Everyone has their funny little quirks, one of mine is spreadsheets, specifically excel (I love it), although other spreadsheeting software is available.  I was shown this fantastic tool by fellow blog member Nick, @NTR9798.  It was created by @zickofonac on twitter, and can be downloaded using this link ZickoCM9798WorkingStation_v2.1. The tool allows us to download the database to a spreadsheet, make any changes we want to and reupload it all without having to use the actual editor. This can be a huge time saver for bulk changes!

I don’t claim to be an expert using this tool, I just want to provide some tips and pointers to help people edit the CM9798 databases more easily.  When you download the software, there is a README file that contains a lot of information on how to use this tool. Obviously the first time I read that file was before I began writing this blog, because instructions right, who needs those!  If I had read the instructions, one of the issues I noticed when exporting the TMDATA could have been easily avoided, because information about this issue was, surprise surprise, in the instructions.  I’ll explain more later.

In this blog I will cover:

• Setting up CM9798 Working Station (CM9798 WS)
• Exporting the *.DB1 files to make a *.CSV file
• Things you can do in excel to make editing easier
• Importing the *.CSV files to make a *.DB1 file

Step 1 – Download and Install

Once you have downloaded the file above you will need to extract the content of the *.zip file, there are loads of ways to do this, I like WinRAR, however if you right click on the *.zip file and select “Extract All”.

You get the following screen where you can create a folder to put the files.

When you first run the program, you might get this message.

Click the more info part and then Run anyway.

You should now be able to use the program.

Step 2 – Settings

Once you are in, the first thing you want to do is select “Settings”, you will get a screen that looks like this.  You need to tell the program which version you are running, if you have downloaded your copy from https://cm9798.co.uk/ then you have V2.93.  The first box is where you have saved your copy of CM9798 on your computer and the second box is where you want the extracted database files to appear.  I left the two tick boxes checked and then click “save”.  The below picture is what it looks like by default.

This is what I have mine set to for this blog.

Step 3 – Backup the OG *.DB1 files

To do this just go to the folder where your version of CM9798 is saved, create a folder in that location called “OG Databases” then select the three *.DB1 files and copy them to the folder you just created.

Step 4 – Exporting a *.DB1 file

First, click start in CM9798 WS to get the screen below.

Then select Data Convertor.  I’ve only exported and played around with the Player Database and the Teams Database, so I’ll talk a little bit about each of those. I haven’t looked at either the Managers Database or the Players Histories, however I imagine some of the things I talk about will be relevant to those files too.  As with anything like this, you will need to play around and figure some things out for yourself.  You can also refer to the README file I mentioned earlier, as that is written by Zićko who will know more than I about what this program can do.

Click “Export Player Database to CSV and then specify the location of the PLAYERS.DB1 file and where you would like the CSV to appear.  If you did the settings part earlier the two locations will already be correct.  When you are ready click “Export”.

Navigate to the location you specified, and you will see a file called PLAYERS than you can open with your spreadsheet software.  I’m using Excel, so the things I do from here are specific to that program however I am sure other spreadsheet software will have similar features. 

Open the PLAYERS file and you might see a message like this.  I usually click “DON’T CONVERT” however I just played around, and I couldn’t see any real difference.

So now you are ready to get editing.  The first thing I do is use the filters feature for all the headings in the spreadsheet, this makes selecting data a lot easier.  To do this highlight all the cells in row 1 and select the filter funnel, you will get little arrow tabs on the right of each cell.

Here are a couple of examples of things you can do:

First, I want to find out about all the Ivory Coast players in the game.  Click the box next to Nation and then click Select all, this removes all the ticks.

Scroll down to Ivory Coast and tick the box and select OK.

You now have all the Ivory Coast players in the game.

Now we can sort them by reputation.  Same process as before. Click the box by reputation and now select the Sort Largest to Smallest option.

CM9798 favourite Ibrahima Bakayoko comes out top of the list.

So that’s how we use the filters, let’s make some changes.  Uncheck all the filters you have used to view all the players again.  Now we will sort them all by reputation.  You should end up with this list.

Franco Baresi has a high reputation, however he is retired.

Let’s change that to Free Transfer.  We will check the result of this change later.

Now let’s make a lot of changes in one go.  You may or may not know, there are loads of cool players in the database who never load because their reputations are so low.  Let’s change that so we get a random assortment of players each time.

Click the Reputation box and select Number Filters à Less than or equal to.

Now edit the box so that it shows players with a reputation less than or equal to 99 and more than or equal to 1.

Now highlight all the cells in the reputation column and delete them.

Now put a 0 (zero) in the top box, click on the bottom right of the selected cell and drag it all the way down to put a zero in all the boxes.  Now all those players have a random reputation so different ones will load each time.

Another thing I used this for was making all the players who appear as FR or FL in the game have a 1 in the support role so that they can play in the AMR or AML positions, otherwise they are just dead players that are never used.  I’m not going to talk you through it, but the idea is the same.  Use the filters to find all the FR and FL players then add a 1 to the support column of all those players.

Ok, save that database and let’s get ready to import it and play a game.

Step 5 – Importing *.CSV file

Now we have played around with the PLAYERS.CSV file we need to import so that those changes are picked up when we create a new game.

To do this select the “Update Players Database from CSV file” button.

Now you can see that because we did the settings bit earlier the locations of the files we want are correct, however all the little checkboxes are ticked, and this causes some issues if you try and import the data.  This is because the database is a little bit of a mess with values that are not allowed in certain places.  This is not anything we have done, those values were there in the original file.  Here is an example of what you might see.

If you have the patience of a saint, you could find and correct all these errors.  In fact, I think the workstation program might be able to do this, but I’ve never tried, it might be in the README file.  We don’t need to do this though, those errors don’t break the game, they haven’t for the last 25+ years anyway so all we need to so is uncheck all the little tick boxes before clicking import.

Unfortunately, we still get this.

So, we do need to go back into the file and correct this, fortunately it tells you the row is 2880, but it will only tell you one at a time, what If there are more?  Open the file, use the filters and in current club select BLANKS.

Look there are four.

Make their current club FREE TRANSFER and try again.

Now depending on what you’ve changed there may be some others, like -1’s in the wrong place.  There were some -1 values in the reputation column earlier, I corrected them to 0, but didn’t talk you through that, if you haven’t done that and get another error that is something you could try.  Save all your changes and repeat the process of uploading again.

Success, now you know about it, you can change it before you try and upload the file.

So, lets run a game and see if the changes we made worked.  We will see if Franco Baresi is now and free transfer and hopefully one of or both Christer George or Christian Bye-Anderson will have loaded after our reputation tweak.

I got lucky and both Christer and Christian loaded first time, that doesn’t always happen, you can also see Franco is keen to amble slowly around the pitch for at least one more season.

Step 6 – Play the game, have some fun

That’s it really, have a mess around and play the game, enjoying the changes you have made.

Final words

If you are going to export the TMDATA.DB1 file and play around with that you need to take note of this information in the README file.

If you don’t you will spend a while not understanding why CM9798 WS is telling you that you have too many columns in your spreadsheet to import the data.  Just follow what the file says and change those pieces of information in the in-game editor before exporting the TMDATA.DB1 file, see the examples below where I have removed the commas.

Ok, so that is it, have fun and happy spreadsheeting.