Custom Games Question

[nokmirt]

Can I create a custom league with teams of different years and real players like in ootp baseball?

[reverist]

Originally Posted by nokmirt

Can I create a custom league with teams of different years and real players like in ootp baseball?

Yes, but it will take some work. Basically, there's an import historical teams function, so you can create a custom league, select "NHL" if you want, check or uncheck "Fictional players" if you want. You will then set up the game like normal, on July 1. Then you can go into the league structure. You can delete the teams you don't want and import the teams you do. A quick NOTE: if you want all the contemporary NHL or fictional players (whichever you chose) gone, you will need to go into each team's edit screen first, BEFORE deleting the team, and retire each team's roster. If you're OK with mixing, no big deal, but also note that deleting a team seems to release that team's roster to free agency.

So once you're set with that, and you've deleted the teams you don't want, you import the historical teams one by one, that you do want. Note that the year of the team is the first year in an NHL season's parlance. So, if you want the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens Stanley Cup-winning team, and not the 77-78 from the year after, you need to select 1976 Montreal Canadiens. Another NOTE: apparently, the teams are as they were at the beginning, not end, of that season. This can make a huge difference on, say, the 1995-96 Colorado Avalanche. You can make up for this by importing a historical player from the league edit screen and manually assigning him to the appropriate team.

Now, make sure you set trades to zero, unless you want the teams swapping players, as in a real league. Set draft picks and other structural elements, like injuries and suspensions, to what you want. When you're sure it's what you want (graphics and all that too), save to quickstart so you can use this anytime.

I've done this with a 32-team "Champions League." If you end up with multiples from the same franchise, as I do (I have, for example, the 95-96 Avs and the 21-22 Avs), I would make sure their abbreviations reflect this (COL96 and COL22, for examples) so you can tell the difference. As it is, I can only tell the difference in the standings between them because I know that I assigned COL96 to the 20th century conference and COL22 to the 21st century conference, haha.

[nokmirt]

Originally Posted by reverist

Yes, but it will take some work. Basically, there's an import historical teams function, so you can create a custom league, select "NHL" if you want, check or uncheck "Fictional players" if you want. You will then set up the game like normal, on July 1. Then you can go into the league structure. You can delete the teams you don't want and import the teams you do. A quick NOTE: if you want all the contemporary NHL or fictional players (whichever you chose) gone, you will need to go into each team's edit screen first, BEFORE deleting the team, and retire each team's roster. If you're OK with mixing, no big deal, but also note that deleting a team seems to release that team's roster to free agency.

So once you're set with that, and you've deleted the teams you don't want, you import the historical teams one by one, that you do want. Note that the year of the team is the first year in an NHL season's parlance. So, if you want the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens Stanley Cup-winning team, and not the 77-78 from the year after, you need to select 1976 Montreal Canadiens. Another NOTE: apparently, the teams are as they were at the beginning, not end, of that season. This can make a huge difference on, say, the 1995-96 Colorado Avalanche. You can make up for this by importing a historical player from the league edit screen and manually assigning him to the appropriate team.

Now, make sure you set trades to zero, unless you want the teams swapping players, as in a real league. Set draft picks and other structural elements, like injuries and suspensions, to what you want. When you're sure it's what you want (graphics and all that too), save to quickstart so you can use this anytime.

I've done this with a 32-team "Champions League." If you end up with multiples from the same franchise, as I do (I have, for example, the 95-96 Avs and the 21-22 Avs), I would make sure their abbreviations reflect this (COL96 and COL22, for examples) so you can tell the difference. As it is, I can only tell the difference in the standings between them because I know that I assigned COL96 to the 20th century conference and COL22 to the 21st century conference, haha.

Thank you so so much!

[reverist]

Originally Posted by nokmirt

Thank you so so much!

You're welcome! One last thing: I had to give up on the idea of them having their numbers. In a custom league like this, Jeff mentioned that you only import the historical teams, not everything with the NHL's history, so that uniform retirements and what numbers are available (and who is retired with what) is really really wonky. Basically, Messier could be #68 and there's nothing you can do about it, potentially. I got over it.