I guess the majority of Football Manager players don’t spend a lot of time in the editor, unless maybe they are creating custom databases to make lower leagues playable etc (and massive kudos to the guys who do that!). This post will give a reasonably basic overview of how to use the editor to make changes, so I’m sure for some it will seem like I’m teaching you to suck eggs…
The most time-consuming part of recreating my team is the actual editor work, as you might expect. Once the editor has been loaded, it’s a good idea to save the datafile that you will be creating, and give it a good descriptive name. There’s a second description box that you can enter details into as well, so I do a two-file rolling save and use the description as well as the filename to differentiate between them. This way, I can save file 1 and check it in the game and the next updates will be saved as file 2, so if that one gets corrupted, I can always revert back to file 1 and have most of the changes still in place. (I use this method when playing the game as well, as I’ve been burnt a few times losing months of gametime due to computer crashes).
The first thing I do is the club changes, because there are less of those, and also I need to be able to play as the club in order to test the database changes. The process for finding things to edit is basically the same regardless of what you are changing. Start on the left hand list of database items – I’m going to select “Clubs”. It then gives a set of filters on the right, which for this change is going to require just a name search. Click on “Add Condition”, select “Name” and begin typing. Hit enter and the search results will be displayed in the bottom portion of the screen. There are a few columns here so if there is more than one result, you can scroll through the info to make sure you are selecting the correct club.
Once you have your club, double click on it and begin making (and regularly saving) your changes. Most of the changes are likely to be self-explanatory, it’s a case of going through the links to the left to look at things like records, affiliations, relationships etc and making whatever edits are required. There’s nothing that I would say is hidden, so if it’s on the screen you should be good to go. Kit changes are one of the options here as well, not just to change elements, but also to add a third kit if necessary.
One of the bits that is maybe a little less obvious is the team swap. You should always swap teams if moving between leagues, otherwise you’ll end up with too many or too few clubs in a division and it will cause issues in the game. To swap teams, I start in the club screen and choose “Competitions”, then double click on the link for the league on the right hand side. This takes you to the leagues menu (I find it easier / quicker than searching for the league in the same way I searched for the club). From here, go to “Teams” on the left, click on the club and then click on “Swap” at the bottom. From here it’s a case of searching for the club to swap with, and then going through and repeating the process until finished.
For players, I start off by adding one and then duplicate him once all the details are input, changing whatever is needed as I go. It’s easier than going through every single player and adding the contract with the club etc – I can just change things like the dates for this, plus obviously the actual player details themselves. On the database menu on the left, choose “People” and then on the right select “Add” and “Player”. This takes you to the screen to go through adding all the player details.
On the first player details screen, add the name and it will auto-populate the full name below. If duplicating players, make sure you check the full name as it might not update this when you change the first and second name later. You also have the option to add a “Common Name” – as it suggests, this is where you would put the common name, for those who do not use their full name. Again, check this when duplicating players. I remember one of these boxes not updating the second time around, but I can’t remember which. For completing the full player name section, it’s easier to just provide a screenshot:
For those players who are a part of my team already (not the youngsters who haven’t made their debut yet), I always make sure to edit the playing history as well. Appearances and goals can be updated here (but sadly not assists) as well as any previous (or loan) club history. If playing for two clubs in the same year, there is the option to put an order next to each of them so they show correctly in the in-game playing history. Tick the “On Loan” box if applicable for these moves. Creating a player from scratch who has been at the club for a few years isn’t too much of a drag here. You create the first line and then have the option to duplicate it, meaning you can just go in and change the applicable figures. Another screenshot to show how the playing history screen works:
It’s worth noting on any of these screens as well, that once you have searched for a club, nation, player etc once, the editor remembers it, so at least subsequent changes (adding different player nationalities etc) are sped up a bit. When ready to move on to the next new player to be created, I do a player search and find the first member of the team, then go to “Duplicate” (located at the bottom near the “Add” button) and start from there with the first players as a template. Every time you go back to this screen, the first player will still be there, so you only have to do the player search once.
Football Manager Legacy Gaming 