[jmknpk2]

I would like to set up a solo fictional league where it seems as if I am playing against humans rather than a weak AI that I can take advantage of.

I recently set up a league where I have trading set on "hard", "favor prospects", and I chose a team with a market size of 1. This gives me a significant challenge, and for the most part, the trading seems to work to my liking. However, there are a couple ways that I can still take advantage of the AI that I don't like.

1) I can sign free agent minor leaguers to contracts with almost no competition. I usually can find one or two young players in the free agent pool with potential ratings above 50 out of 100. I offer these players minor league contracts and they always sign with me. If I was playing with human managers, surely someone else would at least make an offer, such that I occasionally were not able to sign these players.

2) I can trade 10 minor league players who would never have a chance in the majors for one half-way decent player who will almost certainly have a chance in the majors. Or I can trade a decent player plus nine players who will never make it to the majors for one good player.

So, with these two weaknesses, I find that I can take advantage of the AI. I can sign a bunch of these free agent minor leaguers. Then I can trade dozens of them for a few decent players. In essence, I can create a few good players from nothing. This is something I would never be able to do in a league against real human players.

I know that I could set some gentlemen's rules for myself.
a) I could make a rule to never trade more than three players for one, that would solve problem 1. I don't think I want to set trading to very-hard because overall, I think the trading difficulty works to my satisfaction.
b) But I'm not sure how to handle the signing of free agent minor leaguers problem. Would I set a rule that I only sign one minor league free agent per season? Do I roll some dice on the side and only allow myself to sign that good minor league free agent if I roll a six?

I personally struggle, because the competitive side of me wants to exploit every possible angle in building a successful team (like I would against humans). I would rather not create gentlemen's rules that I impose on myself. Because that is kind of like playing a game against a child where I let the child win. I lose the thrill of being competitive. I would rather be restricted by a clever AI.

Anyway, ultimately I would prefer that I find settings that can give me an experience close to what I would find playing against humans. But I'm not sure that's possible now.

I'm curious whether others have found the same two weaknesses above, and how they might deal with them.