GMEXcel - A market mod for OOTP X (Formerly MarketCalc)

[Young Drachma]

Today I'm releasing an updated version of MarketCalc for OOTPX. I haven't made any real improvements to it since last year, but there might be some to come later, as I can think of a few things I'd like to do with it, integrating some of the things from MarketCalc8 into the new version to allow people running fictional leagues to do more.

In any case, here's what it does:

On the first line you'll see a year. Replace that year for whatever year you're playing in starting in 1901 and going onto well past 2020 (I think it goes up to 2050, but I don't recall offhand.)

I've taken the liberty of inputting MLB teams for you. But you can put any team you want in the TEAM section of the tool.

In the CITY NAME section, use the drop-down menus to pick the city you're looking for. You'll have to scroll, but they're there. Or at least, the metropolitan or micropolitan place name of the place you're looking for. I took it straight from Census data. (If you're looking for Canadian metro areas, you'll need to scroll all the way to the bottom. I put those in last.)

Once you click on a city, it'll automatically populate the City Pop area.

Do the same thing for DMA Name. DMA is the TV market for the area you've selected. You choose the DMA from the drop down and again, Canadian DMAs are at the bottom. It'll give you the DMA Size.

With that information and modifiers, it'll automatically generate a MARKET SIZE number, that you can input into the game. That'll work for a decade and the game will alter that up or down based on its mechanisms, but you can leave it alone and won't need to change it again until ten years after you did it.

MarketCalc originated with OOTP2007, when I was annoyed that I couldn't get OOTP to model finances like real life.

What I mean by "real life" is, I wanted to be able to play in New York and see the modern day, non-revenue sharing effects of that largess versus say, playing in Portland, Maine or Winnemucca, Nevada. OOTP doesn't do this naturally, you have to tweak it to make it work.

It's for use in Excel, but OpenOffice also opens .xls files.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!
Included in GMEXcel is a little tool called Fire MGR X. It's basically a tool for solo players to determine owner confidence. Want to find out when you're not doing well enough and need to fire yourself and get a new job? This tool does just that.

It comes with instructions and is easy to use. Basically, you get awarded points for regular season performance and post-season appearances. But the better you get, the more challenging it is to keep your job if you start to slack over a period of time.

Future improvements for this will eventually allow you to figure what sort of teams you can take over and other house rule calculations to make solo play more immersive.

Let me know if you have questions and enjoy!

[jbergey22]

Wow I missed this until now. This looks great. Thanks Dark Cloud!

[Young Drachma]

I've updated this file to the newest version of GMEXcel, which is FireMgr 2.0, including some tweaks to the formula for how you fire a manager, has a new algorithm that allows you to see when you can go to a new team, as well. You input the number of wins that team has into the following season's box and it'll tell you where you can go.

I've been tweaking it for the past two days and it seems to work as intended and the formula for what teams you can go to, etc., seems to work without a hitch too. Lemme know if you have problems, if you check out this updated version (and you should, the older one has a wonky formula.)

[JonInMiddleGA]

Y'know, strictly FWIW ... you could mess around with this a little more & probably end up with a utility that would be pretty popular amongst the tabletop gaming crowd. Just make it more tweakable and there's several uses for it I believe.

Not something I could imagine being monetized successfully unfortunately, but if you ever really got bored & just wanted to do a good turn for a broader audience, I figured I'd throw it out there. (Of course inevitably 7 people would bitch about some functionality immediately & 14 others would copy your design and claim it as their own )

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Y'know, strictly FWIW ... you could mess around with this a little more & probably end up with a utility that would be pretty popular amongst the tabletop gaming crowd. Just make it more tweakable and there's several uses for it I believe.

Not something I could imagine being monetized successfully unfortunately, but if you ever really got bored & just wanted to do a good turn for a broader audience, I figured I'd throw it out there. (Of course inevitably 7 people would bitch about some functionality immediately & 14 others would copy your design and claim it as their own )

Hehehe..thanks Jon. I've never actually played tabletop though I'm familiar with it. But I'll keep that in mind.

[Young Drachma]

I've updated GMeXcel to a new version called GMeXcel Suite v10.5

It comes equipped with a few tools:

MarketCalc 10 helps you figure out modern media and TV market numbers. It's not particularly useful for using it for anything other than modern numbers, though it will adjust market size numbers backwards for older years, it's really a modern tool meant for a modern age.

FireMGR is a ultimate solo management tool. Instead of jumping from team to team across your career or staying in a job well after you've stunk up the joint, FireMGR forces you to win or go home. When your Owner Confidence score is lower than zero, you have to fire yourself. A great new way to keep your solo games interesting.

NEW! Accountant X: This is a return to MarketCalc's roots. I've integrated the MarketCalc 8 historical tool into the modern suite of GMeXcel with some improvements. Accountant X will revive your solo play by giving you a budget and cash to work with annually, which factors in your market size and team success. Best of all, Accountant X works for every year from 1901 until 2100! You just enter the year you want to play into the AcctXYear tab and the numbers will automatically adjust for the proper generation. (Props to ctorg for building this functionality into MarketCalc 8.)

If you've already used the latest edition of GMExcel, then this is just like it, but with all of the updates to FireMGR and the new addition of Accountant X, that has a ton of improvements from the old version that was released probably about two years ago now. Let me know if you have questions and enjoy!

[JetsIn06]

[Young Drachma]

I managed to screw up something that you can fix yourself. I put WIN PCT, LAST YEAR AND 2 YEARS AGO, but the actual figure is wins, not win percentage. So you shouldn't input a % because it'll still work, but it won't work how it's intended.

[Young Drachma]

Some OOTP forum folk asked me to make a modification to the file. So I have. I've updated it to include more than 24 slots. Now there +/- 100 of them.

I was also asked to make it so you could use GMExcel for leagues that don't play 162-games and have the win totals work right. I had a devil of a time converting the formulas to win % and so, I didn't change that.

But, this new version has another tool called WINEQ which will take your win pct and turn it into a win total that you can then use in the FIREMGR to equiv. the number of wins you'd have in the normal 162-game setup that I originally based this off of.

So hope that adds to the usefulness for those who've use it.

[Young Drachma]

Here's the latest version. I'd made it a while ago, but forgot to upload it for people to use. Try it out.

I don't know when I'll do a new version, but my hope is to make the next version a web-based tool. We'll see.

[reo]

Thank you.