New Division Level in Future Season

[Mage Noir]

I have three tiers in a nation, which expands to four tiers in a future season. Does anybody know how to allow the fourth tier to be added and work, while it is inactive for the first few seasons?

Simply setting 'Start Year' to the appropriate year for the fourth tier prevents all of the leagues above from starting anew on season update day.

I then duplicated the league, checked the 'inactive' box and set up the end year for the inactive version and a start year for the active version. This didn't work either as the league remains inactive when the season it is supposed to start begins.

Edited July 6, 2023 by Mage Noir

[themodelcitizen]

Can you just add the 4th division manually in the game at the appropriate time? And set it so relegation/promotion only kicks in the year after. Not the most elegant solution but would be functionally the same

[Mage Noir]

I'm still experimenting at the moment, but I can't see an obvious way to do this (if it's even possible).

2 hours ago, themodelcitizen said:

Can you just add the 4th division manually in the game at the appropriate time? And set it so relegation/promotion only kicks in the year after. Not the most elegant solution but would be functionally the same

If it's impossible to do this properly, then I guess your suggestion (along with setting the format to have no fixtures or a champion for the seasons it isn't supposed to take place) might be the only option.

The problem will be remembering to actually activate the league several seasons into the save. Especially since I would be running it as part of a journeyman save.

Edited July 6, 2023 by Mage Noir

[nasaiain]

It certainly can be done see if this attached file helps

amsara 3.0.2.xml

I created this to simulate the growth of a league system over 100 years

If you just focus on Premier 1 and Premier 2. Premier 1 started in 2020 and premier 2 started  in 2030, so for the first 10 years there was only 1 level. To do this you require multiple versions of each level and set what years they are to run. So for 2020-2029 Premier 1 was as follows

With no relegation

In 2030 there is a different version that includes relegation to Premier 2

 

Thats the easy bit to set up. As for Premier 2 you need to create a version that exists even before the league is to start being played (this should actually say the year 2028 not 2029)

But you have to set it up to have no stages

I have an additional transition season in 2029 that is identical to the above, but it randomly add the teams to Premier 2 for the following season from a team pool. This Is not required, you can just populate the league as you wish

Then in 2030 there is a version with Premier 2 including Stages so it becomes an active and playable league

This file was me just seeing what i could do with the editor, if you dig thorough the other leagues being added at later dates it becomes more complex, but the addition of Premier 2 was the simpelist

Edited July 8, 2023 by nasaiain

[Wolf_pd]

Interesting explanation this.

[Mage Noir]

17 hours ago, nasaiain said:

It certainly can be done see if this attached file helps

amsara 3.0.2.xml 4.38 MB · 0 downloads

I created this to simulate the growth of a league system over 100 years

If you just focus on Premier 1 and Premier 2. Premier 1 started in 2020 and premier 2 started  in 2030, so for the first 10 years there was only 1 level. To do this you require multiple versions of each level and set what years they are to run. So for 2020-2029 Premier 1 was as follows

I've just experimented with this setup. Having a competition with no stages seems to work just as well as setting the competition to have a single stage in which nothing happens, with the downside that the editor won't verify a competition without stages (I'm using FM18).

The problem with both of those methods is that clubs hire and fire managers, while signing and generating players during the several years they are supposed to be inactive.

It does seem that the only solution to this is to start without the league running, then add it the season before it's supposed to start, while setting the competition up to have a single stage where nothing happens during its inactive years.

While clubs still generate players and make transfers when it's set up as an unloaded league, there isn't as much activity.

Ideally I'd like it setup so that for the first few seasons it doesn't seem to exist at all then, when the season it starts begins, the league appears without needing to add it. However, it looks like this cannot be done.

[themodelcitizen]

You could add a transfer ban to each club until a specific date, also not ideal mind you. What happens if you put the clubs in "lower leagues" with "next division" set to the division they're eventually going to join? That's how the US leagues handle expansion teams, which don't do anything big with staff or players until the right time, but I'm pretty sure there's some hard-coding in there too

[Mage Noir]

I've not used 'Next division' before, but how would I set this up to ensure the specific year the teams are promoted to that division? Would having a hidden stage with 0 teams for several seasons, then suddenly expanding it, make the game realise that it's time to promote the clubs who have their 'next division' set to the league?

Technically, I could even do that by placing the teams in another league, then use 'Number of extra lower division teams to be be promoted' to promote them all the season before the competition starts. I guess that's worth a try.

Having looked at how SI set up the MLS, it looks like 'Next Division' can only work for the next season? For instance, if I look at FM22. At the time that game was made, it was known that Charlotte FC was joining the league in 2022 and St. Louis City SC was joining in 2023. However, SI decided not to include St. Louis City SC in the game.

Edited July 10, 2023 by Mage Noir

[themodelcitizen]

Right they would have had the license for up to 2022, hence FM22 (game starts in 2021 in North America), so they had Charlotte coming in after one season. I think I heard once they can't put in expansion teams beyond one year in because of that, aside from just putting in the game as an empty shell but not actually joining. Either way it behaves weirdly so I wondered if it was worth testing (and if it would then be called with "get all teams in division"). As for the questions about stages, they all sound interesting, all I can suggest is keep testing