OOTP Developments Forums - View Single Post - Never done a fictional sim before, and I have Questions!

battists · 10-03-2018, 12:57 PM

Well, a few thoughts on how to tackle things.

1. Map out your league structure outside of OOTP. Figure out how many leagues, subleagues, teams you want. Pick team names, cities, etc. Figure out your minor league structure. It's much easier to get it right the first time in OOTP than to adjust after you start your game.

2. Think about what you want the league to look like both financially and statistically, and set up your league accordingly. Do you want today's giant salaries? Tons of home runs? Etc. etc.

2. Personally, I think smaller is better. Especially to start. A smaller world lets you get to know your players and teams more intimately. The MLB world is, frankly, HUGE. My fictional world has 32 teams and 5 levels of minors for each team, and it's plenty. Even 16 teams with 3 levels of minors would be plenty to start with, in my opinion.

3. Work with the people in the mods forum to set up custom uniforms and logos for your league. It totally helps with your immersion.

4. Create LOTS of distinct templates and backups along the way. Creating a fictional world can involve some trial and error. It's much easier to adapt if you have various clearly-labeled templates and backups to go back to. And without a doubt, before you actually hit the "start game" button or whatever it is, make a template and save it! If you don't do this, and something goes wrong with the initial player creation in your league, you'll have to recreate your entire game, because all of the flawed players have already been created, which is a huge pain. Then, after you hit "start game", make a backup right then and there, before the initial draft has even happened. Really, templates and backups will make your life much easier to handle the likely trial and error involved in getting a new fictional league "just right".

5. Once you have created your basic game setup, save a backup of the league. Then set it to sim automatically for a long period of time. 24 hours, overnight, something like that. Depending on the size of your game and your computer, you should get numerous years of history. This will be a throwaway copy of your league. Once the sim is done, look around the game and see if there is anything that looks odd. Are people hitting too many home runs? Are contracts too big? Are teams out of money? Do other stats look odd? Take some notes, then go back to your backup and tweak any settings as necessary. Then you can start your actual game.

6. Personally, when I started my league, I simmed 10 years without taking over a team. I think it helped me to understand performance expectations and have a little more sense of history.

7. Consider the idea of potentially doing "stats only." This makes it impossible to reply on the stars, which means you actually have to understand how a player is performing, which adds to the immersion.

Good luck! Let us know if you have more questions!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

10-03-2018, 12:57 PM	#2
battists Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 18,506 Blog Entries: 7	Well, a few thoughts on how to tackle things. 1. Map out your league structure outside of OOTP. Figure out how many leagues, subleagues, teams you want. Pick team names, cities, etc. Figure out your minor league structure. It's much easier to get it right the first time in OOTP than to adjust after you start your game. 2. Think about what you want the league to look like both financially and statistically, and set up your league accordingly. Do you want today's giant salaries? Tons of home runs? Etc. etc. 2. Personally, I think smaller is better. Especially to start. A smaller world lets you get to know your players and teams more intimately. The MLB world is, frankly, HUGE. My fictional world has 32 teams and 5 levels of minors for each team, and it's plenty. Even 16 teams with 3 levels of minors would be plenty to start with, in my opinion. 3. Work with the people in the mods forum to set up custom uniforms and logos for your league. It totally helps with your immersion. 4. Create LOTS of distinct templates and backups along the way. Creating a fictional world can involve some trial and error. It's much easier to adapt if you have various clearly-labeled templates and backups to go back to. And without a doubt, before you actually hit the "start game" button or whatever it is, make a template and save it! If you don't do this, and something goes wrong with the initial player creation in your league, you'll have to recreate your entire game, because all of the flawed players have already been created, which is a huge pain. Then, after you hit "start game", make a backup right then and there, before the initial draft has even happened. Really, templates and backups will make your life much easier to handle the likely trial and error involved in getting a new fictional league "just right". 5. Once you have created your basic game setup, save a backup of the league. Then set it to sim automatically for a long period of time. 24 hours, overnight, something like that. Depending on the size of your game and your computer, you should get numerous years of history. This will be a throwaway copy of your league. Once the sim is done, look around the game and see if there is anything that looks odd. Are people hitting too many home runs? Are contracts too big? Are teams out of money? Do other stats look odd? Take some notes, then go back to your backup and tweak any settings as necessary. Then you can start your actual game. 6. Personally, when I started my league, I simmed 10 years without taking over a team. I think it helped me to understand performance expectations and have a little more sense of history. 7. Consider the idea of potentially doing "stats only." This makes it impossible to reply on the stars, which means you actually have to understand how a player is performing, which adds to the immersion. Good luck! Let us know if you have more questions! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk __________________ Come check out my dynasty report, Funky Times!