Football Manager 18 - CanPL/Voyageurs Cup Mod

[yellowsweatygorilla]

Hello everyone,

As some of you are aware of, I had created a CanPL mod for last year's Football Manager game:

I have begun work on an FM 18 mod and thankfully the editor has allowed me to port over my previous work. As with last year, I hope to get everyone's feedback in terms of what to include - especially given it's fairly speculative as the league has yet to launch.

We do have more information than last year though, and so this is my plans for the league as of yet (as always happy to change things up):

Victoria Highlanders FC - (going to bring the Highlanders - including roster - over to CPL)
Surrey - (considering giving TSS' roster to Surrey - does anyone know if there's been any communication between the two? and how should I name the team?)
Calgary Foothills FC - (bringing Foothills over)
FC Edmonton 
Saskatoon FC (name?)
Winnipeg Blue Bombers FC- (bringing WSA over)
KW United FC - (bringing KWU over)
Hamilton Steelers FC - (There's been rumours about some link with Sigma, so I am considering bringing the SIgma roster over to the Steelers with an affiliation agreement between Steelers and Sigma L1O)
Toronto Blizzards FC  -       (Setting home stadium to Ontario Soccer Centre and considering giving them Vaughan's roster)
Ottawa Fury FC
Quebec FC - name?
Halifax Wanderers FC  

(I moved FC London back to L1O given the lack of rumors about a CPL team and the unlikeliness given the affiliation with TFC)

As with last year's version winner of CPL have direct qualification to Concacaf Champion's League. Voyageur's Cup will include winner of L1O and PLSQ, all CanPL teams, and the three MLS teams. Winner of the cup will qualify to CCL. I had to make L1O a single division as I seem unable to set L1O, PLSQ, and PCSL (ok I know PCSL isn't technically d3) to d2. That said, if it bugs people enough, I'll try to fix it.

I'll definitely have players from all the teams with PDL links and while I didn't end up finding the time last year to fill out the L1O rosters, it's something I may or may not work on this year. 

 

 

[Gopherbashi]

Is the PDL already in this game?

It may be worthwhile to add the Canadian PDL teams as a western D2 rather than PCSL.

[yellowsweatygorilla]

1 hour ago, Gopherbashi said:

Is the PDL already in this game?

It may be worthwhile to add the Canadian PDL teams as a western D2 rather than PCSL.

Pdl teams have always been in the game but the league is not playable without a tweak in the editor. 

 

The issue with the idea of using western pdl teams to form the western league is that all of them will become cpl teams (highlander for Victoria, tss for Surrey, foothills for Calgary, wsa for Winnipeg). For realism I could remove the pcls but I figured people wanted more sources for canadian players. 

[Complete Homer]

Personally I liked starting out with no players, felt like a fun and realistic scenario for a CPL manager at launch

Only feedback would be to maybe lower the wage budget a bit, though I guess the fact that some players way overcharged for coming to CPL kind of balanced that out

Maybe also consider balancing the club prestige and budget a little more

[yellowsweatygorilla]

22 hours ago, Complete Homer said:

Personally I liked starting out with no players, felt like a fun and realistic scenario for a CPL manager at launch

Only feedback would be to maybe lower the wage budget a bit, though I guess the fact that some players way overcharged for coming to CPL kind of balanced that out

Maybe also consider balancing the club prestige and budget a little more

That's true. I can also just make sure the player ratings for the PDL players are realistically a little lower so that they are primarily used as bench players or reserve scrubs (that means either way the manager will have to sign at least 15 or so players to be competitive and so far that's what AI managers have been doing despite having a full complement).

Ah, ya perhaps $3m was a bit high. What do you think would be a good number?

Same with club prestige. Was it too high for the previous game? I had it a touch lower than MLS I believe.

 

[Complete Homer]

43 minutes ago, yellowsweatygorilla said:

That's true. I can also just make sure the player ratings for the PDL players are realistically a little lower so that they are primarily used as bench players or reserve scrubs (that means either way the manager will have to sign at least 15 or so players to be competitive and so far that's what AI managers have been doing despite having a full complement).

Ah, ya perhaps $3m was a bit high. What do you think would be a good number?

Same with club prestige. Was it too high for the previous game? I had it a touch lower than MLS I believe.

 

I feel like knocking it down a little could help. The 1.5, rumoured cap is probably too low just because it seems like the simulator overestimates how much CPL would have to pay to attract higher end players (ex. targetting an aging MLS player who was released at 150k wouldn't actually demand 400k to play in CPL, in my opinion), so maybe just knocking it down a bit to 2.5m?

I think the prestige was alright, I think it came in as the 3rd or 4th CONCACAF league, which seems reasonable

[DannyFromToronto23]

Moncton ? 

[yellowsweatygorilla]

16 hours ago, DannyFromToronto23 said:

Moncton ? 

I am admittedly a little hesitant to include Moncton. While they have an ideal stadium, the only murmur coming out of there seems to be from the local soccer association.  And with another team in the maritimes...

...though to be fair not much has come out of Victoria either (...but it seems super awesome to have a team on Vancouver Island?:p) 

If a whole bunch of other folks want me to do it, I guess I can. But it would require taking out another team, or reworking how the Voyageur's Cup works.

[yellowsweatygorilla]

I am getting pretty excited about how this will all turn out. I have painstakingly added about 200 L1O players to the game, and hope to be done with the Western conference in a week. With these additions, the regen names seem to be a little more realistic (versus having 3 Habers or Hoiletts on the same team).

After this, I am goign to have to go through the Canadians Abroad list to make sure everyone is in the game.

[Keegan]

Can’t wait to see how this turns out. I think one of the problems has always been that Canadians don’t regen on enough clubs so as NT manager you have to hope for gems from one of 3 academies or an American mls team.  American players meanwhile regen on every academy team and even in our academies.  Teams like sigma and other Canadian clubs aren’t rated as high and only regen hacks.. the Canadians who regen in Europe usually don’t wanna commit for a while. I had one good guy who was 100% Canadian and regened at Zurich somehow as a stud.

What is the best Canadian regen anyone has had? Maybe like 5 years back I had a guy who was a serb Canuck striker.. came from Thunder Bay but was born in St. Catharines.. went to Cagliari where he tore it up and then I got him on las palmas, won everything and scored 90+ for Canada.  

Also had a guy who came through tfc and was starting at 16 at CB. I had a good thing going but maybe held onto him at tfc for too long.. sold at 22 to Southampton or something and then had him at Newcastle as depth (top club mind you). 

[Complete Homer]

5 hours ago, Keegan said:

Can’t wait to see how this turns out. I think one of the problems has always been that Canadians don’t regen on enough clubs so as NT manager you have to hope for gems from one of 3 academies or an American mls team.  American players meanwhile regen on every academy team and even in our academies.  Teams like sigma and other Canadian clubs aren’t rated as high and only regen hacks.. the Canadians who regen in Europe usually don’t wanna commit for a while. I had one good guy who was 100% Canadian and regened at Zurich somehow as a stud.

What is the best Canadian regen anyone has had? Maybe like 5 years back I had a guy who was a serb Canuck striker.. came from Thunder Bay but was born in St. Catharines.. went to Cagliari where he tore it up and then I got him on las palmas, won everything and scored 90+ for Canada.  

Also had a guy who came through tfc and was starting at 16 at CB. I had a good thing going but maybe held onto him at tfc for too long.. sold at 22 to Southampton or something and then had him at Newcastle as depth (top club mind you). 

I think the game automatically creates a handful of wunderkids of whatever nationality your manager is, but they are usually dual nationals that don't commit (the realism!). Best I had that committed to Canada was a CB in FM14 that committed while toiling from 15 to 25 in the Saudi league, then transferred to Dortmund and ended up captaining them until his late 30s

[yellowsweatygorilla]

I've finished adding players for all the L1O teams! Debating whether to move on the PLSQ ... but will have to rely on the team wiki pages as there's less info to come by (ie. a lot of blank DOB that will be generated by the game).

Last year, I reorganized the 3rd division a bunch by consolidating PDL teams into our domestic leagues (TSS to PCSL and Thunder Bay to L1O) and adding some additional amateur teams so that more of the country is represented at this level (e.g. Edmonton Scottish, Winnipeg Lions to PCSL; PEI FC to PLSQ). But for realism sakes, should I just revert back to what we have in real life? 

I may also make a version of this mod without CPL, and focused more on realistically depicting what we have in real life with L1O, PLSQ, full rosters for Canadian PDL teams, and MLS team academies.

[yellowsweatygorilla]

I am almost ready for release, just testing for bugs at the moment. The most frustrating thing right now is that I spent the day adding all of the TFC III, Vancouver Residency, and Impact Academy players, only to find that the game boots them all out for regens at the start. But unlike last year's mod, this is much more comprehensive, with all current rosters for L1O, PLSQ, Canadian PDL teams (both those promoted to CPL and TSS/Thunder Bay) added (admittedly for a lot of the players, I only have names and physical appearance down with the rest randomly generated due to lack of available information. But many do have the correct birth dates, heights, and weight). 

Interestingly after some simulation, most AI managers tend to sign mostly from CONCACAF - which feels realistic. I originally had a setting activated to add preference for CONCACAF, but they went a little overboard there.

 

Here are some preview screenshots:

https://imgur.com/a/3H5ii

[yellowsweatygorilla]

After over a week of hard work, the mod is finally ready for release! Credit for the CanPL team logos once again goes to GuillermoDelQuarto. Aaron Nielsen was also kind enough to send over his scouting data.

You can find the file over at the steam workshop: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1206790064

-----------------------------

Adds the Canadian pyramid to Football Manager 18, with the forthcoming Canadian Premier League, an expanded Voyageurs Cup, and a second division (L1O, PLSQ, PCSL). 

Other features:
-Full rosters for all Canadian PDL teams (including those not promoted to CanPL), L1O, PLSQ teams - for a total of over 500 new players! 
-Potential Ability for key players informed by scouting data provided by prominent Canadian data analyst Aaron Nielsen 
-Filled out missing players for Whitecaps II and TFC II
-Full rosters for TFC, Whitecaps, and Montreal Impact academies
-Canadian media sources and prominent soccer journalists
-Over 100 Canadian university coaches and physios to increase available staff
-Added missing L1O, PLSQ, PCSL stadia

CPL: Victoria Highlanders, British Columbia FC, FC Edmonton, Calgary Foothills, Saskatoon FC, Winnipeg Bluebombers, Hamilton Steelers, Toronto Blizzard, Quebec Royals, Halifax Wanderers, Grand River Union; Four team playoffs, winner qualifies for CONCACAF Champions League
Voyageurs Cup: CPL teams, MLS teams (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver) and the champion of a round robin tournament between PLSQ, L1O, and PCSL. Winner qualifies for CONCACAF Champions League
Canadian Second Division: Made up of League1 Ontario, Premier League Soccer Quebec, and Pacific Coast Soccer League
-Thunder Bay PDL team moved to L1O
-Vancouver and Montreal academy teams moved to PCSL and PLSQ
-Round robin playoff between 3 respective champions

-To keep things realistic, there is no PRO/REL between leagues and the three MLS teams remain with MLS
-Had to make changes to Concacaf Champions League - switched to a summer schedule, with the Caribbean receiving one less team and the CFU Cup has become an earlier stage in the champions league
 

[HfxCeltic]

I like how that Voyageurs Cup turned out! Hopefully a sign of things to come!

[yellowsweatygorilla]

If anyone had a chance to try out the mod, I am interested in feedback on player ratings, etc.

There's also a big debate right now on twitter, with people wanting Mississauga included. I am open to that but I would likely have to remove Toronto Blizzard, or I keep them have a 13 team league and have to restructure the Voyageurs Cup for 17 teams or 19 if I give division 3 champs direct entry). Any thoughts?

 

[ironcub14]

19 hours ago, yellowsweatygorilla said:

If anyone had a chance to try out the mod, I am interested in feedback on player ratings, etc.

There's also a big debate right now on twitter, with people wanting Mississauga included. I am open to that but I would likely have to remove Toronto Blizzard, or I keep them have a 13 team league and have to restructure the Voyageurs Cup for 17 teams or 19 if I give division 3 champs direct entry). Any thoughts?

 

Your Toronto team, is it based near downtown TO or at Ontario Soccer Centre in Vaughan?

I ask because there's obviously been talk about both locations. So, rather than removing any teams, why don't you just make it a 14-team league in total instead? Include Sauga, and include another team from Vaughan.

Or instead, include Sauga, and include another team from Montreal or Laval. I think there's been no murmurs about the Montreal CMA at all, but it should be a high priority for CPL if and when they can in real life.

[yellowsweatygorilla]

2 hours ago, ironcub14 said:

Your Toronto team, is it based near downtown TO or at Ontario Soccer Centre in Vaughan?

I ask because there's obviously been talk about both locations. So, rather than removing any teams, why don't you just make it a 14-team league in total instead? Include Sauga, and include another team from Vaughan.

Or instead, include Sauga, and include another team from Montreal or Laval. I think there's been no murmurs about the Montreal CMA at all, but it should be a high priority for CPL if and when they can in real life.

I have the Toronto team playing out of Ontario Soccer Centre (just figured it was a ready made stadium, so I put them there). 

 

In terms of expanding it to a 14 team league .. while for real life, more the merrier .. for gameplay reasons I want to limit it to 12, due to the existing problem of AI managers not always filling out their roster with domestic players from the three 3rd division. You always end up with a team - usually Saskatoon that only has 10 international players and maybe 2 Canadians. I noticed it's an issue with teams that don't have an established Canadian manager in place. Halifax for example I noticed I left Stephen Hart there from last year, always fills out their squad properly.

 

You know what, I might just make a file with Mississauga instead of Toronto for people if they want that separately. It won't take much time at all 

[ironcub14]

10 minutes ago, yellowsweatygorilla said:

I have the Toronto team playing out of Ontario Soccer Centre (just figured it was a ready made stadium, so I put them there). 

 

In terms of expanding it to a 14 team league .. while for real life, more the merrier .. for gameplay reasons I want to limit it to 12, due to the existing problem of AI managers not always filling out their roster with domestic players from the three 3rd division. You always end up with a team - usually Saskatoon that only has 10 international players and maybe 2 Canadians. I noticed it's an issue with teams that don't have an established Canadian manager in place. Halifax for example I noticed I left Stephen Hart there from last year, always fills out their squad properly.

 

You know what, I might just make a file with Mississauga instead of Toronto for people if they want that separately. It won't take much time at all 

I'd have said keep consistency within your files, rather than having one with Toronto and one with Sauga.

Also would definitely say go with 14 if you can, but if you must limit it to 12, I think that among the teams you have above, the team that's probably had the least real life actual rumours is sadly Quebec, I think. So you could replace Quebec with Sauga. But I'd definitely put in a vote for 14 teams, with Toronto, Sauga, Quebec and Laval all represented. G luck man!

[yellowsweatygorilla]

1 minute ago, ironcub14 said:

I'd have said keep consistency within your files, rather than having one with Toronto and one with Sauga.

Also would definitely say go with 14 if you can, but if you must limit it to 12, I think that among the teams you have above, the team that's probably had the least real life buzz is sadly Quebec, I think. So you could replace Sauga with Quebec. But I'd definitely put in a vote for 14 teams. G luck man!

Ahhh.. it's tough straddling the line between plausibility and hopefulness. It'd be so sad to have a CPL without Quebec representation. I could also switch Victoria, as I am not sure there's been much buzz about that either - though again, an awesome location for a football club.

You know what, let me test out how a 14 team league works and we can see. The other issue is I'd have to reformat the Voyageurs Cup. 16 teams would require a bye, which means maybe the worst three CPL teams will have to face off against either each other or the winner of the third division. Otherwise, I could also make it so that the 4 playoff CPL teams qualify for Voyageurs Cup .. but that kind of goes against the spirit of an FA Cup..

[Gopherbashi]

Honestly, I'd just replace Toronto with Mississauga.  I don't have a horse in the race, but it seems like Mississauga has a lot more buzz than a second Toronto team - besides, it's not as if we're giving Vancouver or Montreal a second team.

[yellowsweatygorilla]

Ok, I bit the bullet folks. Toronto has been replaced with Sauga City Collective FC, playing out of an expanded Hershey Field. First manager: Frank Yallop; First signing: Anthony M'fa (Gabonese keeper who last played at Metz). 

I have also renamed Saskatoon City FC -> Bridge City FC, and updated logos from GRU, Bridge City FC, Winnipeg (to the official blue bombers one, now that they have a logo without the eggball), and Mississauga.

In the first simulated run through of the update, Vancouver unfortunately take the Voyageurs Cup, despite a valiant effort by Winnipeg (who knocked off Montreal in the semi) in a packed Sky Dome. 

[xcalibre]

You can keep the game from kicking players out of the academies for regens by just making them on loan from the parent team to the academy. Bit of a convulted workaround mind you

[yellowsweatygorilla]

3 hours ago, xcalibre said:

You can keep the game from kicking players out of the academies for regens by just making them on loan from the parent team to the academy. Bit of a convulted workaround mind you

I ended up fixing it by setting future transfers from tfc2 Whitechapel prospect and impact u23.  Unfortunately it also create regens so you get a pretty bloated team.  I actually increased their ratings a little to ensure they started over Regens. 

 

My next challenge is to get ai to sign more of the l1o plsq players. I made sure they were mostly amateur so they wouldn't need a transfer fee but I don't know why managers prefer signing worst free transfer players. I even added canadian scouts on each team. The biggest culprit was rob friend at bcfc. I set him as preferring domestic. But he often doesn't sign a single canadian and ends up with a tiny squad of 10

[farrelld]

Is there a way to start at the preseason for 2018? With all the MLS and USL contracts coming to an end now it would be an easy way to build teams from scratch.