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well that's mainly just naming, you don't have to call it that, it's same thing anyway

transfer windows exist. especially that the leagues are seasonal and you have a longer break in summer and winter. generally best part of fm was replacing old guys and hiring new teens in between the breaks. and it's a serious issue if you can just poach your own league players all year around, that's just ruins the balance further, and then you win more and ruin the balance even more which escalates more. 

you can call it the long winter or the summer peace time, same deal.

salary caps also make sense. right now you just make too much and limited too much. so it's easy to concentrate all your earnings into a few superstars and then you do well and that also escalates. 

the main difference from a sports game it's that people can die. and years are faster but some races live longer so you can adapt to the retirements by making good choices.

you are kind of wrong on the realism. it's an estabilished word. the league is estabilished. 90% of teams usually belong where they are. 10% is some teams that had a bad streak or disasters, even they are only good enough to survive in the next league. it's very rare that teams just advance 2 leagues up. so it doesn't answer the logical questions and doesn't explain the economy. if it would be that easy other teams would do the same. and if you are not the best team in the region you can't poach the best adventurers. 

tavern gen should be way less sure, you could know a range of skills and values and risk it if you want but you need a lot of downside, like new people should have bad fitness and need a while to adapt. if your backwater team is 0-40 and everyoen in your league is 0-40 then the guys on 35-40 are jus t the same superstars as a 90 guy in top league. each league should have different values, issues and stuff. sure, the low league issues should be easily fixed by a bit of sparing and thinking and management. in fm that was improving youth facilities and the stadium. so each year you get better kids and sell them on  better prices and invest more easier when you do so. backwater should be bad teams because thye are mismanaged and greedy/wasteful to basic rules. for example in backwater insults result in fights, deaths, players leaving your team etc. in higher leagues you could have oiptions to help/manage/ignore those. that would give a variety in the world and make the leagues realistic.

it's just a difference in scale. if you never saw a superstar, you don't have a way to compare them to your guys and relatively you can be very strong and outdo expectations and requirements. fame in fm was big, you didn't know as much about them and you didn't get good offers for them. you would need to capitalize in form and temp results and swindle the other teams with the momentum. randomness, scout bias and skill levels could help on that. limitations too. you can invent a lore for that. like a worldwide adventurers guild pays every team the same, maybe more bonuses for the big ones, but small teams could do a lot of small quests and recieve a different currency which is better in some cases.

I would imagine a small league with a ton of deaths but a  few breaktroughs and then reinvest that money into more and more members. 

loyalty to a region is one thing but still realistically people would visit all teams in a region, so if there are like 80 in 7 regions then each has like 10. I havent went deep into the lore. so they would still go to the big ones. there might be reasons to go to yours. that would be not sports like. for example you could have a castle/home/dwelling/cave system, so each team could give a room/house and work position for like 3-4 people. so they could settle at your place which is a huge cost reduction for them, this would also naturally provide balance, as each team would have a heavily discounted star roster. that could be linked to research/buildings, like 2-8 of those rooms with buildings, then you could save up and have up to 8 high maitenance players in your squad, long term you would always advance to the next league. maybe 9-10 would be exponential cost.

wrexham also spend double of others. players aren't there for their good of their heart. those teams have crazy recompensations if the players are fired, high bonuses, but also high penalties for not meeting results. same reason red bull teams started in 5th german league and went to 2nd league, money. but you can say the reverse applies for teams like leicester who lost a ton of players with relegation. those are special contracts for special circumstances. in fm you could do similar, give lower salary than required but huge bonuses for goals or wins, so you saved money if they perform bad. ofc if players have different personalities and requirements and you can't finalize tavern recruits easily that also saves a bit.

also, it's nto a fun game if it's easy to have an average squad value of 90+. people want good results and easy game, but good game balance is hard and rewarding. good choices are rewarded, bad choices are punished. attention and time is rewarded. 

it would be still fun to have 1-2 league advancements with just veterans that soon retire and very young local guys with no info about them.

randomness is fine. but then it should throw a wrench into your plans. 

I'm thinking the nemesis system of middle earth games. like some teams would scale with yours and give you trouble each time. and if the balance is broken, the world changes a bit. for example if some vets retire or die, you get higher stat recruits or higher potential guys. if people train up, the risk of death would rise worldwide until balance is restored. and this could be in the background and have some randomness or delay. then it would be hard to anticipate that. 

another feature was nice in mount and blade. when one kingdom was attacked and near the end of losing the last cities, they started hiring more people, fight dirty and rail up harder. so it was very hard to take out a kingdom, you had to do it in a one fell swoop. that also applies to ck3, some underdog saving mechanisms. the backwater could have some of that. like you could send assasins to ruin other teams and it would be unlikely to be found out.

so by balance I don't mean reduce the swings. I mean make it overall balanced and perpetual, with choices having upsides downsides and a lot of  risk. some clues to what is the good solution. and a lot of minigames and systems that are different at each league.

I don't know the discord channel

Updated*

Played a season and a half on middle/hardish difficulty, will do some more

Saw your game on youtube and I really like the idea and the potential

Bugs: when upgrading hall you get 2 more recruits with it, I guess others mentioned it, I much rather have empty slots

Event: when borrowing my healer, who was on training, I couldn't remove her from training until she came back, and she had maxed out potential

Some clarity issues: The leagues names aren't easy to remember, add letters or numbers to them. The calendar could be also improved, like the past days greyed out and the next encounter green and yellow. 

It shouldn't let you enter the dungeons if you got an encounter soon, at least a warning popup, maybe dedicate a main squad and if any of them wouldn't recover by the mandatory date, prevent you from sending them without a popup.

The next day button actually goes 4 days, same for the dungeon runs in between. It could be more incremental so you can do daily resting/training. 

When they are adeed to the squad they should have a transfer history of when how and where from they arrived. When they die it should show their peak/death stats.

training should show their day/week/month increases/changes.

My preferred fm style was buying young kids and improve and resell them, keep the best ones and a few veterans. For that an ecosystem is needed, their price should reflect stats/age/fame and performance in quests. The scouting system could be improved, like their judgement should add some randomness on lower skills and their potential never fully clear until they spent some time. The scout should make a report about your squad and over time others, mainly the teams you are in same league or play against. 

The balancing seems weird, I had 75-90 rated guys in last league or after promotion. It should be limited to like 10 from top for each league. So like you never get over 40+ in last league. Not sure if it can go higher as I only had 2 seasons but already saw a 5 star close to the max and he was on 90+. Lower leagues should use unknown guys and old guys mainly, who are close to retirement and past their peak.
Also they should be in bad fitness and mismanaged when you start and you shouldn't be able to push their fatigue and stress under 20%ish until a few upgrades. And training and choices should matter more. also the squad could start with 3 only and next league 4 champions. maybe the ability to flex +1 but get less rewards, so you send in two younger guys instead of a vet with a similar effectiveness.

The training should be available for all but maybe the training building add extra buff for those 2-4-6 etc. I enjoyed in fm to slowly retrain them in physical or mental or positioning. more stats about how they changed since your last edit.

I don't really know what each skill does, so I can't really form a bond with players. I enjoyed seeing them grow up in fm, so more stats about each year they spend at your club would be nice. Also the skills should do something visibly distinct. Like at least 3 types of styles for each role. 

The building costs should be incremental not fixed and add more effects/steps.

in fm the the two main investments were stadium size and training facilities, that affected the fans and the latter the mid year recruits. there could be more things to do midseason, instead of a random youngsteer, a few of them could show up on a training, a free training would show a few stats, your scouts/staff reveal a few details and their potential/current stats, then a few extra drills for money to reveal some more. then you could choose a few and reject a few of them. with training the size and quality of recruits should change. I'm not sure about fans and stadium size equivalent. maybe the villagers would become interested in helping you. sponsorships could be a thing, with a flat budget and some conditional bonuses per year with limitations based on performance and renown and some randomness some companies would sponsor a year in exchange for helping them reach goals aka kill certain units, certain number of units, and other achievements, maybe loot. for example like solo levelling you could mine some crystals then exit the dungeon. with some risk of injuries extending the time of pillaging.

The numbers should be adjusted on buildings, like 1-2 sizes should be cheaper, the first steps could be raised after 1-2 wins, then more and more, so you can expand sideways on everything a bit and reach a higher league if you do so, then you would need to focus your efforts to reach 3 or higher. maybe temporary events and reduction in cost based on events or patrons to do a certain upgrade in a timeframe. ideally you would not be able to promote twice unless you make the right decisions or upgrade things.

ofc the simulation graphics can be improved over time, it's pretty nice as it is now. maybe some numbering or some badges to know who is who. for example a shirt with a set number and some hair and each squad have a border of their colors. dungeon units were dark but I had hard time how to differentiate them based on those letters of their names and sometimes they were similar.  

The ideal gameplay for me would be a better calendar, forwarding time step by step, with the changes happening having a stat window to show what happened on those days. Having a second squad to send in dungeons or using one guy for both mandatory and optional fights should give warnings. And if I'm able to build it should remind me. And more choices in between fights with small steps changing over time on a larger scale. Transfers should be more random and complex, build hype for talented youngsters, negotiate cost to sell them. list them for sale or signal you want to buy and others offer you trades. Maybe loans. I would say around half my squad to be stable and test/rotate the others. Transfer windows would make it more fair. 2 a year is fine instead of the constant tavern recruits. So unless they are old/no contract you would only buy more guys in mid and final season and if they die maybe you get a few free passes to replace them with younglings. Scouting and staff should have some more details. Like 5 star scouts super expensive and 2-3 stars decent but then they would have biases toward certain skills or categories. And the more they stay the more you would see their stats clearly, otherwise just estimations on people on how good they are.

2nd run: hard mode and economy extra gold, 3rd season currently but I'm just too good, winning everything, promoted as second with same points as first in first season but now in 3rd I'm far ahead.

I was winning decently, then one mandatory run knocked me out instantly and killed 2 of my tanks. but I found a 95 healer instantly, aside from having 2 skills with some down side, she was almost perfect and young. I picked up a veteran tank who was 5 star teacher with very good allocations. then a 5 star damage. It was almost too easy and just replaced everyone with 85-90 rated guys. none of my rivals had anything similar. I picked up some secondary guys from them but then released most.

the training is too quick and doesn't do much noticeable. I kept a 16 year old and trained him up, used him a lot with 3 strong guys. his might was 11 and pushed it to 16 with honing in 2-3 years. he is on 99/99 on 9 level. based on levels it seems all potentials are just 10x their level and they are 5 star once on higher level. but I find hard to push levels, sometimes gives no xp even tho I choose brutal difficulty where using my lower skill guys would be insta death but with 3 stars and 1 younger guy it's just 95% win, but almost never levels anyone up or even give any xp.

3rd year I found a dwarf who is 40 ahead in potential points as his level. doesn't look too strong yet but if it could lvel up potentially is strong.

the issue with that is this is too predictable and very samey. my team is basically like having all the superstars at my team for barely any cost. and rather take already high stat guys, no punishment for firing weaker ones.

one of my dps, katrina has some danger signs on 3-4 things on 15-16 that if she would have more of that skill it wouldn't improve anymore her performance, and she is at 98-99 so pretty much maxed. too easy to find superstars in the tavern. needs to be limited based on league. there should be a fog of war, so you can't see their potetntial points when hiring in tavern, maybe just an estimation. there should be a salary cap so you cnat get all the stars in all positions. something like the nba salary caps. if you commit you need to negotiate, shorter contracts with a promise of promoting, etc. the top leagues should snatch away any promising star by giving you offers you can't refuse. maybe the patrons accept if they offer enough. morale should matter more toward their potential, like they shouldn't ever reach more than 80% of potential unless their morale is managed over a longer period of time and they fell happy and confident, mainly because you use them in main squad and tell them what they want to hear. So they should only be close to their max potential at their prime years. 

The weeks and quests should be more organized into blocks, and space it out. Enough to have 1 extra in between mandatory raids. maybe a few choices but only take one extra. I had way too much gold with 2 squads or more. the quests should also match the weeks so they arrive at the start of a block and not all of them expire at random times, hard to calculate even with 2x2 sent away to do quests when they come back.

there shouldn't be so many great options in the tavern but some flexibility in trying them out hiring them as week by week then keeping them if they perform. the stats should be hidden and once revealed by you or others, they would ask more and more salary if they perform well and get offers. and the offers would be higher the longer their remaining contract is. on the bottom 3 leagues I wouldn't expect to have anyone higher than 60/100 and even with some down sides like being too old or some bad traits.

maybe set the scale on 1000 total and move the traits by 5-10 by training each week block, would be more visible than 1-200 with 20 on each. raising 1-4 points in a season is noticeable but not really fun. it's like nature vs nurture. currently it's just much easier getting better ones than investing the time in people. needs to have some rarity factor and hidden potential you won't know until you see them fight. and the scouts would give you biased reports. with multiple you could make better decisions. but that should be late game where you know exact values of their exact potential. I had most of my team on 17-19 with a 20 and not sure ifthey can ever go higher. they should only ever hit the top 80-90% percentile if they are in good shape and mental state and have friends in the party. lower leagues should be mostly unknown local kids with unknown potential. and higher league teams should always try to snatch away anyone who has a high potential and good results.