Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthropoid
I am a retired professor of anthropology, and in graduate school one of my professors (a cultural anthropologist by the name of Bradd Shore) had a great interest in baseball as a iconic symbol of American culture. I played the game very sporadically as a boy and know the basic rules, but I've never been a "fan" per se. However, I've always thought it was an interesting game, and just never felt I had the time to get into it. Well I guess now I do feel I have that time so here I am as a new OOTP player!
Having 'played' for about 10 or 15 hours (well, a good 8 or 10 hours of that was really just floundering around in the UI and with a couple throw away startups to see how it works overall) I think I'm off to a good start.
I've got an Historical League with start in 1902 setup and I'm GM of the Cincinatti Reds. I've done a couple exhibition games, and gone through all of my players several times to get a handle on what resources I have. I feel like I have a decent lineup setup and depth chart too. The date is like Jan 15 so I figure I'll try to play an exhibition game about once every ten days till beginning of March then let them do spring training and then the season!
I'm not finding a manual in the game directory, though I reckon there must be such a thing (or an online wiki perhaps), so my numerous questions [hopefully someone can just point me to a handy resource like a wiki and say 'most all your questions will be addressed in that resource']:
1. I turned my ticket price down a few cents, I think it was at like $0.68 and I've turned it down to $0.63. I see the fans are pretty loyal and interested at Cincinatty so I figured making the games more accessibly might help increase volume?
2. My starting roster seems to be capped at 17 players, and I have about 5 reserve players (all of whom are quite crap). Is that normal?
3. I have two players for each defensive position, and 3 starting rotation pitchers. There are like 5 or 6 relief pitchers.
a. Is it really necessary to have that many relief pitchers?
b. What is the difference between a middle relief, long relief and emergency sp pitcher? I've assigned these roles to my relief pitchers based on my intuition of who fit each role best, but not sure.
4. Referring to the actual in-game play-by-play commands: What is the difference between say: "pitch," "Pitch to contact," "pitch outside," etc.?
5. Also, what is the difference (for batters) between: "Swing at pitch" "Wait for Pitch," etc.?
Lot more than that, but that is enough to get the ball rolling.
ADDIT: so I found the manual and the wiki (thanks to Txranger and The Game for your helpful posts!) so most of my questions will get answered on my own as I progress.
But if anyone feels like offering any comments or suggestions I appreciate it!
Amazing good game, and I can see that it is an exceptional strategy game.
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Welcome to OOTP! I can say that you have now found a lifelong "hobby" (read: ADDICTION!) and that you have found a very good support group in these forums. To provide some answers to your questions:
1) Lowering ticket prices will always drum up more business but of course you may see a drop in revenues. Sometimes, fan interest in a team may have peaked and, no matter what you do, you may not draw anymore fans than you already get. I would experiment with the prices and see how the fan interest waxes and wanes according to the ticket prices and how well the team does from year to year. Sometimes, the default settings are your best bets. The game will modify financials season to season, especially if you are doing a historical replay.
2) I think 22 players is about normal for a turn of the century team. You can check out this post for more info:
http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...h-history.html
3) a -- Depending on how bad your pitching is, you may not use that many RPs.
b -- Long relievers come into a game when a starter gets shelled or has just thrown too many pitches in too few innings. They usually go at least 3 innings. Middle relievers go about 2 innings max. They take over when a starter has been taken out well before the 7th inning setup guys are ready to go. Emergency starters take over when a pitcher gets hurt early in a game or when they can't get out of the 1st.
4) If you click "Pitch to Contact", it means you're trying to induce an out and you want the batter to hit a decent pitch that will hopefully be directed at an infielder for a quick double play or out. "Pitch Out" means you think a runner on first or second is going to steal and the pitcher will throw a wide pitch while the catcher comes out of his stance to receive the ball and be ready to make a quicker throw to get the runner.
5) If you have a batter swing at a pitch, you're basically telling him to swing at the first good pitch he sees to catch the defense somewhat off-guard. "Wait for Pitch" means you want the batter to get a look at all the pitcher's offerings. The batter may strike out, or he may draw a walk, but it also helps his teammates get a better look at what the pitcher is throwing and it helps them develop better game plans to attack his pitches while also wearing down the pitcher by making him throw more pitches.
Hope these answers help.