retired_B_RAN

I would assume that retaining players from the active countries in your saved game is perfectly acceptable. It would seem to make sense and to enhance the realism of playing within a given country. But does this still distort the distribution of player nationalities in non-active leagues?

For example, if I'm running a saved game with Italy, Germany, and Austria as active countries, and I've retained all players of these nationalities, will clubs in places like England still end up with too many Italian, German, and Austrian players?

I've never noticed this myself, but I haven't played any really long games of FM, particularly because I've only recently regained access to a computer with good enough specs to run the game.

Uknowmehfo

I'd say it'll be the other way round. Poofland players will swarm over the other countries.

However, putting your database on huge and retaining players looks like an oxymoron to me.

retired_jmeshew

I used it in prior versions by retaining players for the countries that I had active leagues in. With a huge DB I don't see the point; it's mainly to help with speed issues so you can get players without having to run either a huge db or a massive amount of leagues. I never noticed there being problems with players of a nationality overrunning leagues. This is because it seems that most of the added players are in non-league teams, hence they are largely crap and don't go anywhere

KingsbayYHPE

It's not acceptable to retain any players if you want a balanced game.

Huge Db will load all players and staff from a realistic demographic depending on the leagues you load.

Retaining any Nation will unbalance the game.

Example:

Huge Db has (say) 750000 players and Staff, retaining a Nation will make no difference.

Small Db has (say) 250000 players and Staff, retaining English players will add (say) 50000 English players and staff.

A further 50000 0n top of the pre-existing English players will definitely unbalance the game, it stands to reason.

retired_jmeshew

I got to thinking about this some more (it's a slow day at the office ), and there is a potential for floodgates as Iaj has pointed out in the past. So, here is my configuration from a 2005 game to show how this might be used in keeping with the Llama ethic:

I had a large DB and all UK leagues active, plus the top leagues from the other major footballing countries in Europe for a ralistic Champions league (i.e. France, Spain, Germany, Holland, Portugal, Italy). Then I retained players for all the UK nations. What this did primarily is add in players to all the non-league sides in those countries. Managing in the UK lower leagues, like COnference N/S, Scots div. 3, N.I. div 2, stocked non-league sides are a must; you have to have a player pool to scout and sign from. The nice thing is that, as I mentioned above, 95% of the players are crap, so there is little or no risk of them unbalancing the football universe.

2006 seems much better speed-wise, but in previous iterations of the series, I just could not run a huge DB and expect to get more than a turn every 20 minutes or so; as an LLM having to use anything less than a huge db really cripples you in terms of players etc. The retain is a nice way to get around this.

retired_jmeshew

Ha I see Iaj you got to it whilst i was composing my dissertation . I get what you are saying in terms of the added players...I wonder what the diff. would be in comparison to a large db. PLus the fact that if you only retain players in nations with all leagues active, you are just adding the ***** non-leaguers for the most part.

retired_Wnt2Bamodel

It would influence national team results - an artificially large pool of talent to choose from. Presumably it would it also change the difficulty of European competition. English clubs would prosper - and foreign ones of sufficient reputation to attract English players.

KingsbayYHPE

Keep up, Hookie

The whole thing is, of course, if you can live with a glut of Englishmen, Slovenians or Jocks in your league then sobeit.

As much as I endeavour to sign Jocks it would do my head in to see a bad balance favouring us in a game, there's only so many kilts you can stand

bodymassindicator

I can't see a good reason to use the retain players function, unless you use it for a very small country whose national side you plan to manage.

And sorry Hook, but the statement that anything other than a huge db would really cripple you as an LLM is a bit over the top. I'm not saying db size doesn't matter, but I'm even having a large enough pool of crap players to choose from in the Workingtong challenge, which uses a small db. I never play with a huge db anymore because in my experience the tradeoff between amount of players available and time spent processing between games doesn't work in my favour.

retired_duncan

WHS. I find large db gives plenty of crap to choose from, without needing to retain players.