Ultimate Baseball The Game
Ultimate Baseball The Game is the revolutionary, amazingly realistic simulation of the great American pastime. While there is already an established tradition of table top baseball sims (Strat-o-Matic, APBA, etc.), UBTG is not just another "replay" clone. These "replay" games usually resolve entire at bats all at once with a die roll and afford gamers very little opportunity for strategic interaction and intrigue. Following are UBTG highlights that set it apart:
- UBTG simulates pitch-by-pitch action.
- UBTG affords gamers exciting strategic choices on nearly every play.
- UBTG's pitcher rotation system is extremely accurate and exciting. One customer called it "unparalleled".
- We have researched every player on record to ever have played in American major leagues, including Negro leagues and pre-1900 players. Currently, UBTG has player cards that can be found in no other simulation on the market.
- UBTG's player cards are lifetime composites. You don't need different cards for different seasons. Your Ted Williams card is the only one you need, and it will play like Williams played in real life. And each card matches up accurately against other cards, regardless of era, team, season, or league. This is why UBTG has been called "the dream game of dream team simulation."
We include a quick, easy version as well as the advanced game in the game box, so UBTG has something for the novice as well as the experienced gamer. UBTG can teach baseball strategy, so you do not need to be an advanced strategist to enjoy UBTG. But the advanced game will challenge even the most hardcore veterans. If you are into strategy games or baseball...or both!...UBTG is the game for you!
User Reviews (1)
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I am definitely a fan of what Gillespie Games has created with “Ultimate Baseball the Game” (UBTG). When I read what others have written about it, I come away feeling like it is both a misunderstood product and one that has not found its audience yet. The web site for the game gives a very detailed account of how it is different from ‘replay’ games like Strat, but I think that many people gloss over that and focus on the web site’s claim that the game is a “simulation of baseball”. This seems to cause a misalignment of expectations.
The majority of baseball gamers seem to interpret “simulation” a very specific way, a way more aligned to troves of real life statistics used to get the most realistic possible outcome for a proposed “what if” scenario with limited “player elected” decisions. UBTG isn’t built to do that, which I think frustrates many people who are looking for a “simulation”. UBTG is also not a “replay” game. It takes hours to play and doesn’t have a sanctioned solitaire mod (though it can be played solitaire with some effort – more on that later).
So what is UBTG delivering? To me, instead of being a “statistically driven simulation”, UBTG is actually a “baseball strategy role playing game” where, at any given moment, the player must make strategic decisions in the role of:
-The general manager
-The manager
-The pitcher
-The batter
-The baserunners
-The fielders
When I say “moment” above, I really mean it – far from being a “set your roster, roll the dice a few times and write down the winner”, UBTG actually includes some “bullet time” play for events like infield grounders where fielders and batters have to make split second decisions about, for the batting team, whether to try and take a base, and for the fielding team, where to go with a throw. You will spend minutes on a play that takes seconds in real baseball, but for the player who wants to ‘role play’, this is a good thing! UBTG is a first edition and, in my opinion, not quite perfectly engineered, but it’s exceptional as a first effort.
Now, the pitch by pitch mode Diamond Mind Baseball (DMB) comes close and has many of the same features as UBTG and (depending on how you see things) the “advantage” of automating some of the action, while also including more ‘real life stats’ (more sophistication for injuries, ballpark factors, wind) into its machine, UBTG seems to be the most complete “Baseball strategy role playing” game there is, where I’m measuring completeness not in the number of statistics used (where DMB and several others have a great deal more) but in the number of ‘player elected’ decisions that have to be made by a live person on every pitch and ball-in-play.
So, if you are wanting to simulate a lot of games quickly – if you are wanting results derived from a specific season from a specific player – if you want columns of SABR data down to the thousanth’s place in decimals all feeding into the results – you can safely stop reading knowing that UBTG is not going to satisfy your needs. On the other hand, if this notion of head to head strategic decisions using a simplified but still highly-thought-out statistics model, over several hours (it will probably take you all of 4 hours to play your first “advanced” game with all the rules) appeals to you, and you are ready to learn more about “Baseball strategy role playing”, Contact me for my full 6,000 word review!
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