Champions League/European Cup

Is there a way in which I can alter the Champs. League/Euro. Cup from a tournement back into the strictly cup competition (knock out) of old?

How would I go about setting this up in career mode without it crashing at the end of the season, etc? Would it be fiddly?

Yes, there is a way.
Open SWOS.exe and search for the following hex string:

04 04 08 00 08 04 00 04 02 00 02 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 94 94 14

This describes the European Cup format as follows:

04 04 08 means 4 groups with 4 teams, 8 teams qualify (group stage)
00 08 04 means 0 groups (=knockout) with 8 teams, 4 qualify (quarter finals)
00 04 02 means 0 groups (=knockout) with 4 teams, 2 qualify (semifinals)
00 02 01 means 0 groups (=knockout) with 2 teams, 1 qualify (final)

94 means two legs (quarter finals and semifinals)
14 means one leg (final)

So basically you can replace "04 04 08" with "00 10 08" and you get knockout instead of 4 groups
Besides, just replace a 00 before 94 with another 94, and you get two legs for the first knockout stage

If you want to get rid of seeded, before the string above you find at some point 01 01 01. Just replace it with 01 00 01 and stage draws become completely random instead of seeded.

I like 1 group of 16 teams...only 1 round (15 matches). Then 8 teams fixed by group position (1st vs 8th...). Its a real European Champions league. Another thing I did was 16 teams (4×4)-> 12 (3×4)-> 8 (2×4)-> finalists (tried 1x4 crushed new season).

Hi Guys,

is it possible to modify swos-port-Release.exe file with HexEditor in order to change UEFA cup and CWC from cup format to tournament format (like Champions League is). I am trying to change them to have 4 groups of 8 teams in initial phase followed by knocked-out round-16, quarter-final, semi-final, and final. It would better represent contemporary formats of Europa League and Conference League.
I've managed to find offsets of UEFA cup and CWC (2F0BC6 and 2F0C22) but whatever I tried so far, it always ended with game crash.
I suppose you guys probably have a solution?

Hi,

The original SWOS has a fixed structure, meaning every element has its own designated place and size. You cannot move or enlarge them. The 2020 version introduced the ability to inject code, which allows for expanding these structures—for example, adding extra divisions to any competition. I recently updated the code to a newer version: github.com/anoxic83/SWOS_Competition_Changer.

I thought about applying a similar trick to the European competitions, but it is extremely complicated. League competitions follow a certain template that is identical for every country. However, for the Champions League, SWOS uses defined structures that dictate which countries teams should be pulled from first. Furthermore, the number of teams for each European competition is likely hardcoded in the assembly (and in multiple places at that).

Another issue is that even if those specific locations were found, every subsequent SWOS update (recompilation) would change them all over again.

Hi anoxic,

thank you for your replay. I'm already using all your stuff available on github. I think you've done amazing job. Thank you for that.
As for European competitions, I supposed we would need to wait SWOS United crew to update the code. In my opinion, it is time to update all european compatitions. For the sake of all of us, career mode fans. Cup formats are fun but obsolete. Modern league structures in all euopean competitions would bring to career mode more european games and subsequently more money. The only serious money that you can earn in career mode (except winning the league and selling players) gets from playing european competition games. It would be very beneficial to have 7 guaranteed games in UEFA CUP instead of 2. That is why it is very important to update european competitions to modern formats.