Question about international leagues/baseball nations

[Cole]

I haven't purchased OOTP 12 yet (probably tomorrow), so I'm just looking for people who have the game to speak up...

I've always wanted to create an international/world league that would make use of the foreigner roster limit rules (only allowing a few foreigners per team), where the stronger baseball countries would be powerhouses, whereas the weaker baseball countries would have a tougher time in game, due to having lower quality players.

In past versions of OOTP, that was never possible, as if you had an equal amount of teams in each country, player pools would be created with an equal amount of players from each nation, and the skill disparity would be even (you would be just as likely to have a future Hall of Fame pitcher from USA or Japan (strong baseball nations) as you would be to have one from Italy or Nicaragua (weak baseball nations), for example).

However, I noticed in one of the screens there was something regarding scouting that showed recognition between countries with excellent baseball talent, good baseball talent, poor baseball talent, etc... And I seem to recall someone saying that the game in scouting will make it so it's more likely to find good players in the baseball rich parts of the world ..

My question is, does that translate over to player draft pools in any capacity? If I set up an international league would it be quite rare to see a super talented player from one of the weaker baseball nations, or would it all be balanced between all countries in your league, as it has been in the past?

Basically, my dream international league would be set up somewhat as follows...
Teams from all different countries
Rosters which are allowed to have only 3 or 4 foreigners
And a baseball universe where the stronger baseball nations will by extension field the strongest teams, due to a stronger player base to pull from.

Of course, the weaker teams might be able to have success with the right imports, but it would largely be based on the talent level of each team's baseball nation.

Is such a thing possible in OOTP 12? Has anything changed in this regard from previous iterations? Thanks.

[Questdog]

Anytime a league is based in a country, the baseball level of that country is irrelevant and the game will create players of maximum quality for it, unless you manually knock down the player creation modifiers. Unfortuantely, there is no way to set player creation modifiers for different countries within a single league.

However, something like this WOULD be possible, but would take some machinations.

Here's how I'd try it:

First I'd create my league with all the teams I wanted set in all the countries I wanted. I would set the PCMs (player creation modifiers) for this league to be REALLY low, like .100 for everything. That way all the players created for this league would suck.

THEN, for every country I had in my league, I would create a separate small league based in each of those countries (not a minor league in the same league as the original league, but separate international level leagues). I would set the PCMs for each of these leagues to be how I wanted the countries to be ranked. And make sure to set foreigner creation percentage to zero.

Make sure for each of the small leagues that you allow FAs to leave the league. I'd also set free agency to be allowed after only one season. And for the Big League, make sure you allow free agents to be signed from other leagues.

Not sure it would work, but that's how I'd try it.

[Syt]

A follow up to this - when creating an international league, what "league nation" do you pick?

I've only run mono-national leagues so far, so I'm not sure what to pick for, say, a Euroepan league.

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by Syt

A follow up to this - when creating an international league, what "league nation" do you pick?

I've only run mono-national leagues so far, so I'm not sure what to pick for, say, a Euroepan league.

I don't think it matters. In the scenario I described, it definitely wouldn't matter.

[Syt]

Great, thanks!

[Cole]

Originally Posted by Questdog

Anytime a league is based in a country, the baseball level of that country is irrelevant and the game will create players of maximum quality for it, unless you manually knock down the player creation modifiers. Unfortuantely, there is no way to set player creation modifiers for different countries within a single league.

However, something like this WOULD be possible, but would take some machinations.

Here's how I'd try it:

First I'd create my league with all the teams I wanted set in all the countries I wanted. I would set the PCMs (player creation modifiers) for this league to be REALLY low, like .100 for everything. That way all the players created for this league would suck.

THEN, for every country I had in my league, I would create a separate small league based in each of those countries (not a minor league in the same league as the original league, but separate international level leagues). I would set the PCMs for each of these leagues to be how I wanted the countries to be ranked. And make sure to set foreigner creation percentage to zero.

Make sure for each of the small leagues that you allow FAs to leave the league. I'd also set free agency to be allowed after only one season. And for the Big League, make sure you allow free agents to be signed from other leagues.

Not sure it would work, but that's how I'd try it.

Hey thanks for the suggestion though. Question though, what is the purpose of creating .100 PCM in the original league? I understand the players not sucking so I won't have a bunch of superstars from Bangladesh created off the hop, for example, but still, where will my initial batch of players from my main league come from?

Also, what would happen if I set the league nation to a random country that won't have a team in the league, and then set the foreigner percentage to 100% .... Will that automatically create moer players in the baseball rich nations, or will it then just look at the teams in the league and create based on that? (even if I selected foreigner percentage based on league nationality instead of team nation).

Anyway, let me know.

Also, it has been so long since I've done a league without a draft, but if I don't hold an amateur draft in a league, what happens? How do new players end up in the universe and end up on teams?

Let me know, thanks.

[olivertheorem]

I think what he's getting at is that after the creation of the major league, you would delete all the players from it (to get rid of the required initial batch). Then, with the foreigner limit set to 3-4 or whatever, you let the major league sign players out of the minor leagues (which are filling the role normally filled by feeder leagues). That way you end up with poor talent countries signing the best of the poor quality players in that country's minor league, so they'd still be lousy.

As far as the draft goes, I think you'd have to set up both leagues to not have an amateur draft, so that they just create free agents. The major league players would be awful, so they'd never be signed (or if they were, only to the minor league). The players created for the minor league, though, would be signed by that country's major league team, since they're restricted to mostly local talent.

At least, that's how I think Questdog envisioned it.

I really have to buy 12 now so I can do this myself. It's almost perfect, considering it's a workaround.

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by ripwalk

Anyway, let me know.

To do this, you'd want to sim the league for 25 years or so and then erase all the history and begin in earnest. That way, you'd give teams time to accumulate players the way you have envisioned it. The .100 crappy players will play for a while until the better players can be acquired. After you begin in earnest, the crappy players will still be created, just nobody will want them.

If you based the league in a country without a team and set foreigner % to 100, then it would, as you say, create more and better players for the baseball rich countries (as long as the base country is not USA*). The problem is that I don't think you'll get enough players for the baseball poor nations to field a team.

*When the base country is the USA the foreigner distribution is hard-coded in the game to be consistent with real life and the baseball levels of countries don't matter for this purpose.

[GMLoophole]

Originally Posted by Syt

A follow up to this - when creating an international league, what "league nation" do you pick?

I've only run mono-national leagues so far, so I'm not sure what to pick for, say, a Euroepan league.

I think the only function of "league nation" is that it allows you to set foreigner limits based on that nationality instead of the nationality of the teams in the league. So, if you set the foreigner limits based on the league nationality of a US league, teams in that league from Montreal or Toronto would have to be composed of American players.

Irrelevant for your project I think, but that's what the setting would allow.

[koohead]

not to take anything from the content of this thread, but machinations is an awesome word!

[Cole]

Follow up question ... While I want weaker baseball nations to not have as good a chance to have great players and great quality players, I still don't want it to be impossible.

With lower PCM values, is that related solely to a player's skills at creation, or does it relate to how he will progress through his career as well?

For example, will a player in a league with a poor PCM never have a chance to develop into a superstar, or is it simply a case that once he is created anything can happen and he'll have a chance (albeit a less pronounced one) to become a star?

[Cole]

Originally Posted by Questdog

To do this, you'd want to sim the league for 25 years or so and then erase all the history and begin in earnest. That way, you'd give teams time to accumulate players the way you have envisioned it. The .100 crappy players will play for a while until the better players can be acquired. After you begin in earnest, the crappy players will still be created, just nobody will want them.

If you based the league in a country without a team and set foreigner % to 100, then it would, as you say, create more and better players for the baseball rich countries (as long as the base country is not USA*). The problem is that I don't think you'll get enough players for the baseball poor nations to field a team.

*When the base country is the USA the foreigner distribution is hard-coded in the game to be consistent with real life and the baseball levels of countries don't matter for this purpose.

Thank you for your feedback .. I think your concept would work and it would be a lot of work but I think I'm probably going to give it a go.

I like the idea of "independant" leagues in each country,

I'd like to just run by a (rough draft) idea of how the league might look by you (and anyone else) and if you could provide me with your thoughts on if you think it would work, that would be great.

So the main league (major league level) would contain, let's say 16 teams.

I want the USA team to be quite strong, so I'm thinking the independant league for that nation (is it best to put these at "International" Level) would have the most teams in it, say 12.

For Canada I think I'd have a 4-6 team independant (international) league. Still a decent amount, but a decidely smaller player pool to draw from than the Americans.

Then, because I don't want TONS of leagues in my universe, I would want to maybe group some of the other countries together....

So maybe a 16-team independant/international league with Cuba, Dominican, Panama and Venezuela, each having 4 teams each .. Or, perhaps if I wanted to make Cuba's main team stronger, I could have 5 teams from Cuba in the international league and say only 3 from Cuba? I know if this was all under one roof the nations would all have the same PCM, but I could perhaps compensate to make a team like Cuba stronger by just giving them a bigger player pool to draw from, by having more teams.

Then I'd do a similar thing in the Asian nations with a Korean/Japanese/Chinese league.

Then maybe a couple other miscellaneous ones for Europe and/or Australia.

Anyway, I'm just wondering if you think that would work, to group leagues together? I can just create the independant/international leagues to be based on team nationality, and have foreigner percentage at 0% and I think it will accomplish what I'm looking for.

I still would like to have a draft though in my major league ... Do you think it would be possible to not only be able to aquire players for the major league rosters by free agency, but also by a short draft? I guess there's no real way to do that and have it be balanced in terms of baseball quality

However, if I hold drafts for the independant leagues I'll get a continuous flow of young players who have the proper skill level as based on their country and the PCMs I set.

What about if I don't set a draft in the major league or in any of the independant leagues? How will new players enter the universe?

Anyway, sorry for so many questions.... One more though .. Exactly what kind of fluctuations should I use as a range in PCM in order to get desired results?

I want there to be a pronounced difference between the absolute top and absolute bottom teams, yet a less defined difference between some of the top nations (USA, Cuba, Venezuela, to a lesser extent Canada and even Australia) .. Suggestions?

Thanks for any and all feedback. I just bought the game and I'm going to start running some tests now, but I always appreciate feedback!

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by ripwalk

Follow up question ... While I want weaker baseball nations to not have as good a chance to have great players and great quality players, I still don't want it to be impossible.

With lower PCM values, is that related solely to a player's skills at creation, or does it relate to how he will progress through his career as well?

For example, will a player in a league with a poor PCM never have a chance to develop into a superstar, or is it simply a case that once he is created anything can happen and he'll have a chance (albeit a less pronounced one) to become a star?

Lower PCMs will make it harder for those players to rise to the top, but not impossible.

[Cole]

Also, would you suggest using a feeder league of any variety for this type of setup, or would it not be recommended since it would throw my nationalities and skills out of whack?

[Questdog]

First off, let me say that I have never tried this. I just explained how I WOULD try it, if I was so inclined. Likely, I would find out mistakes in my assumptions when I actually tried to do it. The gist of this is don't blame me when it don't work....

Originally Posted by ripwalk

Then, because I don't want TONS of leagues in my universe, I would want to maybe group some of the other countries together....

If you group countries together, I see no way to limit the players created in that league to just those countries. 0% foreigners would mean only players from the host country would be created. Higher than 0% and players from ALL foreign countries will be created.

However, it seems from the rest of your post that you plan to have teams from all over the world. I assumed originally that it would be a smaller league with just a few countries.

With teams from all over the world, you could just do one league and set each team to limit foreigners by team nationality (just don't base the league in the USA) and forget my idea of the independent leagues in countries to generate players. The only problem you'd run into is making sure their is enough players for team who's countries have low baseball qualities.

[Questdog]

OK. I did a little testing and if you want to make sure that cetain countries are hampered in their ability to find talent from their own country, I think you'd have to do it the way I first said. A big league with teams from all over the world will work and you can limit their roster to have only players from their own country, however I think all countries in the league are treated equally as far as talent distribution.

So, my original plan stands and my concern that grouping countries together in one of the independent leagues would not work out right is still what I think.

These independent leagues that you set up WILL be feeder leagues to your major league. To try to set up feeder leagues to the feeder leagues would be doable, but would add a whole lot more teams to the mix and slow the simming speed way down.

[Questdog]

And these independent leagues for each country don't have to be large. 4 teams ought to be enough to keep the big leagues going for a country.

[Cole]

Originally Posted by Questdog

First off, let me say that I have never tried this. I just explained how I WOULD try it, if I was so inclined. Likely, I would find out mistakes in my assumptions when I actually tried to do it. The gist of this is don't blame me when it don't work....



If you group countries together, I see no way to limit the players created in that league to just those countries. 0% foreigners would mean only players from the host country would be created. Higher than 0% and players from ALL foreign countries will be created.

However, it seems from the rest of your post that you plan to have teams from all over the world. I assumed originally that it would be a smaller league with just a few countries.

With teams from all over the world, you could just do one league and set each team to limit foreigners by team nationality (just don't base the league in the USA) and forget my idea of the independent leagues in countries to generate players. The only problem you'd run into is making sure their is enough players for team who's countries have low baseball qualities.

Yeah, I just tried it with one league and it didn't work, none of the teams had rosters filled, so I'm back to the independant league idea.

I guess I would need one independant league for each country in the game though, as I originally thought I could just put foreigner percentage to 'zero' and it would look at the distribution of teams in the league to create a player pool, but I see that's not the case ...

[Cole]

Originally Posted by Questdog

And these independent leagues for each country don't have to be large. 4 teams ought to be enough to keep the big leagues going for a country.

Yes that is my thought .. Maybe 4 teams only for the weakest countries, 6 teams for mid-level teams and 8 teams for the top level independant leagues, that would put another method in place whereby stronger countries would have a larger player pool to pick from and therefore, presumably, be stronger.

[Cole]

Originally Posted by Questdog

OK. I did a little testing and if you want to make sure that cetain countries are hampered in their ability to find talent from their own country, I think you'd have to do it the way I first said. A big league with teams from all over the world will work and you can limit their roster to have only players from their own country, however I think all countries in the league are treated equally as far as talent distribution.

So, my original plan stands and my concern that grouping countries together in one of the independent leagues would not work out right is still what I think.

These independent leagues that you set up WILL be feeder leagues to your major league. To try to set up feeder leagues to the feeder leagues would be doable, but would add a whole lot more teams to the mix and slow the simming speed way down.

Yes I don't think I will do a feeder league. I don't think I'll even have minor leagues in the independant. Hopefully that doesn't create an issue.

I'll have the major league and then three levels of minors there, and then just the independant league, perhaps with a reserve roster.

I am also planning on allowing each country team to have *some* foreigners... I will probably set the foreigner limit somewhere between 3 and 5, for a few reasons ... I don't think the AI knows NOT to try to sign players because of foreigner rules (I hope I'm wrong), so if a US team goes after a Cuban stud, I want them to actually be able to have a spot to play them ...

I don't want it to just be a foregone conclusion that a player either signs with his major league nation team or keeps playing in the independant league. I need some free agency offer drama!