Import Historical Players Into Totally Fictional League

[DreamTeams]

Recently did a reboot of my totally fictional solo league and in the process discovered how to import historical players into a totally fictional universe. (These guidelines are meant for folks who are thinking about or have already replaced the real world info in their world.dat file with their own fictional cities and nations, etc.)

There are actually two methods that can be used to accomplish this...

METHOD #1: Append to your world.dat file.

I kept wondering why OOTP would crash every time I tried to import a historical player into my totally fictional universe but import fine in a real world universe. After several experiments I discovered that when the game attempts to import historical players into a league it looks for a birth city match and will crash if it does not find a match. This is a problem for totally fictional worlds because the player's birth city likely does not exist there. So, to insure that the game find a city match I tried the suggested method of appending my fictional universe to the end of a real world.dat file. It worked! Now I was able to import historical players without a hitch as the birth city is assured a match.

Keep in mind that this method must be implemented in your world.dat file before you create a new league as this approach will not work with an existing league. I use notepad to edit my world.dat file but you can find more info about how to edit the world.dat file by doing a search on this OOTP forum. Also, make sure to BACK-UP YOUR ORIGINAL WORLD.DAT FILE BEFORE YOU MAKE ANY EDITS TO IT.

METHOD #2: Use the in-game nation editor.

What if you have already created your totally fictional world? Can you still import historicals? The answer is yes! There is another approach you can use that will take several steps, but it works. I've also tested this method with success. Here's how it can be done...

First, use the baseball reference site to locate the birth city (if you're not aware of it already), state and country of the player you want to import. Then open OOTP and use the in-game nation editor to manually add the country, state and, city to your fictional world. (Make sure you get the nation and state abbreviations correct otherwise the game will crash when you try to import a player.) After you've done that you can go ahead and import your historical player. You'll have to do this each time you import a historical player with a different birth city than the ones you've already added to your world.

I import historicals to use as a base to easily create fictional players for my fictional solo league. Follow these guidelines and you'll be able to import historical players into totally fictional worlds.

[Bluenoser]

Never seen this before. I've been importing historical players into fictional leagues for as long as I can remember and have never had the problems you're describing. Is this new to 13?

[DreamTeams]

Actually, I first noticed it in OOTP12, bluenoser. It depends on how your fictional world is constructed. If your league has fictional teams but real cities you'll have no problem with importing historicals. Also, if you've always appended your world to a real world.dat file you won't experience a problem because in both cases there will be a birth city match found. However, if you go totally fictional, meaning deleting the real world info in the world.dat file and replacing it with fictional cities and nations of your own you'll get a crash when importing historical players. The reason being the dbase won't be able to find a birth city match. The above guidelines are meant for folks who have created that type of totally fictional scenario.

[blueturf]

Option 1 is your best option, as I don't think you can delete a city from the nation editor. This means if you create a city of New York, NY, it will allow you to import that historical player, but it will also create future fictional players from that location. This is a deal breaker to me. (If you have already created your fictional world with the pared down world.default file, I am not sure if adding a new world file will fix the issue since it seems the world.default is imbedded in a league once it is created)

For my fictional world, I created the new nations, states and cities at the end of the current world.default file. (entering the information just before the regions section) I created completely unique # ID's for the nations, state and cities to avoid problems with other leagues. You have to be meticulous, but once it is done, it makes it easier to run other "real world" base leagues without changing out the world.default file. I always make a backup of the original and a backup of my edited file - sometimes applying an OOTP patch overwrites the world.default so having a backup of the edit is crucial. I have used a free XML editor called EditX Lite to make changes to the world.default file and other XML related edits in OOTP.

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This is also a pretty good place to mention this tip I picked up from DT when cloning historical players into a fictional world.

Originally Posted by DreamTeams

I do import a couple of historical players every offseason, but then I clone them (deleting the original) so I get zero stats and change their names to fictional names. Next, I edit their service years to zero (and edit their birth days) so they start out as rookies and stick them on a team as though they were discovered. It's just a faster way for me to introduce custom fictional players into the league. This way I can have as many Babe Ruth types as I want, although I've kept his type to a modest 1, so far. Loads of fun to watch these guys compete as fictionals.

DreamTeams - as a side note, I love that your Metro League reverted back to the fully fictional flavor of the original. I will certainly be follwing along.

[DreamTeams]

Thanks for the additional info, Blueturf and the kind words. You brought up some legitimate concerns. Let me see if I can address this one...

Originally Posted by blueturf

Option 1 is your best option, as I don't think you can delete a city from the nation editor. This means if you create a city of New York, NY, it will allow you to import that historical player, but it will also create future fictional players from that location. This is a deal breaker to me.

Good point. Creating only a new city will place that city in your fictional nation. Which is not what you want. So, you are correct as this will create future players from that newly created city. Instead, create a new nation, new state and then the new city (ie: The United Stats, Maryland then Baltimore).

Next, remember to go into options / rules tab and select 'No foreigners allowed' for the foreigner player limit under the rules tab in options. In my test I generated many fictional players and their listed birth cities where only from my fictional universe. So, option 2 has also proven a safe workaround (if done correctly) to get historicals into an existing league that is totally fictional.

Another side note: If you choose to import historicals to create fictional players, remember to manually change his birth city to one of your fictional cities.