Historical Replay

[HuachucaThunder]

I am sure this has been asked a few times, but I cannot find anything in the forums.
I am wanting to start a historical sim from beginning in 1871. Now, I know there were a few teams who folded mid season. Is this taken care of by the AI or is this something that I will have to do manually?
Thanks in advance.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by HuachucaThunder

I am sure this has been asked a few times, but I cannot find anything in the forums.
I am wanting to start a historical sim from beginning in 1871. Now, I know there were a few teams who folded mid season. Is this taken care of by the AI or is this something that I will have to do manually?
Thanks in advance.

OOTP’s pre-1901 historical module is “pseudo-historical.” Rather than trying to follow the very unstable historical structure of the 19th century major leagues, OOTP uses mostly real teams but places them in a more stable two-league environment. For this reason, FYI, historical transactions are not available for 19th century replays.

The best way to get a quick understanding of what OOTP’s pre-1901 leagues look like would be to start historical game in 1871 and quickly sim it through 1900, then prowl around to check it out.

[HuachucaThunder]

Originally Posted by thehef

OOTP’s pre-1901 historical module is “pseudo-historical.” Rather than trying to follow the very unstable historical structure of the 19th century major leagues, OOTP uses mostly real teams but places them in a more stable two-league environment. For this reason, FYI, historical transactions are not available for 19th century replays.

The best way to get a quick understanding of what OOTP’s pre-1901 leagues look like would be to start historical game in 1871 and quickly sim it through 1900, then prowl around to check it out.

Thank you for the reply. Much appreciated

[Eckstein 4 Prez]

My solo leagues are almost always 19th century ones. After having (several times) tried to recreate the appearance and disappearance of teams (and leagues!) as they actually occurred back then, I finally gave up. My current league is pseudo-historical like the OOTP historical leagues (although I do mine a bit differently from them) and it's so much more fun not having to constantly fiddle with the league structure.

[ojoe]

Originally Posted by HuachucaThunder

I am sure this has been asked a few times, but I cannot find anything in the forums.
I am wanting to start a historical sim from beginning in 1871. Now, I know there were a few teams who folded mid season. Is this taken care of by the AI or is this something that I will have to do manually?
Thanks in advance.

The short answer is that you don't have to remove the team manually. If you're using real schedules, that team will just stop playing games at the appointed date.

If you want to get rid of the team, go to team settings. Right at the top there should be the city name, then team abbreviation, then the nickname. Under that, it's the team ID (usually the same as the team abbreviation), and then a historical ID. The historical ID should match the ID of some current MLB franchise. If you want to get rid of a defunct team, just change the historical ID. You can do this in the preseason, during the season, or during the postseason (should you choose to play postseason). Just make sure you do it before advancing to the offseason. And make sure to hit RETURN after making the ID change. Doesn't really matter what you change the ID to, just so long as it's a different ID.

Once you've done that, the game will eliminate the team automatically when you move on to the next season. The team will still be visible in your history.

Your other option is to just go into the offseason without making any changes and the defunct team will change location and name, but still be connected to a historical franchise. For instance: in real life, the Great Chicago Fire occurred in 1871. This meant that the Chicago White Stockings, who played in 1871, could not play in Chicago in 1872 or 1873. The team was re-founded in 1874, and that's where the unbroken line between that team and the current Cubs begins.

If you don't change the historical ID for the 1871 Chicago White Stockings, they'll become the 1872 Middletown Mansfields and then the 1873 Baltimore Marylands before returning to Chicago for 1874. If you're fine with that, then leave it - less hassle. But if you'd rather it be accurate, just change the historical ID for 1871 White Stockings, 1872 Mansfields, and 1873 Marylands. They'll all appear in your history as one-season franchises. Then don't meddle with the 1874 White Stockings and they'll hang around Chicago and eventually become the Cubs.

It all depends on how accurate you want it to be.

If you enable historical transactions, they do work for the 1800s, but they're spotty. Also check your schedule. If you ask the game to generate a schedule, it will give the same number of games to every team. But if you have historical transactions enabled, then teams that went belly-up in the middle of the season will release their players the day after they played their last game in real-life. This could leave you with teams that don't have enough players to fill out a lineup. You could also end up with a team that has nine players, but maybe none of them are pitchers or none are catchers - so all of a sudden, one team will go on a 40-game losing streak or have three times as many passed balls as any other team.

There are other potential goof ups. If you're playing a real schedule, then 1873 and 1875 present problems with multiple teams in the same city. The "as-played" schedule tends to mix these teams up. The 1873 Baltimore Canaries played something like 55 or 60 games - the 1873 Baltimore Marylands played about 6, mostly against the other Baltimore team. You either have to trade the players or manually change the schedule. Otherwise you'll have the Marylands with no players and still more than 1/3 of their schedule to play. And the Canaries will have better players who only get to play 6 games. Same thing happens in 1875 with three Philadelphia teams (two play about 70 games, the other plays about 15 and folds at the end of May) and two St. Louis teams (one plays the whole season, the other stops around July 4).

So if you're OK with some historical inaccuracies (the St. Louis Cardinals being the Providence Grays, the Boston Red Sox being the Louisville Colonels, the Pittsburgh Pirates and Minnesota Twins playing all over the damn place), then just let the game play through. By the time 1901 rolls around, your AL and NL will be accurate and the historical transactions are more reliable.

You can have teams accurate from year to year, but that takes a lot of work. It can be done, but it won't be fast.

[Garlon]

What I do is start in 1871 with 4 teams and do a draft. Then I expand to 8 teams in 1876. Then expand to 12 teams in 1882. Then expand to 16 teams in 1892. By doing this you will have enough players for teams but I suggest keeping injuries off. I turn off the options to have the game handle expansion and teams moving cities during these seasons. When I get to opening day if 1900 I turn that on and after the world series all of the teams realign to where they should be in 1901 in the AL and NL. To do this you must have the correct franchise IDs for the teams in place and begin with 2 leagues.