Revisiting Square 1

This is a something of a reboot just to try to get back on the wagon here.  I want to avoid going so long without doing something here.  My plans can come to overwhelm my actions.  So this is another sort of background post to set the scene.

There are four broad types of work in building a schedule.

Circle Method - Part 8

For interdivision matchups with odd number of divisions each with same even number of teams

Consider a league (or subleague) setup of 18 teams in 3 divisions of 6 teams. For the 6-team divisions the circle method could be used to set up all the divisional matchups with all teams able to play divisional games at the same time. The next step would be to lay out the interdivision matchups. But an odd number of divisions means you could not have whole divisions matched up against each other - if every team in division 1 is playing against a division 2 opponent, those divisions are covered, but division 3 is left out.

A solution is to break up the divisions into pieces and do the initial layout steps on those pieces rather than either by whole division or by individual team.

Personal Preferences

How do I "want" to make a schedule?  Well, I do want to satisfy whatever requests/requirements are specified.  But I have more experience and comfort when that means something in a form like MLB has.  My tools have been developed to work more easily for such a form.  That is due in part to various factors that all can relate - I am familiar with and thus like the form, I believe other people tend the same way overall, and OOTP is probably geared toward that form.

What are the characteristics of that form to which I pay particular attention when building a schedule?

Circle Method - Part 7

Alternative layout methods

For the last (at least for now) entry about the circle method, we abandon the circle method. Particularly for team counts that are power of 2 (like 8 and 16), there are more symmetric things that can be done.

Circle Method - Part 6

For interdivision and interleague matchups

So far we have been building only for a single division. But this matchup generating scheme can be used also to set up interdivision and interleague matchups where the opposing divisions/leagues have the same number of teams.

Circle Method - Part 5

Balancing home/away

So far there has been no consideration of the home/away nature of the matchups as the goal has been to simply get all the matchups defined. But you could consider each "A v B" as "A @ B", such that "A" is away and "B" is home. Where does that put us toward even home/away splits for teams?

Circle Method - Part 4

Odd number of teams

For an odd number of teams there are a couple possible approaches. One team must always be left out - perhaps it will be playing interdivision or interleague games when it is the one left out. Ignoring for now what we doing with that left-out team, we can build the matchups the same sort of way.