Using inactive leagues

[billys_boots]

This is more a FYI rather than me reporting a bug. When creating a domestic cup, I haven't tried with international cups, if you use a league that is defined as <inactive> then randomly selecting teams from that league doesn't work the league seems to just be ignored. An example of this is

<choose_team>
<choose_team_sid>test_league</choose_team_sid>
<number_of_teams>2</number_of_teams>
<randomly>1</randomly>
<generate>1</generate>
</choose_team>

[tstellar]

I was able to get this to work when I did the Faroe Islands definitions: https://github.com/tstellar/bygfoot/blo ... ifying.xml

Maybe the start_idx and end_idx tags are required?

[billys_boots]

Thanks for your input tstellar. I added the <start_idx> and <end_idx> but had to remove the <generate> tag to get this to work.

[will_the_canuck]

Hey billys_boots.

Yeah. The premise is that if you have a league file mentioned in your country.xml file that is inactive, it then becomes a national league and any teams listed in that league file are selectable and playable to the user. So as a league is a national league, you don't need to <generate> any teams from that league as they are already created and considered active. Now the question is, if you are creating an inactive league, are you using all the teams in that league or just using it for national cup files wherein you'll only be selecting a random number of teams from that league that won't add up to the full amount of teams in that league? I ask since I am of the type of user that likes a challenge and if I see a team in the lowest ranks that is available to be selected, I would assume that I can play it. If I select a team and find out that I can't do anything with it, wouldn't that kinda make me pissed off in a way? You can say that I'm of the type of person that would be inclined to have an inactive league filled with teams that will get their chance to play and potentially advance. If they are just used as pawns as lower ranked teams for cups that don't go anywhere, I feel then that even having those inactive leagues are not advantageous and aren't worth using in the definitions. But that's just me.

As tstellar has done with his faroe islands definitions, he does too have an inactive league in his example...faroe_islands4. He does have a series of cup files that can lead to promotion for the winners to the third tier league. I find that is worthy as the user can then select a team from that fourth tier and play to rise to the third tier and above. Although I may wonder about the average talent values used as even your top tier tstellar is below 5000. Even in the old definitions, faroe islands had an average talent rating of 5500 for its top tier.

Anyways billys_boots, it does seem that you got the information to correct your issue, so that's a good thing. Hopefully others can learn from this. Bye for now,

will_the_canuck

[billys_boots]

will_the_canuck. I started looking at updating the Wales definition. This national league went through a reorganisation during the summer of 2020 to create a 1-2-4-8 pyramid system. The pyramid stretches below tier 4 with 12 leagues but only a small number of tier 5 teams play in the Welsh Cup each season. I could have made tier 5 active but I thought that would make the game too big, I was thinking about your computer speed when playing the English definition. With this in mind I made tier 5 inactive with 1 or 2 teams from each tier 5 league randomly selected to compete in the Welsh Cup each season. I am still working on the Wales definition so I haven't yet decided whether to stay with tiers 1 to 3 being active and tiers 4 & 5 being active or to make tiers 4 & 5 also active. I will test several different setups and see how things go.

[will_the_canuck]

will_the_canuck. I started looking at updating the Wales definition. This national league went through a reorganisation during the summer of 2020 to create a 1-2-4-8 pyramid system. The pyramid stretches below tier 4 with 12 leagues but only a small number of tier 5 teams play in the Welsh Cup each season. I could have made tier 5 active but I thought that would make the game too big, I was thinking about your computer speed when playing the English definition. With this in mind I made tier 5 inactive with 1 or 2 teams from each tier 5 league randomly selected to compete in the Welsh Cup each season. I am still working on the Wales definition so I haven't yet decided whether to stay with tiers 1 to 3 being active and tiers 4 & 5 being active or to make tiers 4 & 5 also active. I will test several different setups and see how things go.

Honestly billys_boots, although with the 5 tiers there would be about 27 league files, correct? You could either include the 5th tier or take it out but again, I think it would be best to keep them active either way as at least you give the user the option to select ANY team they want that is available. You could always just select the top teams from the 5th tier if wanted but again, I'd try to make it work with all available teams selected for the cup file, even if they have no chance. At least they get the opportunity. That's what spreadsheets are for...helping us figure out things like this.

So whether you stay with 4 tiers or 5 tiers, that is up to you, but I'd suggest keeping the leagues active as it might confuse the user unless you specify that the league that they might select is non-playable. Or if you were to combine the 5th tier into one league file and use cups for the league games. Kind of what I did for my 2018 USA definitions, version 1 and 2. Although when promotion and relegation comes along, it might be interesting how that works out. Either way, my motto is keep it playable or don't use it. And as for the speed of things, well, I'm likely the exception here as my computer is very low in specs but some others may share computers similar to mine. Whether you decide 3, 4, or 5 tiers, it is up to you. If we choose to play your Welsh definitions, we choose to play it because we want to, not because of how long it might take us to actually play it.

will_the_canuck