Thu Sep 27, 2018 9:33 pm
Thanks for sharing and generating.....this is a great topic.
I played PURSUE the PENNANT back in 1986-1992 on MS DOS....it was every bit as good at SOM now....they died out and morphed into DYNASTY LEAGUE in 1993 time frame and it's still pretty good, but it's not as predictalbe as SOM in my opinion.
PURSUE the PENNANT used 0-1000 instead (0-500 for pitchers/defense) and (501 to 1000) so it was a MATH game like SOM that you would study the cards and build teams around stadiums.....great game.....I think DYNASTY LEAGUE never caught the magic of PURSUE the PENNANT in my mind....but still worth playing.
Next, Baball Mogul - great historical simulation where you lead a team year to year for 10, 20 even 40 years you decide. It's open ended.....it is also an economic simulation where age of stadium, ammenities and population and prosperity have a LOT to do with your economic prosperity.....in other words cities like New York and Boston and San Francisco have HUGE advantages over the rest of the field....also there is a June amateur draft that lasts 6 rounds for you to build your minor league system. a very fun and engaging game, but not TRANSPARENT and impossible to predict with much certainty how players will perform.....also players can be lost for 3 to 9 months due to injuries....real bummer! You also can negotiate salaries with contract lengths varying from 1 to 7 years!......lots to do here.....oh and I forgot you can start your team in ANY year starting back to 1900!
Next, WHAT IF BASEBALL I played mostly in 2011 and 2012 until I rediscovered SOM in August 2012, I lost interest in WHAT if and never returned. You hire managers, pitching coaches, batting coaches and SCOUTS! at low minor league levels, high minor league levels and at the Major league levels......if I remember right, these are NOT real life major league players, but rather make-believe players......defense is very important, but then again, lots of vague TOOLS type scouting which is very difficult to gauge.....like I said it's very muddy and I never got a grasp of.....these are continuing leagues where it takes about a month or so to do a year's worth of simulation.
Next, Out of the Park Baseball - VERY SEXY.....it competes with Baseball Mogul.....it has more eye candy, but in my opinion has LESS transparency that Baseball MOGUL.....BTW - Football MOGUL is a pretty good football game in itself, once again not as transparent at SOM, but it introduces the ideas of playing a franchise for 10 to 40 years depending how you choose....it has an annual draft that is a lot of fun......you can start at present day or start back as early as 1970!
If you want TRANSPARENCY in the cards:
1 - SOM
2 - DYNASTY LEAGUE
If you want to run a franchise including the draft and economic modeling for 10 to 40 years spans:
* Baseball MOGUL slightly more transparent and predicatable
* Out of the Park very elegant and sexy while being almost as good as Baseball MOGUL nut/bolts wise.
If you want to go crazy with scouting and predicting how a 19 year Dominican Phenom will perform when he's 24 years old and putting him in the right minor league situation that will groom him and seeing the ebbs and flows, this is a GREAT game, but after playing for a year I lost interest.
Hope this helps......if anyone disagrees with any of my assessments I get it, this is a discussion of who makes the best Pizza or Burger, it's very subjective.
In closing - I REALLY wish PURSUE THE PENNANT would have stuck around past 1992....it was AWESOME......did anyone else here have the pleasure of playing the PC version? (PURSUE THE PENNANT was also a board game during the same 1986 to 1992 span)
