Help with League Settings

[Kafkaesque85]

I moved this from General Discussion to Historical Simulations:

I am trying to create an authentic historical league. I cannot get it to work in either fictional or historical customizations.

I turn off historical evolution so I can manually add teams and delete teams that folded from 1871 to 1901. But in historical I am unable to add new leagues to the game, especially the Negro Leagues in 1920. I turn on historic evolution of game and I'm able to get Negro Leagues, but I lose all the historic minor league teams I have created that were in play in 1919/20. PCL started play in 1903, IL in 1884, Texas League in 1902. The game only imports the minor leagues only when they become affiliated with Major League clubs. I do not want that. But in order to have Negro Leagues, I need to turn on historic evolution and in order for them to appear, but then my minors disappear. In ficitional league, I cannot have a color barrier or add Negro League teams as the box is not available.

How do I have all minor league teams available in 1920 and the Negro Leagues and the National Association, American Association and Major Legaue Baseball in the same save. Is there a way to import leagues? This is really frustrating me. I've been trying to figure this out for the last 2 weeks.

Does anyone have any ideas how to make this work?

Does anyone know why in a customized universe I am unable to recreate the historical evolution of the game with all minor league teams, Negro League teams, and teams which folded?

Someone did send me the guide Tiger Fan made, now I just need help with Negro Leagues.

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by Kafkaesque85

I moved this from General Discussion to Historical Simulations:

I am trying to create an authentic historical league. I cannot get it to work in either fictional or historical customizations.

I turn off historical evolution so I can manually add teams and delete teams that folded from 1871 to 1901. But in historical I am unable to add new leagues to the game, especially the Negro Leagues in 1920. I turn on historic evolution of game and I'm able to get Negro Leagues, but I lose all the historic minor league teams I have created that were in play in 1919/20. PCL started play in 1903, IL in 1884, Texas League in 1902. The game only imports the minor leagues only when they become affiliated with Major League clubs. I do not want that. But in order to have Negro Leagues, I need to turn on historic evolution and in order for them to appear, but then my minors disappear. In ficitional league, I cannot have a color barrier or add Negro League teams as the box is not available.

How do I have all minor league teams available in 1920 and the Negro Leagues and the National Association, American Association and Major Legaue Baseball in the same save. Is there a way to import leagues? This is really frustrating me. I've been trying to figure this out for the last 2 weeks.

Does anyone have any ideas how to make this work?

Does anyone know why in a customized universe I am unable to recreate the historical evolution of the game with all minor league teams, Negro League teams, and teams which folded?

Someone did send me the guide Tiger Fan made, now I just need help with Negro Leagues.

Sadly sir, the way I understand it is that this is one of those frustrating "all or nothing" sorts of deals. Because, while post-1920 NeL players have been afforded MLB status IRL and, with regard to their in-game stats, in OOTP as well, the actual NeL leagues are still treated as minors for game purposes.

Up until a week or so ago, I was confident we'd see further great strides taken in this area for v24. What has subsequently happened, however, has in all likelihood put the kibosh on that for now. A shame if this is to be, but the long-term health of this game and the people responsible for it are and should forever be the number one priority. I don't give two hoots about all the entitled rabble-rousing morons in the general discussions forum and what they think on the matter.

[thehef]

I think you could accomplish what you want, sort of... I haven't tested how this would work with a pre-1901 start, but for 1901 and beyond, you can pretty much accomplish what you want by modifying the milbteams.csv, milbleagues.csv, and (maybe also) the era_stats_minors.txt files.

Basically, it'd be a matter of editing those files so OOTP's 1901+ minors (& NegLg) look like you want, rather than how it looks - which is semi-historically accurate - in OOTP.

If you have some basic-to-intermediate Excel skills and don't mind the tradeoff - lots of work setting up the csv files instead of lots of work creating leagues & teams in OOTP - then it's certainly doable.

If interested, reply back and I'll point you towards a few other threads and/or describe some of the steps...

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by thehef

I think you could accomplish what you want, sort of... I haven't tested how this would work with a pre-1901 start, but for 1901 and beyond, you can pretty much accomplish what you want by modifying the milbteams.csv, milbleagues.csv, and (maybe also) the era_stats_minors.txt files.

Basically, it'd be a matter of editing those files so OOTP's 1901+ minors (& NegLg) look like you want, rather than how it looks - which is semi-historically accurate - in OOTP.

If you have some basic-to-intermediate Excel skills and don't mind the tradeoff - lots of work setting up the csv files instead of lots of work creating leagues & teams in OOTP - then it's certainly doable.

If interested, reply back and I'll point you towards a few other threads and/or describe some of the steps...

Nice. I like this answer WAY better than mine!

[Kafkaesque85]

Originally Posted by thehef

I think you could accomplish what you want, sort of... I haven't tested how this would work with a pre-1901 start, but for 1901 and beyond, you can pretty much accomplish what you want by modifying the milbteams.csv, milbleagues.csv, and (maybe also) the era_stats_minors.txt files.

Basically, it'd be a matter of editing those files so OOTP's 1901+ minors (& NegLg) look like you want, rather than how it looks - which is semi-historically accurate - in OOTP.

If you have some basic-to-intermediate Excel skills and don't mind the tradeoff - lots of work setting up the csv files instead of lots of work creating leagues & teams in OOTP - then it's certainly doable.

If interested, reply back and I'll point you towards a few other threads and/or describe some of the steps...

Yes, I'm very interested in attempting this through modifying the csv and text files. And I appreciate the help and being point in the right direction.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by Kafkaesque85

Yes, I'm very interested in attempting this through modifying the csv and text files. And I appreciate the help and being point in the right direction.

First, I would start small, with some small testing. DO NOT - I repeat DO NOT - attempt to configure these csv and text files exactly as you want them for your target league, with many years, leagues, teams. Instead, start small.

Second, and this is VERY important to understand: These csv and txt files are NOT used by OOTP at game creation. You can configure these files all you want, but if you start a game in, for example, 1910 there is no way to get the 1910 PCL into your game without manually entering it. Rather, these files are used in subsequent years, so in this example they would be used when your game progresses from the the 1910 postseason into the 1910-11 offseason (typically in late-October after your World Series). So, if you configured your files to start the PCL, Texas Lg, AA and Int'l League in 1910, you would need to create your game with the 1909 season, or an earlier season.

Ok, so here's what I would do:

1. Open up the milbteams and milbleagues csv files, save copies as Excel, and format them with a filter.

2. Familiarize yourself with the data in them. I cannot say definitively, but there are a lot of league and team statistics that OOTP either does not use, or only uses it to load history. IOW, I'm pretty sure it's safe to leave these fields blank. And note that I'm referring to the two csv files and not the txt file.

The PCL starts in OOTP with the 1921 season. So...

3. Add the 1919 and 1920 PCL to the milbteams.csv file. To do this I would copy & paste the 1921 PCL data twice - one for 1919 and one for 1920 - and then edit the years fields to 1919 and 1920, and make any other changes needed (there were no changes in PCL structure, teams, ballparks, etc. from 1919-1921, which is why I recommend this... except that you might want to remove the LA Angels' affiliation ("Franchise/AffiliationID" field) to the Cubs for 1919 & 1920). Don't worry about the W/L record and statistical data for each team at this point...

4. Add the 1919 and 1920 PCL to the milbleagues.csv file. Just copy the 1921 PCL line twice - one for 1919 and one for 1920 - and then edit the years fields to 1919 and 1920. Don't worry about the W/L record and statistical data for each team at this point...

5. After making sure you've made a copy of the era_stats_minors.txt file, open it up with Notepad (or whatever you might want to use), and copy the 1921 PCL line - it should be about the 8th line down - twice, and then change the years to 1919 & 1920. For your testing, just leave all of the data as is.

Of course, save these files, name them appropriately so you can keep your copies straight, etc...

At this point, you are ready to replace the game's files with these three, and then you should be ready to test, starting in any year prior to 1919, and then seeing how the game handles the PCL beginning with the 1918-19 offseason...

Here's the thing about the era_stats_minors.txt file: To the best of my knowledge, it's what used to tell OOTP what kind of statistics each league-season should produce. IOW, the 1919 PCL isn't going to be a steal-happy or a homer-heavy league simply because the players who are in it stole a lot of bases or hit a lot of homers. Rather, it uses this file to determine that (although it of course uses player ratings, too). So in this test, you'd be telling OOTP that the 1919 & 1920 PCL were statistically identical to the 1921 PCL. This is fine for testing, may or may not be fine for a real sim, but certainly would not be accurate... Using 1921 league stats for a 1919 or 1920 league might be close enough (it would be for me). It might not be "close enough" however, to use 1921 league stats for a 1905 league...

So this ^^^ could be your challenge, because I don't know where OOTP gets the stats in the era_stats_minors file... And while many of the first stats listed (see the header fields) are common baseball stats (AB,Hits,Doubles,Triples,Homeruns,BB,HBP,K,SB,CS, etc.), you'll see that many of the subsequent stats are not exactly common, let alone out there to be found... So this is where - after you've tested to your satisfaction - you might have some challenges and/or decisions to make... I mean, for MLB these stats are available since the beginning (1871). So, in theory, you might be able to say that MLB's DPperRFB or Pickoffs per RFB numbers for 1903 are good enough for your 1903 PCL, AA, and IL. Or not...

Finally (for now), to be clear on testing, I see this as being three phases:

ONE: Test as I have described above.
TWO: Add a few more leagues, and a few more years, and then test again.
THREE: Develop your full test - all of the leagues & teams you want. And test that.

There's so much to dig into that I highly recommend against immersing yourself in your game - facegens, logos, ballparks, and getting involved in day-to-day simming - until you are reasonably sure that your modifications are working as intended, after Phase Three

Ok, that's alot... And I'm sure I typed something that's not quite clear. Feel free to ask away...