Welcome Veras! Excited to see this grow! I'm going to take some cautious optimism about who gets my cheering rights. I'm still bitter over the Captains' constant choking.

Last edited by Darknes (5/08/2020 10:19 pm)

Welcome Veras! I think those of us that know that without the AFA, we wouldn't be here on Alt History Sports. Great to see you again, and I hope life is going a bit smoother. I really like the name "Erie Lakers", so I think they're my team for now. Are they based in Cleveland with the Athletics?

Welcome to the boards, Veras! So glad to see you back around and I'm glad life is going well. I'm excited for this new series. As a longtime follower of the AFA I'll be curious to see which, if any, of the designs make it into the new series. 

Thank you all! It's good to be doing this again.

Darknes wrote:

Welcome Veras! Excited to see this grow! I'm going to take some cautious optimism about who gets my cheering rights. I'm still bitter over the Captains' constant choking.

If I re-run the simulation, maybe things will break their way a little more often this time around. Statistically speaking, they definitely underperformed. I remember looking at the correlation between historic overall rating and both win percentage and championships. They were a huge outlier on the former metric and there were the best team to fail to win multiple titles.

DireBear wrote:

Welcome back! Curious to see which teams will turn up to the surviving ones (even though the Gladiators seem to have the same origins as the previous Detroit Gladiators, who knows if they will survive).

Well, you picked up on the easy one that I intend to keep, but you're right - even I don't know if they will survive. Sometimes things don't go the way that I expect them to.

Dan O'Mac wrote:

Welcome Veras! I think those of us that know that without the AFA, we wouldn't be here on Alt History Sports. Great to see you again, and I hope life is going a bit smoother. I really like the name "Erie Lakers", so I think they're my team for now. Are they based in Cleveland with the Athletics?

They're 100 miles to the east, in Erie, Pennsylvania. It's funny that you bring up that name - it's brand new. They were called the Erie Brewers when the league was formed, but the 18th Amendment was ratified 10 days later. The owner is a beer maker... I mean was a beer maker... because he'd never break the law

Anyway, now he makes ice cream. Erie Creamers wasn't going to happen, so he just went with the obvious.

Stickman wrote:

Great to see you back Veras!  Hope things are going well!  Can't wait for this project!  I'm loving the ambition of going back 100 years and look forward to seeing where this goes!

Thanks, I just hope I haven't lost my mind as I set out on a 102-season project!

Steelman wrote:

Welcome to the boards, Veras! So glad to see you back around and I'm glad life is going well. I'm excited for this new series. As a longtime follower of the AFA I'll be curious to see which, if any, of the designs make it into the new series.

Well, my plan is to use almost all of the designs again to some extent. There is a caveat, however. Some will be different just because I'm better with Illustrator than I was when I first started six years ago. For example, I was never happy with the original Guardians and Butchers logos, and will definitely take another crack at those, assuming those teams make it in. But there are also butterfly effect considerations.

The big one that comes to mind is the Baltimore Legion folded a few years into the AFA project after they went winless in back to back seasons. That wasn't my plan and was statistically quite unlikely - if I remember right, I calculated it at something like 1 in 10,000 given their talent level and schedule. If that hadn't happened, there would be no Washington Wasps and DC wouldn't have been able to get a team until at least the 1980s. Moreover, with Baltimore occupied, where do the Royals go when they leave Richmond? Maybe Tampa? Then there is no need for the Bobcats, and Indianapolis or New Jersey probably gets an expansion team instead. If it's New Jersey, then that prevents the Stampeders' move from Buffalo and transformation into the Sharks.

With how much of what happens being somewhat beyond my control, it's hard to be totally sure.

QCS wrote:

Great to see you again Veras! The AFA was a series I sadly missed out on during its time on CCSLC but I hope that I can follow this from the very beginning all the way to the conclusion! So glad to see you're in a better place mentally now, that should always take priority over side projects and hobbies like this.

Thanks. I've lurked here sporadically over the past year, but it wasn't clear to me how many people discovered this community via routes other than CCSL (or just came over late enough to have missed it).