For those who play reserve clause w/ minors...

[BennyTheMarlin]

I'm setting up a league with 1930 rules, including full minor leagues.
Almost all of the minor league teams have independent affiliations, but a few do not. I'm looking for any tips on how to make these leagues relate well. Most importantly I'd like to set it so if a superstar player goes down, the AI will have a way to pick up a promising replacement under contract with a top minor league, rather than a free agent. Any way to do this well? It's my first real attempt at simming this era, and I'm trying to minimize the manual work gameplay gets going. Looking for any other suggestions for this type of sim as well.

Thanks.

[mitchkenn]

if you mark the " allow players on unaffiliated teams to be purchased by major leagues" any team can buy players from the minors leagues at that level, that are unaffiliated. That place to check (or uncheck) is on Game Setting, rules. (You need to be on the particular minor league for it to show ... that is on the drop down menu on the far right, that usually says whatever the name of your current ML game is.

[NoOne]

wow, that would be somethign i'd like to try league-wide! i'd love to see how that works in a non-reserve clause era. eliminate draft, which is just a time sink for me, lol. bid with other teams etc instead.

i wonder if the GM's would make teams more to their liking with this extra potential freedom, or if it would be tougher. making decisions on players at AAA is inherently more likely to be successful than draft or lower levels and wider selection of players that fit their likings etc. i'd assume that a higher quantity and more accurate options makes it easier plus you got lots of plan b's.

[JaBurns]

It works; I am running a variation of TigerFan’s setup described in the Historical section, I have two AAA unaffiliated minor leagues players from these leagues can be and are purchased by ML clubs. It is fun to watch the transactions in my random debut league. It allows a place for free agents when that pool gets too big, I expand when there are too many free agents. I wish I could lower the ML reserve rosters below 15 which would make for more purchased players.

[JaBurns]

The biggest problem is fictional players sneak in, haven't found a good way to weed them out of the leagues. I end up checking names in news articles and if no "Real Life Stats" they are immediately retired (ie deleted).

[BennyTheMarlin]

if you mark the " allow players on unaffiliated teams to be purchased by major leagues" any team can buy players from the minors leagues at that level, that are unaffiliated. That place to check (or uncheck) is on Game Setting, rules. (You need to be on the particular minor league for it to show ... that is on the drop down menu on the far right, that usually says whatever the name of your current ML game is.

Found it. Thanks. Will high-level minors also sign up lower-level players if short, or is this asking too much?

[mitchkenn]

Originally Posted by BennyTheMarlin

Found it. Thanks. Will high-level minors also sign up lower-level players if short, or is this asking too much?

it only applies to the majors being able to purchase minor league players from unaffiliated teams, if i understand the wording.
(if you mark the " allow players on unaffiliated teams to be purchased by major leagues)."
At least that's the way i read it. Never tried it the way you're asking, so dunno for certain.

[JaBurns]

I believe mitchkenn is correct only the major league teams can purchase players from unaffiliated minor league teams.

[munstermash]

I had no idea that this setting was in the game, it is something i am going to have to try.

[munstermash]

What is the advantage of doing this instead of setting up an Independent League?

[JaBurns]

I think it is just a matter of preference whether your “minor” leagues are unaffiliated teams or independent.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by JaBurns

The biggest problem is fictional players sneak in, haven't found a good way to weed them out of the leagues. I end up checking names in news articles and if no "Real Life Stats" they are immediately retired (ie deleted).

at the least, you can force them to never make the MLB level in your world. check box in settings cna keep them in minors.

i have never looked, BUT, if there is a column that denotes fictional vs non-fictional player in teh player's export, you can easiler select and delete the rows that match "fictional" value (0 or 1 i'd assume) -- export with headers. it's possible that info is not included in teh exported data, though.

oh, maybe by doB you can accomplish the cleaning even if it is not there. the fact that mlb stats don't exist could also be the red flag needed as far as exported stuff... could take the playerID's from the exported stats and search and delete from players export etc....

i wouldn't delete from exports.. unless copied over same playerids... but can change their name to ZZZZZZ and then delete in game for all match names etc. or make all ratings "5/200" and no one else willb e that unique. etc... lots of ways to do it in game en masse without much effort.

[JaBurns]

How do I go about finding the player export file? Thank you for the advice but I am not sure how to implement the check for fictional players.

[NoOne]

league settings - > available actions, if not visible on screen with other functions. think right side? and in available actions. look for other export choices that may make more sense in this regard too.

export players or anything else - data\saved games\<your league>.lg\importexport --- or maybe it just says export files?.. i'm sure you can deduce which it is once you traverse to your league sved game folder. even look over these settings while in there for anything thta would relate to fict/non-fict.

DoB column is easy to find if you can use that to filter in some useful way.
you need to select export options to include "Headers" or you won't be able to figur out which column is potentially the true/false for fictional, or non-fictional -- you'll want ot use a player you know is real or fictional to determine perspective of 1/0 (true/false).

they are abbreviatd, so have an open mind... read over the column and if one looks like a 1/0 for all players and abbreviation is something akin to the words fictional or non-fiction...

sorting shouldn't matter to a db import... it will find/replace the playerid row on its own. this assumes it's ~normal or setup an intelligent way, lol... 80/20? (ie using spreadsheet to sort exported data or a database program like access etc heidisql is a free one that is an inclusive package of requirements)

so you should be able to sort it any means and that can help identify players through playerid or even dob or some other column available.

you shoudl not delete them from the exported file... that will not help matters. the players need to be deleted in game because they extend beyond the fields you see in the export.. more tables related etc. what you can do is once you find a way to identify and sort, make the 'fictional' players some unique identifier... like all "15/200" and then in game you make a filter for all ratings = to 15/200 (but your scale, use "100" for this moment if you do not normally and 100% accuracy, ofc). or if you see a better way to identify them in game for deletion, do so.

could set doB to 1800 and filter by age in game, etc. mass select filtered list and delete. heh, tht's way easier than changing enough ratings to be inentifiable..

[JaBurns]

Still looking for the proper place in the league setting menu but thank you for the help. I take things slowly with computers because as one who was born in the late '50's there is still some trepidation when doing computer things. One of the fringe benefits of of OOTP is that it makes learn new computer things, before getting immersed in this game downloading files was like black magic wizardry from the occult to me....

[NoOne]

you have a custom install or default?

e.g. i install to c:\games\ootpXX
so, my saved game folder is c:\games\ootpxx\data\saved games\<your league name>.lg\

**i actually use a custome path for data folder, that's why you see it on my d: in picture.

program files is the default location i believe? sometimes data folder gets tossed into users\<username>\app data of some crap like that... No matter what, Search will find it if you point it to the right spot, first... searching FROM root of the drive is best and covers all possibilities.

don't install crap to root of drive, of course. end up with 10,000 directories or files etc... redundant naming being a big problem.

within that folder/directory is "export files" folder or appropriately named that it will stand out from "logos" and "news" etc

less effort option, and maybe easier for non-tech savy people: windows, i assume?

open up any explorer window -- go to root "c:" or "d:" that you see on left side of that explorer window. then, use the "search" bar in the top-right of that explorer window.. merely type the name of your league and it should find it... if not quickly, eventually.

you can click "my computer" too in any explorer window if your not sure which drive letter to click for the search. it jsut might take a bit longer to find it.

click on your root drive as you see i have highighted "D:" in first picture... if not sure where it is, use the search bar that says "search saved_games" in the picture... it will say "Search c:" or whatever te current location is, but it searches all subfolders too. so, getting to the root of the drive (c:\) will be best starting place for a search.