League dates not consistently applied?

[themodelcitizen]

Having a weird issue lately where league fixtures are bunching up in the first few months, weekend-midweek-weekend, even though there are "preferred" matchdays available later in the season.

Even if I specify a "date" for every fixture, it's been respecting some of them, but not all. I've used high fixture priority and "check for clashes" with "none". Group games are fine, just league is off, I'd rather not add a hidden group stage holding all the league fixtures just for the sake of it though. Can't think of what I'm missing but I know it worked on previous versions. Is there a box somewhere or stage flag I'm blanking on?

EDIT: after some painstaking work, I've mostly got it to do what I want with dates and break periods. Ultimately I'd love an option in "offset dates", like, "only use if team has a continental competition game within 3 days" or something

Edited November 15, 2022 by themodelcitizen