[NoOne]

make sure you are okay with the ai behaviour when you set rookie to 35... i realize the game itself says not lower than that... but even 35 is pretty low.

this is one area you might want to be willing to have less realistic settings for the sake of how the video game functions.

i had problems with 35 -- you may not. lately i've tried 45 in an effort to avoid creating 'more' new players per year. some teams were clumping up in the rookie league (enough teams clumping where the net effect of a max roster size was a reduction in # of players in rookie league). 35 caused a bunch of crap players to be pushed up to minor league levels they shouldn't have been playing in. I'm sure it's still happening at 45, but at least it's more spread out and less frequently a clump of more than a few players and after some long-term simming dinking around with GM sliders, never saw a problem with needing players.

the reason i say be willing to think differently is because the game uses those limits as a goal in some respects... it will fill up to that amount even when it doesn't need extra players. so, if you use a roster limit in rookie, it's a constant give and take of those 2 forces -- clumping and filling for no need. does that cause an incerase or decrease in needed palyers? does it cause bad ai decisions? etc etc use results to dictate your choice.

you put it too high and you don't have enough FA overflow to cover all the gaps that need to be filled randomly over time (relative to how many new players you make per year). put it too low and players get released or pushed into promotions before they can handle it. always dam*ed if you do, dam*ed of you don't.

if you see 50-70+ on a enough teams (if you want "35", count up overflow of hoarding - estimate is good), i'd definitely use them and figure out a # that works well for your settings. if you see 50 as the max and only a few teams hit that number, i'd suggest being happy with that. that's not too high to be a real problem when it's only 1-3? teams out of 30....

e.g. you go from 35 to 40, and 30 (or more in rookie!) teams will (no choice) add 5 players = 150 new players needed and of a particular sort to fill properly -- low development, typically very young). if only a couple teams have 10-15 extra players that's only an extra 20-30 players. you've just created a need for an additional 100+ players by comparison to not using limits. do that enough and you will need to change some player creation settings (draft / int't amatuers created per year etc).