Relatives - fathers, sons, and brothers

May 3, 2018-

In the great novel "The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop." by Robert Coover, the title character starts to lose it when a young star player dies in a freak accident. The death was particularly meaningful because the young star wasn't just anyone. He was the son of another player, a legend himself. Not that I want anyone to go crazy, but shouldn't Basketball GM at least have the complexity of a fictional baseball simulation game played with dice, paper, and a pencil?

Well now Basketball GM has family relationships! Players can be brothers, fathers, and sons of other players. Here's what it will look like on player pages:

Player info box, including relatives

Currently I have it set that each newly generated player has a 2% chance of being the son of a former player and a 2% chance of being the brother of another player. This seems to work pretty well. It's probably higher than reality, but who care about reality? This is a video game. And you can always change both of these rates in God Mode. Increase them to 100% and things get pretty crazy.

Another unrealistic thing: a father's first son will always have the same first name. So Bob Smith has a son, his name becomes Bob Smith Sr. and his son is Bob Smith Jr. Bob Smith Sr. can have other sons, but the first is always Jr. This makes it easier to notice families, and lets names carry on for generations.

Yet another unrealistic thing: when the game picks who the father is, it is biased to be more likely to pick players who have fathers. This makes it more likely to have very long lineages. Check back in a few centures and you might see Bob Smith XII!

Combine this with the name generation system, and it is technically possible that you will see a player named King Louis XIV :)