FM09 - Scottish Expansion Database

[Cadijk van Kaarhandel]

EDIT: Download from Here......

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZEE6E9P8

EDIT: Revision 1 available here (reduced league reps to fall in line with original Scottish Leagues)..........

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CA0T71ZH

http://rapidshare.com/files/174037597/ScotExpansion_v1.rar.html

EDIT: Logos for 81 Clubs

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CD02BHYW

Something I'm working on just now. Expanding the Scottish Playable Teams from the current 42 to a whopping 122.

(with a swap of Scotland and Spain)

So, what this brings is a refreshing 20 team SPL, a 22 team Division 1, but mostly I've done this so we can play with loads of current non-league teams by bringing them into the 4 Spanish 2B Divisions (4 x 20 teams in each)

Here's a screen showing how the leagues look...........

I'm also putting together some graphics, I'll be aiming to have all the team's logos and kits (or realistic kinda fantasy kits) for each of the teams in the league structure.

I'm really looking forward to playing this and if there's any more interest, I'll fire up a beta version shortly, prob in a couple of nights time.

[united_4ever85]

Wow very nice work. You should always offer it for download. Did you not have any problems with using Spain. What have you done with the Spanish teams?

[Cadijk van Kaarhandel]

I just swapped them out with the Scottish teams.

So the 12 SPL Teams now made up of Positions 1 to 12 in Spain last season. I swapped like for like, e.g. Spanish Champs with Scottish Champs, 2nd Place for 2nd Place, etc etc. I figured that this would make European Qualifiers okay for Game Season 1 but maybe it doesn't matter.

There's originally only 42 league teams in the playable Scotland, so the original Spanish clubs of Segunda B2 will now be non-playable.

I haven't seen any problems yet, I've started a few games with Spain and Scotland loaded. Each league is generating a fixture list for the season. So looks okay so far.

[Cadijk van Kaarhandel]

Right - how am i going to do this now?

I've used all the Scottish non-league clubs into Spanish Third Division Groups (there's 18 of these groups, around 20 teams in each)

I've still 11 of these groups to fill, so thats 220-ish Scottish teams i still need.

Suggestions? For some reason, Create Club on my Editor is Greyed-Out.

If I don't get rid of all the Spanish clubs from the structure there's a very good chance that one will be promoted to my new Scottish Division Ones.

[Dave Fairbairn]

I would really suggest giving the Scottish teams reserves. Any team who does not have a reserve team will only be able to register 25(or 22 in regional divisions) players. For each additional reserve squad you have, you can register another 22 players. It would be a good idea to fill the division below Spanish 3rd with these, because if they are not in a Spanish division, I believe it will not allow you to register players for them.

Also, create club is greyed out because you haven't loaded all languages.

[Dave Fairbairn]

1. Create a new club in the editor. Set their nation to England. Give it a long name of Blackburn Rovers Reserves and short name of Blackburn Reserves... or whatever the bloody hell you like.

2. Assign them a stadium and make them kits etc. like you would for any other team.

3. Assign your team to "A Lower Division". If you're in Spain or somewhere like that, you can even set them to be in a normal division, as long as it is below the first team.

4. Go to Affiliated clubs. Add Blackburn, uncheck "is main club", set type to "B Club", then check "players move freely" and "same board".

^How to add a reserve team.

[phnompenhandy]

This is brilliant! Hope you get it done successfully and uploaded so I can manage Fort William! Do all the teams have enough real players, or are there a lot of greys?

[MeekoHFC]

To make it a fair league, surely you should be upping the reputation of the non-league teams?

[Cadijk van Kaarhandel]

Dave thanks for your advice there, sounds good, I’ll have a go at adding reserves tonight. I’m around 200 teams short of filling the Spanish 4th Level, so I’ll use reserves to top these up.

Andy, most of the Senior non-league clubs have at least some real players – Fort William have 11 for example. There’s some Junior teams with about 20 players too, and there’s some with none at all.

Meeko, yes, I was planning on adjusting reps. Jack them up a bit on account of them being actual league clubs now. Mind you, there’s some junior sides with reps pretty much equal to some 3rd Div teams already but I’ll definitely adjust most.

Just as a trial I started a holiday game and I’ve left it running for the day. Hopefully it’ll still be running when I get home, will give me a chance to find any bugs if not.

[MeekoHFC]

I will definatley be playing this once released if everythings all good. Was going to do something similar, just swap the English and Scottish Leagues.

Fair play to you Cadijk, keep up the good work, and if your test goes well, anychance of a few screenies later on?

WP mate.

[Larsson1888]

There is new lower league teams in thegame. Remember you have junior teams, Highland League teams and now there are teams from the caledonian league....you'll find them by looking for golspey, halkirk and Tain thistle etc.

[Cadijk van Kaarhandel]

Hey Dave, noticing in the editor there's an 'Add Reserve Team' option.

Have you tried it this way? If you have, and it works, it looks like it'd cut down creation time quite considerably. Looks like I could batter through this and quite quickly set up reserves for every club in the 6 playable leagues.

Larsson thanks, yip I did get those last night (remembered seeing the Tain Thistle guy on the news!)

Meeko I'll post up some screenies once I get the kids off to bed tonight. Any requests?

[phnompenhandy]

Surely the reserve team won't be in a playable league though; you need something like a 'B' team as they do in Spain. Why not just make up teams - Skye Rovers, Eigg United, Rhum Doo etc. [i'm still dreaming about SensiSoccer me!]

[Cadijk van Kaarhandel]

I’m not sure whether them being called ‘B’ or ‘Reserves’ or whatever makes a difference. Think its just semantics in the game.

These would initially be in the level below the lowest playable league. At the end of Season 1 there seems to be 18 teams relegated from the lowest playable leagues, so there’s the possibility that their replacement would be a Reserve team. I suppose the game will just pick this in much the same way it does when Blue Square North/South teams are relegated.

So the Reserve Teams could theoretically be playable in Season 2.

I think.

Dave will hopefully give the definitive once he reads this

[MeekoHFC]

Hey Dave, noticing in the editor there's an 'Add Reserve Team' option.

Have you tried it this way? If you have, and it works, it looks like it'd cut down creation time quite considerably. Looks like I could batter through this and quite quickly set up reserves for every club in the 6 playable leagues.

Larsson thanks, yip I did get those last night (remembered seeing the Tain Thistle guy on the news!)

Meeko I'll post up some screenies once I get the kids off to bed tonight. Any requests?

Great stuff. Look forward to it. No specific requests from me, just ones of the league tables or something.

[Dave Fairbairn]

The problem with this is that these teams are not used in Spain. It could cause issues with the registration for instance, not being able to register players for these teams and defeating the point of having them.

Also; these types of teams cannot be promoted unlike the other type of reserve club.

I would also recommend not using "A Lower Division" as in my example, because you won't be able to register players for them, because they aren't in a Spanish division, and therefore do not need players registered to be able to play.

[Cadijk van Kaarhandel]

Okay Dave so if I go for the Method you show in Post #6, but change ‘A Lower Division’ to “Spanish Third Division Group 1 to 18” then we should be good to go?

[Dave Fairbairn]

Pretty much.

[Dave Fairbairn]

Oh, and Andy, for the reserves not in a playable division thing, keep in mind that while they don't have a fixture list, 11 players(and up to 3 subs) will be given a league appearance, average rating, goals and assists, which contributes towards keeping match fitness most Sunday evenings. I dunno how it works out who and how it gives these out, it does happen.

[Cadijk van Kaarhandel]

for the reserves not in a playable division thing, keep in mind that while they don't have a fixture list, 11 players(and up to 3 subs) will be given a league appearance, average rating, goals and assists, which contributes towards keeping match fitness most Sunday evenings.

Oh, okay Dave, was just looking at that.

Was thinking of maybe putting Reserve teams from the Top Clubs in one of the Third Tier divisions, but if they get match fitness and ratings anyway I’ll keep them in the (unplayable) Fourth Tier.

Am I right in saying that I can field up to 6 Registered Reserve team players in my First XI?

[adammacleod]

I was hoping that the Highland League was going to be playable in this game and was disappointed when it wasnt, but i guess this kinda make up for it.

Good luck mate

[Dave Fairbairn]

You can field anyone registered for your reserves in your first team, can't you? I'm pretty sure the only limitation on that is that you can have a maximum of 6 over 23 players registered in your reserves.

[Cadijk van Kaarhandel]

Here's the rules for the Top Division from my edited db:

[Cadijk van Kaarhandel]

Right here's an update on my holiday game.

I came home to find that it had successfully ran through a complete season (so that's a major plus), and it ran through to May 14th on Season 2.

I'd forgotten to mark the Fourth Tier as Scottish (my other leagues are), so this resulted in 18 relegations from Div 1 A to D but nobody to promote. Division 1D therefore had 2 teams in Season 2.

There's a Crash Dump occuring at May 14th in Season 2.

I strongly suspect this is related to the promotion issue.

There should be 4 x Teams from each of Divs 1 A to D who enter Play-Offs to get to my Championship. The final League Game here is May 9th, then the Play-Offs start May 16th (in Season 2).

On May 13th there are no Play-Off fixtures scheduled, then on May 14th Crash Dump - This has got to be the reason.

Here's some League Tables from the end of season 1

I'll persevere cos its looking okay so far

[nine_iron]

May I ask about cups? With Portugal you need to have teams that are not in any league (a lower) so when I move teams into it the cup chooses portuguese teams rather than my nations teams (it was the other way around in 08 because you could change the nation of the league). Is there an issue like this in spain? I currently have about 180 teams for my nation so I am looking for a suitable structure to put them into.

[Cadijk van Kaarhandel]

Cup is okay.

In Spain the lowest division are the Third, and although they're not playable they can promote to the playable leagues and they do appear in the cup.

I'm working through swapping 18 Groups of 20 Teams, and have run out of Scottish existing teams. I'll have to create reserve sides as is talked about further up.

I see Portugal is similar, looking in the editor, but their 3rd Div is only 1 "league" made of about 100 teams.

So I guess you'd need to do the same as me if you want to avoid Portugese sides in your cup.

[Bednar]

no dukla pumpherston??

Looks a great idea, is it possible to change the competition rules? To get rid of the spanish style registration issues?

I cant see it in the rules, but doesnt the spanish league also not allow transfers between teams in the same leaugue during January? (bad memories of sellin Joaquim for £40million in Jan to arsenal, think "its all good, il buy aguero now" only to find i couldnt.....)

[Cadijk van Kaarhandel]

no dukla pumpherston??

Looks a great idea, is it possible to change the competition rules?

You're just after the Chico Young Face-Pack

Nah, ye can't change any of the comp rules in the game i'm afraid.

Never mind, I'll live with it. Maybe stop the Old Firm snapping up all the talent

[Cadijk van Kaarhandel]

Just played another holiday Season 1 and again in Divisions 1, 18 relegations, 0 promotions, one league with 2 teams in Season 2.

Anybody got any ideas why its not promoting anybody from the lower leagues?

EDIT: Hmmm, maybe sussed it - had Comps changed to Scottish but all Teams inside had swapped to Spanish. Have flicked them back to Scottish. Away to leave a Holiday Game running over night, will dream of walking up to a non-Crash Dumped game

[Bednar]

SI need to make it easier to edit league structure etc. Not sure why they dont on FM, they did when they did the OOTP Baseball series, the leagues were fully customizable, custom leagues could be created etc.

[Cadijk van Kaarhandel]

Another Season, no Promotions. Now, instead of 4 x 20 Team Div 1 I've got a 17, a 19, a 12, and a league with Bathgate on their own.

In fact - that's worse! I thought it would just be short of 14 relegated teams but for some reason its down to 49 in total so 31 teams have disappeared!

Somebody please help!

EDIT: On further investigation, it's dropping some teams (17) right from the start of Season 1.

This will not beat me.

[joey6]

the scottish league should be 2 leagues of equal amounts with no promotion and relegation from the second division... like Ireland.

[Dave Fairbairn]

The point of the exercise is so we don't have to put up with the stupidity of the Scottish rules, Joey.

[Cadijk van Kaarhandel]

Yay, right i've got 20 teams in each Division 1, beginning Season 2.

Only thing is they're Spanish. Now i need to suss out how to bring Scottish teams in.

But at least its giving me the correct number of teams in each league now

[Dave Fairbairn]

Some battles are battles in futility though. I've learned this from editing in previous FMs. This time it seems even worse.

[Cadijk van Kaarhandel]

Just a thought on the promotions to Div 1 - I think the game may pick the highest rep'd professional teams from the lower league.

I've edited a B/Reserve team to have the highest and am trying it now.

[Hoss_1873_Rfc]

Hey Cadjik van Kaarhandel.... I can't wait to get to grips with this! My own local team, and who i play for Newton Stewart are showing as in the game!!

[Cadijk van Kaarhandel]

Making progress, just had a Scottish club promote into the Div 1s. Made them Pro and gave them High Rep.

But the leagues and the Scottish clubs still have Spanish nationality, so thats the next challenge - change these over to Scottish and see that it keeps running.

Still got around 150 promotable Spanish clubs to either swap for created Scottish clubs, or maybe if i give them really low rep they won't be promoted nor entrants for the Cup.

[Heartwork]

No Gretna 2008?

[Cadijk van Kaarhandel]

Okay I think i've got this to the point where its playable so I've fired it up for download.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZEE6E9P8

I've workaround the problems i wrote about above, so it now retains 20 teams in the Div 1 a to d, which was a problem initially, and it is replacing the relegated clubs with other Scottish ones (in the holiday season i played anyway).

However, some clubs are set to have Spanish nationality. These are the mostly the ones below the playable league (if i set them as Scottish they don't promote), and therefore some of the Div 1 teams also have Spanish nationality cos if they'd got relegated they'd never come back up again.

So if you're going Lower Leagues, I recommend you check the nationality of your chosen club prior to starting, change it to Scottish if you like.

Oh - and when you start the game, make sure and pick "Spanish" cos thats where these leagues appear! (if anyone knows how to fix this, shout!)

I've just started as Fraserburgh and am looking forward to my opening League Game, a Televised Clash with Rothes

Feedback and Advice on how to improve it much appreciated. You can, of course, give anything a tweak in the database should you wish and if you find anything that works well then let me know.

Let me know how you get on if you do this

[united_4ever85]

Downloading now

[Cadijk van Kaarhandel]

Stayed up later than i should have done playing this. Most enjoyable Watching Fraserburgh v. Nairn or somebody on 3D, hearing every kick of the ball and the crossbar rattling. Minor issues like Spanish refs being appointed, but big deal. Love it.

[mickmaroon]

Superb CvK - just got this up and running. I spent ages trying to do this swapping with Belgium but had fatal errors around the cup. This has saved me a lot of footering!

Now, how long will it take me to take Wick to the top??

[Cadijk van Kaarhandel]

Good stuff Mick, keep us updated on how it goes.

[allanshearer]

very nice work

[Cadijk van Kaarhandel]

Anybody playing this db just now?

I'd a minor issue where Spanish teams were entering my (now) Scottish "Junior" Cup (lower leagues cup) but no biggie.

I'll have the first Graphics Pack out tonight I think. Kits and Logos for the teams in Division 1A in the first post on the thread. Adds another dimension.

[jarvies27]

Anybody playing this db just now?

I'd a minor issue where Spanish teams were entering my (now) Scottish "Junior" Cup (lower leagues cup) but no biggie.

I'll have the first Graphics Pack out tonight I think. Kits and Logos for the teams in Division 1A in the first post on the thread. Adds another dimension.

I cannot edit the database, it fails to load.

Looks great though

[Cadijk van Kaarhandel]

You got the Patched Editor?

[miketheheadlesschicken]

Each team in the Championship seems to have a few generated players on start up and they're often better than the rest of the squad.

[Cadijk van Kaarhandel]

Mike maybe cos they've got 2 squads? i.e. First Team and Reserves.

PS............OP updated with link to Logos (Normal, Huge, Icon type) for 81 Scottish non-league clubs.