Stopping all retirement?

Bob Meta-Meusel · 08-21-2008, 11:56 AM

So I had this idea that I wanted to try:

Take a bunch of great historical teams, throw them in a league, and then run that league through with the strategies and modifiers from 1893 - 2008 with nothing else changing to see how the changing eras would make a difference in the performance of the different great teams, and which would adapt best and worst to the differing conditions.

I turned off player development, injuries, trades, coaches, scouting, morale, personalities, and the ability of the computer to change the rosters. I also expanded the rosters so that all the players on the team were available without roster changes.

It all worked great, except for one thing. After I ran the first year, players started retiring on me. Every other change was blocked or prevented except I can't seem to get people to stop retiring. I'd expected that if Player Development was turned off, people wouldn't retire on me, but apparently that's not the case, and now I can't figure out how to turn off player retirement.

One thing I tried was going to historical retirement dates and changing the finalGame dates in my master.csv file, but apparently the finalGame date isn't what the game uses to determine historical retirement date, so it didn't work.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I could get this to work, short of having to restart the league for each and every year and manually set the modifiers, or manually unretiring people after every year?

Kelric · 08-21-2008, 01:37 PM

AFAIK, there is no way to stop players from retiring every single year. I don't believe you can simply 'freeze' everyone's age.

SittingDuck · 08-21-2008, 01:50 PM

You need to have player development ON and aging set at a ridiculously low level. They'll still retire at some point - maybe after death.

Bob Meta-Meusel · 08-22-2008, 10:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SittingDuck

You need to have player development ON and aging set at a ridiculously low level. They'll still retire at some point - maybe after death.

Good idea, but that didn't work either. People still retired in the normal age range, with a few going a little later, but not too much.

I've tried something else that seems to be working though. If I change the master.csv file to advance everyone's birth date to the late 22nd century, the players will import with future birth dates, which I'm hoping will block retirement, since it'll be a very long time before they're retirement age.

Edit: Or not. Depending on how you start up the league before importing teams, sometimes it imports the players with future birthdates, and other times it does it with birth dates that put everyone in their fifties. Worse, if it does the future birthdates, the game seems prone to crashing.

Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Am I alone in thinking that it seems very strange that turning off player development doesn't turn off retirement as well? Logically, I would think that if you're turning off player development it means that you don't want the players to change over time, and if you don't want the players to change over time, why would you want them to retire?

Kelric · 08-22-2008, 02:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob Meta-Meusel

Am I alone in thinking that it seems very strange that turning off player development doesn't turn off retirement as well? Logically, I would think that if you're turning off player development it means that you don't want the players to change over time, and if you don't want the players to change over time, why would you want them to retire?

The big thing for turning off development is that it works for recalc and simming through historical leagues. Guys still have to get old and retire then. Your best bet may be campaigning for a 'never age or retire' option to be added to next year's game.

Comedian2004 · 08-22-2008, 02:51 PM

The idea is unique, that I will give you, but having people not age is just not something that a majority of the people would want, with the exception of Dick Clark, if he owns the game.

Never hurts to ask for this request.

You could do a CSV dump and then look at the players.csv file in Excel, sort by age and note everyone that is 32 or older, or even 35. Go in with commish mode into the game and lower thier ages to a certain age.

Then every 5 years or so, you could check again.

It may just be easier to check what players retired each year, un-retire them and dump the fountain of youth on them lowering their age to 20. After a while, you may be able to go 10 years or so without anyone retiring.

gomets6091 · 08-23-2008, 12:57 PM

I created a roster for each MLB team with their all-time greatest players, and my plan was to play out a season, then eliminate the teams with the 2 worst records, and keep going until I only had 2 teams left, to determine the "greatest franchise ever." Unfortunately, some of the older players retire after a year, and by the end of the 15 seasons it would take me to do this, almost everyone would have retired.

Bluenoser · 08-24-2008, 06:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob Meta-Meusel

Am I alone in thinking that it seems very strange that turning off player development doesn't turn off retirement as well? Logically, I would think that if you're turning off player development it means that you don't want the players to change over time, and if you don't want the players to change over time, why would you want them to retire?

I don't find it strange at all. By turning off development your stopping players from improving or declining their playing skills. It has nothing to do with aging. Players will and should still get old as years pass.

DrSatan · 08-24-2008, 01:22 PM

I remember reading a post a while ago about a guy that set up his schedule so one season took like 40 years to complete. The thing that was cool was he a lot of guys play until their 70-s and higher. I think it worked because players wouldn't retire until the end of a season. However, I'm not sure if your league totals would change correctly. Do those change after the year changes or the season ends? I would try this approach and see what happens. Worse case is you'ld have to stop the sim every couple years to update the league modifiers to match the era. Also, I believe the schedule the guy made was in 2006 or 2007, so it may not work in the current version.

Dagrims · 08-24-2008, 01:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob Meta-Meusel

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I could get this to work, short of having to restart the league for each and every year and manually set the modifiers, or manually unretiring people after every year?

What if you edited everyone's age to 17, and then do it again every 13-15 seasons so that no one gets old enough to retire? It would be a bunch of set-up work, but you wouldn't have to do this all that often.

If you wanted to spread the work out over seasons, you could just edit everyone 30-33 and older down to 17.

Great screen name, by the way.

08-21-2008, 11:56 AM	#1
Bob Meta-Meusel Bat Boy Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 7	Stopping all retirement? So I had this idea that I wanted to try: Take a bunch of great historical teams, throw them in a league, and then run that league through with the strategies and modifiers from 1893 - 2008 with nothing else changing to see how the changing eras would make a difference in the performance of the different great teams, and which would adapt best and worst to the differing conditions. I turned off player development, injuries, trades, coaches, scouting, morale, personalities, and the ability of the computer to change the rosters. I also expanded the rosters so that all the players on the team were available without roster changes. It all worked great, except for one thing. After I ran the first year, players started retiring on me. Every other change was blocked or prevented except I can't seem to get people to stop retiring. I'd expected that if Player Development was turned off, people wouldn't retire on me, but apparently that's not the case, and now I can't figure out how to turn off player retirement. One thing I tried was going to historical retirement dates and changing the finalGame dates in my master.csv file, but apparently the finalGame date isn't what the game uses to determine historical retirement date, so it didn't work. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I could get this to work, short of having to restart the league for each and every year and manually set the modifiers, or manually unretiring people after every year?

08-22-2008, 02:51 PM	#6
Comedian2004 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: In a house in Saint Cloud, Florida. Posts: 7,085	The idea is unique, that I will give you, but having people not age is just not something that a majority of the people would want, with the exception of Dick Clark, if he owns the game. Never hurts to ask for this request. You could do a CSV dump and then look at the players.csv file in Excel, sort by age and note everyone that is 32 or older, or even 35. Go in with commish mode into the game and lower thier ages to a certain age. Then every 5 years or so, you could check again. It may just be easier to check what players retired each year, un-retire them and dump the fountain of youth on them lowering their age to 20. After a while, you may be able to go 10 years or so without anyone retiring. __________________ Like BLUES? Visit www.smokestacklightnin.com, you will LOVE it! New show every Monday!! New Blues HOF![/COLOR][/FONT]

08-23-2008, 12:57 PM	#7
gomets6091 Bat Boy Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 5	I've been having the same problem I created a roster for each MLB team with their all-time greatest players, and my plan was to play out a season, then eliminate the teams with the 2 worst records, and keep going until I only had 2 teams left, to determine the "greatest franchise ever." Unfortunately, some of the older players retire after a year, and by the end of the 15 seasons it would take me to do this, almost everyone would have retired.

08-21-2008, 01:37 PM	#2
Kelric Hall Of Famer Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Greater Boston Area Posts: 3,992	AFAIK, there is no way to stop players from retiring every single year. I don't believe you can simply 'freeze' everyone's age.

08-21-2008, 01:50 PM	#3
SittingDuck All Star Starter Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Richmond, VA Posts: 1,834	You need to have player development ON and aging set at a ridiculously low level. They'll still retire at some point - maybe after death.

08-24-2008, 01:22 PM	#9
DrSatan All Star Reserve Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Parts Unknown Posts: 588	I remember reading a post a while ago about a guy that set up his schedule so one season took like 40 years to complete. The thing that was cool was he a lot of guys play until their 70-s and higher. I think it worked because players wouldn't retire until the end of a season. However, I'm not sure if your league totals would change correctly. Do those change after the year changes or the season ends? I would try this approach and see what happens. Worse case is you'ld have to stop the sim every couple years to update the league modifiers to match the era. Also, I believe the schedule the guy made was in 2006 or 2007, so it may not work in the current version.