League Size Advice

[psucolonel]

While I am not completely new to FM, I have never really got myself stuck into a save either.  I have decided to load every league available in the game, and maximize the player database to 459,070 players.  Now I realize this is going to make things very slow, and I can live with that, as I am looking for maximum realism.  My question however is this:  Other than slowing down processing time, will there be any other adverse affects to my save in either the long or short terms?    

As I said I can put up with a slow game...I just want to make sure nothing catastrophic will happen down the road.  Thank you in advance for any input, thoughts, ideas or general comments.  Much appreciated.  

[phnompenhandy]

It just affects the length of processing time. But be aware, you might feel the waiting time is tolerable at the start of your save, butt he further you get into it, the bigger the file and the longer the wait.

[jcp1417]

Hi there, PSU! JPeters here! This is definitely not OOTP and loading all leagues and players will crush your system. That’s the only drawback. Like it will get so slow by season two that it will take 24 full hours to sim one year. 

[Cobblers]

I average around 124k players in my saves.

That's with Large database selected, and most major European and South American leagues playable, with the remainder after that on view only. 

[TokyoWanderer]

Let's just merge the OOTP and FM forums. 

Anyway, I disagree with JPeters. Processing is very much improved over the past few versions and processing speeds don't get significantly longer the further you go in a save, at least in my experience. Also, you can always remove leagues in the middle of a save if necessary.

However, there is a trade off when setting up a save because you can pursue realism in terms of transfer behavior, which you get by loading as many leagues as possible, or you can pursue realism in how matches are played out, by changing how matches in leagues other than your own are simulated. The default is for the league and cups that your team participates in to be simmed at full detail, but almost every other match in your world will be set by default to be simmed in a much more simplistic way. I have a top CPU, but I still have to leave out asian leagues in my European saves so that I can simulate several leagues at max detail without processing times becoming unbearable.

I don't think there are any drawbacks, other than processing speeds, to loading as many leagues as you want.

Edited November 8, 2022 by TokyoWanderer

[psucolonel]

Thank you guys...I basically loaded every league available (all playable) and then loaded all the Continent players in the custom database.  I just started, so it's no big deal if you guys have any other suggestions about how to set it up for realism.  I am doing a MLS save, so it's a bit different than most other leagues around the world for sure.  

Would you suggest making some of the leagues view only? , or just keeping it as is?  I suppose there are far more players and realistic stat outputs from keeping them playable?  

Tokyo ...I am curious about what you were saying regarding "full detail" vs. the default setup?  

I have a pretty good MacBook Pro that I purchased a couple of years ago with 2.4 GHz 8 core intel core i9 &32 GB memory.  

 

Thanks for the feedback....Good to see you here Jpeters!!  This is certainly a different animal than OOTP.  Much more in depth & complex!!....maybe just because I am not as familiar, but it seems that way.

[TokyoWanderer]

View-only leagues are a no-no for me, but I suggest you take a look at this thread before setting up your save: 

 

 

It's from two years ago, but almost everything in there remains current.

About the match detail, once your game world has been created, there is a menu option called Detail Level that will allow you to change what leagues get simulated in full detail. Basically, the matches in the loaded leagues can be simulated in two ways. There is a basic simulation that is the default for most leagues, where the match result is simulated based on the reputation and the abilities of the teams and players involved, but there isn't any actual football being simulated. You can also choose a full simulation where the entire match is played out, just as your own matches get fully played out, which of course requires a lot more processing.

Knowing you somewhat from the OOTP forums, I know you will get the urge to simulate every league in full detail. I have a poweful CPU and want realism as much as you do, and I still have to conform myself with about 30-40 leagues running matches in full detail because otherwise it is too much processing.

[TokyoWanderer]

Oh, another important thing. You may want to wait until the user Daveincid, the OP in the thread I linked, gets out his "increase realism megapack". He fixes a lot of the problems that appear in long-term saves in every version.

Edited November 8, 2022 by TokyoWanderer

[psucolonel]

Thanks for your help!!  I have looked at Daveincid (even subscribe to him) but I can never understand his videos very well, and have had some difficulty trying to figure out what he wants me to do.  That was last yer thought...hopefully I can figure things out better this year.  I would really like to get a good save rolling in FM 23, as it just really looks fantastic!! 

[phnompenhandy]

1 minute ago, psucolonel said:

Thanks for your help!!  I have looked at Daveincid (even subscribe to him) but I can never understand his videos very well, and have had some difficulty trying to figure out what he wants me to do.  That was last yer thought...hopefully I can figure things out better this year.  I would really like to get a good save rolling in FM 23, as it just really looks fantastic!! 

Worth persevering with. I'm waiting for his files including realistic weather, and a Scottish lower league file. I'm hoping for both on Friday. I expect constant dreich rainfall in all my matches!

[TokyoWanderer]

hace 7 minutos, psucolonel dijo:

Thanks for your help!!  I have looked at Daveincid (even subscribe to him) but I can never understand his videos very well, and have had some difficulty trying to figure out what he wants me to do.  That was last yer thought...hopefully I can figure things out better this year.  I would really like to get a good save rolling in FM 23, as it just really looks fantastic!! 

Go ahead and enjoy then. We all want realism, but the reality is that focusing too much on realism detracts from our ability to have fun and actually play the game. I know I've spent more time setting up saves in both FM and OOTP than actually playing them in some years.

Good luck!

[phnompenhandy]

19 minutes ago, TokyoWanderer said:

Go ahead and enjoy then. We all want realism, but the reality is that focusing too much on realism detracts from our ability to have fun and actually play the game. I know I've spent more time setting up saves in both FM and OOTP than actually playing them in some years.

Good luck!

We all play this brilliant game in different ways. There are a good few editor geeks who get far greater enjoyment editing the game than actually playing it. For me, the immersion is everything. I can quite happily take a month to complete a season.

[TokyoWanderer]

Justo ahora, phnompenhandy dijo:

We all play this brilliant game in different ways. There are a good few editor geeks who get far greater enjoyment editing the game than actually playing it. For me, the immersion is everything. I can quite happily take a month to complete a season.

Sure thing. I don't think I've ever completed a season in less than three months (I watch every match my team plays in full detail).

[Rashidi]

3 hours ago, psucolonel said:

While I am not completely new to FM, I have never really got myself stuck into a save either.  I have decided to load every league available in the game, and maximize the player database to 459,070 players.  Now I realize this is going to make things very slow, and I can live with that, as I am looking for maximum realism.  My question however is this:  Other than slowing down processing time, will there be any other adverse affects to my save in either the long or short terms?    

As I said I can put up with a slow game...I just want to make sure nothing catastrophic will happen down the road.  Thank you in advance for any input, thoughts, ideas or general comments.  Much appreciated.  

I dont think that is necessary let me explain why. I have a rig that can run 200k players easily and I don't even bother going that far most times.

Adding extra players does not make the game more realistic, it just bloats the db so you can search for players the AI won't be using all the time. These players won't be in competitive teams producing competitive results, they will just be sitting there. 

If your rig can handle the processing then make every league playable, set detail level to maximum and you get yourself a very immersive world. It will be close to 200k and you will enjoy yourself.  Players from africa and asia will still be in the game, these are the players that come with the large db. Your leagues are competitive, youth development in playable leagues is always better in non playable leagues and well the world will be more immersive. 400k to be honest is overkill, but its your rig and your game. Don't let others dictate how you should play.

[psucolonel]

Dumb question guys...how do you indicate you want full detail for any given league?  I see playable & view only, but I'm not seeing the option for full detail. 

Thanks.

[TokyoWanderer]

hace 5 minutos, psucolonel dijo:

Dumb question guys...how do you indicate you want full detail for any given league?  I see playable & view only, but I'm not seeing the option for full detail. 

Thanks.

When setting up the save, you want the leagues set as playable. It is after the save is started that you can choose a given competition to have its matches simmed in full detail.

[Stevmon]

What is the difference between full detail and not full detail?

[TokyoWanderer]

hace 3 minutos, Stevmon dijo:

What is the difference between full detail and not full detail?

It relates to the way the match is simulated. When the match is simulated in full detail, the entire football match is simulated in the same way that your own team's matches are. Otherwise, matches are simulated with a simplified engine that gives out a result based on the reputation of the teams and the ability of the players involved, but without simulating an actual football match.

[Stevmon]

16 minutes ago, TokyoWanderer said:

It relates to the way the match is simulated. When the match is simulated in full detail, the entire football match is simulated in the same way that your own team's matches are. Otherwise, matches are simulated with a simplified engine that gives out a result based on the reputation of the teams and the ability of the players involved, but without simulating an actual football match.

Oh, played FM since 00/01 and never knew 😂

is it a question of “on/off” or can you set it per league?

[jcp1417]

27 minutes ago, Stevmon said:

Oh, played FM since 00/01 and never knew 😂

is it a question of “on/off” or can you set it per league?

See next answer

1 hour ago, psucolonel said:

Dumb question guys...how do you indicate you want full detail for any given league?  I see playable & view only, but I'm not seeing the option for full detail. 

Thanks.

After your save is set up, click the FM menu, and go to "Detail Level", right underneath Add/Remove Leagues. There, you can set the match detail of every domestic club competitions for nation you loaded, plus all continental club and international competitions. 

[jcp1417]

Fair warning, full detail is a processing HOG!

[Marinho]

1 hour ago, Stevmon said:

What is the difference between full detail and not full detail?

To add to the more theoretical posts: a tangible difference is the stats for the league will be more detailed and more realistic. The most obvious one: Without full detail the leading goalscorers in my experience will have pretty low totals (in a 34 match league maybe 15ish) whereas on full detail the real stars will get a bigger share of goals.

 

Personally i mostly set about 15-20 nations to playable with the Big 5 (and a 6th If i manage in that one) to have the first 2 divisions playable/view only below and the rest the first Division playable/view only below. The top leagues and about 5-8 more on full detail, as well as UCL/Europa League and some international comps. All other leagues on view only, which will at least give you results to look at and add a bit of realism.

I then via database add "top clubs" for the other european nations and "international players" for everything else. That's roughly 120k players iirc and an ok speed for my good-not-great notebook.

That's for a standard european save, will of course be a bit different when doing a save in South America for example.

[TokyoWanderer]

For a stronger computer, there is not much point in loading leagues as view only. The processing is almost the same as a playable league simmed without matches in full detail, but you gain a lot from the realism side (in my opinion ofc). For my saves I load all of Europe, South America, and North America, and then set about 30-40 leagues to be simmed in full detail, depending on which country I'm playing. My Ryzen 7 5700G 3.80GHz with 16.0GB ram can deal with that pretty well, and it is not expensive.

[Hzano123]

Hi guys just want to slide in and as for advice as well here is my computer set up.

 

Can I load maximum league? It said on my game it is not recommended and is only 0.5/5 stars

[JimmysTheBestCop]

Every league to view only does nothing to processing time or player count. It does let you view the teams/leagues/nations though. That is it. It does nothing at all to sim time. So not sure why you wouldnt want every league to viewable even leagues you dont care about. Playable is really only for leagues you want to manage in. Or leagues you want to have a full staff. Example other  leagues/nations you compete in continental conferences. Even custom db is only for players and not staff. So if you force load all english players but england isnt playable. Once staff quits, sacks, retire they wont be replaced. 

The most important thing is how you setup your database. 400k players is nuts. As like 300k+ of them will be awful and it will just clutter up the database. Think you can do national teams and top tier in every continent and that gets you around 70-140k players. But most importantly all of the national teams will be real players and not grey players. All the other players are insignificant and thats why you dont want to load them all especially in long term save. Your system will choke. To me you really want all of the national teams filled out with real players cause those are the players that matter.

Full detail you use in your nation and maybe some custom detail on other continental competing nations. But if you are in America then you could still load up Europe players or the top 5 as playable to get the staff but set their detail to minimum. Cause it doesnt really matter cause you arent ever going to manage there.

Full detail chokes the processor more then players. I always use a custom detail layout depending on each save i am doing

[oche balboa]

With loading a new Save. The best thing is for all National Teams (Even Minnows) to have a full squad & U21 as a bonus, This should also remain has this for the rest of your save. There was a massive theory that Small Database is the way to go as this creates a better transfer market. 

But everyone who purchases Football Manager plays it differently to another person who buys the game would, And there are plenty of ways to do it. If you want to load all Leagues all Players on Full Detail and be prepared to handle the wait times then its your game and your call and the very best of luck 

[Marinho]

18 hours ago, TokyoWanderer said:

For a stronger computer, there is not much point in loading leagues as view only. The processing is almost the same as a playable league simmed without matches in full detail, but you gain a lot from the realism side (in my opinion ofc). For my saves I load all of Europe, South America, and North America, and then set about 30-40 leagues to be simmed in full detail, depending on which country I'm playing. My Ryzen 7 5700G 3.80GHz with 16.0GB ram can deal with that pretty well, and it is not expensive.

Playable loads a ton of unnecessary players though vs loading them in via database options (loadingall from first division clubs for instance), at least in some nations. I really don't see the need for mexican or serbian lower league players in the DB unless i plan to manage there (journeyman etc).

Edited November 9, 2022 by Marinho

[Conardo]

I play with about 150,000 players, with almost every 1st league (90%) and I have a very high level of detail. A bit slow, but hey, immersion is perfect for me. And that's what counts, isn't it?

[lordjanos]

I do all the leagues I'm interested in. Any major country like France or England gets all leagues loaded. I probably have 90% of the countries loaded worldwide, with many only having the top two divisions playable.

Small database with all national and continental reputation players from Europe.

Around 125k players on load.

I prefer small database as large usually just loads up a bunch of fluff players and staff, and have always found there is more competition for players on smaller databases. 125k is ample for me.

[jcp1417]

6 hours ago, JimmysTheBestCop said:

Every league to view only does nothing to processing time or player count. It does let you view the teams/leagues/nations though. That is it. It does nothing at all to sim time. So not sure why you wouldnt want every league to viewable even leagues you dont care about. Playable is really only for leagues you want to manage in. Or leagues you want to have a full staff. Example other  leagues/nations you compete in continental conferences. Even custom db is only for players and not staff. So if you force load all english players but england isnt playable. Once staff quits, sacks, retire they wont be replaced. 

The most important thing is how you setup your database. 400k players is nuts. As like 300k+ of them will be awful and it will just clutter up the database. Think you can do national teams and top tier in every continent and that gets you around 70-140k players. But most importantly all of the national teams will be real players and not grey players. All the other players are insignificant and thats why you dont want to load them all especially in long term save. Your system will choke. To me you really want all of the national teams filled out with real players cause those are the players that matter.

Full detail you use in your nation and maybe some custom detail on other continental competing nations. But if you are in America then you could still load up Europe players or the top 5 as playable to get the staff but set their detail to minimum. Cause it doesnt really matter cause you arent ever going to manage there.

Full detail chokes the processor more then players. I always use a custom detail layout depending on each save i am doing

Actually view only leagues will tend to grow your player count over time. 

[thefmveteran86]

I'm I've got a decent gaming PC now it's way better then my obsolete laptop I used whilst I got my new PC installed but now that it's here I want to play more on my PC then my laptop with many leagues but then I try and limit as I play on my laptop as I save the game to cloud then continue it upstairs whilst waiting to go sleep 

[JimmysTheBestCop]

44 minutes ago, thefmveteran86 said:

I'm I've got a decent gaming PC now it's way better then my obsolete laptop I used whilst I got my new PC installed but now that it's here I want to play more on my PC then my laptop with many leagues but then I try and limit as I play on my laptop as I save the game to cloud then continue it upstairs whilst waiting to go sleep 

 

just remote into your desktop from your laptop man!

[thefmveteran86]

1 minute ago, JimmysTheBestCop said:

 

just remote into your desktop from your laptop man!

I mean I don't mind cloud saving then going upstairs unless I leave the computer on all night despite the cost of living crisis? 

[JimmysTheBestCop]

you can turn your desktop off remotely. just use your laptop as a terminal basically and the desktop will be running fm and you will be playing off your laptop through remote access to your desktop.

[psucolonel]

I took the advice to make all leagues playable with full detail (about 200K players) and that’s it.  I’ll see how it goes from there.  I’ve got a very good MacBook Pro that I custom ordered for a circumstance like this 😉

[Mars_Blackmon]

On 07/11/2022 at 22:43, psucolonel said:

Thank you guys...I basically loaded every league available (all playable) and then loaded all the Continent players in the custom database.  I just started, so it's no big deal if you guys have any other suggestions about how to set it up for realism.  I am doing a MLS save, so it's a bit different than most other leagues around the world for sure.  

Would you suggest making some of the leagues view only? , or just keeping it as is?  I suppose there are far more players and realistic stat outputs from keeping them playable?  

Tokyo ...I am curious about what you were saying regarding "full detail" vs. the default setup?  

I have a pretty good MacBook Pro that I purchased a couple of years ago with 2.4 GHz 8 core intel core i9 &32 GB memory.  

 

Thanks for the feedback....Good to see you here Jpeters!!  This is certainly a different animal than OOTP.  Much more in depth & complex!!....maybe just because I am not as familiar, but it seems that way.

You could go view only in some leagues that don’t really matter to you as a MLS player like Welsh league for example. But if you want an active world around you then I suggest loading every league and if you can’t take the processing time then make your league the only full detail league so every other league will be quick sim. Playable leagues really makes a difference in AI squad building and the transfer market.

[Just4Downloads]

For the best experience you should load as many leagues as possible
 

I make the top 10-15 European leagues playable, the top 5 or so African leagues playable, all the South American leagues, the top 5 Asian leagues, top 5 North American leagues. Only continent I do not load up anything for is Oceania (sorry!) All the other leagues I run as view only. But of course, the layout changes depending on what save you are running…If you are doing a North American save, you will load up every league from that region etc. 

Download community made league files! Ignore the star speed layout, it’s super misleading - I run with about 150,000 players loaded and half a speed star. Goes fast enough for me, maxes the realism too. 
 

I’ve never tried running every single league with every single player loaded though haha. What was the actual processing speed like for that? 

Edited November 10, 2022 by Just4Downloads

[psucolonel]

On 08/11/2022 at 00:58, phnompenhandy said:

We all play this brilliant game in different ways. There are a good few editor geeks who get far greater enjoyment editing the game than actually playing it. For me, the immersion is everything. I can quite happily take a month to complete a season.

I agree...I tend to move at a slower pace anyway, so the longer processing breaks don't bother me as much as it might others.  For me, the fun in FM is to be methodical in each and every decision I make.  I also like a large, realistic (as much as can be allowed) and immersive game world.  I have every league loaded on full detail (all leagues are playable) with a large database.  It's about 210K players this year with the new J-Leagues.  I don't mess with any of the custom/advanced player databases as I hope/feel what I have will be sufficiently realistic and a good number of players vs leagues.  It's a lot I know, but like I said, I can tolerate a slower moving game more so than others.  That's the trade-off for realism I suppose.