Definitive Way to Play Historical

[chrismeglan]

I'm wondering what everyone's opinion is on the best way to set up a historical league starting in 1901. Would you play Career More or Default Mode? Historical Minors turned ON or OFF? What about Recalc? Any other settings you would suggest? I'm pretty comfortable setting up my universe in a way that feels right. Just want to hear what some others think

[omg_pwnasaurus]

I've always played career w/historical minors, scouting off, recalc off

[chrismeglan]

Originally Posted by omg_pwnasaurus

I've always played career w/historical minors, scouting off, recalc off

And you're not concerned with the game populating your league with thousands and thousands of career minor leaguers who aren't gonna impact your game one iota and just take up memory?

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by chrismeglan

I'm wondering what everyone's opinion is on the best way to set up a historical league starting in 1901. Would you play Career More or Default Mode? Historical Minors turned ON or OFF? What about Recalc? Any other settings you would suggest? I'm pretty comfortable setting up my universe in a way that feels right. Just want to hear what some others think

I use what was the only non-replay pre-set for historic games prior to OOTP 25. OOTP expanded the choices but did not include the previous choice.

Description of the differences is HERE. Scroll down to "Prior Version Functionality."

[uruguru]

I love the idea of playing with minors but I always regret it after a few seasons when the game slows to a crawl. Honestly, it all depends on what you, as the player, are trying to accomplish.

1) Are you wanting to build a long-term Yankees-style franchise with historical players? Do you want it to be trivially easy (recalc on) or less realistic and predictable? (recalc off)

2) Do you just want to watch an alternative version of history? Very accurate (real transactions/lineups, 1-year recalc) or less accurate?

3) Something else?


I will suggest that if you play with minor leagues, then at a minimum you lower the Stat Detail from Very High to Normal for each of the minor leagues.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by chrismeglan

And you're not concerned with the game populating your league with thousands and thousands of career minor leaguers who aren't gonna impact your game one iota and just take up memory?

They won't change the performance of the league at all for people using auto-calc. Those who use pre-cacl league performance changes to to match the talent.

[omg_pwnasaurus]

Originally Posted by chrismeglan

And you're not concerned with the game populating your league with thousands and thousands of career minor leaguers who aren't gonna impact your game one iota and just take up memory?

I play out every game so I usually only get through so much before I buy the new version, wipe the old one and start another save. I've never noticed any memory issues. I don't sim 50 seasons or whatnot.

[chrismeglan]

Originally Posted by uruguru

I love the idea of playing with minors but I always regret it after a few seasons when the game slows to a crawl. Honestly, it all depends on what you, as the player, are trying to accomplish.

1) Are you wanting to build a long-term Yankees-style franchise with historical players? Do you want it to be trivially easy (recalc on) or less realistic and predictable? (recalc off)

2) Do you just want to watch an alternative version of history? Very accurate (real transactions/lineups, 1-year recalc) or less accurate?

3) Something else?

I will suggest that if you play with minor leagues, then at a minimum you lower the Stat Detail from Very High to Normal for each of the minor leagues.

Yeah that's what I sometimes run into—my game will start to slow down after several seasons.


As far as my goal? It's hard to say. I guess the best way to answer that is which ever mode will lend itself to having the most emotional attachment to what's happening. Like instead of just watching history play itself again, I can feel something from it.

[chrismeglan]

Originally Posted by omg_pwnasaurus

I play out every game so I usually only get through so much before I buy the new version, wipe the old one and start another save. I've never noticed any memory issues. I don't sim 50 seasons or whatnot.

Interesting. How many years do you typically go on one save before moving on?And do you start over from the same point with each new version?

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by chrismeglan

As far as my goal? It's hard to say. I guess the best way to answer that is which ever mode will lend itself to having the most emotional attachment to what's happening. Like instead of just watching history play itself again, I can feel something from it.

Hmmm... like maybe a good bench player getting more playing time and becoming a regular? Like good careers getting cut short by injury and careers that real life were cut short by injury or death continuing in a plausible fashion?

[omg_pwnasaurus]

Originally Posted by chrismeglan

Interesting. How many years do you typically go on one save before moving on?And do you start over from the same point with each new version?

I started watching baseball in 1983 so I typically start by being unemployed in 1982, letting it sim through 1982 and then during that offseason, taking over whichever team finished with the worst record. This particular save happens to be Cleveland. Which feels like kind of a more real life scenario, moreso than just taking over a team where it typically starts you extremely late on a fresh save, ie) past the winter/historical draft, etc. That always seemed weird to me and not as fun to do. Like I don't want to immediately start playing games when I take over a team, I want to start building/evaluating them first. I just took them over ffs.

It's enjoyable to see what mess I was left (usually that team I end up taking over sells off stuff in the prior deadline, etc so it's interesting to see what assets they may have left me with to start).

I think the furthest I've ever gotten on a save was to the 1993 expansion draft. That's typically my goal every year but real life can certainly get in the way. I've honestly never noticed any slowness or anything.

[chrismeglan]

Originally Posted by Brad K

Hmmm... like maybe a good bench player getting more playing time and becoming a regular? Like good careers getting cut short by injury and careers that real life were cut short by injury or death continuing in a plausible fashion?

Wow, that's a good question. Careers that got caught short, or perhaps took forever to get started (Josh Hamilton) is definitely an angle worth playing up. But I also bringing some stability to franchises that relocated/almost folded

[luckymann]

I thoroughly recommend turning Facegen to major leagues only or off entirely if you plan on running a long-term historical minors save. Same goes with replays, highlights and 3D movements. Limit logs and reports to one per year for scouting and two for the rest. Purge messages regularly. Delete players who never made the majors as well.

I am in 1940 of a save such as this following this protocol and using these settings that commenced in 1901. The file size sits at 3.5GB, with no sluggishness to speak of. That's on a fairly new Mac mini with the fancy newish chip, which obviously makes a huge difference.

It seems silly for it to be the responsibility of the player to have to do this on a game that offers the full array of settings OOTP does but it is what it is and no doubt will help with some of the problems mentioned here.

With regard to the original question, I like having all of the minor league players but not all of the ever-changing minor leagues and teams. Keeping track of them is a bit of a nightmare and offering an option to streamline this would be in the top section of my list of changes to the game I would like to see. The other issue with full minors is it means many of the well-known MLBers do not end up on their best-known historical teams, even with no Draft in place. That said, full minors is a very immersive way to play the historical form of the game if you can handle the things I have mentioned.

As far as whether to use recalc or dev only, there are arguments for both and it all depends on how close you want the replay to follow the IRL. I would use 5-year recalc over dev only if you want to loosen things up a bit. I always choose career mode but that's just a personal preference. I'll be honest and admit I don't fully understand the difference between the two.

G

[chrismeglan]

Originally Posted by luckymann

...I'll be honest and admit I don't fully understand the difference between the two.

G

Nor do I, my friend, I can assure you of that lol

As far as the thousands of minor league jabronis, I will admit that I would like them to exist in some capacity; I just would like to have a little more control over WHEN exactly they come into the game—as opposed to what we have now where you make that choice at the very beginning and are stuck with it. For example, I'd love to be able to start a 1901 save with historical minors OFF, then around 1970, turn it ON, and then watch the game populate with minor leaguers. Anything before that and you're just basically just going through and deleting guys with potential ratings below 30. I don't even wait for the game to "delete those who never reached majors" I just do it from the start

[David Watts]

Wonder if we will ever be able to use the minor league players without being forced to use the historical minor league structure as well? I would love to simply create fictional minor leagues for historical play consisting of 3 or 4 levels, but still have access to the data base of minor league players. I don't want to start in 47 with 30+ leagues. I don't want to start in 1917 and get to 1920 and see the Cardinals have to drop a big portion of their reserve roster due to all of a sudden having a farm team....meanwhile all the other teams in the league get to scoop up the excess, because they're still using reserve rosters.

[Rain King]

Originally Posted by chrismeglan

Nor do I, my friend, I can assure you of that lol

As far as the thousands of minor league jabronis, I will admit that I would like them to exist in some capacity; I just would like to have a little more control over WHEN exactly they come into the game—as opposed to what we have now where you make that choice at the very beginning and are stuck with it. For example, I'd love to be able to start a 1901 save with historical minors OFF, then around 1970, turn it ON, and then watch the game populate with minor leaguers. Anything before that and you're just basically just going through and deleting guys with potential ratings below 30. I don't even wait for the game to "delete those who never reached majors" I just do it from the start

This is asking quit a bit from a programming perspective. What does "turn it on" in 1970 mean? I would bet you could get 15 different answers to that question. In fact, that is true of your original question. There isn't a definitive way to play historial, quite the opposite. Everybody generally wants to play their own unique way.

[David Watts]

What version between OOTP17 and 26 did they remove the ability to turn historical minors on or off after play begins? I know this option existed at one point. I remember reading a post( I think it was by TigerFan) detailing how one could use the players in the historical players DB, but not be tied to the historical minor leagues structure. It involved turning the historical minors option on and off at just the right period during the season, so that the players would import, but the structure would not.

[Brad K]

For those who are wondering... from the Wiki

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by Brad K

For those who are wondering... from the Wiki

So basically the two choices are nothing more than a template of sorts that set the game up in a preconfigured way that can be changed in the wizard before game creation and then in the settings tab afterward, is that right bud?

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by David Watts

What version between OOTP17 and 26 did they remove the ability to turn historical minors on or off after play begins? I know this option existed at one point. I remember reading a post( I think it was by TigerFan) detailing how one could use the players in the historical players DB, but not be tied to the historical minor leagues structure. It involved turning the historical minors option on and off at just the right period during the season, so that the players would import, but the structure would not.

Yeah DW, you have to set it up a certain way and toggle a couple settings before and after the Draft reveal. It is pretty simple, I am using it for my Dodgers save and it works a treat.

Here's the methodology.

G