Minimum/maximum ages on minor league teams

[cbbl]

Hey all ...

Quick question. Can you set minimum and maximum age limits independently on each affiliated minor league? I can't seem to figure out how.

The option exists under Roster Rules on the parent league, but this option is not present on the minor leagues. What if I opt to want only 21+ on the top league, but 18+ is ok in the minors?

Or, what if I don't want 35 year olds in my Rookie League?

Thanks ...

[zekester91]

Originally Posted by cbbl

Hey all ...

Quick question. Can you set minimum and maximum age limits independently on each affiliated minor league? I can't seem to figure out how.

The option exists under Roster Rules on the parent league, but this option is not present on the minor leagues. What if I opt to want only 21+ on the top league, but 18+ is ok in the minors?

Or, what if I don't want 35 year olds in my Rookie League?

Thanks ...

I'm pretty sure Markus took that out with the first patch. If your using the original (unpatched) version of the game you can do that, unfortanly Markus has said that it is not possible to put age limits for Minor leagues, even though a lot of us want that.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by zekester91

If your using the original (unpatched) version of the game you can do that, unfortunately Markus has said that it is not possible to put age limits for Minor leagues, even though a lot of us want that.

What's really needed for better recreation of the minor leagues isn't age limits but service limits.

Most of the roster restrictions in the minors, and especially in the independent leagues, revolve around service time limitations. These generally mean the club must carry a minimum number of first-year players and/or a maximum number of veteran players.

In the Advanced A leagues, for example, the restriction is that clubs cannot carry more than two players and one player-coach who have six or more years of prior minor league experience. The independent Northern League specifies that clubs must carry a minimum of five first-year players and a maximum of four veterans (defined as those with five or more years of prior professional experience).

So getting user-definable service time limits for individual minor leagues which allow the player to specify how many first-year players must be carried on the active list, and how many veterans players can be carried, and lastly how many years prior experience classifies a player as a veteran, would be the items to campaign for...

[cbbl]

Originally Posted by zekester91

I'm pretty sure Markus took that out with the first patch. If your using the original (unpatched) version of the game you can do that, unfortanly Markus has said that it is not possible to put age limits for Minor leagues, even though a lot of us want that.

I thought I remembered seeing it. I wonder what it conflicted with.

[zekester91]

Originally Posted by cbbl

I thought I remembered seeing it. I wonder what it conflicted with.

Don't know if it conflicts with anything or if it's just a design choice Markus has gone with, all the info I've seen on it are in post 4, Did age restristion for minor lg. disappear?

[1998 Yankees]

Here's what Markus said in that post:

Age restrictions were only intended for feeder leagues or parent leagues and not for minor leagues, they were accidentaly visible for minor leagues in the release version.

I see where age limits no longer appear in minor leagues (affiliated ones, BTW, because age limits are still available in all unaffiliated leagues, major or minor) and I somewhat understand why; perhaps it would have been difficult to have age restrictions and an AI managing minor league roster moves as well as minor league roster limits.

What I don't understand now, and I hope someone can clear up, is why you still have created age minimums and maximums for affiliated minor leagues. Would not these be controlled by the settings for the parent club and/or for feeder leagues, the mix being determined by how many players were generated to fill the amateur draft if feeder leagues did not produce enough?

The only thing that I can think of is the situation when the minor leagues run short of players and the game must create fictional players for it to continue. Or, at the very beginning of a league without an inaugural draft (which I just tested; the AAA league player creation ages that I set had no effect anyway).

All in all, .

[Zeyes]

Hey, another chance to postwhore for my current favorite bug thread that I can't seem to buy dev team attention for...

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

The only thing that I can think of is the situation when the minor leagues run short of players and the game must create fictional players for it to continue. Or, at the very beginning of a league without an inaugural draft (which I just tested; the AAA league player creation ages that I set had no effect anyway).

In short, using the creation age settings to make a younger-than-normal Triple-A league works, but making one that skews older doesn't.

[1998 Yankees]

So, are you confirming that those situations are the only ones applicable for affiliated minor league player creation ages? And if so, you are saying that they don't work? I recognize your thread is about independent minor leagues, but my question is why have these options available for affiliated minor leagues. Forgive the obtuseness, and I hope your Tech Support gets addressed because I think the issues are definitely related - note what I said about my experiment failing. I have a feeling, after reading your post and in line with Markus' statement above, that age creation and age limits do not work for anything but major and feeder leagues, period.

[Zeyes]

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

So, are you confirming that those situations are the only ones applicable for affiliated minor league player creation ages? And if so, you are saying that they don't work? I recognize your thread is about independent minor leagues, but my question is why have these options available for affiliated minor leagues.

Ack, too many inter-connected questions. Let's go a bit primordial here:

When the game generates a player pool for a chain of leagues, it actually generates separate player pools for each level. Just try going to Free Agents -> Show All Players before the inaugural draft in a new league happens, and you'll see separate pools for each league.

Consequently, you can also select different creation ages for each player pool. I just tried a 16-team major league with attached Triple-A level where I made the majors really old (41-50) and the AAA really young (19-20), and sure enough, I ended up with 736 [16 x (roster limit 25 + free agent excess 21)] really old guys in the one pool, and 400 [16x25] really young guys in the other pool.

As soon as the inaugural draft has taken place, the player pools come together and those age classes won't necessarily be respected anymore, unless you also set roster age limits (for the majors, anyway). Without limits, in my example the worst old guys will be shuffled off to Triple-A while the best young guys will be assigned to the Major league rosters.

On the other hand (and this concerns my bug report), if I try an age 41-50 ML with an age 31-40 AAA, the game will ignore my AAA settings and create a "typical" AAA pool aged 23-26 instead.

So yes, creation ages definitely work for the minor leagues (no matter if affiliated or indy) as long as you only pick values below the range that the game considers typical for the level.

What I don't know is whether:
- they are indeed supposed to work, and half of the implementation is simply broken, or
- they're not supposed to work in the first place, and the current ability to create really young minor leagues is an unintended programming gremlin like the ability to set minor league roster ages was.

Alas, somehow my thread continues to go overlooked, and I'm afraid to bump it out of sight in case somebody does take a gander at the backlog again one of these days... Maybe soon; there are only 15 older threads at this point.

Edit: One thing I might mention as well - there seem to be some off-by-one bugs in the creation ages. My (41-50) ML players are actually created as (40-51), while a (23-25) AAA pool I just tried ended up being (24-26). Yeah, the deviations are different in both cases...down/up for the majors, up/up for the minors.

Edit #2: I just read over my bug report again...

Originally Posted by Zeyes

If I try to create an age 41-50 AAA league, I invariably end up with exactly five players per team who are exactly one year younger than the minimum (i.e. a 16-team league will have 80 fourty-year old players), with the rest of the players all bunched in a more "regular" age range, in this case 23-26.

This "token old guys" thing only seems to happen with indy AAA's, not with affiliated ones (which ignore too-high age settings altogether).

[1998 Yankees]

OK, I think you're saying the created ages work for affiliated minor leagues, but everything gets mingled anyway right after the inaugural draft without working age limits in the minor leagues, hence my original question which is why have created ages without age limits?

Thanks for the detailed response. Good luck with your issue. "Ack" is right.

[Zeyes]

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

OK, I think you're saying the created ages work for affiliated minor leagues

Yes, if you're trying to go young. Not when trying to create old (i.e. >26y) players.

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

but everything gets mingled anyway right after the inaugural draft without working age limits in the minor leagues, hence my original question which is why have created ages without age limits?

Well, it allows you to influence the makeup of the inaugural draft pool (in theory anyway), so you could have a very prospect-y league chain or a very mature one.

(Actually I haven't tried to see if setting created age limits has an influence on ratings...maybe a major league of 20-year olds will have as many players with current ratings close to their potentials, as a league of 30-year olds would. Hmm, gotta fire up Excel sometime.)

It also might influence what happens when you use the "fill with fictional players" feature, but I haven't tried that either.

[Zeyes]

dola,

Originally Posted by Zeyes

(Actually I haven't tried to see if setting created age limits has an influence on ratings...maybe a major league of 20-year olds will have as many players with current ratings close to their potentials, as a league of 30-year olds would.)

Looks like there's no ratings effect, the ratio between the cumulative ratings and the cumulative potentials were pretty much the same no matter what the age settings are.

You still ought to get the dynamic ratings effects though, i.e. a very young player pool will still improve as it gets older, but an old pool won't.

Originally Posted by Zeyes

It also might influence what happens when you use the "fill with fictional players" feature

Yep, that function respects the created age settings.

[endgame]

Zeyes, thanks for the comments and observations on this issue. I agree, it would not be in your best interests to bump the thread. But...I do suggest that you "edit" your bug post and make a point of providing a link to this thread or any other related to these observations.

[Zeyes]

Originally Posted by endgame

But...I do suggest that you "edit" your bug post and make a point of providing a link to this thread or any other related to these observations.

Thanks for the friendly smack upside the head. I've done so now.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by Zeyes

Thanks for the friendly smack upside the head. I've done so now.

We all need one of those once in a while.

Let's hope they get to your thread and answer it soon. To me, this has been a detail since I have not used age restrictions at all except in feeder leagues. I was just curious. To you, this is obviously important and you deserve an answer.

And, thanks to endgame for yet another astute and timely suggestion.