[FM24] Australia Fantasy Regional Pyramid

[tommysvr]

Rebuilt for FM2024! After a lot of back and forth dealing with a load of bugs with the 2024 Editor, I've finally got this at a place I'm happy with again. I've stripped it back a bit this year and managed to build everything in the basic editor. Hopefully that makes it a little bit more reliable.

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## LEAGUE STRUCTURE

ISUZU A-LEAGUE
- 20 Teams
- Bottom 3 relegated
- Brought back teams like Northern Spirit, Canberra Cosmos, NZ Knights, North Qld Fury and Gold Coast United
- Other spots are made up by Wollongong Wolves, Lions FC and Adelaide City

QANTAS A-LEAGUE 2
- 20 Teams
- Top 2 promoted
- 3-6 into Promotion Playoffs
- Bottom 2 relegated to their respective regional Premier League
- Made up of the best of the NPL teams from around Australia.

PS4 PREMIER LEAGUES
- 100 teams split into 5 regional divisions
-- NSW Premier League (includes ACT)
-- New Zealand Premier League
-- Queensland Premier League
-- SAWANT Premier League (South Australia, Western Australia, Northern Territory)
-- VICTAS Premier League (Victoria & Tasmania)

- Bottom 3 teams are relegated

PREMIER LEAGUE PLAYOFFS
- 5 champions of the State Premier Leagues go into a post-season, home and away mini-league (8 matches)
- Top 2 in that league are promoted
- This makes it extra competitive and difficult to get into the National A-Leagues and means only the best teams get promoted
- I think makes sense due to the additional costs of travel
- You might see teams win their league a few times without ever being promoted

OPTUS CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Same regional structure as the Premier Leagues
- Top 2 teams are automatically promoted
- 3-6 playoff for Promotion
- Bottom 3 relegated

STATE LEAGUES
- Leagues 1 to 5 for each region, for a total of 25 leagues
- Top 2 in each are automatically promoted
- 3-6 playoff for promotion
- Bottom 3 are relegated (except for League 5)

LOWER LEAGUES
- Below the State Leagues is inactive, unplayable Lower Leagues for each region. I did this so it was easier to add teams to the cups

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ANZAC CUP
- 1024 teams from the pyramid
- Teams join over the first 3 rounds (A-League teams come in Round 3)
- 11 games from First Round in September to the Final on the last weekend of May
- Final is played at Stadium Australia in Sydney (Danny Townsend will be happy)

JOHNNY WARREN CUP
- 140 Teams from A-League, AL2 and State Premier Leagues
- 8 matches from First Round in August to the Final in January (I tried to set Australia Day but it rarely works out)
- Semis and Final played at Neutral venues

HOST+ SUPER CUP
- Winner of the A-League and ANZAC Cup play the curtain raiser a week before the A-Leagues starts

EA SPORTS CHALLENGE
- the winners of the 10 Regional Premier Leagues and Championships play in a 3/4 game cup in the first 2 months of the season

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REGIONAL CUPS
- Premier League, Champions and League clubs play in their regional cup:

Chatham Cup - NZ Cup
- Final played at North Harbour Stadium

Dockerty Cup - VICTAS Cup
- Final played at AAMI Park

Ghan Cup - SAWANT Cup
- Final played at HBF Park, Perth

Canale Cup - Queensland Cup
- Final played at Ballymore Stadium

Waratah Cup - NSW Cup
- Final played at Western Sydney Stadium

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OTHER TIDBITS
- I've added a total of 51 new derbies and a range of rivalries, trying to be as accurate as possible but also making up new ones based on proximity.
- Example derbies
-- Macarthur Derby (Macarthur FC v Macarthur Rams)
-- Spit Derby (Northern Spirit v Manly United)
-- North Queensland Derby (Nth Qld Fury v Cairns FC)

- I've boosted attendances in the top 2 leagues; the population is booming and football is popular!

- All clubs from the Championships up are professional

- A few clubs have been given sugar daddies to push competition

- Despite this, you'll probably see some real struggles in the first couple of seasons as teams find their level

- I increased Australia re-gen rating a little bit

- TV & Prize money is also pretty lucrative to push the league forward

- Matches are played at 17:00 on Saturday evenings -- perfect for summer, in my opinion. Games will be moved to various timeslots across the weekend for TV.

- Added some new media sources (Optus, Keep Up, A-League Memes)

- Added 9 award categories for each league

- Added the Joe Marston Medal, which is for the best player in the ANZAC Cup (given there's no Grand Final, I thought this was best)

- Maximum of 6 foreigners in your squad

- All Oceania nations are set to 'Treat as non-foreign'

- Why is 'A-League 2' not 'B-League'? Because the A- is for Australia, not the level of competition. 

 

FM2024 Australia Fantasy Regional Pyramid.fmf

Edited December 30, 2023 by tommysvr

[tommysvr]

There have been some issues with the editor this year, so let me know if you run into anything.

[Vakama2619]

Installing straight away, can't wait

[tommysvr]

2 hours ago, Vakama2619 said:

Installing straight away, can't wait

Let me know how it goes! Happy to make adjustments based on feedback.

[Vakama2619]

43 minutes ago, tommysvr said:

Let me know how it goes! Happy to make adjustments based on feedback.

Nothing gamebreaking but a few minor things that are just ticking me off somewhat, nothing you'd need to change if you don't want to.

1. I noticed you've added other teams into state lower leagues, perhaps add a promotion and relegation from state league 5 into the unplayable division

2. I noticed a team in the SAWANT system called Broken Hill? Isn't that in NSW or is it another Tweed Heads scenario when they play in a different state for location reasons, or is there a different Broken Hill I'm completely unaware of

3. You have Perth RedStar in the SAWANT leagues while you have ECU Joondalup in the Second Tier, the realism side of me wants to point this out due to RedStar being formed through a merger of ECU and another club

4. On the other side of mergers, this one obviously won't be in the database yet but Moreton Bay United and Albany Creek Excelsior will merge in 2024 to form Moreton City Excelsior, I'd assume it might be added to the database, however not too sure if it will.

5. Why would you unextinct the original GC United when theres a phoenix club using the same name in the NPL QLD irl

6. How does continental cup qualification work for the New Zealand based teams having them transferred over from another continent? I did notice that New Zealand Knights and Auckland City were in the OFC CL for season one.

Feel like I've made a rant here so I'm gonna stop now, still a great database

Edited November 15, 2023 by Vakama2619

[Vakama2619]

Actually heres an issue. I have teams here being shuffled around states, heres a few I've seen so far

[tommysvr]

8 hours ago, Vakama2619 said:

Nothing gamebreaking but a few minor things that are just ticking me off somewhat, nothing you'd need to change if you don't want to.

1. I noticed you've added other teams into state lower leagues, perhaps add a promotion and relegation from state league 5 into the unplayable division

2. I noticed a team in the SAWANT system called Broken Hill? Isn't that in NSW or is it another Tweed Heads scenario when they play in a different state for location reasons, or is there a different Broken Hill I'm completely unaware of

3. You have Perth RedStar in the SAWANT leagues while you have ECU Joondalup in the Second Tier, the realism side of me wants to point this out due to RedStar being formed through a merger of ECU and another club

4. On the other side of mergers, this one obviously won't be in the database yet but Moreton Bay United and Albany Creek Excelsior will merge in 2024 to form Moreton City Excelsior, I'd assume it might be added to the database, however not too sure if it will.

5. Why would you unextinct the original GC United when theres a phoenix club using the same name in the NPL QLD irl

6. How does continental cup qualification work for the New Zealand based teams having them transferred over from another continent? I did notice that New Zealand Knights and Auckland City were in the OFC CL for season one.

Feel like I've made a rant here so I'm gonna stop now, still a great database

Thanks! Will try to answer them all:

1. Yeah, I combined them all into regional 'Lower Leagues' to make it easier to add all teams to the ANZAC Cup. The editor gets super slow when trying to add multiple competitions. I'll see if I can find some time to add promotion/relegation there too.

2. You're right, Broken Hill is in NSW. However, it's closer to Adelaide than Sydney so I figured it was more suitable for them.

3 & 4.  I think this is a symptom of me updating the database for each save. I first created this is 2022, then updated it to work with FM23 and now 24. Along the way, it seems like clubs have merged and been added to the game but my edit duplicates them. I haven't confirmed it yet but it's a theory.

5. Not sure here? There's only one GC United in my database.

6. To be honest, not sure here either. I don't think the NZ teams can qualify for Asia. I tried to make that happen once but it got messy.

Re: the teams falling into the wrong divisions, I think I've got a fix but just doing some testing. Thanks for the questions and feedback!

Edited November 15, 2023 by tommysvr

[Vakama2619]

42 minutes ago, tommysvr said:

Thanks! Will try to answer them all:

1. Yeah, I combined them all into regional 'Lower Leagues' to make it easier to add all teams to the ANZAC Cup. The editor gets super slow when trying to add multiple competitions. I'll see if I can find some time to add promotion/relegation there too.

2. You're right, Broken Hill is in NSW. However, it's closer to Adelaide than Sydney so I figured it was more suitable for them.

3 & 4.  I think this is a symptom of me updating the database for each save. I first created this is 2022, then updated it to work with FM23 and now 24. Along the way, it seems like clubs have merged and been added to the game but my edit duplicates them. I haven't confirmed it yet but it's a theory.

5. Not sure here? There's only one GC United in my database.

6. To be honest, not sure here either. I don't think the NZ teams can qualify for Asia. I tried to make that happen once but it got messy.

Re: the teams falling into the wrong divisions, I think I've got a fix but just doing some testing. Thanks for the questions and feedback!

Yeah the ECU/Northern Redbacks Merger was in 2022 and may not have been in the database at the time, in regards to the Moreton Bay/Albany Creek Merger, thats just me whinging about stuff that only just got announced and obviously isn't in the database. I did check the Broken Hill border as well, my rebuttal is that Sydney is closer to BH than Alice Springs, Darwin and Perth where they'd play away days, although this isn't a major concern, in this scenario they'd have less travel in the NSW comp due to the states merging, although I defo understand them being in a SA competition, so your point is certainly valid in that front, particularly given every Tweed Heads team plays in Queensland. If/when I get the FM24 editor (hasn't released for gamepass yet last I heard), I might stick this into the editor and have a browse myself

[Vakama2619]

Also with the continental cup for NZ, I have simulated 3 seasons with your db

First season had Auckland City and NZ Knights compete (NZ Knights unsure, Auckland City won the NZ Premiership last season)

Second season had NZ Knights (17th in A-League, ANZAC Cup 5th round, Did Not Compete in Chatham Cup) and Auckland United (5th in the NZ Premier League, Chatham Cup Runner Up, ANZAC Cup Semi Finalist)

Third Season had Auckland City (A-League 2 Winners - yes that is back 2 back promotions, ANZAC Cup 5th Round) and Auckland United (5th in NZ Premier, Chatham Cup 4th Round, ANZAC Cup 5th Round, Also won the OFC CL)

I have a feeling it's getting the highest placing team in the Leagues excluding Phoenix (NZ Knights were relegated in season 2 before a 9th place AL2 finish while Auckland City had back 2 back promotions to reach the AL and finished 13th), I have a feeling it has something to do with the Phoenix continental cup Nation set to Aus and other NZ clubs are set to NZ, probably wrong tho.

Edited November 15, 2023 by Vakama2619

[Vakama2619]

On 15/11/2023 at 20:15, tommysvr said:

Re: the teams falling into the wrong divisions, I think I've got a fix but just doing some testing. Thanks for the questions and feedback!

How did the fix work?

[tommysvr]

Ok I've battled the editor for a couple of weeks and got this to a point that I'm pretty happy with -- rebuilt it from scratch for FM2024. It's still very similar, but hopefully a better balance of teams (and includes the updated teams since FM2022) and regional relegation working properly.

[rcurtis]

Looks good! Something I noticed though when starting a save is all the players in the Qantas A-League 2 are classed as Non-Eu, meaning teams wouldn't be able to play most of their squads.

Edited December 3, 2023 by rcurtis

[tommysvr]

2 hours ago, rcurtis said:

Looks good! Something I noticed though when starting a save is all the players in the Qantas A-League 2 are classed as Non-Eu, meaning teams wouldn't be able to play most of their squads.

Oh really? I ran into that in testing but thought I’d solved it. It seems like there’s a bug in the editor / game with those rules. I’ll have a look again tomorrow.

[Jesus Bot]

Found a weird bug - it seems that this DB is causing PSG to not be affiliated with a competition (so they're not in Ligue 1) at the start of the game. This is confirmed upon checking the DB in the editor. Oddly, they're replaced by Saint-Etienne which is in Ligue 2 according to the DB.

Additionally, I noticed that Liverpool, Manchester City, and Manchester United have changes made to them in the DB, but only in changing their division to the Premier League.

Quick enough fix - just add PSG back into Ligue 1. Just odd that it's happened.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Jesus Bot

[tommysvr]

On 10/12/2023 at 04:06, Jesus Bot said:

Found a weird bug - it seems that this DB is causing PSG to not be affiliated with a competition (so they're not in Ligue 1) at the start of the game. This is confirmed upon checking the DB in the editor. Oddly, they're replaced by Saint-Etienne which is in Ligue 2 according to the DB.

Additionally, I noticed that Liverpool, Manchester City, and Manchester United have changes made to them in the DB, but only in changing their division to the Premier League.

Quick enough fix - just add PSG back into Ligue 1. Just odd that it's happened.

Ah it happened with PSG too? To be honest, I've no idea why -- I made no changes to those teams/leagues. I spotted Liverpool, Man City and Man Utd being removed and that's why you see that change, but I've no idea why it happened in the first place. Could have been something I did but the editor has been so awful this season that maybe it's a bug.

I'll add PSG back and check other leagues and update the file. Thanks for letting me know.

[Jesus Bot]

PSG, Barcelona, and Madrid it seems. To check, opened clubs and sorted by Reputation. You'll then see which teams don't have associated league competitions on the right hand side of the search results window.

Great work, regardless! Big fan of the mod. Legend. 

4 hours ago, tommysvr said:

Ah it happened with PSG too? To be honest, I've no idea why -- I made no changes to those teams/leagues. I spotted Liverpool, Man City and Man Utd being removed and that's why you see that change, but I've no idea why it happened in the first place. Could have been something I did but the editor has been so awful this season that maybe it's a bug.

I'll add PSG back and check other leagues and update the file. Thanks for letting me know.

 

[tommysvr]

22 hours ago, Jesus Bot said:

PSG, Barcelona, and Madrid it seems. To check, opened clubs and sorted by Reputation. You'll then see which teams don't have associated league competitions on the right hand side of the search results window.

Great work, regardless! Big fan of the mod. Legend. 

 

Just made those changes and updated the file in the first post. Thanks for pointing it out, glad you're enjoying the db!

[ahuang]

Sounds like a great database, excited to try it out

 

except im having a few issues installing..  simple as dragging into editor data or am i missing something?

[tommysvr]

18 hours ago, ahuang said:

Sounds like a great database, excited to try it out

 

except im having a few issues installing..  simple as dragging into editor data or am i missing something?

It should be. Are you getting any errors when you try to start a new game?

You can also subscribe from here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3078148120

[Ninja777]

Quick question, did you do this with advanced rules or basic rules? - I am working on a database, which also needs the regional league promotion/relegation, and it also messes up..

 

[tommysvr]

On 16/12/2023 at 21:08, Ninja777 said:

Quick question, did you do this with advanced rules or basic rules? - I am working on a database, which also needs the regional league promotion/relegation, and it also messes up..

 

All of the changes were made with basic rules, but there was a bug preventing me from verifying the leagues, so I had to switch to advanced for that reason only. Are you saying there's a clash with my file, or just looking for how I did it?

[Ninja777]

7 hours ago, tommysvr said:

All of the changes were made with basic rules, but there was a bug preventing me from verifying the leagues, so I had to switch to advanced for that reason only. Are you saying there's a clash with my file, or just looking for how I did it?

Only looking for inspiration  

[tommysvr]

8 hours ago, Ninja777 said:

Only looking for inspiration  

Cool! In that case, you can load my db and then just switch back to Basic rules and everything will be as I set it up.

[The Strange Smell]

On 03/12/2023 at 23:47, tommysvr said:

Oh really? I ran into that in testing but thought I’d solved it. It seems like there’s a bug in the editor / game with those rules. I’ll have a look again tomorrow.

I am also having this issue. Any advice on solving it?

[themodelcitizen]

1 hour ago, The Strange Smell said:

I am also having this issue. Any advice on solving it?

The non-EU rule is glitched, you can't actually use it outside the EU despite it looking like you can. I believe in this case it would classify Australians as non-EU to themselves (even if added to the relevant agreement or specifically added to "nations treated as EU" to themselves)

[ahuang]

16 hours ago, themodelcitizen said:

The non-EU rule is glitched, you can't actually use it outside the EU despite it looking like you can. I believe in this case it would classify Australians as non-EU to themselves (even if added to the relevant agreement or specifically added to "nations treated as EU" to themselves)

I’m having this exact issue. 
 

Got promotion to the a-league 2 and all my players are treated as foreign, can’t play a game without using the blanked out players.. 

any fix?

[tommysvr]

On 25/12/2023 at 07:24, ahuang said:

I’m having this exact issue. 
 

Got promotion to the a-league 2 and all my players are treated as foreign, can’t play a game without using the blanked out players.. 

any fix?

 

On 24/12/2023 at 13:28, The Strange Smell said:

I am also having this issue. Any advice on solving it?

Sorry about that, looks like I made a silly mistake with A-League 2. I've fixed that and updated the file in the original post.

Also fixed a couple of other things:

- Cup Final stadiums now work properly
- Fixed issues with prize money
- Clubs in A-League, A-League 2 and Premier Leagues are professional; Championship and League 1 semi-pro; League 2-5 amateur. I made these changes because lots of clubs were going into debt and administration. I hope this helps with that.
- Copied transfer values and wages from Japan (I played a couple of seasons in League 1 and was frustrated that I couldn't get a fee for any of my talented players. Hopefully this helps, but need some time to test.)

[Tizi08]

Hi thanks for this. Looks like a lot of fun to play.

 

How does this work with AFC Champions League & Oceania Champions League?

 

Will the top team in the New Zealand Premier League automatically go to the OFC Champions League? Will NZ teams in the A-League - if they win the league - go to AFC Champions League or miss out altogether?

Edited January 18 by Tizi08

[Vakama2619]

On 18/01/2024 at 12:21, Tizi08 said:

Hi thanks for this. Looks like a lot of fun to play.

 

How does this work with AFC Champions League & Oceania Champions League?

 

Will the top team in the New Zealand Premier League automatically go to the OFC Champions League? Will NZ teams in the A-League - if they win the league - go to AFC Champions League or miss out altogether?

Usually it's just highest placing NZ teams (excluding Phoenix bcuz that may be a hard code). New Zealand Knights have won it every season in my sim bar 2, they lost in the Final and Semi-Final in those seasons

[Vakama2619]

9 years into my sim and this is the most shocking thing so far, Mitchelton who are in the State Leagues beat NZ Knights who are high flying in the AL to win the ANZAC Cup and getting Champions League qualification. Other surprises are Northern Rovers who started in the 4th tier making it to the A-League while Canberra Cosmos and Northern Spirit got relegated 3 years in succession during the first 3 seasons. Both teams have made it back to the NSW Premier now and are mid table, they will be joined by NQ Fury who have now also dropped from the AL2 into the QLD Premier this upcoming season