Advice for a noob
 

Hi all. Just bought the game and played about a season and a half of a historical league I set up to get the hang of things and am ready to start over with some help from you veterans.

The league setup I like is to start in whatever season and keep control of one team starting with real players on their correct historic teams but having a draft each year based on my league results and not placing the rookies on their actual historic team. The league I fiddled with started in 1962 using the Cubs, think I had 3-year recalc.

Injuries, while annoying, seemed about right as far as the number of them during the season. There did seem to be a lot of trades during the season but they were for the most part balanced apart from a 26-year-old Bob Gibson for 37-year-old Yogi Berra one. I didn't feel like messing with minor leagues, so the reserve roster option worked fine for me. The rookie draft in the off season was fun as well. I had the 4th pick and watched the AI select Pete Rose, Joe Morgan and Dick Allen to the 3 teams picking ahead of me, which seemed about right to me. The next best player (in my opinion) was LF Rico Carty, but I already had a young LF Billy Williams. This leads to my first question -

1. How do you tell looking at a players info what other positions he can play and how well he would play them?

2. Any suggestions on adjusting other settings based on the type of league I am playing?

Hey dfw: A few thoughts.

The default for Injuries is 'Low' - because in the first season or two you don't have much of a reserve roster. This is a good setting if you want teams to primarily use their best players. If you want to witness every team's depth, you might want to go to 'Classic.'

'3 year recalc' depends on what kind of league you want. The recalcs effectively disable the development engine. At the end of the season, the game will look to see what this player actually accomplished over the next x (3) years, and adjust their ratings accordingly. This is good if you want each player to develop more or less as they did historically. If you want more surprises, you may want to turn recalc off. (If you want no surprises at all you could double the weight of the current year, or go to a 1 year recalc.)

For trades I usually suggest Low frequency/Average difficulty/Neutral preference. A lot of players prefer Hard difficulty. I think Average works so long as you commit yourself to not taking advantage of the AI too badly.

If you go into a player's card, there should be a small section describing what positions they can play and how well. Rico Carty, for example, should have ratings as a 1B.

Cat offers good points. I do want to say that recalc does not negate player development. If you don't want player development on, then uncheck that box.

My HOF thread on this board employs recalc and player dev, as have the two leagues logged on the v 13 board. Recalc and player dev, imo, work wonderfully together to provide an experience that is based on actual stats, but allows for players to grow and diminish (often due to injuries) using the OOTP engine.

Try different things. Ask questions (posting here is fine, but the main board, for sure, and probably the Newbie board, also, get more eyeballs). You will find your niche for enjoyment of the game, I am sure.

Thanks for the tips, guys. I'll play around with some of the suggested settings and check out that HOF thread since that's more or less what I'm trying to achieve (somewhat historical with some surprises).