$40 on OOTP 17 and it does not recognize interleague rivalries (Cubs/Sox) when making a schedule?!

[darkcloud4579]

The MLB license and added exposure on Twitter, etc., have really opened the game up to a wide audience who aren't text-simmers. So yeah, it's incumbent upon us if people actually post here to be cordial and help them solve their problems because it's just not a hobby shop anymore.

[AESP_pres]

Why you don't use the schedule editor? It's easy to use and even more considering you just want to change one serie (who will affected four teams). It's a lot more complicated when I have to do correction in the 19th century schedules.

And darkcloud4579 is 100% correct... it's better to be helpfull or not talk than insulting someone who could become a long term client.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by winningwithstyle

Thank You. I don't see how it would take a whole re-write of the game code to make interleague rivalries a set matchup. You already have teams playing each other within the division the same amount of times a year. The game has me playing the Cards 4 times instead of the Cubs. All one would have to do it have an extra 4-6 games set for their interleague rival instead of my team playing a different NL Central team every year

Re: the bolded.

Sure, it sounds simple enough. But scheduling is actually a very difficult problem. Sit down and try to create yourself even just a short schedule involving an eight-team league—you'll soon see how complicated it actually is.

If you shift some interleague games from against the Cards to against the Cubs, that means other games involving other clubs now have to be shifted too. It's a domino effect: make one schedule change and that necessitates a host of subsequent schedule changes, some of which may well not work out, meaning the entire process has to be started over.

The MLB real-life schedules are produced by sophisticated specialized software designed to handle the mathematical complexity of creating a schedule. That allows hundreds of schedule variations to be generated by a computer; the variations which don't work and which don't meet the necessary criteria can be thrown out. Eventually the computer produces a version which is close enough to satisfy MLB's needs.

Even for a much shorter season, such as with the NFL, schedule making is a complicated subject. (I can post specific comments involving the difficulty of creating the NFL schedule, which is now also generated mostly by a complex computer algorithm.)

In terms of the MLB league included with OOTP, it uses the actual MLB schedule for that year. For future years it will use that same schedule but swap around opponents within those match-up 'slots'. That's how OOTP produces a new schedule each season. The 2017 MLB schedule has been released, so if someone has converted it to OOTP's format, you can import that.

The current scheduling and league arrangement has been in effect in MLB since 2013. Including the 2017 season schedule, you've now got five real-life examples you can use. So just cycle through by importing the real-world season MLB schedules you like best. And as MLB seasons progress under the current format, there'll be even more real-life examples to choose from.

(I'll post later on a chart which shows the scheduled interleague match-ups for each season from 2013-2016.)

[Le Grande Orange]

2013-2016 MLB scheduled interleague games

2013

      ATL MIA NYN PHI WAS   CHN CIN MIL PIT SLN   ARI COL LAN SDN SFN
---------------------------------------------------------------------
BAL    -   -   -   -   4     -   -   -   -   -     3   3   3   4   3
BOS    -   -   -   4   -     -   -   -   -   -     3   4   3   3   3
NYA    -   -   4   -   -     -   -   -   -   -     3   3   4   3   3
TBA    -   4   -   -   -     -   -   -   -   -     4   3   3   3   3
TOR    4   -   -   -   -     -   -   -   -   -     3   3   3   3   4
---------------------------------------------------------------------
CHA    3   3   4   3   3     4   -   -   -   -     -   -   -   -   -
CLE    3   3   3   4   3     -   4   -   -   -     -   -   -   -   -
DET    3   3   3   3   4     -   -   -   4   -     -   -   -   -   -
KCA    4   3   3   3   3     -   -   -   -   4     -   -   -   -   -
MIN    3   4   3   3   3     -   -   4   -   -     -   -   -   -   -
---------------------------------------------------------------------
ANA    -   -   -   -   -     4   3   3   3   3     -   -   4   -   -
HOU    -   -   -   -   -     3   3   3   3   4     -   4   -   -   -
OAK    -   -   -   -   -     3   4   3   3   3     -   -   -   -   4
SEA    -   -   -   -   -     3   3   3   4   3     -   -   -   4   -
TEX    -   -   -   -   -     3   3   4   3   3     4   -   -   -   -


2014

      ATL MIA NYN PHI WAS   CHN CIN MIL PIT SLN   ARI COL LAN SDN SFN
---------------------------------------------------------------------
BAL    -   -   -   -   4     3   3   3   4   3     -   -   -   -   -
BOS    4   -   -   -   -     3   4   3   3   3     -   -   -   -   -
NYA    -   -   4   -   -     4   3   3   3   3     -   -   -   -   -
TBA    -   4   -   -   -     3   3   3   3   4     -   -   -   -   -
TOR    -   -   -   4   -     3   3   4   3   3     -   -   -   -   -
---------------------------------------------------------------------
CHA    -   -   -   -   -     4   -   -   -   -     3   3   3   3   4
CLE    -   -   -   -   -     -   4   -   -   -     4   3   3   3   3
DET    -   -   -   -   -     -   -   -   4   -     3   3   4   3   3
KCA    -   -   -   -   -     -   -   -   -   4     3   4   3   3   3
MIN    -   -   -   -   -     -   -   4   -   -     3   3   3   4   3
---------------------------------------------------------------------
ANA    3   3   3   4   3     -   -   -   -   -     -   -   4   -   -
HOU    3   3   3   3   4     -   -   -   -   -     4   -   -   -   -
OAK    3   3   4   3   3     -   -   -   -   -     -   -   -   -   4
SEA    4   3   3   3   3     -   -   -   -   -     -   -   -   4   -
TEX    3   4   3   3   3     -   -   -   -   -     -   4   -   -   -


2015

      ATL MIA NYN PHI WAS   CHN CIN MIL PIT SLN   ARI COL LAN SDN SFN
---------------------------------------------------------------------
BAL    3   3   4   4   6     -   -   -   -   -     -   -   -   -   -
BOS    4   4   3   6   3     -   -   -   -   -     -   -   -   -   -
NYA    3   4   6   3   4     -   -   -   -   -     -   -   -   -   -
TBA    4   6   3   3   4     -   -   -   -   -     -   -   -   -   -
TOR    6   3   4   4   3     -   -   -   -   -     -   -   -   -   -
---------------------------------------------------------------------
CHA    -   -   -   -   -     6   3   3   4   4     -   -   -   -   -
CLE    -   -   -   -   -     4   6   4   3   3     -   -   -   -   -
DET    -   -   -   -   -     4   4   3   6   3     -   -   -   -   -
KCA    -   -   -   -   -     3   4   4   3   6     -   -   -   -   -
MIN    -   -   -   -   -     3   3   6   4   4     -   -   -   -   -
---------------------------------------------------------------------
ANA    -   -   -   -   -     -   -   -   -   -     4   4   6   3   3
HOU    -   -   -   -   -     -   -   -   -   -     6   4   3   3   4
OAK    -   -   -   -   -     -   -   -   -   -     3   3   4   4   6
SEA    -   -   -   -   -     -   -   -   -   -     3   6   3   4   4
TEX    -   -   -   -   -     -   -   -   -   -     4   3   4   6   3


2016

      ATL MIA NYN PHI WAS   CHN CIN MIL PIT SLN   ARI COL LAN SDN SFN
---------------------------------------------------------------------
BAL    -   -   -   -   4     -   -   -   -   -     3   3   3   4   3
BOS    4   -   -   -   -     -   -   -   -   -     3   3   3   3   4
NYA    -   -   4   -   -     -   -   -   -   -     3   4   3   3   3
TBA    -   4   -   -   -     -   -   -   -   -     3   3   4   3   3
TOR    -   -   -   4   -     -   -   -   -   -     4   3   3   3   3
---------------------------------------------------------------------
CHA    3   3   3   4   3     4   -   -   -   -     -   -   -   -   -
CLE    3   3   3   3   4     -   4   -   -   -     -   -   -   -   -
DET    3   4   3   3   3     -   -   -   4   -     -   -   -   -   -
KCA    3   3   4   3   3     -   -   -   -   4     -   -   -   -   -
MIN    4   3   3   3   3     -   -   4   -   -     -   -   -   -   -
---------------------------------------------------------------------
ANA    -   -   -   -   -     4   3   3   3   3     -   -   4   -   -
HOU    -   -   -   -   -     3   3   3   3   4     4   -   -   -   -
OAK    -   -   -   -   -     3   3   4   3   3     -   -   -   -   4
SEA    -   -   -   -   -     3   3   3   4   3     -   -   -   4   -
TEX    -   -   -   -   -     3   4   3   3   3     -   4   -   -   -

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Even for a much shorter season, such as with the NFL, schedule making is a complicated subject. (I can post specific comments involving the difficulty of creating the NFL schedule, which is now also generated mostly by a complex computer algorithm.)

Here are some selected quotes from the book Pro Football Schedules by Ivan Urena:

To meet the rigorous scheduling demands with thousands of different variables and constraints, the NFL turned to Rick Stone, a Canadian manufacturing engineer. Stone, president of Optimal Planning Solutions, developed a specialized optimization software that provides scheduling solutions for professional sports leagues.

When the 2009 schedule was created, for example, Stone's software generated roughly 1.3 million schedules which were narrowed down to 3,500. "Of the 3.500 schedules we actually finished, we probably took 50 of them and read them all the way through," [Howard] Katz [in charge of scheduling for the NFL with Michael North] said. "What I mean by that is, once we get what we think is a playable schedule, we'll post that and say, 'Here's our leader. This is a schedule we're prepared to play.'"

"We won't look at another schedule until we think it's better," he went on. "This year [2009], we went through probably another 50 finished schedules. So, once we got a finished schedule, we probably improved it roughly 50 times, where we said, 'OK, this one is better.'"

In 2010, out of an estimated 500,000 schedules that were generated, Katz and his team reviewed "5,000" playable schedules. According to Katz, "Then we keep generating more and more schedules, trying to find something that's better than the one we've got. We probably went through 50 finished, completed schedules that we wanted to see if they were better than the schedule that we had. It's almost like a bake-off."

In making the 2012 schedule, the computer program, which has been in use since 2004, provided "400,000 complete or partial schedules," and "generated 14,000 playable schedules, which we reduced to 150 with an eyeball test."

"The beauty of the software is that we can go into every single game, every single week, every single team, every single place where we could be playing a game and we put some parameters around it," North said. "You can say to the software: Mix and match these any way you want to, just know that each games comes with a certain set of parameters. I don't want to play this game any earlier than week three or this game any later than week 14. That game should fall in sweeps week, somewhere between 9 and 12. That game should be in Pittsburgh instead of Cleveland. That games needs to be on a Thursday night, which means that both teams need to be playing a home game the week prior. The software," he adds, "can do what we were only dreaming of doing 10 years ago."

According to Katz, "The whole scheduling process is far more sophisticated than it's ever been, and it's a combination of manual input and allowing the software to solve the rest of the puzzle ... It was successful because it helped us ensure there weren't any really bad television windows anywhere. Even our weakest weeks were better than our prior years had been."

[bwburke94]

Might as well add 2017 onto this, LGO.

To me, the schedule's been out for centuries.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by bwburke94

Might as well add 2017 onto this, LGO.

To me, the schedule's been out for centuries.

I don't do up the MLB schedule until shortly before the season starts so as to get all the start times as accurate as possible. (I use the schedule for my day-by-day tracking of the season for postponed and rescheduled games.)