How do I start a old game?

[WTO]

I want to play the Mariners somewhere starting in 1999-2002. However when I start up the game and use the historical option, it doesn't come with any minor league teams, just the 30 MLB teams. How do I get this to work? Thanks

[The Game]

Originally Posted by WTO

I want to play the Mariners somewhere starting in 1999-2002. However when I start up the game and use the historical option, it doesn't come with any minor league teams, just the 30 MLB teams. How do I get this to work? Thanks

The only league that will have fuill minor leagues is the quickstart on the start screen. All historical league will not have minor leagues as there are no career minor leaguers in the Lahman database. You can add minor leagues from the creation wizard or under advanced Options. They will be fictional teams with real cities. Use Baseball ref to make them accurate. 1999, which the year I started with in my EBL vs MLB will only have 5-10 minor leaguers per team so there won't be enough players to completely fill up all levels until around 2005. with just players to have played MLB and then many get stuck in the minors and never play in the majors.
What I suggest it create MAL/FBL league delete all ML teams all levels except the levels you want. Mass delete all history, players, stats, coaches & owners. Save this as a template. Start your 1999 historical league, add template, affiliate all AAA, AA what ever you bring in from the MAL/FBL league, then you are going to want to use ghost players if you do not have enough players to field a full team. I believe a full team is 2 pitchers and 9 position players.
I suggest adding 1 level every 2 seasons.

[WTO]

Originally Posted by The Game

The only league that will have fuill minor leagues is the quickstart on the start screen. All historical league will not have minor leagues as there are no career minor leaguers in the Lahman database. You can add minor leagues from the creation wizard or under advanced Options. They will be fictional teams with real cities. Use Baseball ref to make them accurate. 1999, which the year I started with in my EBL vs MLB will only have 5-10 minor leaguers per team so there won't be enough players to completely fill up all levels until around 2005. with just players to have played MLB and then many get stuck in the minors and never play in the majors.
What I suggest it create MAL/FBL league delete all ML teams all levels except the levels you want. Mass delete all history, players, stats, coaches & owners. Save this as a template. Start your 1999 historical league, add template, affiliate all AAA, AA what ever you bring in from the MAL/FBL league, then you are going to want to use ghost players if you do not have enough players to field a full team. I believe a full team is 2 pitchers and 9 position players.
I suggest adding 1 level every 2 seasons.

Sorry I do not really understand you after the part you confirmed there are no minors. Basically, what's the best way to take over a Mariners team from those years and have the same gameplay experience as if I took them over today?

[The Game]

Originally Posted by WTO

Sorry I do not really understand you after the part you confirmed there are no minors. Basically, what's the best way to take over a Mariners team from those years and have the same gameplay experience as if I took them over today?

add minor leagues manually.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by The Game

add minor leagues manually.

That's it.

You can add the teams yourself, but you won't won't be able to get the real milb players. Sadly OOTP just doesn't have that capability for historical play. Even if it did, there's no Lahman type db with full historical milb info.

It's a dream of mine that we'll eventually be able to have historical milb teams and players in OOTP but for now that's all it is. It'll likely be quite some time before there's any chance of seeing that dream become a reality.

If you use Spritze's db, you'll get many more milb players than in the default OOTP historical db, but still nothing like the full amount.

[WTO]

So if I use 2001 as a start point, any real life players joining MLB since then would not be in thgame, and instead they would all be fictional players?

[The Game]

Originally Posted by WTO

So if I use 2001 as a start point, any real life players joining MLB since then would not be in thgame, and instead they would all be fictional players?

no each year you can have a draft with real rookies. Draft should be in November, or you can have those players go to their original teams which would happen the 1st day of the offseason each year. In both cases this will only be players who played at least1 game in 2002 or each season after. You would not have some random AA player who never played in the majors or did not play in the majors until 2006 or so.
2002 Major League Baseball New Debuts - Baseball-Reference.com

Make sure that you have import historical rookies checked under League setup - Historical and that you have a database listed in the database path. Both should be on by default.

[The Game]

BTW since you are new i recommend backing up your game each year right before your draft or start of offseason. On a rare occasion rookies may not import. I have had that problem twice once on ootp 13 and once on 14. this way you wont have to scrap the league or go back to a backup from earlier in the year. I backup 2 times per game year. Jan, start of season and End of Season after I do awards,