A few questions from the new guy

[ChuckkieB]

Hello all,

After years of staying away from SIM baseball games, I've bitten the bullet and have just purchased OOTP 2006. I've been a huge baseball fan for many years (I was born the year the Mets won their 1st WS) and truly appreciate the history of the game. I'm chomping at the bit to get the game started but want to make absolutely certain that everything is set up perfectly before I dive in. I downloaded and printed the Game Guide (yes, I printed it - I "borrowed" the paper from work ) and MOD customization Guide. I plan on reading each of these documents and becoming initmately familiar with every aspect of the game. In the meantime, I have this problem. The game has been downloaded to my pc and it seems to be "calling" for me to play it. My wife does not hear it, but I just think she's just messing with me.

I plan on joining an online historical league at some point, but for the time being, I would like to set up a highly customized solo league just so I can become more familiar with the game.

Anyway, I have a few questions that I hope some of the fine people of this community could answer for me to get me started on the right track:

1) I want to create a league with 48 teams, using the 30 current major league teams plus 18 fictional teams, with a three tierd minor league syatem consisting of A, AA, and AAA. The base rosters of the current teams should be the most current available. I want there to be 3 divisions of 8 teams in each league. I would like the playoff structure to be 3 division winners plus 1 wildcard team in each league, and I would also like to extend the first round of the playoffs to 7 games. Is any of this possible?

2) I've found the OOTP MOD Squad site which contains all of the wonderful MODS this community has created, but I have absolutely no idea where to start. I want to ensure that gameplay and yearly/historical stats are as realistic as possible as well as the visual aspects of the game. I would like to have have correct faces for each real player and varied "fake" faces for fictional players. I would like to add the correct logos for each real team, and to also add logos (and uniforms if possible)for the fictional teams. What would this community consider to be the best MOD for:
A) current rosters for 2006 (major and minor leagues)
B) logos
C) photos
C) fictional faces
D) stadiums
E) generating fictional names
F) more realistic gameplay/game settings and yearly/historical statistical outpout


I realize that I've asked a lot of questions, but any help and/or suggestions with any of this would be greatly appreciated. Once I become more familiar with the game, I plan on being very active and helpful in this community.

Thanks for your time everyone.

cheers,
ChuckkieB

[1998 Yankees]

Well, very impressive first post, ChuckkieB! I will let others answer you in detail, but my general responses/suggestions:

1) I don't see any reason offhand why you can't set things up the way you describe, but my suggestion here is to use the template / quickstart features extensively and test your league setup repeatedly until you get what you want.

2) Wow. I will certainly invite other members to comment on all that. I will just add that if you have not visited the Mods forum here, you may want to do so and spend a good amount of time there reading about the experiences and suggestions of other members.

3) Before you get into all of that, why not play the game out of the box for a while to get a feel for it before you go ahead with the customizations?

Just some suggestions. Welcome to the community, and have fun.

[bp_]

Originally Posted by ChuckkieB

Hello all,

What would this community consider to be the best MOD for:
A) current rosters for 2006 (major and minor leagues)
B) logos
C) photos
C) fictional faces
D) stadiums
E) generating fictional names
F) more realistic gameplay/game settings and yearly/historical statistical outpout

A) I'd try the Rolen's rosters
B) I am a big fan of truthserum's logos (he has a set to match up with Rolen's rosters) but others are just as good. AULOGO might be worth looking at too for historicals: http://www.planetootp.com/
C) You might want to try the big dog pic pack (if you want full minor league photos for rolen's rosters) or AUFACE: http://www.planetootp.com/
D) I use Bogart's but I haven't tried any others

I can't help you with the last two.

[1998 Yankees]

I'll sneak back in here just to second bp_'s recommendation of the Bogart stadiums. I think they're excellent, and they are available at that OOTP MOD Squad site that you mentioned. See here for some useful information about using them.

[CMH]

I just want to say welcome.

Looks like these guys helped you out already.

Don't be afraid to ask a bunch of questions. Contrary to popular belief, a lot of us like answering what we can.

[ChuckkieB]

Thank you vey much for the advice and suggestions everyone. If anyone else has anything to add, it would be greatly appreciated.

I've been tinkering with the world template and have pretty much set up the 48 team league (30 real teams, 18 fictional) with three levels of minor leagues and affiliations. I have also set the game options, league settings, rules, and strategic tendencies to my liking and have autoplayed a few years (with all fictional players) and will continue to tweak these settings until I'm completely satisfied with the results.

What I can't figure out is how to incorporate historical rosters (from any year) to fill out the real teams in my league concurrently with the fictional teams that I have set up. What do I need to do to make this happen?

Also, let's say that I want to start a historical league from 1901 and have the historical rookies added each subsequent year - Is it possible to fill the historical rosters of the teams that existed in 1901 AND the rest of the real teams that didn't exist yet PLUS the 18 fictional teams with fictional players?

Forgive me if these questions appear to be a bit silly, but I just don't have a handle on the historical importing framework just yet. With the help of the experts in this community, I am confident that I will soon be well versed enough to help the next batch of newbies. Until then, I will humbly lean on your expertise.

Once again, many thanks.
ChuckkieB

[CMH]

Hmm, I don't really mess with historical leagues much, but I'll PM someone that does and hopefully he'll stop by to answer.

[Tiger Fan]

Originally Posted by ChuckkieB

Thank you vey much for the advice and suggestions everyone. If anyone else has anything to add, it would be greatly appreciated.

I've been tinkering with the world template and have pretty much set up the 48 team league (30 real teams, 18 fictional) with three levels of minor leagues and affiliations. I have also set the game options, league settings, rules, and strategic tendencies to my liking and have autoplayed a few years (with all fictional players) and will continue to tweak these settings until I'm completely satisfied with the results.

What I can't figure out is how to incorporate historical rosters (from any year) to fill out the real teams in my league concurrently with the fictional teams that I have set up. What do I need to do to make this happen?

Also, let's say that I want to start a historical league from 1901 and have the historical rookies added each subsequent year - Is it possible to fill the historical rosters of the teams that existed in 1901 AND the rest of the real teams that didn't exist yet PLUS the 18 fictional teams with fictional players?

Forgive me if these questions appear to be a bit silly, but I just don't have a handle on the historical importing framework just yet. With the help of the experts in this community, I am confident that I will soon be well versed enough to help the next batch of newbies. Until then, I will humbly lean on your expertise.

Once again, many thanks.
ChuckkieB

Aside from manually importing all of the rookies individually every season (which would be extremely time consuming) I do not believe there is any way for you to have fictional and historical rookies in the same draft pool.

However, since it sounds like you want the fictional players to be equal in ability to the real life historical rookies there is a compromise workaround that would not be too difficult. I have not tried to do this specifically but I think it should work fine.


Choose Create New Game:
First step would be to select add a historical league and choose 1901 as your import year. Following the importing of the players from Lahman you should add all of the minor league levels you want (AAA, AA and A in your example).

Next within the same game select Add fictional league. I know you need 32 more major league teams but I would suggest you create this league with 48 teams in it for reasons I will explain shortly. Also add each minor league level to this league. I would set the amateur draft for this league at 30 or more rounds and make sure from the strategy and equivalencies screen you check automatically import historical player creation modifiers.

Make any setup changes you wish to do here but for it to work properly you will need to enable free agents can be signed from other leagues in your historical league (but likely uncheck the choice for free agents to leave this league) while in the fictional league do the reverse and enable option for free agents to leave the league. I would also set free agency to 1 year in the fictional league.


Click start game. As soon as game is setup move the 32 fictional teams (some of which you will name to real life teams that joined the majors post 1901 and the remainder being the fictional teams you want to add). This will give you a historical league with 48 teams in it and your fictional league will still have 16 teams. Don't forget to add minor league affiliates for the 32 teams you moved across and when you are done generate new schedules for each league. You will also need to fill all teams with fictional players to ensure all minor league affiliates are fully stocked with players.

You need this fictional league to remain active so it can help keep your 48 mlb league teams stocked in players. The idea is the major league draft will still only contain real rookies (so the draft will have barely 2 rounds in many years). Teams from your major league will then stock their minor league systems by signing free agents from the fictional league you left active with 16 teams. If you prefer to have the real-life historical rookies be assigned to their original teams instead of a draft you can do that as well but keep in mind the real teams will have a slight advantage as the other 32 clubs can only go after free agents from the other league. I believe you must keep free agency enabled in your major league for all of this to work but you can set it to 12 years before a player becomes eligible to at least minimize the mlb free agents.

Like I said I have not tried this exact setup but I think it should do basically what you want. Let me know if you have any questions.

[ChuckkieB]

Originally Posted by Tiger Fan

Aside from manually importing all of the rookies individually every season (which would be extremely time consuming) I do not believe there is any way for you to have fictional and historical rookies in the same draft pool.

However, since it sounds like you want the fictional players to be equal in ability to the real life historical rookies there is a compromise workaround that would not be too difficult. I have not tried to do this specifically but I think it should work fine.


Choose Create New Game:
First step would be to select add a historical league and choose 1901 as your import year. Following the importing of the players from Lahman you should add all of the minor league levels you want (AAA, AA and A in your example).

Next within the same game select Add fictional league. I know you need 32 more major league teams but I would suggest you create this league with 48 teams in it for reasons I will explain shortly. Also add each minor league level to this league. I would set the amateur draft for this league at 30 or more rounds and make sure from the strategy and equivalencies screen you check automatically import historical player creation modifiers.

Make any setup changes you wish to do here but for it to work properly you will need to enable free agents can be signed from other leagues in your historical league (but likely uncheck the choice for free agents to leave this league) while in the fictional league do the reverse and enable option for free agents to leave the league. I would also set free agency to 1 year in the fictional league.


Click start game. As soon as game is setup move the 32 fictional teams (some of which you will name to real life teams that joined the majors post 1901 and the remainder being the fictional teams you want to add). This will give you a historical league with 48 teams in it and your fictional league will still have 16 teams. Don't forget to add minor league affiliates for the 32 teams you moved across and when you are done generate new schedules for each league. You will also need to fill all teams with fictional players to ensure all minor league affiliates are fully stocked with players.

You need this fictional league to remain active so it can help keep your 48 mlb league teams stocked in players. The idea is the major league draft will still only contain real rookies (so the draft will have barely 2 rounds in many years). Teams from your major league will then stock their minor league systems by signing free agents from the fictional league you left active with 16 teams. If you prefer to have the real-life historical rookies be assigned to their original teams instead of a draft you can do that as well but keep in mind the real teams will have a slight advantage as the other 32 clubs can only go after free agents from the other league. I believe you must keep free agency enabled in your major league for all of this to work but you can set it to 12 years before a player becomes eligible to at least minimize the mlb free agents.

Like I said I have not tried this exact setup but I think it should do basically what you want. Let me know if you have any questions.

Tiger Fan, Thank you very much for taking the time to try and figure this out. The steps you've listed seem to map out exactly what I'm trying to do. I will attempt to set this up and will let you know how it turns out.

If I decide to add logos, photos, fictional faces and modify stadiums, where in this process would I do so? I'm assuming any addtions/modifications would be done only after I've successfully started the game and set up the rosters, yes?

YankeePride, thanks for your help as well.

Thanks again!
ChuckkieB

[bp_]

Originally Posted by ChuckkieB

If I decide to add logos, photos, fictional faces and modify stadiums, where in this process would I do so? I'm assuming any addtions/modifications would be done only after I've successfully started the game and set up the rosters, yes?

You can do all this once you have everything set up. Just ask for some help or check out the OOTP manuals which should explain how to do these things.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by ChuckkieB

If I decide to add logos, photos, fictional faces and modify stadiums, where in this process would I do so? I'm assuming any addtions/modifications would be done only after I've successfully started the game and set up the rosters, yes?

You are aware that there is a customization guide available that addresses everything you mentioned?

http://www.ootpbaseball2006.com/down...=download&id=4

As far as timing, I found it very advisable to save a template, then start a game but not advance it at all. Rather, make all the changes that you can think of and save the game as a quickstart as of day one. Then, when you find something that you missed and you want to start over, you can go back to the quickstart game. If you restart the template, I think you lose all of the modifications that you are talking about and must do them all again.

[ChuckkieB]

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

You are aware that there is a customization guide available that addresses everything you mentioned?

http://www.ootpbaseball2006.com/down...=download&id=4

As far as timing, I found it very advisable to save a template, then start a game but not advance it at all. Rather, make all the changes that you can think of and save the game as a quickstart as of day one. Then, when you find something that you missed and you want to start over, you can go back to the quickstart game. If you restart the template, I think you lose all of the modifications that you are talking about and must do them all again.

Thanks 1998. I've printed out the Customization guide but haven't had a chance to really dive into it yet. The behemoth known as the game guide has my attention at the moment.

Question - what is the difference between a simple "save game" and "saving as a quickstart?" I don't see any specific distinctions mentioned in the Game Guide unless I'm missing something.

Let's say I've done just as you said - I've modified and saved my template, I start the game at day 1, I make all desired modifications before I advance another day, then I save the game. If I instead save as a quickstart at this point, is there any difference?

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by ChuckkieB

Question - what is the difference between a simple "save game" and "saving as a quickstart?" I don't see any specific distinctions mentioned in the Game Guide unless I'm missing something.

Let's say I've done just as you said - I've modified and saved my template, I start the game at day 1, I make all desired modifications before I advance another day, then I save the game. If I instead save as a quickstart at this point, is there any difference?

Here's my take.

Every time you leave the game, it saves all of those .dat files in your saved game folder. Those are the crucial files. When you "save game," you are doing the same thing, a good thing to do if you are worried about the game crashing or the electricity going off before you can end the game and save it that way or before the game does an auto-save (see Game Options). All three methods do the same thing; it's just a matter of timing.

To make matters even more complicated, they introduced a "Make Backup" feature in one of the later patches. This makes a copy of those .dat files in a separate folder in the saved game folder to make it easy for you to back them up. See this for more information:

Making backups of the database / How does the backup feature work?

The difference between all of the above and a saved quickstart game is that all of the other goodies in your game, like your customized logos, are saved in a quickstart game folder along with the .dat files. This is what you want to save to preserve your modifications in case you ever want to start over again.

Realize, however, that the .dat files in the quickstart are from day one if you save it at that time. You can save over the quickstart as you go along with current .dat files, or you can save the .dat files separately with the "Make Backup" procedure and leave the quickstart set for day one if you ever want to start over.

[ChuckkieB]

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

Here's my take.

Every time you leave the game, it saves all of those .dat files in your saved game folder. Those are the crucial files. When you "save game," you are doing the same thing, a good thing to do if you are worried about the game crashing or the electricity going off before you can end the game and save it that way or before the game does an auto-save (see Game Options). All three methods do the same thing; it's just a matter of timing.

To make matters even more complicated, they introduced a "Make Backup" feature in one of the later patches. This makes a copy of those .dat files in a separate folder in the saved game folder to make it easy for you to back them up. See this for more information:

Making backups of the database / How does the backup feature work?

The difference between all of the above and a saved quickstart game is that all of the other goodies in your game, like your customized logos, are saved in a quickstart game folder along with the .dat files. This is what you want to save to preserve your modifications in case you ever want to start over again.

Realize, however, that the .dat files in the quickstart are from day one if you save it at that time. You can save over the quickstart as you go along with current .dat files, or you can save the .dat files separately with the "Make Backup" procedure and leave the quickstart set for day one if you ever want to start over.

Forgive me, but I still don't see the difference. As long as the customization of the game (logos, faces, stadiums, etc..) is being saved when using "save" function, then a save of any kind should do the trick, correct? Couldn't I simply "save" a game on day 1, and then when the league advances (a day, a year, etc...), save the game under a differnet name. Wouldn't this accomplish the same thing as "saving as a quickstart" on day 1 and "making a backup?" when advancing the game after that? What am I missing?

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by ChuckkieB

Forgive me, but I still don't see the difference. As long as the customization of the game (logos, faces, stadiums, etc..) is being saved when using "save" function, then a save of any kind should do the trick, correct? Couldn't I simply "save" a game on day 1, and then when the league advances (a day, a year, etc...), save the game under a differnet name. Wouldn't this accomplish the same thing as "saving as a quickstart" on day 1 and "making a backup?" when advancing the game after that? What am I missing?

Complicated, eh? I get confused myself. Let me try again.

When you make a new game, it saves it in a saved game folder. This folder has everything in it (well, almost - some things like ballpark pictures are saved elsewhere), .dat files, logo files, etc. Some of these things never change until you edit them again (like logo files) and some change every day (like players.dat). People have been known to just back up this large saved game folder and be done with it. Problem is, it may be too large to save on some storage media. This is why OOTP gives you the capability of just saving the .dat files with "Make Backup" assuming that you have your logos copied elsewhere.

The idea with a saved quickstart game is that it's like a snapshot of your saved game folder at a certain time, like day one or day 1,000 of your league. This is why I recommend it for preserving the starting point of your league.

Let's say you saved only by the other methods. You would have your customizations, and you would have your latest .dat files only. Now say you found out that something was not to your liking and you wanted to start your league over again after making some quick change. No can do; you only have the latest league data.

If, however, you saved your game as a quickstart game on day one, you can load it, make the change, save it again as of day one, then proceed. You still are saving the game as you go along, but that quickstart is available for going back to square one if that's what you want to do.

Example: You set the salary structures too low in the beginning. You want to go back and restart the league with better numbers in place. Call up day one quickstart, change the amounts, save as quickstart again, and begin play as normal.

You are going to find that some changes may require you to go back to a saved template or create a new template altogether. That is when you will need to redo some of your modifications that are not saved with templates.

That's the best that I can do. As I said in my first post, I would experiment a bit with generic leagues to get a feel for what I am talking about here. For example, the Fictional Baseball League quickstart that comes with the game is a great choice for experimentation because it's small and loads/runs/saves faster.

[ChuckkieB]

Thanks 1998. It's a little clearer now. I will experiment with the quickstarts when I get home later. Hopefully, that will snap my brain into place on this.

[ChuckkieB]

Originally Posted by Tiger Fan

Aside from manually importing all of the rookies individually every season (which would be extremely time consuming)

Just out of curiosity, how would one go about doing this?

[zekester91]

Originally Posted by ChuckkieB

What I can't figure out is how to incorporate historical rosters (from any year) to fill out the real teams in my league concurrently with the fictional teams that I have set up. What do I need to do to make this happen?

Also, let's say that I want to start a historical league from 1901 and have the historical rookies added each subsequent year - Is it possible to fill the historical rosters of the teams that existed in 1901 AND the rest of the real teams that didn't exist yet PLUS the 18 fictional teams with fictional players?

Once again, many thanks.
ChuckkieB

The way I do it, is set the draft one day and have it import real rookies for the draft, directly after it's imported the rookies move the draft forward 2 days, and uncheck import real rookies and the game will then create enough players to fill the number of rounds of draft you had. I don't know if you could get the imported rookies to go to thier original teams without taking control of every round of the draft or not. Although you might be able to import real rookies to thier teams and then do another draft where you use fictinal players to fill up the other teams but it would take a lot of fixing of the draft order so the original teams didn't get more players.