To The Future...To Laurinca (FM11)

[Young Drachma]

This is essentially a spinoff of my Neloxia trilogy from FM10, as there was no humanly possible way I managed to have the energy to rebuild that league from scratch into FM11, I considered not moving up to the new version at all. But when I got it on sale for $13, I figured it was worth the upgrade even if I didn't do much with it, knowing I had no plans to move to FM12 short of them offering some magical in-game editing tool that wouldn't work until the 3rd patch.

Anyway...enough of the rant.

Laurinca was fashioned by me as the far western region of Neloxia (aka, I needed more space in a new SimCity 4 map...) and eventually went from far western part of the country, to autonomous region to independent.

It's still largely underpopulated compared to Neloxia, but that doesn't stop the ambitious little country from boasting a vibrant multi-tiered football pyramid.

My goal here is mostly to focus on the national team and its efforts to become a world power. There's no Neloxia in this particular world, call it a fork, parallel universe or claim that Neloxia has been engulfed by its western half and it explains why tiny Laurinca could otherwise afford to do boast its own league.

But I'll still go through the promotable leagues and profile the important teams, because it might be interesting as we go forward.

This db also contains the Virgin Super League, which is basically a World Super League of sorts between the champions of Laurinca, Australia, England, Japan, MLS, South Africa and Mexico.

[Young Drachma]

This custom league is built on top of a custom Channel Islands league that some guy at neoseeker built. It was the perfect Neloxia spinoff setup, so I just edited it heavily, moving his teams to the 4th and 5th Laurinca divisions and creating all new teams for the Top 3 leagues.

I actually had the league names as something different during my testing, before returning them to their original names. As such, here's the breakdown of the Laurican football pyramid.

LAURINCA FOOTBALL PYRAMID
The top three leagues are the Laurinca Series 1, 2 and 3 respectively. There's a Series 4 and 5, but neither of those leagues promote into the 3rd league and are largely amateur teams. Like Neloxia, all wins are worth 5 points.

SERIES ONE: 12 teams playing 22 games before splitting the league into two. Then the teams all play each other once more and the chips fall where they may. No playoffs in this league, team with the most points is the champion. Three teams get relegated at the end of the season.

SERIES TWO: 12 teams in this league, playing each other twice. Top three teams get promoted, bottom three get relegated.

SERIES THREE 10 team league, teams play each other twice. Top two teams automatically get promoted, the 3rd and 4th place teams play a two-leg promotion playoff to the 2nd Series.

As I mentioned earlier, there is no promotion/relegation past the 3rd Series.

CUPS
Laurinca FA Cup is comprised all of the teams from the 1st through 5th Series.
Laurinca League Cup is a group secondary cup for teams from the Series One. Laurinca Shield is a competition for teams from the Series 2, 3, 4 and eight teams from Series 5.
Laurinca Super Cup takes the winner of the League Cup against the winner of the Shield.

No one cares about the secondary competitions and most Neloxian clubs just use it as a chance for their youth teams to get work, save for teams outside of the top division, of course.

What teams are those, you ask? We'll profile the various squads of Laurinca that you should know, talk a bit about demographics and possible link your favorite Neloxian squad with your new favorite Laurin side in this dynasty.

[Young Drachma]

I actually copied the six amateur teams from the original L-Series. The two biggest clubs -- by far -- in Laurinca have traditionally been Laurivana and Laurivinci.

In terms of the area where the teams play, think of Laurinca's metropolitan cities - Irina and Bibiana - akin to if London were next to Chicago and the rest of the country was Alaska. That is, it's densely populated in the metropolitan areas and sparsely populated otherwise. Alas, the teams are primarily in the city.

The professional L Series began in 1992 and since that time, Lauravana or Laurivinci have claimed the league title eight times amongst them. The two teams participate in the La Lauraderbe, but in recent years have fallen on hard times thanks to a number of upstarts that have joined the fray.

Old Neloxia is a club that's home to loyalists by and large. A popular club for Neloxians and Laurin alike, they are a club that people either love or hate. They fall into those distinct camps. With new ownership, the team is eying a Series title.

Python: Probably the 3rd most popular club in the country, they've managed in recent years to acquire some of the top players due to deep pockets of their internet billionaire owners. Since I'm using the free agents databases, it would not be shocking in the future for us to discover that your favorite player is a member of Python. They're nicknamed "The Mercenaries" and that's not meant to be a good thing. If you were a Black Tambourine fan in the Neloxian league, you'll hitch your wagon to Python.

Volta Volta is a popular Laurin car maker. Their fan base is spirited and their influence is growing. If you rooted for Cerise in the old league, here's your Laurin squad.

[Young Drachma]

CHALLENGE: I'm using the free agents database and an adapted Laurinca db that now has 12 teams in the Series 3, rather than 10. I'm going to sim a year and let the teams get some players, then I'm going to take over a team from the Series 3 and work to get them promoted to the top division.

I have a bunch of countries playable in this particular universe because I'm playing it on a different machine. America, Mexico, England, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spanish, Sweden and Argentina are active, but I won't be playing in any of those leagues. Just Laurinca. I just have those active because I find that the transfers are more realistic when the leagues are active and playing rather than when it's only on view only.

[Young Drachma]

It's the last week of the regular season in the L-Series 1 and it's come down to the wire. Sandrine and Python River are within a point of each other. This is quite the feat considering wins are worth 5 points, but it makes the final game of the season even more important than ever. If they both win, Sandrine claims the title, but if Python River wins and Sandrine draws or loses, they claim the LS1 title.



Let's take a look at the rosters of the two teams for a bit of perspective, shall we?

[Young Drachma]

What a day of Laurin football. I went to the Sandrine v. Timmeh match. Timmeh would secure a likely Champions League spot for next year with a win, while Sandrine was looking for the outright league title if they could hold on and with a loss by Python.

It was not to be.

An early own goal gaffe by Timmeh's keeper made it 1-0, Sandrine. But the Sandy defense got lazy in the 2nd half and gave up the equaliser.





In the other game, Python took care of business.



On Sunday, Majartand and St. Heiler will play in the final game of the 2010-11 season. I'm going to attend, mostly because I want more video footage. But the standings won't be altered at the top which is what matters.



Here is the final 2010-11 L-SERIES 1 Table

[Young Drachma]

I'm intrigued by a new generation of Neloxian football superstar juniors. I am going to create a 6th level called L Series Futures that will be the proving ground for young kids. Think of it as Little League meets high school, but for prospects to develop. So eventually you start to know kids based on the academies they come out of. The acadmies won't be tied to the big league clubs purposely so that kids can go anywhere once they get signed.

We'll cut them off in that league at age 17, because the idea is to see players come out while they can still be developed.

I think taking a page out of my Neloxian db where the developmental league was based in America, we'll based the L Series in Canada.

[Young Drachma]

To that end, I'm going to do like we did in Neloxia. You all will be allowed to join in this dynasty if you're interested. Same deal:

Name:
Position(s):
Second Nationality:

You will begin as a 14-year old in the Wonder Series, the name of the development academy series I'm creating (right now) and you'll work your way into the bigs, signing your first contract and all of that hooha. If it appeals to you, lemme know.

Especially now that we have video capabilities, it ought to be fun.

[bbgunn]

Name: Kuji Chagulia
Position(s): DR
Second Nationality: Ghanaian

[Young Drachma]

I might be content just to see kids develop down here and follow their path through the bigs. The 3D engine has made it pretty fun and was the only reason I wanted to upgrade to 11 when I was otherwise perfectly content with 10 (well and the fact that you can export the videos to YT automatically, specifically)

Originally Posted by bbgunn

Name: Kuji Chagulia
Position(s): DR
Second Nationality: Ghanaian

You're in the db officially. Playing for Walker of the Wonder Series.

[britrock88]

Name: Juwuk Bafou
Position: AM/ST
2nd nationality: Cameroonian

[Young Drachma]

I restarted the save I was working on, mostly because I wanted to add Bafou to the db and also to make some other adjustments. This video is from the 4.24.11 game between L-Series Premier (renamed L-Series 1) teams Happy Wanderers and Bubbledrive. Bafou plays for the soon-to-be relegated Wanderers and Chagulia plays for Bubbledrive U21s who moved into 2nd place and are a playoff team.

Anyway, this goal features Chagulia setting it up. Bafou came in as a sub in the 2nd half, but wasn't much of a factor.

[Young Drachma]

Tarkio defended the honour of Laurins everywhere, by going into Azteca and knocking off Toluca in the maiden Virgin Super League final. Both goals were scored in extra time, too.

[Young Drachma]

Here's our draw for World Cup qualifying. We're ranked 37th in the world, but not sure how accurate that is of our standing. I think we can finish 2nd in that group though, depending on how the team is composed. I might take over the squad, as I don't really trust the Laurins the AI keeps hiring.

[bbgunn]

Nice! Now all Chagulia needs to do is to get paid.

[Young Drachma]

[Young Drachma]

[bbgunn]

Defender of the Year? Nice... But LIVERPOOL?!?

[Young Drachma]

Yeah, this whole "dynamic" reputation thing is bullshit. I had a much higher rating for Neloxia in FM10, for some reason in FM11, it doesn't matter that our clubs have all of the money, those dominant clubs in Europe still count for more.

I think it has to do with population and existing leagues, the fact that our league is fictional probably hurts it a lot. If I'd taken over an established country, I bet the game engine would respond better. I'm not sure that I care that much, though. It's sort of fun in a way, in that, if I wanted to get a jersey of a Laurin player, them being on a real team I could.

[Young Drachma]

You all are going to be shocked, I know, by this. But I'm making some changes to the Laurinca db. So I'm going to have to carry your players over to the new db and restart. But at least you're introduced to it now.

Also, I have someone working on crests for old Neloxian clubs, as well as some of the Laurin clubs that we're introducing now. It'll be a few weeks before we start to see some, but...it should be fun (or at least, I hope so..)