[Eugene Church]

Thank you for checking in and thank you for the nice comments. They are much appreciated.

Replies in BOLD:

Originally Posted by stevebydac

This is great Danny! I've popped in here once in a while to check out your little world.

Questions...I, like you, love fictional leagues. While I've never made one public here, all of my leagues have been fictional since OOTP5. But they have always consisted of real cities. I'm building a new league, and I'm going all out this time with custom logos, etc., multiple leagues, and tweaking settings perfectly.

Do you have fictional cities as player hometowns - in other words, have you altered the nations and/or cities text file? Or are you imagining that (example) a Dominican/Japanese/Cuban player has traveled to your island to play in your league?

It would have been to much work and computer knowledge to create a nation state for my league, so I just used the USA and manually change it when I want the players to be from a specific country. Most of my players come from the USA. I just ignore this and pretend they are from Islandia.


I've been considering creating a 100% fictional world (fake cities, nations) with no reference AT ALL to reality (lots of work to do that). I just don't think my brain can accept that I have a fictional nation, but oh by the way the US and all the other countries exist too. I'm leaning toward 1) real cities & nations with fictional players or 2) ALL fictional cities & nations with fictional players.

Do what you feel comfortable with. It is easy for me to relate to my fictional world as I created it in detail. I would love to live in my fantasy world. I prefer fictional players as you do not have any expectations from them. I am disappointed when Tom Seaver goes 7-22 with a 5.00 ERA in one of my earlier leagues with real life players. I could play with real cities and real teams, but use fictional players. That way you already have your real world and can use elements from it in your fantasy report. You save a lot of time creating a culture that way.

Financials - are yours similar to MLB, or have you constructed a very different financial setup based on your fictional population, size of two countries, etc.?

I disable financials. I am not interested in that aspect of the game.

I run my league in the commissioner mode and control all teams. I restrict the AI as much as I can. It does things I can't live with... like pinch hit for Ty Cobb just to get a righthanded batter to face a lefthanded pitcher... takes a starter out when he has a chance at a shutout and is not tired... takes a starter out when he has a big lead (10-2) late in the game and not tired and won't let him finish a game.

Any other words of wisdom?

[B]The best advice from my vantage point is K.I.S.S.
Keep it simple.
I wish I had just had a 16-team league with two divisions and a minor league. I would sim the minor leagues to save time. I could live with that, but not my main league.

In the major league, I could play out the last three innings of every game if I only had to play 8 games a day. This would allow me to keep team records and league records. My current league requires 32 games a day, so I was forced to sim the seasons. A season would take an entire year if I played out the last three innings of every game. I became impatient. I couldn't wait a year to find out how everything played out. This means I can't keep track of team and individual records, which is a disappointment for me.

And most of all, a 64-team league is just too much work if you are a control freak like me. Once I play 20 seasons in my Islandian Pro Alliance, I will cut back to a 16-team league and do it the way I suggested to you. I will keep it simple the next time. I have spent about three years on the IPA and just didn't want to abandon it and start over. I want to see how it progresses.

Also I can keep the AI from making stupid decisions like I mentioned above.
And most of all, you really can't get to know your players and teams when you sim, rather than play out at least the last third of the game.

I never use minor leagues because the stats are just not realistic unless you tweak the league modifiers. So the next league I will use the minor and have to tweak the modifiers to get realistic numbers.

I don't use financials. Just don't have the interest or the time to deal with it.

Get custom logos and uniforms. They get you more immersed in the league.
Get stadiums for each team. I have 64 stadiums for my league, all with dimensions and park factors based on those stadiums. This really makes fictional towns come alive.

Write a recap of each of your games, if you play them out at least in part.
Just a simple recap of the game, listing just the high points. This will help you really get into your league.

If you do a Dynasty Report, try to make the players and managers come alive in your story. My Dynasty is too much a stats dump and not enough about the individual players. I just don't have time to be that creative and administer the league, too.
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