Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Hough
As I understand from other people who've posted about their attempts to modify the minor league structure and affiliates while playing with historical minors, none of your edits will be maintained once you get to the next season.
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True. Except that if you modify the teams.csv files to - for examples - change some affiliations or modify ballpark names, then the game will make your changes, keep your changes, etc. It works well. (One thing you do NOT want to change are any team names. That's because - unlike OOTP's MLB - at import the game matches players to their teams by the name of the team in the player's record.) So if Joe Schmoe played for the Spokane Indians in 1963, if you create a game in 1963 (or advance a game to 1963 and that year is Schmoe's rookie year, then he will import to Spokane. But if you had changed the nickname of Spokane - in the milbteams.csv file - to the Rainiers or anything else other than Indians, then Schmoe would not be assigned to Spokane (he'd be a free agent instead).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Hough
If you play with historical minors, you just have to accept that minor league affiliations or structures aren't going to match real life history. Or you'll probably spend a massive amount of time trying to create the right structure and teams every year, only to have it all undone by the start of the next season.
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Actually, OOTP's minor league structures are pretty realistic. They are accurate except that a) early 1900's minor leagues (as well pre-1900 minors) are not in the game yet, b) minor leagues that do not have affiliates (so, several independent leagues, for example, etc.) are not in the game, and c) some minor leagues are not included simply because the players & player data is unknown. (Note that a) and b) are essentially the same thing...)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Hough
Some realism has to be sacrificed because the game can't simulate the complete chaos of the the minor leagues in the early decades of baseball. There's just no way to simulate the year-to-year reality where many teams were still independent, affiliations were changing all the time, minor leagues came into existence and went defunct, and teams moved between leagues regularly.
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The game actually handles the multiple leagues & teams folding, creating, re-creating, relocating, etc. (i.e., minor league evolution), pretty well. For example, lots of leagues shut down during the Depression and/or WWII, and then most came back later. In OOTP = no problemo! And when the MLB kicked off it's period of multiple relocations in the 50's - which resulted is many minor league teams relocating or folding - OOTP's minor league module moves minor-league franchises quite realistically. In fact, minor league franchises retain their historically-accurate history through multiple relocations.
What OOTP's minor league module does
not do is fold leagues or teams during the season. That could probably be done relatively easily by the gamer, though (shortening the schedule to fold a league; removing a team from the schedule to fold a team)... OOTP's minor league module simply does whatever the milbteams.csv and milbleagues.csv files tell it to do, chaotic or not
