OOTP5 House Rules
 

With a nice Spring-like weekend, I decided to start a historical career in OOTP5 (St. Louis Cardinals, 1961). In thinking back to my various historical careers in OOTP4 and the reason why I stopped playing had to do solely with the lack of challenge. I am anxious to hear of the experiences in OOTP5 in regards to the house rules (or lack thereof).

Specifically, I am looking for information regarding:

Salary Cap - it was customary to not have a cap for AI team but a self-imposed one for your team. Has this changed?

Max Cash - this didn't make any difference in v4, has this changed?

Free Agency - while having a lower cap prevented spending very much in free agency, there were some rules regarding how to do so. Any such rules now?

Extensions - it was a matter of timing before, it is still?

Also, I heard that you really can't play in Manager Mode in a historical career. Is this true?

You can play Manager Mode in an historical career, unless you want to expand. If you just stick with the league in the settings you started with, you'll be fine.

I've started an historical league in Manager Mode. But, I've never really found it necessary to do much more than play "within the game" to enjoy it, so I can't really comment on the need for house rules. I can tell you that the salary arbitration feature helps in forcing your team's salary up much earlier than in OOTP4.

In my particular career, I simmed from 1969 through 1979, importing the real rookies into the yearly draft. I took over the 1980 SD Padres, an awful organization, and went 54-108! It didn't help that I had no offensive talent either on my roster or in the minors, and there were no free agents worth signing (and I only had $4M to use on free agents anyway...). Luckily, my owner has kept me around for another year. I'm having as much fun as before, and now it's even somewhat of a challenge (at least given SD's state at teh time I took over). I can't complain!

I took the GForce rosters and the 2003 Blue Jays. I've got a .450 winning percentage in 2011, and no playoff appearances.

That's with no house rules and coaches on.

I do have a ton of talent in the pipeline now, but I thought I finally had a decent pitching staff and they have fallen on their faces.

In manager mode, I find myself having a hard enough time with the D-Rays that I need not a one house rule.

lynchjm mentioned something I forgot...

Coaches/Scouts - in OOTP4, we never play with these on because the AI can be at a disadvantage. This goes along with playing with Reduced Ratings or Talent Only. Are you saying that folks are playing with coaches/scouts now?!?! Why?

I've been using them because it's another 2 MM towards my piddly 40MM budget.

Oh stop, before I whip out my credit card and purchase.

I think playing manager mode on Hall of Fame difficulty with a small market is a good exercise for anyone to start out with. I know I was quickly humbled (and fired from my beloved Pirates :( ).

After going 54-108 in my first season, I might be joining you in the unemployment line!

I am still customizing my league (which takes me a while to do). I have customized a skin (with a fairy nice mahogany woodgrain), put in the 50's and 60's faces, put in all of the historically accurate logos (this is always the fun part for me) and started in on the League Settings. Here's what I got so far:

Managers: No

Hitters: 100
Pitchers: 60
Bad Hitters: 50
Bad Pitchers: 30
Talent: Remaining
L/R: Yes

League: Career
Financials: Enabled
Coaches: ?
Minors: Enabled
Trades: Very High
Injuries: ?
Fatigue: Enabled
Ratings: Reduced

Cash Max: ?
Cap: None ?
Draft: ?

I gave the Coaches/Scouts some thought and I still come up with a good solution. If there are no coaches/scouts, then you (and the AI) will see accurate ratings for everyone. But with coaches on and with variable ratings, this would give me an advantage over the AI unless I purposely pick bad coaches/scouts - but then it becomes a random crapshoot. If I set all of the coaches/scouts to average, the AI would then have a harder time making good roster decisions, compared to not having coaches. What do you think?

I haven't looked at the experience so far with injuries to know whether Normal is truly normal or whether it is over- or under-compensated.

I turned Manager off for now because starting in 1961, there will be a volatile period of expansion and movements. Plus, I want to get a feel for the new game. When I start another career in an earlier era, its stability will lend itself better to the Manager feature.

I have not figured out about the cap rules yet. I have to study Andy's great arbitration writeup first to see how much of a cap restriction (if any) I should place on myself.

My current dynasty involves taking the worst team (was TB at the start), and then leading them to a championship. I then look at the team with the worst record/financials and immediately take over them. Wash, rinse, repeat. My current slate looks like:

2001-2008 TB
2009-2012 KC
2013-2019 OAK
2020-2026 DET
2027- CIN

I'm not in "manager" mode, and this dynasty has been going on since OOTP 4. It's actually kinda challenging, even without house rules. Just my thoughts.

Just a short update:

I reached the end of the first (1961) season and have found the combination of free agency and arbitration to be quite a challenge. I had never experienced this level of critical decision-making before in a text sim. My house rules have been modified to include a $20m cash max and a team cap no higher than highest payroll in the NL. Even at that, you cannot simply buy a good team anymore and you have to pay more attention to the minors. You also think seriously about hanging onto mediocre stars just to be competitive because at least in this historical universe, there is not enough great players to go around (even if there were, the AI seems to be much better at keeping them and getting them via trade/free agency).

Great to hear...

It took you a week to play one season? By god man, I knew your motor skills slowed as you got older, but this is ridiculous!

I like to play out my games so I only get through a few seasons a year. But online leagues offset that.

Marm, we need those JBL smiley things here 'cus I got a great one for you.

Seriously, one week was about 9 hours of real playtime. The first four hours was getting the new historical league all set up accurately, as well as going through all of the new stuff. Then it took an hour or two just to analyze my roster (and the league universe) so I have a basis for comparative analysis (e.g., ratings and salary comparisons). The actual season season only took about 2 hours to sim (a month at a time) plus an hour or two of looking at trades (fairly unsuccessfully I might add). But it is the off-season I play the game for and I like to really get immersed in that analysis and going-ons. There is something to be said for being methodical instead of a rash whippersnapper. ;)

ymmv.