Fighting for the Blue and Gold (Cal AD Mode) - TTU38Alum's Dynasty

TTU38Alum's Dynasty Blog

Fighting for the Blue and Gold (Cal AD Mode)

Posted on August 4, 2015 at 04:42 PM.

(0)

(Disclaimer: This is in no way, shape, or form affiliated with the University of California or any of its athletic programs, staff members or athletes, nor is it affiliated with any other university, professional, minor league or high school program referenced here. This is a fictional account of sports happenings based on video games for Playstation 3 and Playstation 2, is nothing more than a hobby and is not for profit. All of that being said, Golden Bear fans and sports fans in general are welcome to live vicariously through the virtual, fantasy ups and downs of the Golden Bears.)

Fighting for the Blue and Gold

a Cal Athletic Director Mode Dynasty

Let�s try this again. I'm starting an athletic director mode dynasty. How it works:

I will play football games on NCAA Football 14 (PS3), basketball games on College Hoops 2k8 (PS3) and baseball games on MVP 07 NCAA Baseball (PS2) all with Cal. Seasons will overlap as they do in real life so we�ll follow a comprehensive yearly calendar.

I had one of these going with Navy, called �Making History� in Spring of 2014 and after being inactive for more than a year, I decided to give it another go with a different program that interests me more so I tried to get one going with Texas Tech, then life got in the way. This time around, I decided I already know enough about Texas Tech, so I decided to use this as an opportunity to learn about another program.

Choosing a team literally took hours as I researched past successes in football, basketball and baseball. I didn�t want to pick a team that was too dominant in any sport and I ended up with a Top 5 of Minnesota, Indiana, Northwestern, Washington State and Cal. I was fascinated to learn that Northwestern has never made the NCAA tournament in basketball and their baseball team hasn�t been that great either. With plenty of room to build a good program, combined with their academic prestige, I really wanted to give it a shot, but I just couldn�t do the purple, nor the awkward stripe across the middle of their jersey on NCAA Football �14. After consulting with a trusted friend, I ended up picking Cal.

The purpose of this is more for the storyline aspect and not to destroy every opponent in every sport in every game. In football I could probably go undefeated for 75 seasons straight but that�s not the purpose of this, so I will be tweaking playbooks, sliders and self-made rules as much as possible to keep it as realistic as possible, for as long as possible. Jumping from sport to sport, following the comprehensive schedule makes it interesting because I�m essentially re-figuring out a new game when basketball starts at the peak time of football season and again, once I get in the flow of playing hoops, it�s time to start baseball. That kind of mixes it up to keep it more interesting and to keep my teams from becoming too dominant due to overplay.

There isn't really any set pacing for this. Sometimes I may be able to crank out several games in a day, sometimes I might not be able to crank out a single game for more than a month. However, the goal is to get through a minimum of one full video game year of all three sports in one year of real time, with two or three seasons being more ideal.

Let me start by giving credit where credit is due and laying the foundation for each sport.

Football:
I'll be using Charter04's Heisman Sliders with 8 minute quarters and sean15012's 2016-17 Roster. Last but not least, conference realignment updating was made easy thanks to Brendan's Conference Realignment Guide.

Recruiting Restrictions and Incentives:
- I can only over-sign by two players in any year, meaning if I have 18 seniors, I can only sign 20 recruits.
- At least 80 percent of my recruiting class must come from California.
- If I win a BCS game, only 60 percent of the following class must come from California.
- Only 10 percent of my recruiting class, rounding up, can be four-stars. (i.e. 14 scholarships = one four-star; 15+ scholarships = two four-stars) and at least ⅓ of my class must be two-star recruits.
- After a 10-win season, 25 percent of my class can be four-star or better and only 10 percent two-star.
- After a conference championship or BCS Bowl, ⅓ of my class can be four-star or better and two-stars are optional.
- Should my team ever win a national championship, then � of the class can be four-star or better.
- If my team ever gets too dominant then I'll raise these restrictions and/or switch to coach mode. (Played NCAA for a solid 15-16 years).

Basketball:
-I'll be using AuburnAlumni's All-American sliders - 13 minute halves - and purduefan14's 2014-15 rosters with Cal�s roster updated to what it should be for the 2016-17 season, as of 6-17-16. If the roster isn�t perfect, I�m sorry, I just started following Cal. Finally, conference realignment was made easy thanks to zack4070's Ultimate Conference Realignment for 2014 and Beyond.

Recruiting Restrictions and Incentives
- Recruiting is fairly difficult on here, at least for me, so at this point restrictions take care of themselves and an incentive is actually getting a solid player I�m after. This is subject to change in the future if necessary.

Baseball:
-I�ve only touched this game a few times and still struggle with the default settings, but I will make adjustments as necessary, if it gets too easy. However, I will be doing zone hitting instead of analog and I will be doing classic fielding, instead of analog. Pitching will remain analog.
-I�m unaware of any way to change conferences on here, so unfortunately it�s the old Pac-10 schedule with no Colorado or Utah.
-I can't find any updated rosters for this game, nor do I have an easy way to get that to a PS2 if I could, so I'll just be doing the game-generated names for this one. If there's any serious Cal baseball fans following along, feel free to inbox me some must-have names.