An introduction.

[billys_boots]

First, is anyone still playing and/or using the forum?

A quick introduction. I've been playing bygfoot for years, on and off, but only just decided to register on the forum. A big thank you to the forum administrator in helping me get my account working.

Over the last few months I have updated the English definitions for personal use since they contain real team names but I have also expanded my English definition files down to step 10 and included the FA Vase. The game does take a few extra seconds during weekly updates but now I have a fuller game when playing the English leagues.

Other updates I am working on, again for personal use because I am using real team names, is Scotland definitions, at the moment including steps 5 and 6 of the Scottish system. I am updating the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League to be as near as possible to the current (2019/20) entry criteria and lastly I am trying to formalise the calendar to make all these changes work better.

I do have question covering issues I am having during these updates, I will post questions in the relevant sections in the forum and hopefully someone can help.

[will_the_canuck]

First off, hello to you billy_boots. It is nice to see another poster finally.

First, is anyone still playing and/or using the forum?

Well, myself, I do play bygfoot at times and do use the forum also. Although I have played a few different country definitions, I'm mostly into updating the USA definitions lately and am currently testing some updates to hopefully upload them soon enough.

A quick introduction. I've been playing bygfoot for years, on and off, but only just decided to register on the forum. A big thank you to the forum administrator in helping me get my account working.

That's kind of cool that you've been playing for so long. Myself, I only started playing about a year and a half ago. I guess I want to ask you how do you play bygfoot? And by that I mean through which operating system? Do you play on a version of linux or do you play through the Win32 version that is available for download?

Over the last few months I have updated the English definitions for personal use since they contain real team names but I have also expanded my English definition files down to step 10 and included the FA Vase. The game does take a few extra seconds during weekly updates but now I have a fuller game when playing the English leagues.

That sounds cool. Even though they have real team names, would you consider uploading them for others to enjoy? Not sure if I'd play them myself, at least yet, but others might enjoy them.

And with the 10 tiers you have in the game, do they all work perfectly? If so, that is cool to hear. And getting back to the version of bygfoot you play with and the operating system used, how many league files do you have for the 10 tiered version? I ask this because although I do play bygfoot with lubuntu and am updated to version 18.04, I have also played it on the Win32 version on a Pentium 4 with Windows XP. My own USA definitions, which now have 29 league files, actually can not properly be played on the Win32 version that you can download but it will play nice enough on the lubuntu version. I should clarify in that when playing on the Win32 version, if you have a saved file for my new definitions, it will open and it will play the game, but it will crash if you try to save the game, thus making it kind of difficult to play really. Otherwise, you'd have to start from the beginning every time, and that isn't really playing the game. So my thoughts are that the Win32 edition available for download can likely use an update, to fix this issue, if at all possible.

Other updates I am working on, again for personal use because I am using real team names, is Scotland definitions, at the moment including steps 5 and 6 of the Scottish system. I am updating the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League to be as near as possible to the current (2019/20) entry criteria and lastly I am trying to formalise the calendar to make all these changes work better.

Cool about your updates you are working on. Like you, I'll be working on the UEFA Champions League updates too, but for FIFA Club World Cup qualifying purposes. There are I think 3 countries that will need to be added since they currently don't exist, at least in a non-league playing manner. And fixing San Marino so it can actually play and then fix the UEFA Champions League file to allow for a cup entry from San Marino since I think it calls from the first league only which is the Group A and doesn't include Group B. Although I should add I likely won't be working on those updates until after September likely, for when the FIFA rankings will be updated most likely in August and October. I guess my interest is more in the FIFA CWC instead of UEFA as a whole.

As for trying to formalise the calendar to make all the changes work better, what do you mean can I ask? Maybe changing the timing of everything for Europe to a 52 or 53 week period instead of a 50 week period, which currently applies for European teams? Well, having competitions until week 49 and then week 50 is the last week before the new season that is.

I do have question covering issues I am having during these updates, I will post questions in the relevant sections in the forum and hopefully someone can help.

As I seem to be it for the time being, I'll give them a shot.

And on that note, again, nice to finally see another poster, billy_boots.

[billys_boots]

Hello and thanks for your post, at least now know I'm not alone

I only use Linux on my machines, I relegated Microsoft over 10 years ago

With the English definitions I have created, the whole pyramid runs to 52 leagues. The structure isn't perfect, because the English pyramid isn't a simple 1,2 , 4, 8, 16 structure, at least not yet, so I have created a 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 16 structure with the Premier League and EFL on top giving another 4 divisions. Tiers 9 and 10 don't use the play-off system and tiers 5 and 6 now use a one game play off system using teams placed 2 to 7 in each league. The FA Cup is limited to teams from tier 1 to 8 with entrance based on actual rules as near as possible I can get it. The FA Trophy is for teams in tiers 5 to 8 and the FA Vase is for teams in tiers 9 and 10. Teams at tiers 9 and 10 don't enter the FA Cup which is the case in the real competition, with a few exceptions.

The Champions League and Europa League updates I tried to mirror the actual cups, as o 2019/20, but the Champions League is impossible to mirror exactly because losers from earlier rounds drop into the Europa qualifying rounds. Currently I have the Europa League with 8 groups but it should be 12 so I will work on this later.

My reasons for reworking the calendar was because I was having weeks where there would be 5 rounds of games with some teams playing 3 times in a round. I also wanted European matches not to clash with domestic cup matches, like the FA Cup final, League Cup final and Champions League final all falling in the same week. In England the League Cup begins at the start of the season and finishes the end of February, 2 months before the end of the season. By updating the calendar I have a better spread of games that almost mirror the actual English and European calendar. One issue I had to get around was the early qualifying rounds of both European competitions begin in early July, which would be before week 1, so I had to have those played from week 1 to week 6. Playing at week 1 confuses Bygfoot but it seems to work without crashing or causing any draw issues. I have manged to get all leagues, play-offs and cups completed by week 50.

You mentioned some dummy European leagues. I created Liectenstein, Kosovo and Gibraltar, the first to allow it's teams to compete in the Europa League and the other 2 are now actual leagues with teams entering both the Champions League and the Europa League.

I am also defining a Scottish pyramid, which works well except for a problem you had with teams disappearing after being promoted.

Enough for now, it's great that someone else is still on the forum and playing Bygfoot.

[will_the_canuck]

Hello and thanks for your post, at least now know I'm not alone

Yeppers. Someone else it out here and I feel the exact same way...FINALLY!!!! Hahaha.

I only use Linux on my machines, I relegated Microsoft over 10 years ago

Ah. Ok. Well, I only really run linux (lubuntu) on one of my computers...a netbook which I have that I started using lubuntu 14.04 lts back in 2014/5 I think. Otherwise the other two computers run windows xp and are both pentium 4 machines.

With the English definitions I have created, the whole pyramid runs to 52 leagues. The structure isn't perfect, because the English pyramid isn't a simple 1,2 , 4, 8, 16 structure, at least not yet, so I have created a 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 16 structure with the Premier League and EFL on top giving another 4 divisions. Tiers 9 and 10 don't use the play-off system and tiers 5 and 6 now use a one game play off system using teams placed 2 to 7 in each league. The FA Cup is limited to teams from tier 1 to 8 with entrance based on actual rules as near as possible I can get it. The FA Trophy is for teams in tiers 5 to 8 and the FA Vase is for teams in tiers 9 and 10. Teams at tiers 9 and 10 don't enter the FA Cup which is the case in the real competition, with a few exceptions.

52 Leagues????? Holy crap. Well, that beats me. And I can just imagine...at least 500 teams, likely more up to 700 to 800, and maybe up to 1000 playable teams, right? I should add that your 52 league country definitions for England would likely NOT work with the Win32 version of bygfoot.

The Champions League and Europa League updates I tried to mirror the actual cups, as o 2019/20, but the Champions League is impossible to mirror exactly because losers from earlier rounds drop into the Europa qualifying rounds. Currently I have the Europa League with 8 groups but it should be 12 so I will work on this later.

Well, you have to look at the existing files to see how they did it billy_boots but I think it should be easy enough. The whole point I think is that the teams have to be created before the cups start, and since the teams are already created for the cups, their results just have to be available before being used in another cup file. By that I mean if you play the round in the Champions League and then those losers from that round will be dropped into the Europa League qualifying rounds, the qualifying rounds have to take place AFTER the related Champions League round took place, I think. That way, you're not creating a new team but using an existing team that was already created before the cup began. Although whether the Europa League is added at week 0 and the Champions League is added at week -1 or 0, I'm not sure without looking. I checked. Both are added at week 0. So I think that's how they do it, going from cup to cup. So yeah, the <delay> tag is definitely used here and I believe I mention and explain it on the forum somewhere.

My reasons for reworking the calendar was because I was having weeks where there would be 5 rounds of games with some teams playing 3 times in a round. I also wanted European matches not to clash with domestic cup matches, like the FA Cup final, League Cup final and Champions League final all falling in the same week. In England the League Cup begins at the start of the season and finishes the end of February, 2 months before the end of the season. By updating the calendar I have a better spread of games that almost mirror the actual English and European calendar. One issue I had to get around was the early qualifying rounds of both European competitions begin in early July, which would be before week 1, so I had to have those played from week 1 to week 6. Playing at week 1 confuses Bygfoot but it seems to work without crashing or causing any draw issues. I have manged to get all leagues, play-offs and cups completed by week 50.

All of that and you're still done by week 50? Or rather the last match(s) are played in week 49 with week 50 being a filler before the season begins? That's not bad, although very doable when you think of it, I'd think. Personally, I'd prefer expanding it to a 52 week period just because 52 weeks more resembles a calendar year, even if you don't play every week of the year. That's a big difference between Europe (UEFA) and South America (CONMEBOL) definitions...Europe ends at week 50 and South America ends at week 53. Although I can understand what you're talking about with regards to giving teams less games to play in any given week. That truly is brutal and I do recall when I played York in the English definitions...getting to the Premier league, there would be up to 4 rounds in a week at times because of the tournaments.

You mentioned some dummy European leagues. I created Liectenstein, Kosovo and Gibraltar, the first to allow it's teams to compete in the Europa League and the other 2 are now actual leagues with teams entering both the Champions League and the Europa League.

I didn't check on Europa League but I do know that Liectenstein doesn't play in the Champions League, at least yet. And from the way you said it, did you create country definitions for Kosovo and Gibraltar where they are actually playable? i.e. you can pick a team from there in a league and play it? Just wondering.

I am also defining a Scottish pyramid, which works well except for a problem you had with teams disappearing after being promoted.

Oh yeah. I know that problem. I did resolve that problem. Did you? Now I don't know if it was because I was using a top tier with two league files or whether it was just a bug that affected the first tier league, but the issue was that if I had the bottom team in the first tier play off against the top team in the second tier, the team that would advance would disappear. As I had two leagues in the upper tier and two leagues in the lower tier, one team per league would face off against the other team in the same region but from the other tier. The only way I could fix it was to have the teams change places instead of having them play for the position. And then if I had the second bottom team go against the second top team in competition, it worked without a problem. It truly is an odd bug I'll say.

Enough for now, it's great that someone else is still on the forum and playing Bygfoot.

So very true. Feedback, or at least potentially. Right?

As for my update plans, I'll say they are more related to the FIFA Club World Cup but will affect all leagues since I want to change the average talent values for all the teams, in relation to the FIFA Club World Cup, so that will take a little bit of work. I'll be using the FIFA World Rankings and Total Points as a basis for the average talent ratings for the countries and teams. And of course I'll post the updates online, in case anyone wants to implement them and all. Cause right now, Belgium and France are top rated and should be rated at 8500 for average talent, instead of England, even though Manchester City, Liverpool, and Tottenham Hotspur are right up there with the power ratings, as per fivethirtyeight.com's ratings. It isn't about the individual teams, it's about the league as a whole. So ranging the average talents of all top leagues in the world between 5000 and 8500 should be good. Now being able to FIND all those leagues and teams will be interesting as I know in CONCACAF, two of the country members don't have top leagues that I can find for the current season. And the leagues of Africa and Asia and Oceania will have to be added, at least for FIFA Club World Cup usage. Oh well. Fun work ahead, right?

Anyways, take care for now.

[billys_boots]

The 52 English leagues should actually be 51, but still almost 1000 teams. The English pyramid structure is going through a process of chamge this summer and next summer so I might do a rework, once this summers changes have been announced. I can post the English definition files once I have reworked them later in the year

With the Champions League/Europa League, losers in the Champions League Preliminary enter the Europa League, but after the Champions League1st Qualifying Round, which makes it more complicated

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%8 ... ons_League
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%8 ... opa_League

This is what I used

The Liectenstein, Kosovo and Gibraltar leagues I created wouldn't be too much work to get them to play as they should, they are simple leagues. Liectenstein doesn't actually have it's own league, I just created a this because they enter 1 team in the Europa League and I wanted to make that a random team.

The Scottish problem we are discussing in another thread, so I will leave that one from here.

[will_the_canuck]

The 52 English leagues should actually be 51, but still almost 1000 teams. The English pyramid structure is going through a process of chamge this summer and next summer so I might do a rework, once this summers changes have been announced. I can post the English definition files once I have reworked them later in the year

Yeah. I don't think your English definitions will work with the Win32 version of bygfoot then. And damn for the around 1000 playable teams. That was 10 tiers you said. Let's see...50 weeks...38 games on average considering perhaps 20 teams in a league. Yeah, that will be interesting for sure. I don't know how many teams might be up for promotion or relegation between the different tiers but if it is more than a 1:1 ratio for leagues, like a 1:2 or 1:many or many:many, the teams may not go where you think they are going to go. I have experience with that too, my USA_ver4 version for 2018. Another fun bug I discovered.

I would say though when you post these definitions, giving a description of how many tiers, leagues, and teams might be helpful to the people since if they have the Win32 version of bygfoot, they may realize that they may not be able to use or play it, at least for the time being.

With the Champions League/Europa League, losers in the Champions League Preliminary enter the Europa League, but after the Champions League1st Qualifying Round, which makes it more complicated

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%8 ... ons_League
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%8 ... opa_League

Nah. It isn't that complicated when you follow the code. And I think I already mentioned it in the last post that the use of the <delay> tag will definitely be of use here. The bigger issue I think will be how to allot a space to the winners of the Europa League and the Champions League within the Champions League definitions, if at all? Might you randomize it for all countries or skip it and maybe give a bye or two in a lower round to get the team numbers up for the group stage? I can maybe see it in my head on how to do it, but it does seem like it is more trouble than it is worth. And really, would my thought on it actually work? If it did, then damn.

This is what I used

The Liectenstein, Kosovo and Gibraltar leagues I created wouldn't be too much work to get them to play as they should, they are simple leagues. Liectenstein doesn't actually have it's own league, I just created a this because they enter 1 team in the Europa League and I wanted to make that a random team.

True. I did check on the Liectenstein thing and it seems all they really do is just run a tournament basically with teams based in Liectenstein but who play in the Swiss leagues I believe. Neat enough and yet Liectenstein has a higher co-efficient than some other countries out there who have their own leagues. Also interesting.

Anyways, that is all for now.

[billys_boots]

Just want to add that for my Champions League definition, where, in the real world, the Winners of the previous seasons Champions League and Europa League gain entry to the following seasons Champions League, I dropped this, it seemed too complicated to bother with, and as such I changed the Champions League preliminary round to 2 teams (home & away) instead of 4 teams playing one off games 1v2 and 3v4 winners of those 2 games play each other with the winner progressing to the 1st qualifying round.

This might change when I rework my Europa League file.