More realistic preset Minor League teams in Expansion Mode?

[zasman213]

This has always been a small little pet-peeve for me that I would love to see changed, but understand it's probably not a high priority.

Whenever I do expansion mode and gets to the step when it asks you to set their minor league systems, it always makes no sense. I often go through and change them on my own to make them more realistic, but I would love if it autogenerated in a way that A) put minor league teams in cities that don't have them and B) made sense in a leagues geographic footprint.

Like in the screenshot below, why would there be a team in OKC when there's already a minor league team there? Or why would a team from Wichita (which again, also already has a minor league team) be in the California League? Additionally, why are teams in the Florida Complex League being generated as actual teams in real cities and not something like "FCL Stars" or whatever?

Sorry, I know it's a very small thing and I'm nitpicking here, but just a helpful suggestions I'd love to see in future updates/versions!

[Leo_The_Lip]

This irks me, too. However it is a vast improvement over the complete DIY we had to do, what? ten versions ago.

Knowing this will happen, I plan on city names appropriate to the leagues I'm given. It is best not to tamper with the leagues, since the game will make a good schedule from this. So simply pick cities that go with the existing teams and don't worry too much about double dipping.

As to nicknames, I always go with the MLB nickname (which I've already picked) because I won't remember the goofy generics, much less like them.

[CH1MA3RA]

one thing you can do, which is more of a workaround that a true system fix, is go to each individual league's league settings screen, go to League & Teams and use the Region (Optional) field to select whatever region you want the league to abide by, and then when you do expand they cities used will fall within that selected region. For example, you can select the state of California for the California League and any autogenerated teams for that league will use cities from the California database. This won't stop them from doubling up on the same city but at least it will keep things a bit more uniformed.

[Pelican]

In my experience, these new teams are completely random. I disregard and choose my own. My guess is that the coding to choose an unoccupied city (with a stadium) near the mlb parent would be daunting. I tend to select cool places I have visited, and give them new stadiums.

My ask would be to be able to create a minor league organization several years before the expansion team starts play. Right now this can only be done by creating independent (unaffiliated) minor league teams. Other teams will try to poach the better players. I start with expansion teams drafting first, three years out, with a rookie team (and developmental Fall team). Then A and high A two years out (populated by draftees and free agent signings). AA the year before expansion. AAA to complete the system the year the MLB debuts. With the above, expansion teams have more young talent (something the expansion draft, with its exclusion for less than three years service, effectively prevents). They can use the expansion draft to fill weaknesses.