OOTP Developments Forums - View Single Post

CONN CHRIS · 08-22-2006, 09:44 AM

2) Regional play
- Regional and minor title fight scheduling

To begin, I'll give you an over-arching view of how I handle fight scheduling:

I have the universe divided into five geographical regions. During the months of January, February, April, May, July, August, October and November fights take place within these geographical groupings. The months of March, June, September and December are international fight months which will be discussed later.

Regional fight months serve several purposes:

1) Provide young fighters with an opportunity to build their records against stiffs and lower echelon fighters

2) Allow established fighters to tune-up on the locals

3) Allow marginal fighters the chance to break-out with an unexpected win and vault themselves into the running for a belt of some sort or even better, get into the group that will fight internationally. That is where the fighters face better competition and have the most opportunity to advance (more on this later).

4) Provide opportunities for the five geographical champions to defends their titles.

5) Provide everyone he chance to fight for one of the 45 national or minor title belts.

For each regional play month, I first determine what titles will be on the line and who will be fighting for them. I do this for one weight class at a time but cover all five geographical regions at once.

Criteria for title fights:

- Regional Belts:

The five regional belts are very prestigious in my little world. I choose who challenges strictly by ratings. Fifteen fights are required to be ranked by the regional group. (Because I have them organized by group, I can view rankings for just one region such as Europe [EBF].) When a regional title holder is selected for a title fight, the number one ranked contender in that region gets the nod. The exception is if that fighter was also the challenger the last time the belt was defended. If he was, I still let him challenge if he lost that title fight by mixed or split decision or drew. If he lost by unanimous decision, stoppage or disqualification I move on to the number two ranked fighter and apply the same criteria.

- Minor belts

I allow myself complete flexibility in deciding who will challenge for these belts. The only criteria is that the fighter nationally or ethnically fit the belt in question. Fighters from any country in the world fit at least one (and generally more than one) of the minor belt criteria. I use these belts to get a young fighter a belt, give a hard-luck fighter a chance at a small measure of glory, or whatever suits my fancy.

Selecting which belts will be defended:

This is where I use that simplistic spreadsheet attached to post number one in this thread. You will note there is a top line (REC) that is the world title holder (he is the only fighter in the division not allowed a regional month fight), a second group of lines one through five which represents the regional titles and a third group of 45 minor and national or sub-regional titles.

At the start of a regional play month, I do the following:

1) Print the title belt spreadsheet
2) Write the division, month and year at the top (i.e. SW-Jan-1903)
3) Go to Random.org and generate 50 random numbers with the lowest value '1' and the highest value '100'.
4) Apply the first five random numbers to the five regional titles. If a number 1-30 is applied, that title will be defended this month.
5) Apply the last 45 numbers to the minor belts. A random number of 1-10 indicates that one of these belts will be defended.
6) Fill in the current title holders for the belts that will be defended.
7) Fill in challengers for each title based on criteria above.

Generally, each division will end up with one or perhaps two regional titles and a small handful of minor titles being contested during each regional play month. So far, this simplistic system has generated fairly reasonable title defense frequencies for me and also gives me some outliers such as a regional titlist that will defend 6 times in a year or one who goes 18 months without risking his belt. The minor titlists' defense frequencies are all over the board. Some will defend 3 or four times in a year while others will go three years without defending. I like it a lot as it seems to mimic the erratic nature of small belt title fights in the real world.

- Specific match-ups

As you will see when I discuss the auto-scheduler use, I have no say over who fights whom in the regional play months (although the fighters engaged in a title fight will not get a regularly scheduled fight that month) and very little say over the international match-ups. For that reason, I use the minor title fights as the place where I create the interesting or fun match-ups that I want to see. (1903 is actually the first year that the base is big enough to be able to do this most of the time.) While I would love to micro-manage contender match-ups all the time, it is impractical due to the size of the universe and is one of the sacrifices I make to get the depth that I want in a universe. The use of minor titles to set up fights I want to see is a reasonable compromise for me.

- Loosing track of fighters

I do tend to loose track of some fighters, but I am shocked at how many I am deeply acquainted with. It numbers in the thousands! Keeping it all straight is difficult but is aided greatly by going through the title belt sheet each month for each division. The biggest aid however is the website that I maintain for the universe. Without that, I would loose track of everything and it would not be any fun at all. Each month I do scant write-ups on some of the bigger bouts and list hundreds of results that interested me. These write ups are posted here.

I have to say though, loosing track of a fighter can actually add to the enjoyment. As an example, in the current month that I am in (July, 1903) the Maritime LHW belt held by Canadian Harry Dillon came up. As I scanned for an opponent, I noticed this kid I had forgotten about named Tunney. He had put together a 6-0 record toiling away down in Connecticut. I gave the kid a shot and he came through with decision over Dillon!

Up Next:

2) Regional play

- Detailed use of the scheduling filters for regional play

08-22-2006, 09:44 AM	#23
CONN CHRIS Global Moderator Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 28,372	2) Regional play - Regional and minor title fight scheduling To begin, I'll give you an over-arching view of how I handle fight scheduling: I have the universe divided into five geographical regions. During the months of January, February, April, May, July, August, October and November fights take place within these geographical groupings. The months of March, June, September and December are international fight months which will be discussed later. Regional fight months serve several purposes: 1) Provide young fighters with an opportunity to build their records against stiffs and lower echelon fighters 2) Allow established fighters to tune-up on the locals 3) Allow marginal fighters the chance to break-out with an unexpected win and vault themselves into the running for a belt of some sort or even better, get into the group that will fight internationally. That is where the fighters face better competition and have the most opportunity to advance (more on this later). 4) Provide opportunities for the five geographical champions to defends their titles. 5) Provide everyone he chance to fight for one of the 45 national or minor title belts. For each regional play month, I first determine what titles will be on the line and who will be fighting for them. I do this for one weight class at a time but cover all five geographical regions at once. Criteria for title fights: - Regional Belts: The five regional belts are very prestigious in my little world. I choose who challenges strictly by ratings. Fifteen fights are required to be ranked by the regional group. (Because I have them organized by group, I can view rankings for just one region such as Europe [EBF].) When a regional title holder is selected for a title fight, the number one ranked contender in that region gets the nod. The exception is if that fighter was also the challenger the last time the belt was defended. If he was, I still let him challenge if he lost that title fight by mixed or split decision or drew. If he lost by unanimous decision, stoppage or disqualification I move on to the number two ranked fighter and apply the same criteria. - Minor belts I allow myself complete flexibility in deciding who will challenge for these belts. The only criteria is that the fighter nationally or ethnically fit the belt in question. Fighters from any country in the world fit at least one (and generally more than one) of the minor belt criteria. I use these belts to get a young fighter a belt, give a hard-luck fighter a chance at a small measure of glory, or whatever suits my fancy. Selecting which belts will be defended: This is where I use that simplistic spreadsheet attached to post number one in this thread. You will note there is a top line (REC) that is the world title holder (he is the only fighter in the division not allowed a regional month fight), a second group of lines one through five which represents the regional titles and a third group of 45 minor and national or sub-regional titles. At the start of a regional play month, I do the following: 1) Print the title belt spreadsheet 2) Write the division, month and year at the top (i.e. SW-Jan-1903) 3) Go to Random.org and generate 50 random numbers with the lowest value '1' and the highest value '100'. 4) Apply the first five random numbers to the five regional titles. If a number 1-30 is applied, that title will be defended this month. 5) Apply the last 45 numbers to the minor belts. A random number of 1-10 indicates that one of these belts will be defended. 6) Fill in the current title holders for the belts that will be defended. 7) Fill in challengers for each title based on criteria above. Generally, each division will end up with one or perhaps two regional titles and a small handful of minor titles being contested during each regional play month. So far, this simplistic system has generated fairly reasonable title defense frequencies for me and also gives me some outliers such as a regional titlist that will defend 6 times in a year or one who goes 18 months without risking his belt. The minor titlists' defense frequencies are all over the board. Some will defend 3 or four times in a year while others will go three years without defending. I like it a lot as it seems to mimic the erratic nature of small belt title fights in the real world. - Specific match-ups As you will see when I discuss the auto-scheduler use, I have no say over who fights whom in the regional play months (although the fighters engaged in a title fight will not get a regularly scheduled fight that month) and very little say over the international match-ups. For that reason, I use the minor title fights as the place where I create the interesting or fun match-ups that I want to see. (1903 is actually the first year that the base is big enough to be able to do this most of the time.) While I would love to micro-manage contender match-ups all the time, it is impractical due to the size of the universe and is one of the sacrifices I make to get the depth that I want in a universe. The use of minor titles to set up fights I want to see is a reasonable compromise for me. - Loosing track of fighters I do tend to loose track of some fighters, but I am shocked at how many I am deeply acquainted with. It numbers in the thousands! Keeping it all straight is difficult but is aided greatly by going through the title belt sheet each month for each division. The biggest aid however is the website that I maintain for the universe. Without that, I would loose track of everything and it would not be any fun at all. Each month I do scant write-ups on some of the bigger bouts and list hundreds of results that interested me. These write ups are posted here. I have to say though, loosing track of a fighter can actually add to the enjoyment. As an example, in the current month that I am in (July, 1903) the Maritime LHW belt held by Canadian Harry Dillon came up. As I scanned for an opponent, I noticed this kid I had forgotten about named Tunney. He had put together a 6-0 record toiling away down in Connecticut. I gave the kid a shot and he came through with decision over Dillon! Up Next: 2) Regional play - Detailed use of the scheduling filters for regional play __________________ Check Out My Cards! Last edited by CONN CHRIS; 08-22-2006 at 09:47 AM.