Having trouble with those damn foreigners

[Slade58]

Trying to start a new fictional league with a 95/5 American/Hispanic ratio. I could easily do this in Ootp11, but am having trouble in 12. I moved my names, first names and ethnicities files into the ootp12 database, and used an XML editor to edit the world database into the same 95/5 ratio. When I setup my new league I entered 0 for the foreigner %, but when I go to the initial draft, I am getting 20 players drom Sweden, 35 from the Dominican Republic, 10 from France, etc.

Why is this happening and what am I doing wrong? This was so easy to accomplish in 11

[joefromchicago]

I'm having the same problems. If I make changes in the world_default .xml file, it either doesn't "take" (it reverts to the default world_default file after closing) or else it crashes the game.

One would assume that changing the stats for a nation in the .xml file would change that nation's stats in OOTP, but that doesn't happen at all. Go into commissioner mode and choose "explore world" from the manager menu, and then choose a nation and go to the nation editor. As far as I can tell, that's the only place that you can change the values for each nation. Unlike changing it in the world_default file, though, your changes will only apply to that particular league.

And yes, this was much easier in earlier versions. I didn't buy v.11, but I had OOTPX and making this sort of change was a snap. Now it appears to be extremely difficult, if not impossible.

[Biggio509]

So far I have not had any problems with changes made in nation editor sticking. There still is an issue with name and ethicities that has been reported that Hispanic names are in US modern.

Also there is no way I have found to alter the percentage of face gens. So you can't make sure face gen sets African and Hispanic faces to say 0 for the 1890's. The Hispanic part is ok but maybe a few too many. Although blacks were segregated in baseball Hispanic players never were and there were a few native Americans. Essentially you can set everything but US modern to 0 but Hispanics and sometimes blacks will still show up because there is no where in game to edit the face gen percentages. Essentially if you have an American player with a Hispanic picture then I think it chooses a Hispanic name even if you have the Hispanic list to 0.

The problem with editing nation.txt in 11 or world.xml in 12 is there no way to reimport it. So if you play over several decades and say hit the desegregation era the only way to put blacks in the majors is through the world editor. The only way to make say Venzula go from non-existent to Good is the world editor. Unlike ethnicity there is no way to import different files for different decades.

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by Biggio509

Also there is no way I have found to alter the percentage of face gens. So you can't make sure face gen sets African and Hispanic faces to say 0 for the 1890's. The Hispanic part is ok but maybe a few too many. Although blacks were segregated in baseball Hispanic players never were and there were a few native Americans. Essentially you can set everything but US modern to 0 but Hispanics and sometimes blacks will still show up because there is no where in game to edit the face gen percentages. Essentially if you have an American player with a Hispanic picture then I think it chooses a Hispanic name even if you have the Hispanic list to 0.

Shouldn't changing the values in the ethnicities file take care of that? For example, if I set American (modern) to be 100% caucasian, shouldn't that generate 100% caucasian faces?

Originally Posted by Biggio509

The problem with editing nation.txt in 11 or world.xml in 12 is there no way to reimport it. So if you play over several decades and say hit the desegregation era the only way to put blacks in the majors is through the world editor. The only way to make say Venzula go from non-existent to Good is the world editor. Unlike ethnicity there is no way to import different files for different decades.

I believe you're correct. And I'll add that I think this is a big step backward for version 12.

[OldeTowneTeam]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

I'm having the same problems. If I make changes in the world_default .xml file, it either doesn't "take" (it reverts to the default world_default file after closing) or else it crashes the game.

I'm having the same problem with a fictional league set at the turn of the century. I've edited down the world.xml to contain only languageID 39 (US Historical) for the United States, edited ethnicities.txt for lid 39 to only have non-zero values for Caucasians, and set all foreigner percentages to 0. Yet after a few years, gradually Hispanics and Asians begin to show up again. If I "Randomize Player Names" these go away (which implies that this process is paying attention to my changes), but a few seasons later they begin to show up again.

[Biggio509]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

Shouldn't changing the values in the ethnicities file take care of that? For example, if I set American (modern) to be 100% caucasian, shouldn't that generate 100% caucasian faces?

I am not 100% sure. In 11, the nation.txt file had numbers at the end of a nation's data that control percentages of types of faces. The ethnicity file might do that now or have done something similar in 11.

[ashantewarrier]

Why did Markus and co. change the way names and ethnicities were edited to the confusing .XML format?
At the very least, some direction and instruction should have been provided in advance on how this new format works in comparison to the old way of editing names/ethinicities IMO.

[ashantewarrier]

Originally Posted by Biggio509

So far I have not had any problems with changes made in nation editor sticking. There still is an issue with name and ethicities that has been reported that Hispanic names are in US modern.

Also there is no way I have found to alter the percentage of face gens. So you can't make sure face gen sets African and Hispanic faces to say 0 for the 1890's. The Hispanic part is ok but maybe a few too many. Although blacks were segregated in baseball Hispanic players never were and there were a few native Americans. Essentially you can set everything but US modern to 0 but Hispanics and sometimes blacks will still show up because there is no where in game to edit the face gen percentages. Essentially if you have an American player with a Hispanic picture then I think it chooses a Hispanic name even if you have the Hispanic list to 0.

The problem with editing nation.txt in 11 or world.xml in 12 is there no way to reimport it. So if you play over several decades and say hit the desegregation era the only way to put blacks in the majors is through the world editor. The only way to make say Venzula go from non-existent to Good is the world editor. Unlike ethnicity there is no way to import different files for different decades.

The Hispanic facegen reflects that many are of either African, European, Indian or a mixture. Thus when you generate a Hispanic facegen you may get a combination of the three. The only way to ensure that you have "light skinned" Hispanic facegen is to manually generate the face until you find the facegen that fits your league/era. Or you can assign an Hispanic name to a Caucasian player.

[OldeTowneTeam]

Originally Posted by OldeTowneTeam

I'm having the same problem with a fictional league set at the turn of the century. I've edited down the world.xml to contain only languageID 39 (US Historical) for the United States, edited ethnicities.txt for lid 39 to only have non-zero values for Caucasians, and set all foreigner percentages to 0. Yet after a few years, gradually Hispanics and Asians begin to show up again. If I "Randomize Player Names" these go away (which implies that this process is paying attention to my changes), but a few seasons later they begin to show up again.

An additional slice of weirdness is that it is not as if, as speculated above, the changes to world.xml are just getting dumped onto the floor by the game -- if I look at the United States in the Nation Editor, I see parroted back to me the exact values I'd stuck into the XML (US Historical, 100).

[joefromchicago]

After trying and failing to change the .xml world_default file, I decided to change the settings in the in-game nation editor. I restarted the game and got an error message, saying that it couldn't load those settings and that, in order to proceed, I would need to revert to the old settings. Sure enough, when I got back into the game, all of the old nation settings had been restored.

So, to recap: I can't change the settings in the nation editor without changing the .xml file, and I can't change the .xml file at all.

I suppose I wouldn't mind so much if this had always been the way with OOTP, but it hasn't. Up to version 11, all that was needed to change the nation settings was to make changes in the nations and ethnicities files. That was perfect for gamers like myself who want to start in the nineteenth century, before the vast influx of players from outside the US. But now, for some unknown reason, we are forced to adopt 2011 baseball demographics to our nineteenth-century games. I just don't understand it. Why was this done? And what can be done to fix it?

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by OldeTowneTeam

I'm having the same problem with a fictional league set at the turn of the century. I've edited down the world.xml to contain only languageID 39 (US Historical) for the United States, edited ethnicities.txt for lid 39 to only have non-zero values for Caucasians, and set all foreigner percentages to 0. Yet after a few years, gradually Hispanics and Asians begin to show up again. If I "Randomize Player Names" these go away (which implies that this process is paying attention to my changes), but a few seasons later they begin to show up again.

From what I can tell, the Hispanics and Asians reappear because the nation settings re-set everytime you reopen the game. The only way to make changes in the nation editor and keep them is either by resetting them manually every time you open the game or by never closing OOTP and never shutting off your computer.

[megamanmatt]

Two things:

1) If you're in the nation editor and you change any of the settings 0; say you only wanted US historical names so you set all the other language sets to a ratio of 0, it corrupts the database. You have to pull from everywhere. I don't know if this is the same if you edit the file itself, but it something to consider.

2) Like I said in game it has been changed from a percentage to a ratio so you might want to make sure it's still a percentage format in the file. I've no idea but you never know.

[beorn]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

After trying and failing to change the .xml world_default file, I decided to change the settings in the in-game nation editor. I restarted the game and got an error message, saying that it couldn't load those settings and that, in order to proceed, I would need to revert to the old settings. Sure enough, when I got back into the game, all of the old nation settings had been restored.

I may be misunderstanding, but I am finding that changes I make using the in-game editor are still there when I re-start the game.

I changed Afghanistan to a good baseball program and changed their ethnicity to 1% Russian, exited, re-entered the game, re-loaded the league, and it still seems to be there.

[tylertoo]

Originally Posted by ashantewarrier

Why did Markus and co. change the way names and ethnicities were edited to the confusing .XML format?
At the very least, some direction and instruction should have been provided in advance on how this new format works in comparison to the old way of editing names/ethinicities IMO.

This. They use fictional leagues as a selling point, but release a game with no manual that is updated to reflect the changes in v12, and no guidance on a major change to our ability to create fictional leagues.

Seems like the easiest thing, for now, is to create in 11 and import into 12.

[ashantewarrier]

Originally Posted by tylertoo

This. They use fictional leagues as a selling point, but release a game with no manual that is updated to reflect the changes in v12, and no guidance on a major change to our ability to create fictional leagues.

Seems like the easiest thing, for now, is to create in 11 and import into 12.

If indeed there is a problem in changing foreign % or ratios then it's a problem for me. I like to play 19th century leagues and reflect the unfortunate "gentlemen's rule" that excluded African Americans and any one of color during that era.

I hope this can be fixed in an upcoming patch. Let's make sure that this issue is logged to the tech support forum!

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by beorn

I may be misunderstanding, but I am finding that changes I make using the in-game editor are still there when I re-start the game.

I changed Afghanistan to a good baseball program and changed their ethnicity to 1% Russian, exited, re-entered the game, re-loaded the league, and it still seems to be there.

I'm going on an admittedly limited knowledge base here -- I'm still trying to find a work-around for this problem. Maybe I made too many changes in the nation editor, which was too overwhelming and caused the program to reject them all. My guess, though, is that, even if a single change slips through, it won't stick forever.