Need Template Help and Advice

[Eugene Church]

Need help and advice about Templates.

I am setting up a replay of the old Southern Association... 1947 to 1959.

I am manually creating all of the real players that played each of those years... I am using their real stats from Basefall-Reference to try and accurately replay the league as well as OOTP17 can do it... fielding stats are the biggest problems in creating the ratings, but I can work around this... once I get to 1950 I am very familiar with the skill level of the players as I watched them for 10 years.

When I finish setting up rosters for the first season, is that the time to make a Template?

I want to make a template so I can run test leagues to get my stats right.
I don't want to have to manually imput all of the player ratings again... it will take about 50 hours to create the rosters with fairly accurate ratings.

Once I have my league totals and league modifiers where I want them, I would like to import the template and start my league for real.

Is this the way I should do it?

OR... can I just take my test league and erase all the league history and erase the players stats and restart my league?.. I have been told OOTPB doesn't always erase everything and some remnants of the test league might pop up again and cause glitches in my league.

Would appreciate your help and advice.

[BigRed75]

I can't speak about templates, but what I tend to do is make a backup, play around with testing, then restore my league from the backup. That seems to keep everything. It's like a snapshot of everything in the league from the point where the backup was made.

Someone else may be able to speak more authoritatively to templates and quickstarts. I find that restoring from a backup suits my purposes.

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by BigRed75

I can't speak about templates, but what I tend to do is make a backup, play around with testing, then restore my league from the backup. That seems to keep everything. It's like a snapshot of everything in the league from the point where the backup was made.

Someone else may be able to speak more authoritatively to templates and quickstarts. I find that restoring from a backup suits my purposes.

So if I back up my league prior to opening day, I can restore the backup and start the season again... and all rosters will be the same as when I created the backup... is that correct?

[BigRed75]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

So if I back up my league prior to opening day, I can restore the backup and start the season again... and all rosters will be the same as when I created the backup... is that correct?

That is how it has always worked for me.

You might want to restore the backup and then use that for your test run - just to be doubly safe.

Besides, you should be backing up regularly anyway, right Eugene?

[Eugene Church]

Pardon my ignorance... I have never knowingly done a backup before.

OOTPB Backup Procedure:

Choose "File" at the top left of game screen.

Go to File > Backups > Backup Current Game.

To restore the Backup:

Go to File> Backups> Restore Backup

Is it that simple?

[BigRed75]

It's that simple. When you go to restore, it'll ask you to type in a "Target folder or league name" - what you type there will become the file name for the restored backup (so choose something like "Southern Association Test")

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by BigRed75

That is how it has always worked for me.

You might want to restore the backup and then use that for your test run - just to be doubly safe.

Besides, you should be backing up regularly anyway, right Eugene?

As Rocky Balboa succinctly says, "Abzolutely".

I have learned my lesson in the hardest way... that you should BACKUP... BACKUP... BACKUP... AND THEN BACKUP AGAIN.



I don't plan on ever losing another league due to no backup... I might possibly back up the Southern Association after every single, solitary day of play.

I have learned my lesson.

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by BigRed75

It's that simple. When you go to restore, it'll ask you to type in a "Target folder or league name" - what you type there will become the file name for the restored backup (so choose something like "Southern Association Test")

Thanks for the naming tip... I often don't know what to answer when I'm prompted by the game wizard.

Your help is much, much appreciated... if no one teaches me to work with templates, then I will use your method... it's simple and easy.

I'm still hoping someone will clue me in on creating templates.
I was told that you could use multiple templates of the same league to do your test leagues.

I know how to get to the "Template" screen in the "Available Global Actions", but don't know what will happen after that... I see where you "save this game as a template"... I'm afraid it will ask me a question, I can't answer... that's why I need detailed instructions.

On the same screen "Global Available Actions", I see where you can "add a Template to this game", but am not sure of the entire process or what this means.

If you create a "template", then how do you import that template?

[Bigrod]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

Thanks for the naming tip... I often don't know what to answer when I'm prompted by the game wizard.

Your help is much, much appreciated... if no one teaches me to work with templates, then I will use your method... it's simple and easy.

I'm still hoping someone will clue me in on creating templates.
I was told that you could use multiple templates of the same league to do your test leagues.
Yes. You need to name each one differently as OOTP won't allow to overwrite and existing template...nice feature imho..

I know how to get to the "Template" screen in the "Available Global Actions", but don't know what will happen after that... I see where you "save this game as a template"... I'm afraid it will ask me a question, I can't answer... that's why I need detailed instructions.
Only question it's going to ask is for a name. The name has to be unique.

On the same screen "Global Available Actions", I see where you can "add a Template to this game", but am not sure of the entire process or what this means.
This is how you add a template to your current game...you simply click it, select the template you want to add and click Load Template. Now you'll have the new lg (s) in the template. added to your existing game. OOTP will automatically adjust any ids that would be duplicate to new unique ids.

If you create a "template", then how do you import that template?
If your starting a new game and want to import it...On the Create New Game screen, Click the Advanced Mode tab of bottom left. On that page, click Advanced Settings Tab on the top left and on that page, click import template. Select the template you want to import and click Load Template. Let ootp do its thing and when finished, set your rules, options, game settings, etc by clicking the individual labled tabs When done click the Create Game tab. Name your Game and enter the start year and click Start Game.
From within an already running game or to add to an existing lg., click the game tab and select Game Settings. Now click the Available Actions dropdown on top right and select Add Template to this Game. Select the template you want to import on the popup and click Load Template.
Real simple stuff once you get used to it.

My answers are in your quote in Red and hope it helps.
Note: Templates only save the basics (Structure/team names/ affiliates some settings, etc....they don't save all your settings...so each time you load one, always check the league/team/game/AI settings to make sure all is the way you want it.
Only quickstarts save everything.

[BigRed75]

Originally Posted by Bigrod

Only quickstarts save everything.

And backups

[Eugene Church]

Bigrod, sorry for you having to post that again... I remembered last night about the previous thread and was going to look at it today... I'm just too late this morning.

Thanks to you and BigRed75... much appreciate your help.

Just at a glance, it's seems a backup would be the easiest for me.

It looks Iike the new league would be identical to the backup and I wouldn't have to rework the games settings.

I'm going to use the backup procedure and see how it comes out.

BigRed75 is pleased with it and that's good enough for me.

Before I do anything, I will store my league on an external hard drive as protection... and back it up often.

[Eugene Church]

Bigrod and BigRed75,

Both methods worked perfectly... I can now use templates and backups.

But I had to scrap my Southern Association replay... it didn't replay it as well as I would have liked... too many players not performing to expectations.

Also there was a huge flaw in HPBs... the league totals should have been 306... instead it was 1200.

I tried several test leagues and it always had 1200 HBP's each season.

Gave up on real players... will go back to fictionals, where I have no performance expectations.

But I sincerely appreciate your help... both of you taught me how to use templates and backups... much indebted to both of you.

[BigRed75]

Just thinking, because I know you did a lot of work on that and it would be a shame to waste it all - what if you did an "alternate universe" Southern Association with the teams and players, and just see how things turn out instead of forcing rosters and transactions just so.

With your storytelling ability, it would be very evocative of time and place. And what a time it was.

You'd be able to remake the Southern Association as you see fit. Just throwing it out there.

I'm glad I was able to help you learning something new about this great game of ours.

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by BigRed75

Just thinking, because I know you did a lot of work on that and it would be a shame to waste it all - what if you did an "alternate universe" Southern Association with the teams and players, and just see how things turn out instead of forcing rosters and transactions just so.

With your storytelling ability, it would be very evocative of time and place. And what a time it was.

You'd be able to remake the Southern Association as you see fit. Just throwing it out there.

I'm glad I was able to help you learning something new about this great game of ours.

Thanks for the suggestion of the "alternate universe"... I'm sure the game works well when you just take the default setup and don't try to manipulate it.

That's what's I'm going to do... just set up some fictional league and play it "out of the box".

Sorry, I can't play the Southern Association without the real players... it's just wouldn't be the same without Carl "Swish" Sawatski, Country Brown, Gary Bell, Bob Lennon, Jack Harshman, Ted Kluszewski, Bob Montag, Chuck Tanner, Ralph Mauriello, Shotgun Shuba, Clem "Scooter" Koshorek, Harmon Killebrew, Jim Gentile, Dick Brown, Stan Palys, Bill Dailey, Ray Shearer, Leo Cristante, Claude Osteen, Jim O'Toole, Al Flair, Red Levigne, Frank Thomas, Jim Gentile, Felipe Montemayor, Bob Purkey, Junior Wooten, Don Demeter, Jim Baxes, Don Zimmer, Dick Stigman, Gene Lary, Walt Dropo, Norm Zauchin, Jim Piersall, Gil Coan, Hal Jeffcoat and many, many others... even Earl Weaver was a mediocre infielder for the New Orleans Pelicans in the early 50s.

These guys played a big part in my baseball life... they would have to be in my Southern Association.

[Bigrod]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

Bigrod and BigRed75,

Both methods worked perfectly... I can now use templates and backups.

But I had to scrap my Southern Association replay... it didn't replay it as well as I would have liked... too many players not performing to expectations.

Also there was a huge flaw in HPBs... the league totals should have been 306... instead it was 1200.

I tried several test leagues and it always had 1200 HBP's each season.

Gave up on real players... will go back to fictionals, where I have no performance expectations.

But I sincerely appreciate your help... both of you taught me how to use templates and backups... much indebted to both of you.

Have you tried adjusting the league modifiers...now I don't know that much about them except you can increase/decrease to bring the league totals back in line.
So basically if there's a setting for HPBs and it's set at 1.00 lower it to 0.25 and that should bring them to what your expecting.
In ootp's config folder there's a file named engine.cfg and a lot of the modifiers can be set there.

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by Bigrod

Have you tried adjusting the league modifiers...now I don't know that much about them except you can increase/decrease to bring the league totals back in line.
So basically if there's a setting for HPBs and it's set at 1.00 lower it to 0.25 and that should bring them to what your expecting.
In ootp's config folder there's a file named engine.cfg and a lot of the modifiers can be set there.

Yes, I am aware of the config folder... that's what I used to get the league totals right for defense in my Islandian Pro Alliance dynasty... it was a big help to get the league FA down to .965 where I wanted it.

The league modifiers help you tweak the league stats, too... they work very well... I never did use the position modifiers prior to OOTP17.

Spritze told me that I had made too many changes in the ratings and gotten the game out of synch... he told me to just use the default settings and be happy with them.

He actually ran the Southern Association for the 1947 season and got .968 FA and 276 walks... which was perfect... I could get .965 to .968 using the position modifiers, but never could get the walks down to 300.

You may be right... if I has used .250 for the HBP instead of 1.000 it might have given me the 300 figure... I always got 1200 hit batsmen and that was way out of line.

Since I have a template, I will run another test league and lower the HBP in the league totals to .250 and see how the stats come out.
... some of the real stars in the 1947 season didn't hit very well in OOTP... but I guess I could live with it, if the HBP totals get within the 250-350 range.

I created a custom league and manually created all the team rosters and players ratings using Baseball-Reference and newspaper archives from the New Orleans Times-Picayune and the Memphis Commercial-Appeal.

I think the problem is I'm just not smart enough to create a historical league.

To use the minor leagues, do you have to have the MLB plus all of the other 68 minor leagues in order to play the Southern Association?

Is it possible to just set up the Southern Association as a stand alone historical league and play the seasons from 1947 to 1959?.. Or do you need to have the Majors, plus all of the other minor leagues to get the game to function properly?

I spent two hours today trying to set up a historical league... it had every minor league in it, but many of the teams didn't have full rosters... leagues like the Evangeline League... the Baton Rouge Red Sticks only had two pitchers and two position players.

The Southern Association rosters were full, but didn't have the same players that were listed in the Baseball-Reference for that year.

I don't think I chose the right database to create the historical league.

Will still experiment and try to figure out the process.

I do the first 3 steps in the Wizard and get to step 4 and don't know what to choose... this is probably the main cause of the team rosters being so deficient.

[Eugene Church]

Bigshot, YOU DID IT!

You have saved my Southern Association dynasty replay.

Thank you.

I did like you said... I lowered the HPBs from 1.000 to .250 and they dropped from 1200 to 350... which is near what it should have been.

This means I can replay the Southern Association.

The league stats are right on the money in all categories... Markus is really a genius programmer.

I used a custom league that I created... manually creating the players ratings using Baseball-Reference and the New Orleans Time-Picayune and Memphis Commercial Appeal newspaper archives... never could get the real rosters in the historical game to work... which was probably caused by my game ignorance, not the fault of OOTPB... I have no idea of how to set up a historical game using the minor leagues.

Ted Kluszewski even led the league with .386 BA... in real life, he led it in 1947 with a .377 BA before being promoted to Cincinnati late in the season.

[Eugene Church]

A very special thanks to all of you who helped me out and kept me trying new things.

Special thanks to Bigshot, Spritze and BigRed75.

Now... get ready for opening day 1947... the Southern Association Dynasty is coming to a ballpark near you very soon.