Expansion help??

[Parabraves]

To anyone who's perfected this, how can I realistically create an expansion team? The obvious choice is to hit the AL West, but with no expansion draft I don't know if I can withstand the headache of getting the players. This leads to a few questions.

1. What are recommended grades to give each aspect? I want this to be realistic and actually expect to finish last. Aside from fan loyalty which should be an obvious A due to getting a new MLB franchise, what have you guys ranked your teams, teams that turned out to be fun running?

2. What is the average budget of the teams in the game? I'm sorry, but one million doesn't quite cut it for me but that was the default given. Once again, I don't want to cheat and expect a sorry team, so I'm asking in attempt to build a team of washups without forcing trades and going in debt halfway through the season.

3. Are minor league franchise cities required? I have no problem with this as I already have realistic cities set up for my Honolulu team as far as population and class goes. I'm simply wondering if this is relevant to anything.

Thanks to anyone who can help. I love this game and after driving my beloved Braves to numerous titles and being in the midst of bringing the Royals to prominence, I'm simply trying to derive some more fun out of this excellent game. My own personal team would be a great place to do this.

[ohms_law]

I always just start a team with the players that are given to me. As a human player, you get first dibs on any free agents so you can do your "expansion draft" by simply selecting a bunch of FA's.

For your second question, I'm assuming that your asking how much cash to give yourself? Personally, I almost always start with $30M. Seems like a fair number to me. The important thing though is that you don't go too high (which would probably be > ~$100M) and that you give all expansion teams the same start, if not more money (since they are computer run).

Minor league franchise cities are not required. It's just text, and those names could be anything or nothing and the game doesn't really care. Just note that whatever is listed for the minor league franchise names, is what shows on your minor league player's scouting cards. You may or may not care about that, it's up to you.

have fun!
:)

[HoustonGM]

Also, be warned that adding teams may screw with the schedule maker.

[ohms_law]

That's not that large of a concern though. The main thing is to not make any league or division exceptionally large or small. He did say that he was looking to even out the leagues by filling out the AL west, so I highly doubt that he'll see any problems. I know that I rarely see schedule problems, since that's what I do (even up the teams in each league and division).

Alot of people tend to add a team or teams in the East, which can seriously unbalance the entire system. That's what leads to most of the scheduling problems.

Even with default teams though, there are occasional "cosmetic" scheduling issues. Never in 2006, and only rarely in 2007, but the further out you go, the more random the schedules seem to become.

[HoustonGM]

I added one team to the AL Central and one team to the AL West, and I had crazy schedules. That evened out the league to exactly the same format for the AL and the NL..

[ohms_law]

no, you made two divisions have uneven amounts of teams. It would help if you turned off uneven schedules after doing that, but if you don't then it's nearly impossible for the scheduler to make a schedule where at least one team doesn't get shafted somehow.

I always add two teams to the West, and move one from the West to the Central.

[ohms_law]

wait.... nevermind
lol

you can get crazy schedules occasionally without adding any teams though. Get the game to create a schedule enough with the real MLB setup and you'll see one eventually.

[Parabraves]

Alright, I'm set up thanks to your help except for one thing: TV. I know if you're small market you should set up a blackout, but the default for this expansion team is Pay Per View. Huh??

[beerchaser]

Definitely use blackout for expansion teams. Butts in the seats are worth more to you than the local TV revenue, and an expansion team is obviously not established enough to use pay per view.