A Developer's Guide to Strategy

[Kobeck]

great read

[daves]

[Pelican]

Does the “lock strategy” toggle also prevent the AI from demoting a player who I have just promoted to the major league roster? I like to intervene as “Commissioner” to improve failing teams, through promotions, as well as signing free agents and even making trades. Once I restore overall control to AI, I notice that players I promoted are immediately sent down, and replaced by inferior players. I need to be able to prevent this override, without having to toggle off AI control over all teams (other than human managers). Can I do this through the lock box?

Is there a way to have a human manager for more than one (but less than all 30) major league teams? For instance, though not managing Pittsburgh, I’d like for the PIrates to be competitive. What if I simply add to their budget for free agents and trades for high-salaried players? That promotes parity, and provides a fascinating “what if” in this era of haves and have-not teams. I understand in Commissioner mode I can act as GM for the other teams; but how do I prevent the AI from ruining my efforts, when control is restored?

[johndoe8865]

Man, I could read a lot more of these...

[Pelican]

Originally Posted by Pelican

Does the “lock strategy” toggle also prevent the AI from demoting a player who I have just promoted to the major league roster? I like to intervene as “Commissioner” to improve failing teams, through promotions, as well as signing free agents and even making trades. Once I restore overall control to AI, I notice that players I promoted are immediately sent down, and replaced by inferior players. I need to be able to prevent this override, without having to toggle off AI control over all teams (other than human managers). Can I do this through the lock box?

Is there a way to have a human manager for more than one (but less than all 30) major league teams? For instance, though not managing Pittsburgh, I’d like for the PIrates to be competitive. What if I simply add to their budget for free agents and trades for high-salaried players? That promotes parity, and provides a fascinating “what if” in this era of haves and have-not teams. I understand in Commissioner mode I can act as GM for the other teams; but how do I prevent the AI from ruining my efforts, when control is restored?

This is devolving into a weird power struggle. Even after I chose to prevent AI control over rosters completely, the next day I found that the Orioles had demoted Cedric Mullins (their best hitter) and John Means (their best pitcher) to AAA Norfolk. I quickly returned them to Baltimore, and demoted their (unqualified) replacements. This has now happened every day for the past week of play. Several of the various replacements had no options left, so they had to be DFA and released. I made a few trades, and found the traded players were immediately released by AI. I had to manually place them back on the Orioles with new contracts. I tried the player strategy settings to keep the player on the team; but they are ignored. I suppose I should file a bug report instead. This is not “user error”. Has anyone else had a similar problem??

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by Pelican

This is devolving into a weird power struggle. Even after I chose to prevent AI control over rosters completely, the next day I found that the Orioles had demoted Cedric Mullins (their best hitter) and John Means (their best pitcher) to AAA Norfolk. I quickly returned them to Baltimore, and demoted their (unqualified) replacements. This has now happened every day for the past week of play. Several of the various replacements had no options left, so they had to be DFA and released. I made a few trades, and found the traded players were immediately released by AI. I had to manually place them back on the Orioles with new contracts. I tried the player strategy settings to keep the player on the team; but they are ignored. I suppose I should file a bug report instead. This is not “user error”. Has anyone else had a similar problem??

If the AI is in control of the team, then no, none of the strategy settings or locks will work. The only way to fully prevent that is to either yourself be in control of the team, or use the "prevent AI roster moves" checkbox in the team settings, although that will prevent all AI roster moves.

[Pelican]

Thanks, Matt. I’ve locked out AI moves for now, through the team League settings, and it’s a relief. But I realize this will make all 30 teams stagnate, which will become a problem, with injuries, slumps, and organizational needs. So my plan is to go a few weeks and then flip the switch and let AI catch up, knowing I may have to reverse a few ill-conceived changes. Meanwhile I can monitor the injury reports and make roster changes as needed. It’s great to have the flexibility to do both.

[OutS|der]

Originally Posted by Pelican

Thanks, Matt. I’ve locked out AI moves for now, through the team League settings, and it’s a relief. But I realize this will make all 30 teams stagnate, which will become a problem, with injuries, slumps, and organizational needs. So my plan is to go a few weeks and then flip the switch and let AI catch up, knowing I may have to reverse a few ill-conceived changes. Meanwhile I can monitor the injury reports and make roster changes as needed. It’s great to have the flexibility to do both.

My solution I'm going to try is make 30 Human Managers for each team and set each of their options to let the AI control all but depth charts and lineups and depending on how the AI handles the minors I may control that as well. Every week I'll go through and make changes as needed.

Since the AI is still able to make trades and signings and stuff I hope this will keep them all active and competitive.

[Harry Hibbs]

Originally Posted by Pelican

Matt, this comprehensive review is incredibly helpful. Thank you for taking the time to go through in painstaking detail, with step-by-step advice.

I have struggled with the “hold runner” option in game play and for strategy setting.

I learned the hard way, playing games, that my pitcher needed to not only throw over to bases occasionally, but that I needed to use the “hold runner” button to pitch, rather than just pitching, at least with fast runners on base. It took a few too many stolen bases and extra bases for me to realize this. I gather that “hold runner” in game play means that the pitcher starts from the stretch position. I would expect this would create the trade off of slightly less velocity on the pitch versus smaller lead for the runner? Does the game algorithm apply this kind of cost/benefit analysis?

For strategy purposes, I gather from what you say that holding a runner means not only throwing over where appropriate, but also pitching from the stretch? And this would be applied where appropriate, I.e. reasonably fast runner, not with bases loaded, particularly with crucial runs in tight game situations?

The depth and realism of the game is impressive. Thanks again.

"Hold Runner" makes the relevant fielder stay nearer the bag. Used in conjunction with pickoff attempts, it can be fairly effective in limiting steal attempts or occasionally getting a successful pickoff. However, the higher the pitcher's hold rating, the less often baserunners will attempt to steal, regardless of strategy, unless they are great at swiping bases. The pitcher automatically pitches from the stretch whenever there's a runner on base, regardless of whether the hold runner strategy is used.

[Dodger_Dave]

Will the Player Lock Strategy Settings save your individual tweaks as you play Perfect Tournaments or do you have to alter them every time you sign up for a PT?

[Poeiras]

Really good guide.
Thank you!

[OutS|der]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

If the AI is in control of the team, then no, none of the strategy settings or locks will work. The only way to fully prevent that is to either yourself be in control of the team, or use the "prevent AI roster moves" checkbox in the team settings, although that will prevent all AI roster moves.

Will there ever be a way to lock a player to the majors like we can do to the minors? It's really frustrating to watch the AI demote higher ranked players and have no way to lock them to the majors.

Really need a way to override the AI in all aspects if we want without having to control the team.

[Rosco Peabody]

Originally Posted by OutS|der

Will there ever be a way to lock a player to the majors like we can do to the minors? It's really frustrating to watch the AI demote higher ranked players and have no way to lock them to the majors.

Really need a way to override the AI in all aspects if we want without having to control the team.

Yeah I agree with this. I have a fictional league and it's always really frustrating because, as a computer code, it obviously can't understand all the nuance that would go into a real team.
For instance, a pitcher that plays for a team for 12 years (his whole career) but has lapsed into a mediocre pitcher, they put him in the bullpen for a guy who is like 1 point better than him on a 20/80 scale but only has 2 years in the league.

In real life, the team would never do that out of respect, so I like to kind of try to override it, but there's no real way to do it.


Another scenario could be a guy who is like 4 HRs away from 500 HRs or something and the team benches him for a guy who is marginally better than him.

[michael.oberegge]

Under Player Strategy, you say:

"Pinch Hit for Player: player setting relating to the "PH for Position Player" setting on the team. Adjusts or overrides the team setting, as specified"

Does this make it more likely for the specified player to be used as a pinch hitter? Or replaced by another hitter?



Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by michael.oberegge

Under Player Strategy, you say:

"Pinch Hit for Player: player setting relating to the "PH for Position Player" setting on the team. Adjusts or overrides the team setting, as specified"

Does this make it more likely for the specified player to be used as a pinch hitter? Or replaced by another hitter?



Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

Replaced by another hitter.

[warneke]

Thanks, Matt. 98% of that I had assumed/assimilated by the in-game verbiage.

Two things, both dealing with starters:

1. "Of note: usually starters who have a forced role will be placed as the #1 starter, as they are filled before others. If this is not desired, then either more starters need roles forced, or you may need to take manual control.".

That's useful to know. And it's a cool way to force the AI to use as your number 1, or numbers 1 and 2 starters, for example; and can be used to try to force or prevent the AI from using a vet versus a prospect in the rotation, etc.

Of course it's also useful to force the AI to use a guy as a starter rather than a reliever.

2: "Note that during the final weekend of the season, if the AI is in control of players, they may use this [Bench Player for X Days] for the top starters on the team to save them for the playoffs."

I hadn't realized this. From casual observation through OOTP20 I don't believe this. Maybe it was implemented with v21? I'll pay more attention to who AI-run pennant-bound teams are starting during this time. As for my time, I always manually choose my starters the last few games of a season to prevent the top guys from being used going into the postseason.

[daves]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

A Developer's Guide to Strategy Settings

TEAM STRATEGY SETTINGS


OFFENSIVE STRATEGY

Use Hit&Run: controls how often the batter will attempt a hit&run (runner is forced to steal, batter will swing at the pitch to try to make contact). Overall Hit&Run chance is based on batter's contact ability and runner's speed. Overall, adjusting this setting impacts more how often the H&R will be attempted given that certain conditions are met, rather than who may try for a H&R.
.

Does Avoid K' on the batter make a difference? If the runner is fast, the batter has high contact and high avoid K will aid in the likelihood of a successful hit and run?

[PSUColonel]

Here is my big question (thank you for this guide Matt) how does all of this relate to individual player strategy?

For one, it seems if my manager (I am GM only) isn't allowing me to control general strategy, I can just override his wishes by implementing individual player strategy? Is this the case?

Why doesn't/won't the AI managers also influence individual player strategy? It doesn't seem to reason they would have a general strategy, but none for individual players??

Generally it seems that general strategy and individual strategy either contradict or play off of each other. This is confusing to me, and I am curious as to exactly what type of relationship the two different strategies have with each other? Clearly individual strategy is more granular, but beyond that, I just don't understand if this relationship is contradictory, symbiotic, or something different. An in depth explanation on this aspect of strategy would be very helpful.


Also...If my Manager has preference (his own managerial philosophy) I assume this is what I am getting when I ask him to set up the team strategy...now, why then am I able to tell the manager to implement any one of the preset strategies?
I am not sure how and/or why things work in this manner. Is there an upside or downside to doing this?

Note: My manager is very controlling and doesn't allow for much tinkering...so why would he allow me to change the entire team philosophy with one of the pre-set strategies?


Thanks again for your help in clarifying all of this Matt.

[PSUColonel]

What exactly is Favor Pitching vs Favor Hitting?

It's not like you have to differentiate when making a lineup....position players are position players, pitchers are pitchers.

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Here is my big question (thank you for this guide Matt) how does all of this relate to individual player strategy?

For one, it seems if my manager (I am GM only) isn't allowing me to control general strategy, I can just override his wishes by implementing individual player strategy? Is this the case?

Why doesn't/won't the AI managers also influence individual player strategy? It doesn't seem to reason they would have a general strategy, but none for individual players??

If the manager overrides a strategy section, then the individual slider will be capped as well. So if your manager has a yellow or red on the stealing slider, setting your players to the max may not have quite the full effect.

Generally it seems that general strategy and individual strategy either contradict or play off of each other. This is confusing to me, and I am curious as to exactly what type of relationship the two different strategies have with each other? Clearly individual strategy is more granular, but beyond that, I just don't understand if this relationship is contradictory, symbiotic, or something different. An in depth explanation on this aspect of strategy would be very helpful.

The finer control on the players is if you want to generally have a team strategy, but some players you want to manage differently. So maybe me as a team doesn't want to steal, I want everyone station to station. But if I have Jarrod Dyson or Tim Raines on the roster, I want them to have a green light. That's the real reason for having the control.

Also...If my Manager has preference (his own managerial philosophy) I assume this is what I am getting when I ask him to set up the team strategy...now, why then am I able to tell the manager to implement any one of the preset strategies?
I am not sure how and/or why things work in this manner. Is there an upside or downside to doing this?

Note: My manager is very controlling and doesn't allow for much tinkering...so why would he allow me to change the entire team philosophy with one of the pre-set strategies?


Thanks again for your help in clarifying all of this Matt.

You can apply the pre-set, but I don't believe it will stick. Each piece is still capped by his philosophy. So yeah, if he's controlling and is mostly reds or yellows on control, then picking a preset really won't do much of anything.

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

What exactly is Favor Pitching vs Favor Hitting?

It's not like you have to differentiate when making a lineup....position players are position players, pitchers are pitchers.

The GM options generally speaking don't come into play during games, but come into play during roster evaluation. So someone who favors pitching over hitting will be more likely to want to trade for good pitching, more likely to draft pitchers, etc...