High School - Local Players

[spartacus007]

Are high school feeder league teams more likely to have players generated that are from cities near the school's location? I've run a few tests, and it doesn't appear that way. I'm using a fictional database though, so is it possible I set something up incorrectly?

[Dregen]

In all the leagues I've sent up, the players came from all over the world. The location of the city didn't matter.

[Muzamba]

Originally Posted by spartacus007

Are high school feeder league teams more likely to have players generated that are from cities near the school's location? I've run a few tests, and it doesn't appear that way. I'm using a fictional database though, so is it possible I set something up incorrectly?

Actually, the schools db uses a different set of lat/long coordinates than the world_default.xml db does. So you'll have to make sure that the coordinates for cities in your fictional db match those in your schools db.

[beorn]

I set up a basic high school feeder league in Cuba, randomized cities, and find that the players are from all over the world.

Disappointing, I had never set up feeder leagues before and did not realize this.

But it is not that you set up your fictional db incorrectly.

[Muzamba]

Oops! I think I may have overlooked something important in the OP. I didn't catch the fact that you were using feeders.

Unfortunately, high school feeder leagues do not take into consideration the player's hometown when populating the teams.

This is one of many reasons I don't personally choose to use feeders. I much prefer the schools database, which DOES assign players to schools based on their hometowns. It also uses a much wider variety and more realistic distribution of colleges. With feeders, you are limited to just a few hundred schools (if you want a manageable draft pool) and, as I said, where the players come from is completely random.

The only real advantage I see with feeders is that you can follow players throughout their high school or college careers. However, disabling feeders in favor of the schools db still gives you a draft pool of players with accumulated stats.

IMO, feeders are only useful if you're a hardcore stathead. If you want realism, use the schools db.

[SadMarinerFan]

Hi, I'm creating a custom cities.txt file with only cities in Southern California, and creating leagues based on the high school competitions in the area. If I match the name of the schools in schools.txt to the names I gave them in the templates and put in the lat/lon in schools.txt to match the city in cities.txt is that all I need to get the game to populate the schools with local players?

Thanks!

[Muzamba]

Originally Posted by SadMarinerFan

Hi, I'm creating a custom cities.txt file with only cities in Southern California, and creating leagues based on the high school competitions in the area. If I match the name of the schools in schools.txt to the names I gave them in the templates and put in the lat/lon in schools.txt to match the city in cities.txt is that all I need to get the game to populate the schools with local players?

Thanks!

Are you using OOTP 12 or an earlier version?

If it's an earlier version, you are correct.

If it's v12, you'll have to edit the world_default.xml file instead of the cities.txt file. However, the process is pretty much the same with the xml file. Just be sure to open it in a basic text editor like Notepad.

[SadMarinerFan]

Thanks for your answers so far. Yeah I am using '11. Unfortunately I just can't seem to get local players when only setting up these HS leagues. (I plan to let the private schools recruit from anywhere just like they always do in real life.)

Also I don't understand why there is even a schools.txt because as far as I can see when you add a HS league it only allows randomized names that are completely fictional. So who made the list and why I wonder.

Nevermind I see now they're to fill out the history of pro players. I wonder if schools.txt really can be used to tie down HS players to local cities when playing HS leagues only since it's there to serve a completely different purpose.

Maybe you can take a look at my work and see if I'm doing something wrong.

Excerpt from cities.txt
Yucaipa,51367,206,California,34.01,-117.02

Excerpt from schools.txt
0,Yucaipa HS,Yucaipa,CA,206,34.01,-117.02,3,1,,,Thunderbirds

This results in a created player list coming from all the different towns in SoCal. I'm absolutely certain in my world template I have Team Name as Yucaipa HS and mascot is Thunderbirds.

[SadMarinerFan]

It seems to be impossible to force players to be from the cities local to their team so I'll go a different route.

I think I'm going to create separate nations for each high school. Hopefully the game will allow me to name them all USA as long as the number IDs are different. This will allow me to pick feeder cities for each HS. For instance, a very small town like Johannesburg is not going to have it's own HS, so I will put Johannesburg in the same country as bigger neighbor Ridgecrest and Sherman E. Burroughs HS. Most of the players will come from Ridgecrest but occasionally one from Johannesburg will slip in.

Also it should allow me to have the same city feed more than one high school. I'll simply put the city in more than one "country" and divide the population between the two depending on high school enrollment, and territorial considerations.

It may be a lot of work but it should be worth it!

Damn, a snag. What country is the league based in? That and the foreigner percentage option looks to be the thing that puts the nail in the coffin for my dream.