Regional leagues

What regional leagues do

Normally, clubs relegated into a level with two parallel leagues are simply handed out in file order (see Several leagues on one level). A northern club can then end up in the South League.

With regional leagues the game looks at where each club comes from. At the end of every season it places every club of the level in the league of its region:

You decide which areas exist and give every club its home area. Optionally the game also adjusts the following season's promotion and relegation places so that the regional leagues keep a healthy size.

• The clubs you list under a league are its members in the first season. The first regional sorting happens at the end of season 1.
• Regional settings never fill a league by themselves and never create new leagues.
• Cups are not affected.
• Worlds without regional settings – such as the included standard world – work exactly as before.

Step by step: a North League and a South League

This example adds regional leagues below a national league. It was played for ten seasons in the game without a single warning.

Step 1: choose the areas

Footlandia gets two areas, North and South. Their names are simple words that you choose yourself – here "North" and "South".

Step 2: give every club its home area

Add one line to the club file, directly below its name:

! Name "Polar Bear United"
! Reputation 12
#@cs regions "North"

Do this for every club that could ever play on the regional level, including the clubs of the Premier League, which might be relegated one day. Southern clubs get #@cs regions "South".

Step 3: turn the two leagues into regional leagues

Each regional league needs three extra lines: which home area it accepts, how it sorts and which leagues sort together.

: Footlandia - North League
+ division 2
+ promotions 1
+ relegations 0
+ reputation 8
#@cs regions "North"
#@cs regional-allocation fixed-regions
#@cs allocation-group "Second level"
Sledgehammer Wanderers
Avalanche Albion
Reindeer Rangers
Igloo Inter
Blizzard Borough
Frostbite Forest
Woolly Hat Harriers

: Footlandia - South League
+ division 2
+ promotions 1
+ relegations 0
+ reputation 8
#@cs regions "South"
#@cs regional-allocation fixed-regions
#@cs allocation-group "Second level"
Beach Ball Wanderers
Ice Cream Inter
Palm Tree Albion
Lobster Red FC
Sunscreen Borough
Hammock Hotspurs
Sombrero Saints

Step 4: let the league above take part

Add one line to the Premier League. It allows the game to balance club numbers between the Premier League and the regional leagues below it:

#@cs promotion-relegation compensate-team-count

This line is recommended in any case and required as soon as the regional leagues promote different numbers of clubs (see Switching regional leagues on).

Step 5: balance the numbers

The Premier League relegates 2 clubs, each regional league promotes 1. Two go down, two come up.

Step 6: test

Run the Team Editor's Check, then a Dataset test over several seasons, then start a normal new career (see Testing your world).

! Country "Footlandia"
! Names "Data/Names/Footlandia_1st.txt" "Data/Names/Footlandia_2nd.txt"

: Footlandia - Premier League
+ division 1
+ promotions 0
+ relegations 2
+ reputation 12
#@cs promotion-relegation compensate-team-count
Icicle Town FC
Sunburn United
Snowdrift Rovers
Flip-Flop Rovers
Polar Bear United
Sandcastle City
Frozen Herring Athletic
Siesta Sporting
Mitten City
Coconut Athletic

: Footlandia - North League
+ division 2
+ promotions 1
+ relegations 0
+ reputation 8
#@cs regions "North"
#@cs regional-allocation fixed-regions
#@cs allocation-group "Second level"
Sledgehammer Wanderers
Avalanche Albion
Reindeer Rangers
Igloo Inter
Blizzard Borough
Frostbite Forest
Woolly Hat Harriers

: Footlandia - South League
+ division 2
+ promotions 1
+ relegations 0
+ reputation 8
#@cs regions "South"
#@cs regional-allocation fixed-regions
#@cs allocation-group "Second level"
Beach Ball Wanderers
Ice Cream Inter
Palm Tree Albion
Lobster Red FC
Sunscreen Borough
Hammock Hotspurs
Sombrero Saints

Giving clubs a home area

A club's home areas are written in its club file, below the name and before any player details:

! Name "Sunburn United"
#@cs regions "South" "South Coast"

• Your own words. Areas are words you invent, such as “North”, “Snow Valley” or “South Coast”. The game does not know what they mean; it only compares them.
• Quotes around each area. "South Coast" is one area. Without quotes, South Coast would be two areas, “South” and “Coast”.
• One line with the complete list. A club can have several areas, for example one for each level it could reach. If you write the line twice, only the last one counts.
• Exact words. Capital and small letters do not matter (“north” = “North”), but spelling does: “Nort” is not “North”, and “Süd” is not “Sud”. Parts of words never match: “South” is not “South Coast”.
• No hidden meanings. “Moose Valley” does not mean “North”, even if the valley lies in the north, and “North” is not the opposite of “South”. Write every area the club should belong to.
• Every level a club could reach. A club in the national league needs the area of the regional league it could drop into. A club in a local league needs the area of the regional league it could rise to.

An empty line #@cs regions removes all areas. In the Team Editor the field is called Region keywords.

Switching regional leagues on

A league only sorts clubs regionally when it has all three of these lines:

If one of the three is missing, the league stays a normal league, and the Team Editor's Check reports that its regional settings are incomplete. Home areas, GPS positions or a group name alone switch nothing on.

The league above must join in when the numbers differ

Regional leagues of one level may promote different numbers of clubs – for example the North League 1 and the South League 2. The league directly above must then have the line #@cs promotion-relegation compensate-team-count. Without it the game treats the leagues like normal parallel leagues, and the career cannot be started. With it, the same world was played for ten seasons without a single message.

Good habits

• Give every league of a regional level the regional lines. Do not mix regional and normal leagues on the same level.
• Start with balanced numbers: as many clubs go down from the level above as come up from the regional leagues together.

All settings for regional leagues

These lines belong into the league, below its name line. All of them are optional, except the three switch-on lines described above.

An empty line, such as #@cs target-teams on its own, removes that setting. A wrong value is ignored and reported by the Team Editor's Check.

Fixed regions or yearly regrouping?

Both ways can be combined in one country, for example fixed regions on level 4 and yearly regrouping for local leagues on level 6.

What happens at the end of each season

1. The announced places are played out. Promoted and relegated clubs move to their new level first.
2. The level is sorted. All clubs of a regional level – those who stayed, those who came up and those who came down – are shared out among the leagues of their group again.
3. The game follows clear priorities. Reserve team rules are never broken. A club stays in its group and its branch. It goes to a league that accepts its home area, otherwise to a league that lists it as a second choice. Only then do distance and league size count. If everything else is equal, a club stays where it was.
4. Limits always hold. Every league keeps between 2 and 24 clubs, and no club is lost or counted twice.
5. Next season's promotion and relegation places are planned (see the next section).

If a club has to play outside its area – for example because its own league is already full – its manager reads: “To complete the divisions, your club will play outside its usual region next season.” With fixed regions the club returns to its own league as soon as there is room again. The Dataset test lists every such case.

League sizes and next season's places

Regional leagues can change size from season to season. To keep them healthy, the game may adjust the promotion and relegation places of the next season. The places of the running season never change, also not when a saved game is loaded. Managers see the new numbers in the season review: “Next season, North League will have 8 clubs, 2 promotion places and 0 relegation places.”

• Who takes part: all regional leagues, and normal leagues with #@cs promotion-relegation compensate-team-count. Places between two levels only change if every league on both sides takes part.
• The goal: every league stays within its preferred range, with as few and as small changes to your original numbers as possible. Going from 3 to 4 places is a small change; doubling 1 place to 2 is a big one. A slightly too large or too small league is often accepted for a season instead.
• Always at least one: between two connected levels every league keeps at least one promotion place and one relegation place. A level that you closed with 0 and 0 stays closed.
• Planning ahead: by default the game also considers where next season's relegated clubs will probably come from. #@cs forecast off makes it react only to sizes that are already outside the range. One “off” in any league of the country switches planning ahead off for the whole country's league system.
• Hard limits: 2 to 24 clubs per league, no club is lost. If no better plan is found, the current places simply stay.

To measure your own design, look at the Dataset test report: Summary.txt lists the smallest and largest size and the fewest and most promotion and relegation places of every league, LeagueBalanceSeasons.csv every single season.

Regions with different depths

Sometimes only one region has further leagues below it. In this example the South has two local leagues on level 3, the North has none:

Without branch lines every league of one level is connected to every league of the next level. Branch lines describe the path from the broad area to the narrow one:

; in the North League
#@cs allocation-branch "North"
; in the South League
#@cs allocation-branch "South"
; in the Coast League
#@cs allocation-branch "South" "Coast"
; in the Hills League
#@cs allocation-branch "South" "Hills"

• How leagues connect: two leagues on neighbouring levels are connected when one path is the beginning of the other. “South” connects to “South” “Coast” and to “South” “Hills”, but not to anything that begins with “North”. A league without a branch line, like the Premier League here, connects to everything.
• The end of a branch: a league with no connected league below does not relegate. The game sets its relegations to 0 itself – also when a career loads fewer levels than the branch has.
• Branches are not home areas. They describe how leagues are connected. The clubs still need home areas: in this example southern clubs carry “South” and their local area, for example #@cs regions "South" "South Coast", and the two local leagues accept “South Coast” and “South Hills”.
• No changes between branches: a club coming from a southern league is never placed in a northern league of the same level.
• Shorter paths: if the parent league's path is “Footlandia” “South”, its child may simply write “South” “Coast”. The game completes it to “Footlandia” “South” “Coast” when exactly one parent fits.
• Count each connection separately: here the Premier League relegates 2 = 1 + 1 promoted from North and South, and the South League relegates 2 = 1 + 1 promoted from Coast and Hills.

This example was played for fifteen seasons in the game without any message. The North League stayed between 5 and 8 clubs, the South League between 6 and 9, the local leagues between 5 and 7. If a promoting league has no connected league above it, the Check reports: “There is no promotion route from … to a higher division. The division remains playable, but without promotion.”

Second-choice areas

Sometimes a small area has no league of its own. A league can then name second-choice areas: clubs from these areas come to this league when no league accepts them directly. Earlier names in the list count more than later ones.

: Footlandia - Hills League
+ division 3
#@cs regions "South Hills"
#@cs allocation-fallback-regions "Moose Valley" "South"

: Footlandia - Coast League
+ division 3
#@cs regions "South Coast"
#@cs allocation-fallback-regions "Pebble Bay" "South"

Use second choices only for second choices. If an area should always belong to a league, add it to that league's areas instead, for example #@cs regions "South Hills" "Moose Valley". The game does not know that Moose Valley lies in the South; the list only tells it what to prefer. Both leagues also need the three switch-on lines.

More examples

Regional leagues with different promotion numbers

Take the step-by-step example and let the Premier League relegate 3 clubs, the North League promote 1 and the South League promote 2. Keep #@cs promotion-relegation compensate-team-count in the Premier League. In a ten-season test there was no message, and the game adjusted the places whenever a league became too large (see League sizes and next season's places). Without the compensate line, the same world could not be started.

Fewer areas to write

In the branch example, southern clubs can carry only their local area (“South Coast” or “South Hills”) if the South League accepts both:

#@cs regions "South Coast" "South Hills"
#@cs region-match any

A new local area must then also be added to the South League's list. Write the areas on one line; a second regions line would replace the first.

Sorting by distance instead of areas

Leagues can also be split purely by the clubs' map positions, without any home areas. This is explained with a complete example in Towns and GPS.

Tips for giving clubs their areas

• Plan the areas first: which areas exist on which level, and which local areas lie in which regional area.
• When the areas differ from level to level, one area per level is easiest to maintain, for example “North” for level 2 and “Snow Valley” for level 3.
• Alternatively give clubs only their smallest area and let the broader league list all of its local areas, as in “Fewer areas to write”.
• Give areas to clubs on every level, including the national leagues. A relegated club without an area is placed by distance if it has a location, otherwise wherever clubs are needed, and the Dataset test reports it.
• Extra areas never hurt. But a club that fits two parallel leagues of one level is placed between them by distance and size.
• Copy area names instead of typing them again. The game does not correct “Nort” to “North”.
• Try a small version over several seasons before you give areas to a whole world.
• Also test a career that loads fewer levels than your regional leagues need.

If something does not work

More messages are listed in Settings, tests and help.