No longer able to use a certain year as base year in Random Debut.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by JaBurns

I probably will start over but I will try to get my setup down in 18, then start and save my setup as a template. From there run a few test leagues to see what happens, then if need be fool around with settings and repeat; any suggestions for years required in test runs? Obviously more is better but what would a minimum?
Usually start in 1901but have been reading about 1871 and 1882 starts for leagues. What are the things to watch for with a 19th century start date?

There are goofy stats if one starts in the 19th century. Pitchers can win fifty or lose fifty. Relievers seldom, if ever, get used. I would never start a game earlier than 1882. That is the first season for which there are sixteen teams. The expansion from eight to sixteen teams that happens in 1881 can be crippling for the incumbent teams, and you don't want that, trust me.

The way I get around the goofy 19th century stats is to tie LTMs and strategy settings to 1984 for all seasons. There's apparently a tool in OOTP19 that works really well that allows you to tie the LTMs to a specific season and keep them there as your seasons progress. I also uncheck auto-import strategy settings and set them to 1984 with "strict rotation, occasionally highest rested" for the starting rotation mode. Make sure to check and see that your financials are set to whatever year you're in, and progress every year according to historical. This is important after you set strategy settings to a particular season because for some inexplicable reason financials tend to be dragged to the season that you tie strategy settings to. I also find in OOTP16 that I have to manually import the new financial settings each year, for some reason, and I don't know if this is still the case in later versions. When you're just testing, you could probably turn financials off altogether.

You could also start in 1901 for less funky stats, and just allow strategy settings to progress as they do if you don't want to bother with tieing the strategy settings to a particular year. I do it because having Mariano Rivera or any other great historical closer back in a time when closers were barely used would be an absolute waste of talent.

[jaysdailydose]

I fully mean to necro this thread, but for a quality purpose.

FIRST -- I want to thank the many posters and developers that contributed to this thread.

I was a longtime player and forum user (as some of you will remember, for sure -- if not, I've got the nice "Hall of Famer" tag as the other gents do.)

The main reason I wound up leaving was because I kept getting frustrated by this exact same issue, and this was years before you guys did. I was just getting too many "ghosts in the machine" -- and I'd see them, and I'd wind up starting a new save. I was an active participant in the Dynasty Reports forum, and it sure sucked finding a bug that I felt broke a save, or tested something else that looked promising, yet so often ended in frustration.

You guys have the exact same idea that I always did with my "Level Playing Field" dynasty reports -- I'd lock all of the settings to a single year, the financials as well usually, and try to do a history where every player in the database had a chance at a career in the same statistical settings. Would Koufax dominate Ruth? Would Ruth destroy baseballs in a more modern setting than he played? Would Clemens fare even better against hitters like Gehrig, DiMaggio, and Williams -- or would those guys simply tear apart pitching no matter the era? So many questions...

What would the history of baseball look like without drugs?
What would the history of baseball look like with even leagues for the entire history?
Who would rise to the top in this mixed format? Who would fade away?

Those who remember me might also remember that other than working on these type of saves, I also did a lot of work figuring out and helping others get the financial markets they wanted to the right teams in fantasy draft play... I got tired of working on the game, and lost my enjoyment in playing.

I'm hopeful that this thread ended because this issue was fixed -- and again, I thank everyone who worked on it, as it is a pretty vital piece of how I want to play the game, and always has been.