Setting up Football Manager for more international / realistic regens

So I've been wondering about different ways of setting up the database and leagues for a nice balance between realism and gameplay. Add too many leagues or players and the game becomes too slow. Add too few and no clubs outside of your own leagues get regens which severely hurts the realism from a world cup perspective.

I couldn't really find an answer or guide to this question and thus decided to throw my own tests on the interwebs.

TLDR:

• View league gives no regens.
• Small vs large database matters a tiny bit and is not worth it.
• Adding all current internationals creates a healthier global depth but does not generate regens globally.
• Adding players from top clubs does generate regens globally.

Best setup in my opinion is small database, own league, 1 neighbor, 2 mayor, all continents (only Europe and south america if you need performance) top clubs and only add current internationals (which does include u18 etc) if you have a good PC performance.

The Testing Process

So, what did I do to actually test this? I've basically set up the same England Premiership only game several times with 1 changing variable along the way. I then went on a holiday until 6th of November and continued the final day to the 7th of November. After that I wrote down the total number of youth intakes in November (which FYI is Argentina and yes I checked October for the occasional few that may spawn there). The variables I wanted to test are play league vs view only vs no league, small vs large database and the effect of adding national teams/top clubs per nation and per continent. This last part is done in advanced setup.

Here's my little notepad...

Argentina youth intake:

small database - no leagues - no national teams = 45
large database - no leagues - no national teams = 45
- large database makes no difference

small database - no leagues - Argentina national + top teams = 149

• national teams and players from top clubs makes big difference

small database - view Argentina leagues - no national teams = 5

• view league disables the 45 from no league database?
  
• need to retest small database to confirm first 45 wasn't a mistake
  

test again small database - no leagues - no national teams = 5

• small is 5, first test was a mistake
  
• view league has no effect
  
• this means I have to test with large database if game speed allows it
  

small database - play Argentina leagues - no national teams = 1201
small database - no leagues - South America national + top teams = 168

• so specific countries over entire continent at once doesn't matter

small database - no leagues - all continents national + top teams = 182 (+19 Belarus)

• gamespeed dropped to 3.5 stars, large would wreck the gamespeed
  
• game has nearly 50k players, hardly a need for large database
  
• doing this is basically emulating a large database setup, except it seems to increase regen spawns globally, which is awesome
  
• the 19 Belarus confirms this works for all countries, not just Argentina
  
• there are more (current, non-regen) international young talents spread around the world that normally wouldn't be there even with a large database and regens spawn globally, realism achieved
  

small database - no leagues - south america national, Europe top teams = 12 (+13 Belarus)

• trying to figure out if its the national teams or top teams that triggers the global regen spawns
  
• turns out Belarus (Europe top teams) is still there, but Argentina (south america current national) is almost gone, so its top teams that triggers the regens spawning
  

Final Thoughts

So, to end my little test session, I advise you:

• to play with your home league,
  
• add neighboring leagues (playable required) if you start in a lower league,
  
• add 2 or 3 mayor leagues for more transfer market competition and then
  
• go into advanced database setup to enable top clubs on a continental scale. If this lowers performance below 3.5 stars, consider stripping away continents except Europe and South America.
  
• And keep the database size at small.
  

Thanks for reading and I hope it helps at least someone out there xD

hetwiel

P.S.
In case anyone reading this is unsure about what I mean with advanced setup or adding current internationals and players from top clubs in specific, here's two screenshots:
Here's the advanced button
Adding top clubs per continent