Franchise Relocation House Rules

If you run a dynasty, you might have the situation where there's one team that is not only doing very, very badly, but which never seems to recover. Hundred-loss season follows hundred-loss season.

The question you might ask yourself is, "Should I relocate the team?" Maybe moving the team to another city will give it a chance to revitalize its fortunes. But what rules should you use to determine which teams get to go and which teams have to say?

CatKnight was kind enough to provide me his house rules for franchise relocation, and I am happy to host them at this link. As soon as I get enough house rules, there will be a link at the left hand side of the page that points you to the "master list" of house rules.

Free Agency House Rules

I have now opened a GeoCities account where I intend to collect and post the various house rules that people submit. OldFatGuy at the Baseball Mogul board has given me permission to host his Free Agency rules.

The current rules are at this GeoCities website (click the link). Yes, it's GeoCities, but it's free, and "free" is definitely within my budget.

When I get enough pages started, you'll see a link at the left that will direct you to all of the house rules.

Edit: heads up to Overbay17 for noting the busted link. It should work now.

More House Rules

With regard to the house rules thread, I'll provide some of the "house rules" for my "Even the Braves" dynasty.

1) No free agent can be signed for more than $5.3 million/year. This eliminates most of the superlative free agents. However, a free agent can be signed for up to $5.6 million/year on a roll of 1-3 on a d10 (ten sided die). One can reroll, however, every three game days.

One can sign a free agent for any price on a roll of 1 on a d10. One can also reroll every 3 days if one doesn't get a satisfactory roll. This rule, however, should not be abused.

2) Revenue sharing: currently, my "Even the Braves" dynasty has a primitive form of revenue sharing:

a) Revenue can only be taken from the largest spending team in the American League and the largest spending team in the National League. Second-place spenders are not affected.

b) For calculation purposes, one takes the larger of the following two values as team salary:

- team salary before Game 1
--team salary immediately at the end of the World Series

c) If the National League top team salary exceeds $160 million, the offending team is fined at a dollar-per-dollar rate above that threshold. The excess is then spread among the other teams:

Example: 11 team league
Top team salary: $171 million
Fine: $171 million - $160 million = $11 million
$11 million distributed among 11 teams = $1 million/team

Top team salary: $158 million -- no fine and no changes

d) If the American Leage top team salary exceeds $150 million, the offending team is fined 75 percent of the excess. The excess is spread among the other team:

Example: 8 team league
Top team salary: $159.33333 million
Fine: 75 percent of $9.33333 million = $7 million
$7 million distrubted among 11 teams = $1 million/team

House Rules and OldFatGuy's "Card" System for Baseball Mogul

One of the problems with Baseball Mogul is that the AI for each team acts the same. (In OOTP, each team has a priority that determines the goal of the team, giving each team different priorities.)

Since each BM team acts the same, all other things being equal, cash dominates and big-market teams build unbreakable dynasties. However, players have several advantages over the AI. First, players tend to be smarter, and most players can take the worst of teams and manage them to 1936-39 Yankees status within one or two game years. Second, players get first pick when it comes to signing free agents, and the players do not artificially tender several offers at once. They only sign you. (The second advantage might be the cause of the first.)

In one of the Baseball Mogul threads -- "A New Era is Born" -- rockiesfan4ever relates some "house rules" to make your Baseball Dynasty more interesting, particularly as it comes to the signing of free agents.

Here's what I do. I find I have to give rules for myself to keep it challenging too. My first rule is total number of FA I can sign. I base this on last seasons finish and it equals the number of places behind first I finish in the standings. So, if I finish 1st, I can sign 0, 2nd means I can sign 1, third means 2, etc. My second rule is I can only sign 2 (assuming I can sign at least 2 from rule 1) per day. Seems reasonable, most of the top ones are gone the first day. My third rule limits who I can negotiate with. It is a little complicated, but here goes.

I look at the player I wish to sign. I use a deck of cards which has 4 suits (and two jokers), and shuffle them and draw a card and that card tells me whether this player will negotiate with me or not. If I draw a joker it always means the player will not negotiate, so I fail to sign him. If I draw a spade it always means the player will negotiate. The other 3 suits are determined like this:
If I draw a HEART: This player will negotiate with me only if his ambition is less than or equal to 0 (meaning he's not concerned about team success) OR if his ambiition is positive than I must have finished no worse than second in my division. Otherwise, his ambition prevents him from negotiating with my team.
If I draw a DIAMOND: This player will only negotiate with me if his greed is positive.
If I draw a CLUB: This player will only negotiate with me if his personality "fit" with my team is above C. I.E., C+ or better.

Finally, when I get to negotiate with a player, I draw another card. If I draw a joker here, it means he changed his mind and won't negotiate. The suits determine how offers I can submit. If its black (Club or Spade), then I can only make 2 offers. If he doesn't accept my second offer, I lost him. If the card is a DIAMOND, I can only make 1 offer. And if that card is a HEART, then I can make 3 offers.

Sorry for the length. But you asked for ideas. That's how I do it that adds some randomness and some sort of realism (basing it personality and such), and adds a challenge to the human player. That last card I draw determining number of offers just it makes it more challenging financially. If you can only make one offer, you better make one you're sure he's gonna like.

I think it's a great set of house rules -- one of the great things about a great set of house rules is that you wish you had thought of it yourself. Furthermore, it makes great use of the "personality" statistics of Baseball Mogul under the personality tab of a player profile. These stats don't figure into the game, but under the house rules, they have a use.

All in all, a great set of rules. If you have your own house rules, share them in the comments. I'll add my "Even the Braves" house rules -- which are very short -- in a future post.