Editing Rosters Using Football Mogul

by Clay Dreslough (September 16th, 2009)

Football Mogul 2010 includes complete player statistics from the 1950s through the most recent season. Unfortunately, many stats like tackles and sacks were official until recently. So the files included with Football Mogul may need some editing before the rosters look like the ones you recognize. This page describes how you can remake the player databases using a text editor and the 'Create Database' tool in Football Mogul.

Overview

When you start a new game, Football Mogul loads the 'Football Mogul Database' corresponding to the year you have chosen. For example, when you start in 1972, Football Mogul loads 'Universe-1972.dat'. The '.dat' files are in the same format as the ".mog" files (i.e. "saved game" files) -- so you can create your own .dat files by just renaming a saved game file.

Note that the process of LOADING a .dat file is different than Baseball Mogul. Baseball Mogul builds a new database every time you start a new game, using the stats in the 'database' folder.

If you would like to modify the database that is loaded when you start a new game, you have three choices:

1) Visit FORUM NAME and look for ".dat" files posted by other users. Backup your old ".dat" files and download new ones.

2) Start a new game and turn on Commissioner Mode (in 'Options' on the Tools Menu). Then use the "Edit Player" button in each player's Scouting Report to change their data. Then, save your game. Football Mogul will only save your game as a ".mog" file; you must use Windows to manually rename it as a ".dat" file.

3) Edit the raw data (in the 'csv' files in the Database folder). Then use the 'Create Database' button (inside Advanced Options) to let Football Mogul create a new ".dat" file. To create a new database for a specific year, start a new game in THAT YEAR and then click the 'Create Database' button. To create new databases for ALL years, just click the 'Create All Databases' button (this will take several minutes).

Options #1 and #2 are fairly straightforward, so I'll describe how option #3 works.

The 'Create Database' Button

When you click 'Create Database', here are the steps that Football Mogul follows:

1. It builds a roster file by looking through the database and making a list of every player that played 1 or more games during that season. If a player played for more than one team in that year, this will create more than one line for him in the roster file. However, only the first line will be used -- the rest are ignored.

2. It loads the 'Players.csv' file. As each player line is read, it looks for that player in the roster file that was just created. When it finds a player, it loads the player and puts him on that team.

3. It loads the stats for each player from the files in the "Database" folder.

Because we weren't able to get all the historical data in one set of files, there are actually two sets of files. When creating the Historical database (2008 and earlier), the following files are used:

• defense.csv
• fumbles.csv
• games.csv
• kicking.csv
• kickreturns.csv
• passing.csv
• players.csv
• punting.csv
• puntreturns.csv
• receiving.csv
• rushing.csv
  

When creating the current database (2009), the following files are used:

• active_defense.csv
• active_fumbles.csv
• active_games.csv
• active_kicking.csv
• active_kickreturns.csv
• active_passing.csv
• active_players.csv
• active_punting.csv
• active_puntreturns.csv
• active_receiving.csv
• active_rushing.csv

4. It creates projected stats for each player, based on the player's entire career. For example, if you start a game in 1996, Football Mogul will load all stats BEFORE 1996 and store them for display in the Scouting Report. However, it will also "look ahead" to stats accrued by all players in 1996 and after 1996, and use those stats (in addition to the stats before 1996) to create a set of projected stats for that player.

These projections will determine a player's ratings in the game, UNLESS you overwrite these projections by providing your own in step 5 below.

Note that you can view the projected stats for a player at any time by clicking 'Commissioner Mode' in the Options Dialog, and then clicking 'Edit Player' on the player's Scouting Report.

5. After loading ACTUAL stats, Football Mogul loads the PROJECTIONS for each player. Football Mogul 2010 only includes sample projections files for the 2009 season. For example, "2009_projected_defense.csv" contains projected defensive stats to be loaded when creating "Universe-2009.dat". For other seasons, you will have to create your own (you can copy the 2009 files so that you have the correct columns).

6. Football Mogul then saves this universe of players as a ".dat" file matching the chosen year (for example: "Universe-1986.dat").

7. It then ALSO creates a ".dat" file (e.g. "Rookies-1986.dat") containing just the rookies in that universe. A "rookie" is defined as any player in the universe who doesn't have any accumulated stats as of the start of the season. The 'rookies' files store the players that are made available in each year's college draft. For example, when you finish the 1986 season, players from Rookies-1987.dat will be loaded and placed in the college draft pool.