Historical Qs

[dougaiton]

So I was about to start my first historical ITP career, and with their still being no sign of the promised manual, I thought I'd try your guys expertise.

1) Does the game automatically take real rookies from the stats folder, or do you have to tell ITP to do that?

2) Does ITP make up the shortfall of rookies by creating their own 'modern rookies'? Would a workaround be using Ankit's normalised database and editing the league totals (although your league would always be in flux) or, with the best rookies being historical greats, is the difference virtually unnoticeable?

3)Who makes up the initial rookie draft in your first year? Does it generate a new rookie class, and will this not flood the majors eventually with non-historical players? Can I import my own draft class?

Thanks in advance

[jasons957]

I set up a 1990 roster out of the Lahman database and ported it to ITP and added myself fresh out of high school. After the year was up (go to next year), it asks if you want real rookies and asks from where (c:\stats). It also asks if you want real teams or draft otherwise. I thought I needed to move the league back to ootp for the offseason, but I didn't have to. I don't know how it will do over the years, but it should work pretty well.

[dougaiton]

Cheers - thanks for the advice.

[Nukester]

If you import a season into OOPT5 from a database and then import into ITP without running a season in OOTP5 first, then ITP will create all fictional players for the first ammy draft (right after character creation). The real rookies will not come into play until after the first season with your character is is finished.

If you import a season into OOTP5 one year prior to when you really want to start your league and sim the season. When you "proceed to next season", it will ask the rookie import questions. Import the rookies into OOTP5 THEN import the league into ITP. Doing it this way will mix you in with the real rookies coming in.

Also, I believe ITP rookies are created via a modern player creation, so you could have some off stats if you play like in the deadball era.

Also, no matter what, the game is going to mix fictional players in with your real players to fill out the rosters and ammy drafts.

Hope that helps alittle !

[dougaiton]

Fantastic, Nukester. Much appreciated.

[IatricSB]

I created a 1901 league in OOTP then imported it into ITP. Unfortunately, ITP stocked the minors with "created" players that were way out of line with the 1901 players. During the offseason, it always imported the real rookies from Lahman. But can't get past two problems... the created players it uses to stock the minors (that are modeled after modern players, not dead ball era) and the inability to change the ERA settings to get realistic results. After a few years of playing, the results started to get very unrealistic and most of my league leaders were fictional players whereas the historical players never played and stayed mostly in the minors. I finally gave up on playing that far back and instead moved it up to a 1971 league. Results were more realistic but I wish it wouldn't create the fictional players (but at the same time realize why it does).

[Bobbuttons]

One thing not to do... don't sim a season and then sim up to the next years ammy draft and THEN import the league. I did that and the lack of spring training screws it up. It has to sim one day at a time through March. Not a problem if you have a decent processor, but mine runs slow enough as it is.

[dougaiton]

Cheers for the words boys - I think I might start in 1980, thus meaning the game only has to deal with one time period - hopefully by the time the ITP created players really come to the fore it will be the early 90s and the power explosion will begin. I'll hit a problem when the expansion teams appear, but I'm sure I can cope with 26 teams and a talent glut!

A league settings/league options screen as found in OOTP would be a major improvement for ITP2!

[Nukester]

Yeah, as much as I love early century baseball, because of this, I decided to start in 1986, the year I graduated HS

[dougaiton]

I like the symmetry there! It is a shame that the historical capabilities are kinda limited like this, but I suppose that as OOTP can't generate 'period' rookies, we wouldn't expect ITP too either.

I'm still wondering about Ankit's normalised database, and editing the league totals though. I'm fairly sure that would work - the problem would be that once you hit the end of an era, you'd be pretty much screwed.

[Nukester]

Forgive me if Im wrong (at work without the game in front of me), but I think the data folder in ITP contain a file called erastats or era or something like that. If you open this with notepad, you can see that it is just a list of years, with the correct league totals for that year, listed (similar to the one the ERA Calc uses and I think OOTP5 has this also). Because of this, the game must use somehow figure out league totals for the seasons (even deadball era), but the real problem arises with the fiction created players being created using the modern format.

So even if you play in like 1909, the final league totals will probably be pretty close (like 15 or so HR's for the leaders, instead of 40+), but the created fiction players would dominate, as is happening with IatricSB

[dougaiton]

Hmm...if it used ERA stats, wouldn't historical players suffer from a double bump, if you see what I mean, in that deadball guys will have tiny hr ratings, but they'll be dragged down even further by the low hr in the league totals.