Llama Use Of Expansion Leagues

A breakdown of the pros and cons


Additional leagues is a grey area for Llamas, the guidelines are quite clear that use of the editor is a definite no-no, despite on the face of it the addition of extra leagues for added depth would seem like a great idea for the budding Llama who likes to torture him/herself in the depths of a far flung league system.

On this page I will give my opinion on additional leagues in the form of pros and cons from a LlaMa's perspective. Rest assured I will only ever recommend expansions that are well documented and have extensive community feedback and have been around for a decent amount of time. . Zealots look away now.


General Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Extra depth in some leagues that could definitely benefit from it e.g. Germany, Holland

  • Adds nations that are glaringly omitted, like Cyprus who are ranked higher by UEFA than half of the European leagues that are in the game

  • In a lot of cases the add-ons are made by official researchers who know their stuff

  • A lot of the guys who make these updates have done so for years and have created near perfection via trial and error over the years

Cons

  • Despite each creators best efforts an alarming amount of additional leagues are unstable which at best can be annoying and at worst can be game breaking if for example a league fails to generate fixtures when a new season starts

  • Finances can be wholly incorrect

  • The league structure may be unrealistic

  • The official pre game editor itself is not the greatest and a lot of creators have been left frustrated by certain issues


Summary

Ultimately it will all boil down to one question - Is it realistic?

With this in mind I will be very conservative in my recommendations and will only do so once I've tested them myself paying close attention to the following:

  • Solidity of the database - I will run the expansion on holiday for at least 10 seasons to check for any errors

  • Player Database - Is there already an extensive database of players for the league? I'll be rating more favourably if you don't have to click the "add players to playable teams" checkbox to populate the teams with the dreaded day 1 newgens. I'm reluctant to include any database that includes added players by the editor themselves as the propensity for bias would be a Llamas worst nightmare

  • Recommended depth level - in the event of an expansion going really deep into a countries pyramid I will be recommending the lowest feasible level that should be used because in my opinion having used English leagues expansions in the past, level 9/10 is the furthest you can go down before the players "bottom out" i.e. there won't be any difference between your average player at level 10 to level 15. Also there won't be much difference between the teams either so it's likely you could lure in a few desperate level 6 type players to your level 15 club that could rocket you up the leagues in no time which would be wholly unrealistic.


  • Scenarios - I have packaged the expansion leagues deemed worthy into various scenarios and ideally they will be used to complement a region that is lacking in a few nations so that you can get the complete experience of the area.