Transfers, take two: a market instead of a price field

The first version of transfers was a form with a price on it. You saw a number, you paid the number, the player moved. Nothing about that felt like club business, and club business is most of why I play these games in the first place. Half the fun of a transfer window is the waiting.

So take two gave the market actual stages. Players get listed. Buyers keep a shortlist, capped at five, because a shortlist of forty is a database query, not a plan. Offers go in with a contract attached, the selling club takes time to consider, and the whole thing only works inside a transfer window. The board sits above all of it with minimum and maximum fee limits, so you cannot sell your best centre-half for pennies or bankroll a signing on optimism alone.

The club surfaces caught up too. Squad and player pages got list, asking price, withdraw and reject. Finances now show fees you have committed against a soft budget ceiling, which is the number that actually decides whether you can do the deal. And market cards show what your scouting knows about a player, not what the database knows — you should be able to bid on someone you are not certain about. That is the bit I borrowed and then modified. Trophy Manager hands you a player's full attributes the moment you click them; here you commission a report and live with the estimate.

Meanwhile the FA settings hub picked up economy, match-fitness and transfer configuration, dry-run previews included. That mattered more than it sounds. Tuning a market through environment variables means every adjustment is a redeploy and a guess; putting the knobs behind a preview means I can look at what a change does before the world feels it.

Two things I deliberately did not do. Loans stayed out. A half-built loan system would have doubled the contract surface while the plain fee path was still settling, and windows, boards and budget caps were already giving me plenty to keep consistent. And I did not build a one-click "pay the asking price" market, even though it would have been a fraction of the work. Instant buying is simpler and much less football.

The AI side is next, and it is the part I actually care about. Not AI clubs that accept any offer above a threshold, but clubs with needs, a wage bill and some desire to stay competitive, deciding whether your bid helps them. The staged negotiation I built here is the groundwork for that. It also means more states to keep in sync across the inbox, market cards and finances, which I will no doubt be complaining about later. 😄