How to start Fictional League with Historical Players

JeffHaber · 12-11-2022, 12:00 AM

I'm simply looking to start an 8 Team league in 1960 - hold an inaugural draft using players from the 1960 season. How do I do this? I've been trying to figure it out. Every time I click on fictional league and set up the 8 team league it gives me fictional players. If I choose Historical league it gives me no option to change the amount of teams in the league. Thanks!

stl jason · 12-11-2022, 08:44 AM

dug this post out of the ancient bin... originally done for OOTP16, so I haven't verified if all of these steps/etc are still valid for the current version and/or if it still works:

===
-create your fictional league (setup league parameters/teams/divisions/etc).

-in the "players" section, change the settings for "generate international amateur free agents" and "generate international established free agents" and "generate free agents from independent leagues" to None. (edit: also change "international scouting discoveries" to None, or your scouting dept will find random fictional players from time to time). One more optional edit also in the players section: set the min/max age range for fictional players high, so maybe 32 min / 34 max. Again, if you don't mind one/two/three seasons or so with those inaugural fictional players, they'll all be old enough that they won't rack up mega stats in the record books and retire after 3-5 years.

-in the "options" section, check off the box for "automatically import real historical rookies"

-optional: also in the "options" section, check off "use random rookies from all eras" (I personally like using this on fictional "historical player" setups so I don't know who will show up in the draft, and I might get Ty Cobb in the same draft with Nolan Ryan).

the inaugural draft pool will be fictional players. Just my preference here again, but I don't mind a single season of fictional players in the stats. Once that first year is done, you can either retire those players and have the game import enough real historical rookies to fill all the rosters again. (after that, adjust the number of rounds/players imported to fewer rounds, so you don''t keep pulling in a ton of new rookies each year); or just let those fictional players live out their careers. If you set the min/max age for fictional players like I mentioned above, they'll retire in a few years anyway.

(and as was pointed out in the other thread I posted in: You might also want to go to League Settings -> Rules -> Amateur Draft Settings and check Disable Creation of Free Agents; to avoid fictional free agents from showing up).

Charlie Hough · 12-19-2022, 05:47 PM

There are a number of ways to do this, but one thing you can do is start the wizard to create a new historical game optimized for career play, with no import of previous league history and with your preferred ratings settings, etc. on the next few screens.

Once you get to the screen where you set your GM/manager name, don't click Next. Enter a preferred saved game name, choose your preferred name, birthdate and options, and then click the button on the bottom-left to go into Advanced Mode.

Once you're in Advanced mode, go to the Teams tab and use the Actions menu in the upper-right to randomize team names or nicknames. Or you can manually edit team names and nicknames yourself, by simply entering them into the boxes. You can even rename the league or delete the league itself and create a new one on the League tab. If you want to start your league with a fantasy draft, you can click the first option on the Options screen, which starts the game with an inaugural draft.

You can fine-tune all your preferred options and settings on all the different menus, depending on whether you want player ratings recalculated each season based on their real-life stats or you want the game's player development engine to determine everything, etc. Once you've chosen all your preferences, you can then click the Create Game tab in the left sidebar to click Start Game and get going.

Again, this is just one method of doing it, and I haven't personally tested it with this version, but it should work easily enough.

mattbuc16 · 03-21-2025, 03:48 PM

I'm actually looking to do something similar. I want to do a league with 1987 players based on the first fantasy baseball season I played. We had 23 players per team. I have all the old rosters. I just want to draft the rosters as they were when the season ended and play. I keep getting just fictional players. And is there a way to just have 23 players?

I have OOTP 21 ... which I bought for this purpose probably WAY back when and finally want to do this.

FYI: I'm creating a post -- for the sake of visibility -- on the general page.

12-11-2022, 12:00 AM	#1
JeffHaber Bat Boy Join Date: May 2014 Posts: 5	How to start Fictional League with Historical Players I'm simply looking to start an 8 Team league in 1960 - hold an inaugural draft using players from the 1960 season. How do I do this? I've been trying to figure it out. Every time I click on fictional league and set up the 8 team league it gives me fictional players. If I choose Historical league it gives me no option to change the amount of teams in the league. Thanks!

12-11-2022, 08:44 AM	#2
stl jason Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 10,112	dug this post out of the ancient bin... originally done for OOTP16, so I haven't verified if all of these steps/etc are still valid for the current version and/or if it still works: === -create your fictional league (setup league parameters/teams/divisions/etc). -in the "players" section, change the settings for "generate international amateur free agents" and "generate international established free agents" and "generate free agents from independent leagues" to None. (edit: also change "international scouting discoveries" to None, or your scouting dept will find random fictional players from time to time). One more optional edit also in the players section: set the min/max age range for fictional players high, so maybe 32 min / 34 max. Again, if you don't mind one/two/three seasons or so with those inaugural fictional players, they'll all be old enough that they won't rack up mega stats in the record books and retire after 3-5 years. -in the "options" section, check off the box for "automatically import real historical rookies" -optional: also in the "options" section, check off "use random rookies from all eras" (I personally like using this on fictional "historical player" setups so I don't know who will show up in the draft, and I might get Ty Cobb in the same draft with Nolan Ryan). the inaugural draft pool will be fictional players. Just my preference here again, but I don't mind a single season of fictional players in the stats. Once that first year is done, you can either retire those players and have the game import enough real historical rookies to fill all the rosters again. (after that, adjust the number of rounds/players imported to fewer rounds, so you don''t keep pulling in a ton of new rookies each year); or just let those fictional players live out their careers. If you set the min/max age for fictional players like I mentioned above, they'll retire in a few years anyway. (and as was pointed out in the other thread I posted in: You might also want to go to League Settings -> Rules -> Amateur Draft Settings and check Disable Creation of Free Agents; to avoid fictional free agents from showing up). __________________ Beer League dynasty thread - knock 'em back!

03-21-2025, 03:48 PM	#4
mattbuc16 Bat Boy Join Date: Mar 2025 Posts: 4	I'm actually looking to do something similar. I want to do a league with 1987 players based on the first fantasy baseball season I played. We had 23 players per team. I have all the old rosters. I just want to draft the rosters as they were when the season ended and play. I keep getting just fictional players. And is there a way to just have 23 players? I have OOTP 21 ... which I bought for this purpose probably WAY back when and finally want to do this. FYI: I'm creating a post -- for the sake of visibility -- on the general page. Last edited by mattbuc16; 03-21-2025 at 03:50 PM.

12-19-2022, 05:47 PM	#3
Charlie Hough Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 3,639	There are a number of ways to do this, but one thing you can do is start the wizard to create a new historical game optimized for career play, with no import of previous league history and with your preferred ratings settings, etc. on the next few screens. Once you get to the screen where you set your GM/manager name, don't click Next. Enter a preferred saved game name, choose your preferred name, birthdate and options, and then click the button on the bottom-left to go into Advanced Mode. Once you're in Advanced mode, go to the Teams tab and use the Actions menu in the upper-right to randomize team names or nicknames. Or you can manually edit team names and nicknames yourself, by simply entering them into the boxes. You can even rename the league or delete the league itself and create a new one on the League tab. If you want to start your league with a fantasy draft, you can click the first option on the Options screen, which starts the game with an inaugural draft. You can fine-tune all your preferred options and settings on all the different menus, depending on whether you want player ratings recalculated each season based on their real-life stats or you want the game's player development engine to determine everything, etc. Once you've chosen all your preferences, you can then click the Create Game tab in the left sidebar to click Start Game and get going. Again, this is just one method of doing it, and I haven't personally tested it with this version, but it should work easily enough.