Hello! You've stumbled upon the personal RU-vid page of one "Avindian", the notorious Paradox AARer. I cover sports, strategy, simulation, and RPG games on this channel. (Sorry, Call of Duty fans.) I also enjoy digital board games and will post those somewhat regularly. I currently post five videos a week, barring the occasional hiatus, always covering the Out of the Park Baseball series.
Follow me on Twitter: @AvGuardianGames. Tweet me with your game suggestions, requests, comments, and feedback!
I'm trying to learn 18xx so the more I watch, the better. But after watching the entire video I can say w/ conviction that the route selection in this digital implementation looks too damn finicky & annoying!
It really isn't - it just takes some practice. It's a bit more fiddly on mobile but on PC or tablet it's really good; you can also use Auto Routes if somebody has it set up (you can't do that in hot seat, sadly)
@@AvguardianGaming I appreciate the response....is this digital implementation something you would recommend for new players learning 18xx? Wouldn't it be better calculating the math yourself when trains run vs having the game do it for you, for example? There were a number of instances during your playthrough when the game assigned a different route payout than what I had expected & I had no way to determine why. I'm sure the game was right & I was wrong but.....for experienced players who already know the rules I can def see the benefit of this online implementation where the game does the math for you.
@@andrewwalsh531 I definitely would recommend it because there's less to keep track of than a face to face game. I've always found f2f to be annoying when tracking money - making sure you have enough in the bank, etc. It's also easier to find a game and get more practice online, it's already led me to buy one new 18xx (18Mag, which actually just arrived today) and I'm sure I'll get others
In previous versions they had four years of draft classes, but I'm not sure whether that applies to this version. You might be able to find something like that on the OOTP Forums or Steam Workshop but I'm not positive.
Glad you like it! Good luck in the upcoming season. Is it my imagination or is the game doing a better job offering you trades? I don't know if it is a function of you starting as an expansion team and just having so many needs over the first few seasons. But in this series every few offers it seems like you have given an offer serious consideration. In some of the older games I feel like entire episodes could be full of the CPU offering you terrible deal after terrible deal.
I think they have definitely updated the trade logic to one degree or another! You still get some stinkers ("take my 40 year old reliever that's a 25 overall in exchange for your 40 potential prospect") but a lot more are actually worth considering
Lol. I just hit time marker ~1:06:40 as you say you wish you had a cooler logo but are too lazy to develop one....right as I am in the middle of creating some while watching the episode. I just have to figure out how to actually get these to you.
Tip bout the development lab is if you do the full 4-5 month progams on first day of offseason, when they end you have time to do a round of defensive programs, if you start them on the day the 5 month programs end
Surprising how much things changed during this playthrough. I watched it all & it was well worth it :) I particularly liked the strategy as you hashed over the different options for each player. I am excited to finally break open my brand new (second edition) copy now, which has been sitting patiently on my game shelf. I'm really surprised how few thumbs the series got, which I guess is a reflection of how it's always the new games that get all the buzz, because it certainly is not a reflection of the quality of your presentation!
great video, thanks! Using tts to teach the game is brilliant. As far as playing the game, I think I'll stick to the physical version...it looks extremely tedious to always be flipping things, rotating views, panning, tilting etc etc. But it was all very instructive to watch :)
Thank you for the kind words! I definitely agree that there's nothing quite like the physical experience, but TTS is great for playing online multiplayer games. if you can't get a group together or if your friends live far away.
Thomason is likely your best defensive SS now. Also, imo one needs to work harder at financials in this version. I noticed your ticket prices might be a the low end of MLB
I'll need to look it over again but you could be right that Thomason is better than Giacoletto. I really dislike how financials have always worked in OOTP because there's so little player agency. You have one lever to pull - altering ticket prices. It's also frustratingly opaque how much changing prices might change attendance. You're probably right that I could raise prices to become a bit more profitable, though.
@@AvguardianGaming It is not quite all ticket prices. They certainly drive gate revenue. However if you look at the financial reports, there is a big difference between teams on media revenue and merchandising. Your market plays a large role, each market basically has a cap on how much revenue you can pull in. They changed fan interest in 25, winning now means a lot. But popular players always help, they don't have the boost on FI as before, but they don't hurt. And popular players help with media and merch. But above all, winning drives $$$. Ticket prices just have to be adjusted for market size and fan interest so get around 80% capacity.
I dont think that Alexandros and Philippos legitimacy should have stacked! You only get legitimacy from the highest valued heir you control and prevent other players from gaining legitimacy by controlling any heir that is of lower value 😅
You could put Henderson at 2nd and Thomasson at 3rd. That half a year in AAA helped him. I was trying to tell you Lee wasn’t fast enough to play anywhere except for 1st. Thank God you got rid of him
Was hoping you would have covered league setup in your video- didn't see it. How did you do league setup to get black and white players into one league? I'm trying to set up a 1920 integrated historical league (I have OOTP 22 but can upgrade if needed) but can't get the game to allow black and white players into one draft pool to draft into the MLB. Every time I try it the white players end up in the MLB and the black players in the Negro League. Thanks for any help you can provide.
You actually have a good owner. The market is not big which caps you revenue. You will have to manage fan interest which is much harder in 25 if revenue growth is what you want. Also, you are spending $60 million in dev and scouting so I assume something has to give somewhere. Getting the market size to increase I have not found to be easy
At around the 1:16 mark, Washington attacked and used his +2 winter offensive drm. This was the Americans last card, but not the last card in the Strategy phase. Therefore, per 9.44, I don’t think this attack qualified for this drm.
At about the 1:35 mark, the French entered the game. However, I think that Clintons army should have been allowed to retreat by sea prior to placing the French navy.
At 20 min in and feel like Ru is being very discounted after 2 40+ HR seasons in his last 3. So what u paid him, thats your mistake who knows if he can hit 35+ this year. Bolt is not the fix
I will say I’d put Zapata as a DH or at 1B. He’s a bit of a liability fielding but a great bat. Bolte actually has a good glove. If you put him at 1st put Ru to DH
One tip, when you set the dev focus, like you did with Jarvis, you need to check the box to stop the AI from managing it or all changes you make will be reverted. Oops wrong video, but you will know what I am talking about
One other comment on the talent distribution, you counted 60+ Potential players. If you count 60+ Actual the count is a lot smaller. This is due to a lot of 60-80 Potential players never actually working out and settling below 60. The other thing is that over time you will have 60-80 Overall players (maybe once you have enough generated draft classes the number might go up), however an 80 Actual in OOTP25 will look different due to the massive compression of ratings. Harris, with 65 Contact, 60 Gap and Power, and outstanding defensive ratings is absolutely a tremendous OF. For example, look for OF with 70 range and 60 power and you will not find a lot. Lastly, OOTP removed HR rating from contact. In 24 the displayed contact rating was derived from Avoid K, HR, and the hidden BABIP rating. In 24, Contact is Avoid K and the now unhidden BABIP rating and HR is on its own. What this means is s non power hitter has to have a much higher Contact rating than a power hitter to hit the same batting average since all the HR's contribute positively towards batting average, but the Contact rating ignores HR rating. Contact is now essentially "expected batting average when a player swings the bat and it is not a HR".
The new rating system in this year's game means one needs change how the players are viewed. They have compressed the ratings a great deal, most players are 47-52ish. Yellow is bad, either in ratings or overall. Ratings below 50 is actually much worse. than 24. Outside of maybe relievers, paying a yellow rated player more than the MLB minimum is difficult since they are really not that good. So one needs to pay whatever yellow players the minimum since there are much less 60+ players floating around. Even 55+ players are good. And 55+ players cost money. Ryan asking for 24 million is what I would expect.
@@AvguardianGaming sure. I hope that did not appear negative. One interesting thing to do is go to the list all players page and look at some of the ratings. The changes are much more evident on individual ratings vs overall. For example in 2029 in my 24 save there are 13 players at mlb level with 70+ power. In 2029 in my 25 save there are 3
@@cmp66 No, not at all! I appreciate your feedback, and it's something I kind of intuitively had picked up on but I didn't quite grab it as well as you just phrased it.
@@AvguardianGaming he’s a bad fielder, but a good bat. He actually was about a win or two above replacement the second half of the year after being barely replacement level before the All Star Break
@@insightworld422 He was tolerable at 3B but you're right about his contributions with the bat over time. It'll be all about finding a good 3B to take over for him (possibly Thomason?)
Thanks for flagging - there's not much I can do about it for this episode but I suspect my PC was running hot and what you're hearing is either the fan or my air conditioning. I'll keep an ear on it going forward
I'm not necessarily convinced he's unanimous but he's definitely first ballot IRL. I just don't think people will give him enough credit for his time in Japan to give him unanimity.
@@AvguardianGaming I saw your logic from the next video, looking at Ichiro's batting stats are what get the headlines with the hits record but to me its the 10 consecutive golden gloves in a row that turns him from easy first ballot to unanimous
@@user-bs7cq8kw8j While I understand that argument - Ichiro was playing RF, not a premium defensive position. Some of his Gold Gloves were also dubious if I remember correctly. It's a hell of an accomplishment but not one that other players haven't surpassed or equalled without being unanimous. This is an interesting list to go over, with some no doubt HOFers and others who have struggled to make it in (like Andruw Jones, for example). www.mlb.com/news/most-consecutive-gold-glove-award-wins
wow, 25 looks nice. I haven't bought a new OOTP since 20. I might have to pick it up, I've always wanted to pick a team and manually play through the games along with the actual baseball season.
Apparently there was (still is?) a bug where IAFA's and scouting discoveries were ridiculously overpowered while draft pools vastly underwhelming, so thats probably the case here, especially when all of the top prospects are international guys aged 18 or under. Also one more thing - why actually go for more "toolsy" scout? A contrario to many believes I actually don't think its a good strategy, especially for smaller market teams. You dont want to throw money at high risk high reward players who might not (and usually dont) pan out as initially projected. I would rather those safer bets, that assurance, that Im paying the money for exactly what Im going to get.
It's an interesting question, and one I will cover in my next episode, but tools are better to find potential superstars, which I think is important for a younger team.
Didn't OOPT Dev fix the draft (and int'l draft pool) in the first patch? It will not affect any saves started prior to the first patch, but it should be good now. I have not started a new save past my 1st one, so I don't have evidence of that.
@@MichaelRamm I had no issues with the Intl pool, and the rookie draft is always bad the first couple of years. They may have, but it’s bad for everyone so I just don’t worry about it.
Just a quick tip, change the setting for number of INTL players found by your scout. For some reason, this year, it defaults to 64, when its always been 16. You're Intl complex will fill rapidly and you won't be able to sign anyone to it.
Really enjoy ur content makes my 12 hour shift tolerable lol. Just finished the tour thru history which was awesome. Going to finish this one b4 I move on to ur 25 series. Keep it up AV
This has been SUPER interesting and informative as I begin my OOTP journey as a 45 year baseball fan! I look forward to watching the Silver Wolves grow! And if your GM birthday is accurate, then we share a birthday, albeit mine is 11 years earlier! LOL
Poor Chris Guevara. I kept thinking you were going to call him up when a reliever went down and then when rosters expanded. Yeah, Stoll is done. His arm is shot. Hoskins was solid! Glad he ended up with Cleveland! :) Congrats to Sean DeWitt! Looking forward to OOTP 25
