Guide to setting up a new universe
 

Now before I start this let's remember two things

1) I owe alot of my ideas and my universe to Cubedrum .. who helped me figure out scheduling years ago

and

2) this is just how I would do it, it doesn't mean it's the right way or the only way .. just trying to give new guys a place to start

For me I use two other things with the TBCB game (I'm using TBCB2 for this and the latest database)

I use a spreadsheet (I use quattro pro but excel works just as good) and a randomizer which the link is below.

http://www.randomizer.org/form.htm

Okay first thing I would do is to go into the options screen - goto databases - type in a name for a new database and hit create new ...

For this universe I'm only gonna use welterweights so I'll just call the new db WW ... this will create a new db from the original db (or the one we just got)

Once you type it in it will shut down the game, when you reopen it your new database should be loaded.

this database has 3013 fighters in the "men" group - 308 welterweights

My first step is to go back into options and set up my universe

game options - I like 10 fights to make top 10 list and 15 to be ranked

Databases - the "set all fighters to cs adjust" button, this is a tricky one esp. if you plan on using current fighters. This will set all fighters to active, mark their cs adj button on the ratings page and they will then be subjected to aging and career stages. The problem is that it will also set everyone to Prime using inverted formulas for fighters not currently rated at prime. I makes for some outlandish ratings and you would be required to adjust alot of fighters.

I use historical so it doesn't effect me, I am hoping it is fixed by the time I come even close to current guys. If you want to start one using current fighters and not do this, then you would have to manually check the cs adj button on all the fighters you use and rerate them yourself on how you feel they would have been at prime.

For this example I'm going to start with WW in the 70's so I'm hitting the cs adj button in the options. once you hit the button you have to type in yes to confirm it then it takes it a few minutes to do all it has to do. It popped back up and said it adjusted like 1500 fighters, now all fighters are active and their cs adjust button is checked

Now onto aging.

On the aging screen in the options.

We are going to work out how many fights we want our fighters to have. Lets say a good range is 40-100 total fights. So let's break that down to

5-10 at beginning
10-20 at pre-prime
15-40 at prime
5-20 at post
5-10 at end

So if a fighter draws the lowest random # each time he's finish with 40 fights.

Next work your way from the top of the page to the bottom. Check mark the two boxes at the top first automatic aging and always inform.

Then it's important to do this in the right steps click the activate aging for all fighters button first, then the calculate.

it will check mark the auto aging button for each fighter ... the calculate isn't that important because when you move a fighter into your universe and change him to beginner it will set a random # for him anyways.


No you are ready to start picking your fighters for your universe

so I type in the #'s on this screen. Also with this set up the earliest a guy could be prime is after 15 fights were they would be ranked already.

My next step would be to go to the groups and create a few new groups which will host your active universe fighters ... the men group will house the fighters that will eventually come into your universe.

The way I do it I have 4 groups

TC's - for tomato cans I downloaded from cornerwork ( I keep them seperate because I don't keep track of them at all, they are there for record padding)

Beginners - this is where everyone starts, the only fight TC's until they automatically age to pre-prime.

Club - this is where the beginners go when they hit pre-prime, this is also for veterans who aren't that good. My rule is anytime a main division fighter drops 5 loses below .500 (10-15-2, 7-12, 5-10-3 and so on) he drops to the club division. He can make it back to main by evening out his record (16-16-2, 13-13, 10-10-3 and so on). The new guys stay here until their 15th fight (not until they turn prime but until they are ranked).

Main - this is where all the fighters want to be. This is the only group that figures into my rankings and the only group that can fight for a world title.

So now that I have made my groups time to get my first few fighters.

Okay first thing is to get some TC's from cornerwork.com

for my purpose I'm downloading Sal's WW TC's at the bottom of this page

http://cornerwork.com/modules.php?na...titleA&show=10

Download and extract it to somewhere you'll remember then import the fighters. These imported fighters have a group name of Tomato_Cans, so to make things easier I changed the name of my tc group to Tomato_Cans. Now all 160 are in that group.

So that takes care of my TC's

Next we are going to get the fighters that will be the first ones in your universe. For this one I am going to start with all the fighters who debuted in the 1960's using a whole decade just to get a larger group of fighters to start off with.

At the end of my first year I would start importing fighters who started in 1970.

Who you choose and how many weight classes are up to you. I'm using a small scale just as an example. I sort the fighters by career start date and then work my way down to the 1960's .... I check mark all the guys who have a career start date from 1960-1969 (30 total) then hit the menu and change their group to beginner.

Now I have my fighters who will start my universe. Looks like Gypsy Joe Harris is the class of the group so far. Now I go fighter to fighter and change their career stage to beginning.

Okay so I have to take a break now. Be back in a couple of hours to set up my spreadsheet, and start scheduling. Feel free to ask any questions.

Do you ever attempt to run more than one division or do you just limit yourself to one?

No I'm only doing one division for this example, I run every division in my LBA universe down in "Inside the Ropes"

Okay, spreadsheet .. this is mainly for scheduling purposes.

I set up a spreadsheet for beginners, club and main.

Only putting a few fighters on here for the example, I put their drawing power because I use that in setting up fight cards and their rating also.

Now the way I schedule beginners -

They have a 40% chance of fighting. So the first month everyone of the 30 have a 40% chance of fighting. So I use the randomizer I posted above and generate 30 #'s between 1-100. All fighters who get 40 or below fight. Each month they are off their chance of fighting goes up 10%. If they are off 3 consectutive months the automatically fight in the 4th month, unless they are out for a fight result.

Say 14 of them are scheduled to fight then I use the auto scheduler to randomly schedule them against TC's. I make sure I use the year of random fight date and month of random fight date, so the first set of fights would be 1970 and the month 1.

After running the fights I record the results on the sheet and x off months that they are out.

1 month for the first cut or knockdown
1 month for each two after that (counted seperately)
2 months for a KO this includes one knockdown
2 months for TKO add in cuts or kd's

Most months a fighter can be out (for me) is 4. So say a fighter gets cut once and kd but goes the distance - he is out 1 month for the cut and 1 month for the kd.

more examples
kd twice goes the distance - off 1 month
kd 3 times goes the distance - off two months
kd 3 times cut once - off 3 months
kd once, gets ko'd - 2 months
kd once, gets tko'd - 3 months

and so on. So once the month is marked I would go to the next month. Now later on, like in my main universe, after the beginners are done I move onto main and club fighters.

after first month - ingnore the question mark

now eventually you'll have a club and main spreadsheet also ... I started color coding mine so at quick glance I knew what stage a fighter is in

for this example

pink - fighter is at end
orange - post prime
black - prime
green - pre-prime

U - less than 15 fights
P - more than 15 fights
R - post prime
E - end
up - moved up to main
fight - if a fighter is off 3 months in a row, then he automatically fights the 4th month, unless he is out the 4th month because of a fight result

columns before their names
light blue - record for the previous year
red - overall record
purple - total fights

Now scheduling once they are out of beginner stage.

Pre-prime fighters I still schedule the same. 40% chance of fighting, goes up 10% each month.

Prime, post and end fighters slow down their schedule and only have a 25% chance to fight. It also goes up 10% each month and they also can't go 4 months without fighting unless it's because of a fight result.

Now once I get all the fighters scheduled to fight, I scope out opponents for them.

Pre-prime fighters who are unranked and end fighters have a 60% chance of fighting TC's

pre-prime fighters who are ranked (more than 15 fights) and post prime fighters have a 50% chance of fighting TC's.

I then run the auto scheduler for all of those who are fighting TC's, run and record all those fights.

Then the remaining fighters left are the ones who will go on fight cards.

The thing to remember here is scheduling is entirely up to you, this is just how I do it.

At this point I schedule all the championship fights. I pick the highest ranked fighter scheduled to fight. He has to have not lost his last fight also. It usually ends up as a top 20 fighter.

The rest of the fighters are then scheduled as follows

They all have a 50% chance of fighting the closest rated fighter. So once that is decided I match them up. The ones who don't have to fight the closest, get to fight the easiest. So if the top rated fighter I have left is a 7 and the lowest is a 1 he gets that fight.

I combine the draw power of the two fighters and that's how I decide who fights where on the fight card.

At this point I'm not sure what else to cover. So Just ask questions and I'll cover the rest that way. I'm off to mow the yard and relax by the pool for a while so I'll be back in a couple of hours to answer questions.

Good effort.

The hangover can't be that bad:)

Very very useful -- is all the spreadsheet work done by hand I assume? No way to export results from the game to the ss?

Also-- how are months calculated?

spreadsheet has to be done by hand .. hopefully future modules will help with scheduling but for now this is the most time consuming part.

As soon as everyone has been checked to see if they fight, scheduled, and the fights ran and recorded, I move onto the next month. You have to manually change the dates of the fights as you go. The autoscheduler will randomize it for you but you have to change the dates on your fight cards.

Back outside now ...

You can export a .csv file and open that up in Excel. That's how I collect some of my spreadsheet data (wins/losses/draws/rank and activity) rather than typing it all out by hand. I also use the randomizer right in Excel, a hidden column that rolls up random numbers for each fighter to save me time. But there still is quite a bit of spreadsheet set-up work to do each month in my uni as well.

But I gotta say, Mike, this is really good stuff. Yours is one of the best uni's out there. I wish I'd had some of this info when I first started putting together my uni. Your efforts will no doubt enrich the experience of many.

Matt

Great job. Here is a link to a site i use to make sure my fight dates are more realistically fought on Fridays or Saturdays especially for Title fights.

http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/...1971&country=1


Attached is a word doc with mh's guide. I have also attached a spreadsheet sample that i think i got from Mike.

Sorry here are the attachements.

Okay now in your WW universe are you running regional titles as well as a world title or just multiple world titles (ie...wbc, ibf etc)? When do you decide a guys gets a shot at a title and who gets the titleshot? Do you use a mandatory #of times a champ must defend his title?

Okay the WW was just an example of how I would set it up .. but in my real universe I started out with just the WBA title. Then once I had 30 ranked fighters in the main division in a weight the WBC title would come in. 60 ranked fighters in the main division I added the IBF.

For example I think only 1/2 of my 9 divisions have the IBF right now after 11 years of fights. At 100 ranked fighters I am adding the WBO this would be the last world title.

I just started this year with regional titles and I think there is still a thread on what titles I have in the Inside the Ropes section. At the end of the year the top two regional champs (my decision) will fight for the IBO title ( loser keeps his regional title) That will kind of be the king of the regionals. All regional contestants have to have under 30 fights to fight for the title. Once they win it they can keep it until they lose or win a world title.

Champs are scheduled just like everyone else. Once I determine a champ is fighting. I get through everything else (like scheduling the pre and post and end guys against tC's) and the top ranked fighter who is also scheduled to fight gets the title shot as long as he didn't lose his last fight.

So let's say the #3 guy is scheduled but lost his last fight, then the next highest guy gets it. If no one in the top 20 is qualified and fighting then the champ will fight a non-title bout with someone outside his weight class.

Regional rankings are strictly by PP, that way unranked guys get a shot also. Prime guys tend to fight 3-5 times a year, so it's common enough for the champs to fight.

If two champs in the same weight class are scheduled in the same month then there is a 25% chance they fight for a unification bout. If a fighter owns mulitple belts then there is a % for which belt he defends.

Example - this month in the LBA Sam Langford owns the WBA and WBC titles once he was scheduled to fight he rolled for 1-33 defends just the WBA, 34-66 defends just the WBC, 67-100 defends both. He rolled to defend both. Then he also rolled 1-25 to face the IBF champ Joe Jeanette. So it wasn't a great chance that all 3 belts would be on the line but it ended up that way. It makes unification bouts special in my uni.

If Langford was only defending one title and not the other and lost, the other title would be vacated and an 8 man tourney would crown a new champ. 8 man tournies are fought when each contestant is eligible to fight, so they can take a whole year to complete.

Starting a Universe
 

I am one of those who has some trouble figuring this game out so this is very helpful. Thanks for doing this, Mike!


Jeff

No problem .. Cubedrum did the same for me a long time ago

Quick question. Do you mess with where the fights vs Tomato Cans are fought out? I am sure you pick where the title fights are but wasnt sure about the TC ones.

One other question how do i tell from the history if a guy was cut?

One more question if a guy fights and wins does he have the same chance to fight the next month?

Nice job Mike!!

Look in the bout log, in the statistics section there are Cut Totals stats and Cuts Totals after Headbutts.

Using Mike's system the month after fighting (assuming the fighter has suffered no injury, cut or knockdown) then the fighter will have 25% chance of fighting (if Prime or later) or 40% chance if Pre-prime or Beginner.

I am sure he just lets these just happen in the autoscheduler. I know I don't worry about them too much. In Conn Chris' universe however every fight is considered important and he would manage venues for all his fighters.

Hope that helps,

Mark

This is a real benefit to everyone Mike, not just the new comers - thanks for taking the time to run through this.

While true, this is not all that cumbersome to 'manage'. The auto-scheduler, with a bit of forethought and a good use of the groups and sub-groups, is almost as good as a spreadsheet method and only requires marginal intervention on my part. The biggest hassle for me with respect to venues was just setting them all up (over a thousand at this point). It does not do exactly what I want it to, but I sacrifice a little because I just couldn't use a spreadsheet for over 8,000 active fighters. With just a few additional filters (I have ideas) I think that the scheduler could seriously challenge spreadsheets as the prime tool to underpin a universe.

Thanks again Mike, this is a great service to everyone,

Christopher

Gunsmoke got all the answers right. I don't pay any attention to venue in any fight, I have it set at random.

Also I try to keep my fight cards to no more than 15 a month. So I'll get it down to 15 by scheduling some lower tier fights in the autoscheduler and run them all at once.

For the cuts in fights I don't watch, I will write down one fighters kd and cut total before the fight, then check it again afterwards. If a fight is stopped due to injury the injured fighter is out an automatic 4 month. If a guy is disqualified then he is suspended for 4 months.

The fight cards are autosimmed also, the only fights I watch are

1) the main event no matter what
2) any title fight eliminator and any title fight(almost always the main event)
3) any fight involving an undefeated fighter
4) any fight which odds go off at 1:1 or 3:2

So I end up watching 2-3 fights a card. I score these on my own also (just for fun, I'd love it if they added a feature where we could be the third judge) which you see in bold in my universe.

I recently took to handholding anyone who makes it out of beginner undefeated. I will schedule them against the lowest rated fighter available if they aren't scheduled to fight a TC. I continue to do this until they get a title shot or lose.

I also started entering new fighters into the mix with 0 pp. They were getting too high by the time they got ranked, now for the most part even undefeated guys will hit around 500.

Gunsmoke has a good grasp on how I run my universe, so feel free to answer questions when I'm not around.

i agree with this, the main use of my spreadsheet is to keep track of how long they are out. The other thing is it helps me relate to the fighters a little more because I am forced to track everyone's progression.

Anytime I read a name I almost know immediately if they are in my uni or not.

Thanks for this .. going to start scheduling all cards Wed-Sat starting in April in LBA

Hello everyone,
I'm another long-time title bout user, starting back in the 80's with the Avalon Hill board game.
I'm not very experienced with TBCB2 though, and became frustrated with trying to set up a universe, and even gave up for a while, so this thread is a god send.
Thanks mh2365, this has been a great help.

Anyway, I do seem to have a problem at the moment. I've set up a small universe following the instructions in this thread.
I started with 1970's heavyweights and intended to gradually make the universe larger once I became used to running it.
Yesterday I imported a few of the fighters downloaded from cornerworks, but, most of them are aging from beginning to pre-prime after just 1 fight!
Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks again for all the help so far.

how do you ajust the aging?

If you set them back to beginning the game will choose a new random number for them and everything should work like it's suppose to.

I don't have the game in front of me but so I'm just throwing things out .. it'd important to hit the calculate aging button last ... worst case though just do what Romy said and set them back to beginner and it will pick a new # for you.

I've seen this happen once or twice and it's always with imported fighters, so not sure if it's a bug or what.

Also Public ... feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions, I'll help you the best I can.

Thanks for the replies.
I'll set them back to beginning and hopefully that will do the trick.

Do you have to hit the calculate aging button everytime you import fighters?

No that will recalculate for everyone in the database. When you import new fighters, check the Auto aging checkbox on the fighter and save, then move the fighter to the Beginning career stage and they will age as per your aging progression that you have set up.

Cheers,
Mark

Excellent thread.

Should be stickied imo.

I still find the aging thingy a little daunting. Right now I've set them up and I'll just ignore what happens. Much like reality. :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo:

Cap

This is definitely a bug. I have it happen all the time but the comment about reverting to beginner works like a charm (albeit a pain in the neck).

What I do is at the start of the year (when there are rookies entering the scene) I sort at the main screen by bouts after completing each month. I look at the guys with one fight and open all the ones that show a career stage of pre-prime. Then I switch them to beginner. I just do this until I hit a month were none are in the one bout - pre-prime state and then forget about it until year-end.

The game then calculates a new number for them to hit pre-prime without a hitch. (But don't hit the BIG button again! :) )

There are unfortunately a number of these 'little things' that have to be watched. They add up quickly!

I leave everyone at prime until I move them into my beginner group, that's when I change them to beginner. I haven't had an issue yet.

This has been tremendously helpful. I just got the game a few weeks ago and have used this to set up my first universe. I am running a universe of 1930's-era boxers as a test run to see what I like/don't like before I do anything more ambitious.

Thanks for all of the tips. Using the Groups effectively was a tip I wouldn't have ever figured out on my own. For now, I have it set up just like you described, and it works wonderfully. Organization is definitely the key to having a good universe.

Hi Fuente

You'll have great fun running a uni, I know I have. The hours just roll by.
Welcome aboard,
Ian.