Wondering about city names

[BigCity]

Many of my personal leagues over the years do not have "city" names. I simply fill in the city name with the team's nickname. In other words, the "Indians" are just that - no Cleveland or anything else. It's a way to create a fictional world without worrying "where" the team is located.

For the most part, this works ok - but in stories, etc. - a few places in the game - singular and plural references get messed up.

Would anyone be interested in a "switch" that would allow city names to be turned off? Is it even possible? Does anyone even care?

[Markus Heinsohn]

Sorry, this would require too much coding

[DCG Moo]

One possible suggestion, depending on how your league is set up... perhaps there is some sort of abbreviation or acronym that could be used in place of the locale, to help identify your teams in places where locales are used and simply ignore the fact that most of us use locations there.

Soccer and minor league baseball both do this, as do other sports. Many European footie teams bear one of the following attachments: FC (ex: FC Sevilla), United (ex: Manchester United, Sheffield United), Real (ex: Real Madrid, Real Zaragoza). The Italian Series A has two Milan teams, AC Milan and Inter Milan. Granted, the common practice over there is to attach the identifiers to a location name... but no one says you couldn't reverse it and attached identifying acronyms/titles to your team names instead of cities.

I also know one of the lower minor leagues (my local Arizona League, Rookie level is the first that comes to mind, Rookie-level GCL also comes to mind, and diehards like Cubby can confirm this) has multiple teams located in the same city and/or general area. I know the GCL has approx. 5 teams based in Fort Myers. Therefore, teams in those leagues are simply known by the league name (ex: AZL Angels, AZL Brewers, GCL Red Sox, GCL Braves). If you can't come up with a valid European-style naming system, something general for all teams like this could work, even if you didn't necessarily use the league name. It would still throw off some reports/articles, but it would be a solution.

Markus is probably right though... even with my limited coding experience, recoding something like that would require line-by-line code editing to find each and every example and use of team names in the entire program... and that would certainly take over the month left til release, and deter him from working on other things that would more benefit the general populace in that time. So, see if you can come up with a creative work-around... you might be happier with the results if you come up with something good anyway.

[statfreak]

Originally Posted by BigCity

Many of my personal leagues over the years do not have "city" names. I simply fill in the city name with the team's nickname. In other words, the "Indians" are just that - no Cleveland or anything else. It's a way to create a fictional world without worrying "where" the team is located.

For the most part, this works ok - but in stories, etc. - a few places in the game - singular and plural references get messed up.

Would anyone be interested in a "switch" that would allow city names to be turned off? Is it even possible? Does anyone even care?

I am very interested in this, but Markus has already answered no.

[endgame]

You could always just change the location to your league name. Thus, you have the USBL Indians and the USBL Braves, etc... I don't "think" this would require you adjusting any actual cities in the Options/Ballparks screen. In fact, you could alter your nations file (again, I think) and simply make all of them from the same place, but change the entry itself as I suggested.

Maybe?

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by endgame

You could always just change the location to your league name. Thus, you have the USBL Indians and the USBL Braves, etc... I don't "think" this would require you adjusting any actual cities in the Options/Ballparks screen. In fact, you could alter your nations file (again, I think) and simply make all of them from the same place, but change the entry itself as I suggested.

Maybe?

Yeah but . . . I don't have the game in front of me so I cannot check, but I think in some places like news articles, it would say "Johnny Paycheck of USBL did this and that" or "USBL trades Paycheck to USBL."

[DCG Moo]

Originally Posted by 1998 Yankees

Yeah but . . . I don't have the game in front of me so I cannot check, but I think in some places like news articles, it would say "Johnny Paycheck of USBL did this and that" or "USBL trades Paycheck to USBL."

That thought occurred to me too, which is why I suggested against directly using the league name. "USBL first basemen xxxxx wins the MVP" doesn't necessarily help the realism... even if it would, technically, be fact.

Another thought that came to me... instead of using the city name as the location, why not use the stadium name? For example, using real life teams, Detroit could become the Comerica Tigers, Boston could become the Fenway Red Sox, New York could become... well, the Yankee Yankees. But you get my point.

Some of the stadiums might need to be renamed to make this work, but that could be done I'm sure... and it could be as easy as a quick edit of the "cities.txt" to rename "Boston" to "Fenway". And, of course, if you're using purely fictional teams and/or stadium names, this could completely erase all real life city recognizability while still giving distinct, unique "locations" for your team names.

Or heck, create your own world and city names. The idea is, coming up with something unique to fill in the empty space may be more fun (and potentially more immersive) than just clicking on a box and deleting the empty space altogether.

[BigCity]

Thanks for the quick answer Markus! You must have been on when I posted the question

DCG may have come up with the best solution - coming up with fictional city names not based geographically to anything "real" thus they just play into the same fictional reality as the nickname.

Your right, coming up with fake city names could be interesting in itself...

[DCG Moo]

Also gives ya something to fill free time over the next month while you wait.

Glad I could help.

[endgame]

All good points. Looks like some promise in the horizon after all.

[ctorg]

I got frustrated by this sort of thing some time back when I was creating a league where the teams were all named for colors. I never did come up with a good way of handling it.