on the Roster new contracts. But alas, there the reserve teams don't play any games. So it's kinda not very useful either way

Honestly I did nothing in the MLS, afraid that it's hardcoded stuff that as soon as somethting changed the rest stop working

[dino88]

19 hours ago, Palk said:

At least for near future no, I'm not aware of all the games and tournament of American league.

 

Honestly I might not add the NPSL and even expansions on USL leagues since it's very unclear what will be the strucutre the season after and I'm not american and even don't have such knowledge on how america change stuff

 

So basically next update will be with NCAA team color and ranking (based on uncle sam) and here and there configurations of possible transfer rules for and from NCAA.

thank you - whats the ncaa college youve mentioned under to do?

[dino88]

hi, this is what i meant regarding the derbies in the US MLS league that are integrated into the league system by Uncle Sam

 

So it would show, for example the Cascadia Cup, between Timbers and Seattle as a competition on the competition page and the team who won the most games between them in the MLS would win the cascadia cup too. Is this something you can implement? 

 

[merecat]

Palk - you clearly know what you're doing. Can you see a reason why I wouldn't be able to remove Austin FC from the MLS Registered Teams list, no matter what I do? I'm trying to swap them for Sacramento Republic FC in the MLS for the opening season, and it just won't hold that database change. Austin FC always get put back on the registered teams list, even if they aren't on the actual Teams list! Driving me mental.

[Palk]

2 horas atrás, dino88 disse:

hi, this is what i meant regarding the derbies in the US MLS league that are integrated into the league system by Uncle Sam

 

So it would show, for example the Cascadia Cup, between Timbers and Seattle as a competition on the competition page and the team who won the most games between them in the MLS would win the cascadia cup too. Is this something you can implement? 

 

Looking to the editor they are in the database already done by SI, never tested and didn't payed attention to it. They aren't in-game?

 

15 minutos atrás, merecat disse:

Palk - you clearly know what you're doing. Can you see a reason why I wouldn't be able to remove Austin FC from the MLS Registered Teams list, no matter what I do? I'm trying to swap them for Sacramento Republic FC in the MLS for the opening season, and it just won't hold that database change. Austin FC always get put back on the registered teams list, even if they aren't on the actual Teams list! Driving me mental.

Never tried it, but you have Austin under registered teams of MLS competion but also in the MLS Rules (2022), you removed from both or, replaced Sacramento in both places?

[merecat]

Ah! I have done the first, but I haven't gone to the MLS Rules (2022) yet! I shall investigate further!

[dino88]

they are included as derbies in the game but not as competitions where the team in the derbies wins most points within the mls, wins the cup too. 

[Palk]

32 minutos atrás, dino88 disse:

they are included as derbies in the game but not as competitions where the team in the derbies wins most points within the mls, wins the cup too. 

You mean this, to have this?

[merecat]

Next stupid question: How do I change the Rules? Where in Editor is that located?

[Palk]

2 minutos atrás, merecat disse:

Next stupid question: How do I change the Rules? Where in Editor is that located?

Best is to select Advanced rules on Rules menu (top menu) and then you will see Advanced Rules of your country. But I think that you should have a look at posts here in forum that could have tutorials on how to do it.

[dino88]

27 minutes ago, Palk said:

You mean this, to have this?

yes, sooo strange i dont have this. have you included any extra files to have this?

[dino88]

also - i noticed that usl shows up as stanford university on the schedule page

[Palk]

9 minutos atrás, dino88 disse:

also - i noticed that usl shows up as stanford university on the schedule page

Yeah, Wrong copy paste it will be fixed in the next update

[dino88]

42 minutes ago, dino88 said:

yes, sooo strange i dont have this. have you included any extra files to have this?

can you help me find this please? i dont have it. 

[Palk]

8 minutos atrás, dino88 disse:

can you help me find this please? i dont have it. 

It's necessary to add to competition through the editor on advanced rules

[dino88]

2 minutes ago, Palk said:

It's necessary to add to competition through the editor on advanced rules

OK - I have NO IDEA how to do this haha!! sorry. 

[Slong5]

Hey,

I've been on the lookout for a custom USL database so this sounds great!

When I download the file, where do I store the file once downloaded?

[dino88]

19 hours ago, dino88 said:

OK - I have NO IDEA how to do this haha!! sorry. 

would it be possible to include it in your next update please?

[Slong5]

49 minutes ago, Slong5 said:

Hey,

I've been on the lookout for a custom USL database so this sounds great!

When I download the file, where do I store the file once downloaded?

dw, I've worked it out. Look forward to trying this out!