New Association Questions

[Wrathchild]

I've decided to play my first game starting way back in the 1870s and go forward from there. I have a couple of questions on the main screen:

1) It doesn't let me load before 1900. Is there a way to start earlier, since I have the faces for earlier than that. Are imported stats available for before 1900?

2) How can I make each subsequent year bring in the players that were new that year from the real world?

3) What is the PureSim Classic option? There is no descriptive text underneath it.

Is it feasible to try what I'm doing? Any suggestions/pointers?

[jeremy7227]

Hi Wrathchild...

I like to start with 1871 and work forward myself. Here's two different ways that I have gone about it....

First you can import players from 1871 to 2007 but you can only begin an association from 1900 to 2007. If you go with a Replay Association you have to start in one of those years and then in the Player screen you can "Import Real Players" and select all listed players from one of the earlier years. If you have deselected "Allow Duplicate Players" you will ony get unique players. Your league will progress importing rookies from 1901, 02 etc. But you will always have to reimport the pre-1900 players manually.

My preferred method of playing is in Sandbox mode which Shaun really revamped in the latest patch versions. <I can't thank him enough for that!> Here I start in 2000 with an empty association and import players from 1871 to whenever to fill my player pool. From there on you have to manually import the players but if you deselect the allow duplicate player option it will only import rookies for each subsequent season. You can start in any season and do this it also allows you to customize the play style and number of teams too. I usually play with 24 teams to start and then expand at different points when a lot of players come into the league. There are some player ratings quirks to get past but the game plays very well in this method. I will post some files that are helpful in playing this way. Number of players debuting per season, etc. I also have a list of Negro Leaguers and pre-1871 high amateur players that I manually create and add to the player pool.

One note on this Sandbox Mode method is that the initial draft works great but the subsequent amateur drafts don't recognize the imported real players and generates players if you choose to run a draft. My advice is to skip the ammy draft and go to free agency instead.

[Wrathchild]

Thanks for the tips. I'm going to play around a bit and see what I can come up with. In the interim I went with starting the 1900 season which is nice, having only 8 teams. Maybe I will take it from there instead, and pull the earlier players in when opportunity presents itself.

[jeremy7227]

That's a fun way to play. I have gone through a few associations starting in 1901 and importing the earlier guys. I like Sandbox mode though because I can get modern "what-if" stat results with the old-time players by starting in 2000. The only issue is that a vast majority of the players Hands rating (1-100 scale) is 35 and all pitchers pre-1882 have a Velocity of 5. The former has a noticeable effect on the play but the latter does not seem to be too detremental. Al Spalding and Candy Cummings are perennial 20 game winners even with a '5'. But the best SS in the league makes about 30 errors on average.

On the offensive side - Lip Pike, Dan Brouthers, Harry Stovey and Sam Thompson have put up some impressive 25-40 HR seasons with 2000- association years.