Quote:
Originally Posted by PhillieFever
I remember reading about this back in beta, and I believe there was an issue with the manager ratings being too "extreme" causing issues. I could be wrong but I don't think so.
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Being a member of the beta team also I posted updates on the project under historicals in the beta forum. The messages are still there if you want to check them out.
What I believe you are referring to is the posting from Charley Hough who was using some profiles I had sent him.
He wrote the following:
"Thanks for all of your work. I've done some testing with strategy and roster settings based on the ideas you shared in the historical forum, and I've seen some interesting results. Unfortunately, there still seems to be significant randomness involved, so even with extreme slider settings, teams often make trades that don't necessarily match their overall strategy. But that may be due to urgent roster needs or the ability to arrange the right kind of deal with another AI club.
Anyway, as far as suggestions go, here are a few. By the way, I think everyone in the Hall of Fame as a manager should be included. You've covered most of them already. Also, adding some Negro League managers might be an idea worth considering, although many of the most well-known were player/managers.
Billy Martin
Bucky Harris (HOF, player/manager early on, later a full-time manager)
Al Lopez (HOF)
Wilbert Robinson (HOF)
Dick Williams
Clark Griffith (HOF, mostly a player/manager)
Gene Mauch
Ralph Hauk
Chuck Tanner
Joe Torre
Lou Piniella
Danny Murtaugh
Charlie Grimm
Tom Kelly
Bobby Valentine"
As you can see the word extreme was used in reference to the AI making trades that do not match the overall roster strategies that are set. Of course, this is the case with the default overall roster strategies that are included with the game.
The manager ratings are not "too extreme". They are not even ratings. There are in-game strategy settings that are meant to "manage" the game in a certain way. Do you bunt more in the fifth inning as opposed to the ninth? Do you call for the hit and run more in the second inning as opposed to the first? By adjusting these sliders you can effectively create a manager by having the in game settings adjusted to the way he actually ran a game. So you change every setting for every strategy one-by-one and then export the file for later use. This way you can make a manager. It is not that easy to do, obviously. Having settings for John McGraw in the Deadball era will be different for his settings in the years after the Deadball era. His New York Giants won two World Series in both 1921 and 1922 while they won in 1905. The way he ran the game in 1905 and 1921/22 was different and these can be reflected if the settings are adjusted accordingly.
The overall roster strategies mirror a General Manager. If you know that McGraw preferred veteran players during the years that you have his in-game settings set up for then you can adjust the overall roster strategy sliders moved to the prefer veterans to the degree you want. In asking the question in the forum a long while back it was mentioned that the overall roster strategies are used to help forumulate the way drafting and trading are done by the AI.
Therefore, if your overall roster strategies (GM) are set to complement the prefererences for the in-game strategies (the manager you created or are using) then you can say you have a more accurate representation of that team.
There is randomness involved. Not every situation will be handled exactly the same every time. This is how it should be. However, by fashioning the AI preferences a person can assist the AI in making better decisions and make the game more historical to boot.
I have used the manager profiles for thousands of games and they do make a difference. The overall roster strategies (GM) make a difference also but they are more long term and less visible.
If you could, PhillieFever, let me know what specific reference in the beta forum and what issues it caused. Again, the only one that I could find that remotely is similar to what you wrote ("extreme") was not used in that context as I have explained and shown above.
By the way, in one of my Random Debut Leagues Gene Mauch's Phillies with John Quinn as the GM finally won a World Series. As a lifelong Phillies fan I thought it was long overdue and was glad to read the news story about him and the team. He also was named Manager of the Year so it was vindication for him via OOTP.