Suggestions for European League

cmaug · 07-25-2015, 01:04 PM

I'm in the planning stages for a European League and wanted to get some suggestions from the community regarding set up.

While I love the flexibility that OOTP gives us, I want the league to be low maintenance - in my experience, the further you stray from the standard MLB set-up the more you have to wrestle with things that work smoothly and things that don't.

Promotion/Relegation is the topic that always comes up - if I do it, I'll probably just have it be between sub leagues (no interleague play) of the ML level with only one side competing for the championship via a customized playoff structure. This will (hopefully) allow for a stable minor league system and quick and easy movement of teams after the season. For my sanity, I'll likely use "groups" rather than geographic "divisions" to allow for easy reshuffling year to year based on who moves up and down.

Any suggestions about how to make a European Major League "feel" a little different than a US based league will be greatly appreciated!

Roster rules? - I've never been too successful building a stable league across several countries with limits on foreigners.

Finances? - FA, arb, cap, luxury tax, etc

Entry? - draft vs FA

Trebro · 07-25-2015, 03:11 PM

For promo/rel, this is what I tried recently, and I liked it. It meant that minor league teams didn't have to be adjusted, all stats were in the same league history, and by using max attendance, I was able to create tiers. it's not perfect, but it did the trick for me:

4 divisions across 2 sub leagues, 10 teams per division. There's a 162 game schedule in the schedules on OOTP mods that gives you NO inter-division or inter-league play, so it makes each division a silo. So you can call each one a league.

I promote 2 teams and demote 2 teams.

For the playoffs, I made a cup:

8 teams from tier 1
8 teams from tier 2
5 teams from tier 3
3 teams from tier 4

I have it set so that all of tier one gets a bye. Then I do elimination (best of 3) among the other 16, then Prelim Round (best of 3), Semi-Finals (best of 5), Finals (best of 5) and the Baseball Cup (Best of 7).

Can't help on the foreign stuff, sorry, but try that for your prom/rel and see how you like it. Again--it's not perfect, but I'm finding that bad teams sink to Tier 4, and good teams rise to Tier 1/2. What's nifty is if you leave the finances alone, some teams that have Tier 2/3 budgets will fight into Tier 1, but struggle to stay there, because they have less funds! (This was on 10 years of testing.)

Good luck!

07-25-2015, 01:04 PM	#1
cmaug Major Leagues Join Date: Sep 2012 Posts: 344	Suggestions for European League I'm in the planning stages for a European League and wanted to get some suggestions from the community regarding set up. While I love the flexibility that OOTP gives us, I want the league to be low maintenance - in my experience, the further you stray from the standard MLB set-up the more you have to wrestle with things that work smoothly and things that don't. Promotion/Relegation is the topic that always comes up - if I do it, I'll probably just have it be between sub leagues (no interleague play) of the ML level with only one side competing for the championship via a customized playoff structure. This will (hopefully) allow for a stable minor league system and quick and easy movement of teams after the season. For my sanity, I'll likely use "groups" rather than geographic "divisions" to allow for easy reshuffling year to year based on who moves up and down. Any suggestions about how to make a European Major League "feel" a little different than a US based league will be greatly appreciated! Roster rules? - I've never been too successful building a stable league across several countries with limits on foreigners. Finances? - FA, arb, cap, luxury tax, etc Entry? - draft vs FA

07-25-2015, 03:11 PM	#2
Trebro All Star Reserve Join Date: Mar 2013 Posts: 754	For promo/rel, this is what I tried recently, and I liked it. It meant that minor league teams didn't have to be adjusted, all stats were in the same league history, and by using max attendance, I was able to create tiers. it's not perfect, but it did the trick for me: 4 divisions across 2 sub leagues, 10 teams per division. There's a 162 game schedule in the schedules on OOTP mods that gives you NO inter-division or inter-league play, so it makes each division a silo. So you can call each one a league. I promote 2 teams and demote 2 teams. For the playoffs, I made a cup: 8 teams from tier 1 8 teams from tier 2 5 teams from tier 3 3 teams from tier 4 I have it set so that all of tier one gets a bye. Then I do elimination (best of 3) among the other 16, then Prelim Round (best of 3), Semi-Finals (best of 5), Finals (best of 5) and the Baseball Cup (Best of 7). Can't help on the foreign stuff, sorry, but try that for your prom/rel and see how you like it. Again--it's not perfect, but I'm finding that bad teams sink to Tier 4, and good teams rise to Tier 1/2. What's nifty is if you leave the finances alone, some teams that have Tier 2/3 budgets will fight into Tier 1, but struggle to stay there, because they have less funds! (This was on 10 years of testing.) Good luck!