Will the Rumblings of War tournament (Row) be Returning

[WineCape]

Found it!

The principles of the scoring of Nabla and his treatise thereon. Let's just say, you all have not given Nabla enough credit for his insight in building NABLA, and he deals with the concerns expressed here, which is reflected in his NABLA system. Even mentions NABLA is a "finer scale" of a bridge scoring method used by such tournaments.

Will email it later for those that want to read his. Lemme know who needs it.

[Sivodsi]

That would be nice. PM sent with addy.

[WineCape]

From Dr. Jarmo Hurri's paper [NABLA's scoring system for Combat Mission]

Rewarding victories of different sizes

Consider the normalized deviations of two different players from three dif-

ferent scenarios: player I has results {1.5, 0, 0} , while player II has results

{0.5, 0.5, 0.5} . Which one of these players did better in the tournament?

While we acknowledge that obtaining a big victory over your enemy can be

really difficult if your enemy is serious, there are two reasons why we think

that player II did better than player I.

-----> • There are three factors which can contribute to a good result in a

scenario: good skills relative to your opponent, good luck, and an

opponent which didn’t really try [attitude problem]. We want to measure the overall

CM skills of the player. It is the thing that stays most stable over

different scenarios, while luck and the attitude of the opponent may

vary. Especially in tournaments, an opponent who has decided not

to try seriously any more may be the real cause behind a single very

good result. A set of good results in a number of scenarios is difficult

to explain in terms of luck or moody opponents.

----->• Different scenarios tend to test different skills. The results of player II

suggest that his range of overall CM skills is wider than the range of

skills of player I.

Because of this, the Nabla scoring system emphasizes uniformly strong game-

play over single large victories.

2.4.2 Penalizing losses of different sizes

But what about the negative side of the scoring curve? How big is the punishment

for losing? Until this point in this manual, the different scoring schemes we have

seen have all described zero sum games.

That is, if one player has increased his score by an amount, the other player’s

score has decreased by the same amount. If the negative side of the scoring

curve would be as in Figure 2.6A (compare this to Figure 2.5A), this would

be the case. But this need not be so.

The fairly fast decreasing slope of the scoring curve on the positive side

(Figure 2.5) implements the idea of rewarding uniformly strong gameplay.

As was noted above (see page 11), there are two motivations for this.

First, Two of the three reasons for obtaining a very good score – your opponent’s

attitude problem and luck – are not related to your skills and are not under

your control, and in tournaments the attitude problem is a serious one.

Second, we want to reward players who master a wide variety of CM skills.

These arguments turn around if you think about a very bad score.

First, there are also three reasons for obtaining a bad score: your opponents

skills are better, you are unlucky, or you have an attitude problem. Now two

of these three factors are under your control, and if you have an attitude

problem, you should rightly be punished.

Second, if you lose royally in a

game because you do not have the skills it shows that there are some CM

skills which you did not master. (But you still shouldn’t be punished harder

for a single large loss than for many small ones, because, in our opinion,

having deficiencies in many skills is worse than a deficiency in a single skill.)

Because of these arguments the loser is penalized somewhat more heavily

than in a zero sum game setting, although not too heavily so that a single loss

will not destroy his chances in the tournament completely. The difference

between the Nabla scoring curve on the negative side and a symmetric, zero

sum game curve is illustrated in Figure 2.6B. As can be seen, the slope of

the negative curve stays constant below some point, whereas the slope of a

symmetric, zero sum game curve would continue to decrease. Because of this

change, in case of a large victory the loser will be penalized slightly more

than the winner will be rewarded. Remember that here a “large” victory is

defined in terms of normalized deviation from median.

2.4.3 Incentive to play

Consider a hypothetical symmetric scoring curve, shown in Figure 2.7A. As

was discussed above, the slope of the scoring curve describes the size of

the increased final score in case the player wins another CM point. The

slope of the hypothetical symmetric scoring curve of Figure 2.7A, shown

in Figure 2.7B, indicates that if one player is already winning by a large

margin, then the incentive of both players to try to score an extra CM point

is greatly reduced.

While it is true that in unbalanced games it can be very difficult to know in

the middle of a game what your position is on the curve, sometimes

it is obvious that one player has succeeded and the other player has lost.

Therefore, with a scoring curve like that shown in Figure 2.7A, situations

would come up where both players would no longer be greatly interested in

what is happening on the battlefield.

While the original motivation behind the asymmetric curve was related to

the reasons for big victories and losses, it also has the nice side effect of

alleviating this incentive problem. This can be seen in Figure 2.7D, which

shows the slope of the asymmetric curve of Figure 2.7C. The slope on the

negative side of the curve never falls below 0.4. This provides a direct

incentive for the losing player to try to score more CM points, because it

allows him to improve his score to a reasonable degree.

Furthermore, it also provides an indirect incentive for the winning

player: while his own score increases quite slowly if he scores more CM

points, it does lower the possibility of his opponent in winning the tournament,

thereby increasing his own chances to win.

I will make the scoring paper available to all participants of the ROW VI tourney too.

[WineCape]

BUMP

Especially for those Old hands/ROW vets returning and trickling back from captivity with CMBN's imminent release....

[futon river crossing]

I'd like to sign up for this - you'll need some cannon fodder

[Kurt Jäger]

I would love to sign up for this, sounds like great fun. Im new to CM but i am really determined to stick to the game.

[WineCape]

Ahhh, good news. Just established contact with NABLA's creator, Dr Jarmo Hurri and he promised to look at the NABLA again and give some input into it. Without the Nabla Tournament Scoring module, Rumblings of War VI = sunk without trace.

[Plastic viking]

I would be very grateful to be included on the list of people who would like to be participating in a new RoW tournament.

I am new to the boards, but no to war games. I stared with SPI War in Europe in the early eighties and have kept playing since. I have enjoyed CMx1 quite a lot and before that I used to play a lot of TacOps. I wrote one of the first reviews of TacOps on Games Domain, which MajorH told me was one of the most balanced reviews he had seen when it was published. (Now long lost down the bit bucket.)

I am tinkering with a CMBN scenario based around one of my favourite Avalon Hill Panzer Leader scenarios (Situation no. 8, Marieulles), one which has a very uneven force balance, but balanced victory conditions. This scenario gave me a taste for "play the cards you are given", which I miss in most war games.

If nothing else. I look forward to reading the after action reports!

[weapon2010]

Winecape,

Please put me on your list for this tournament, sounds like a blast, I enjoy unbalanced scenarios when you realy know there is no shot at winning and it is a desperate situation.And the AAR sounds like alot of fun.

[Sivodsi]

Ahhh, good news. Just established contact with NABLA's creator, Dr Jarmo Hurri and he promised to look at the NABLA again and give some input into it. Without the Nabla Tournament Scoring module, Rumblings of War VI = sunk without trace.

Yes, Nabla is as good as it gets for classical statistics and the form that RoW has been run in. However, as long as those groups are independent, you will always encounter the problem of different skill levels within a group, since the Nabla system cannot make direct comparisons between players who are in different groups.

In this system, only two people in a group can move on to the next round, no matter the skill level of those within that group. Of the six participants in group A you might have four who are highly skilled. In group B you might only have one who is good enough to beat the others in group B, but not as skilled as the top four in group A. However, this person will qualify top in group B, while two others Group A who deserved a place on the basis of their skill will not get into the second round.

This problem is less likely using a Rasch based system (as well as having other useful features), however, it has not been tried before under ideal circumstances. Until such time, Nabla offers the best solution.

[WineCape]

Will forward the concerns to Hurri and hear his input also on this specific matter Sivodsi.

[GreenAsJade]

There's a log of pages in this thead. Has it become a "sign up" thread? If it has ... I'm in.

[WineCape]

There's a log of pages in this thead. Has it become a "sign up" thread? If it has ... I'm in.

Almost GAJ. Gauging interest in those that might want to play in the forthcoming ROW VI. I endavour that it will be one of the most entertaining Rumblings ever. Consider yourselves lucky if you are chosen to play, not because of elitism, but given the emails I have already received, it seems ROW VI is going to be way more then the envisioned 72 players oversubscribed. We'll stick to 72 players. That's manageable for us. RoW vets will get first bite at an invite, of course. They have a proven track record of finishing PBEM tourneys.

We want to make RoW VI one of the toughest and most interesting/enjoyable ROW's yet, to be remembered as that devil number 6

At this stage, we're looking at 7 round robin PBEM scenarios, (8 player groups) to be finished within 4 months time max (120 days).

I'm busy compiling a CMBN scenario design requirement document for scenario creators, whom I still have to approach, as general pointers what we want and need. For the moment, we envision in the RR:-

1 x ME scen

2 x Probe Scen (Allied + Axis each)

2 x Attack Scen (Allied + Axis each)

2 x Assault Scen (Allied + Axis each)

Players will play 3 Allied/4 Axis battles, or vice versa.

I will, in due time, open up a sign-up thread based on those that have shown interest here. Just make sure your BFC forum email in your profile is active/correct/accessible to me when the time comes.

[We Build We Fight]

Please add me as a returning ROW player looking for combat in Normandy!

Is there a location showing all the ROW game results?

[Wellsonian11]

Yet another returning player reporting in! Just wanted to clarify that I am the "wellsonian" on the original list, but due to not remembering my password (a common problem it appears) had to rejoin. Looking forward to getting back to WWII and definitely participating in ROW VI!

Thanks!

[WineCape]

Wellsonian/WBWF, so noted.

Searching on CMx1 forum for "ROW" or "Rumblings of War" might do the trick in what you are looking for.

[JonS]

Bear in mind that all the effort going in to 'perfecting NABLA, RASCH, or whatever, is somewhat nullified by the bonus points available for writing AARs.

I think having the AARs as a soft requirement that garners points (rather than a hard requirement that risks expulsion) is a good idea, but it does dilute the purity of either scoring system. Meaning, I suppose, that you really don't need to get too anxious about making either one theoretically perfect.

[Sivodsi]

Bear in mind that all the effort going in to 'perfecting NABLA, RASCH, or whatever, is somewhat nullified by the bonus points available for writing AARs.

I think having the AARs as a soft requirement that garners points (rather than a hard requirement that risks expulsion) is a good idea, but it does dilute the purity of either scoring system. Meaning, I suppose, that you really don't need to get too anxious about making either one theoretically perfect.

Perhaps, but I think its one thing being at the mercy of a scoring system (whatever is chosen) but quite another of not fulfilling the requirement of doing an AAR that you were aware of. People might ask questions about the fairness of a scoring system, but its entirely up to themselves if they do or don't do the AAR.

Besides, if everybody does the AARs it does not effect the scores at all.

[JonS]

Besides, if everybody does the AARs it does not effect the scores at all.

Is that true? It' wouldn't change the order, but I can easily see it changing the distance between players.

Anyway: I think having the AAR as a soft requirement is a good idea.

[We Build We Fight]

I found posts on ROW III, IV, V but not I or II. The search continues.

[WineCape]

Bonus points will be added to your final Tourney Score if you submit AARs. Each full credit AAR will be worth 4% of the highest player's tourney score (before adding his AARs). Will still be the case.

You get a few extra points if you do. This could put you ahead if you're in a tight race in your section. If this is indeed the case that you bypass the player just above you, then you deserve it if pumpkin couldn't be bothered, Nabla or no Nabla 'perfection.'

I will provide a short template page for the AAR. The feedback specifically for the scenario creator is the minimum you should do for 1/2 credit. The actual AAR itself will be the other 1/2 credit.

Toying also with the idea that no player can advance to a 2nd scenario's play without handing in his short AAR for the prior scenario. If you cannot be bothered to type a short comment to at least the scenario creator, then you might be replaced by the stand-in awaiting on the reserve list. All depends if I get my Bob Martin tablets or not when the date arrives for signup.

[CPT T]

I have waited a long time for BF to return to this era. I have many fond memories of my times playing the ROW tourney's. I won some and lost some, but it was fun as hell. Winecaps wine was gud, I saved a bottle for years, but drank the last bottle with good friends. I am looking forward to reconnecting with all the ROW die hards again.

I hope Walpurgisnacht is around. He beat me like a rented mule in Row V, and I need revenge.

I have pre-ordered Normandy and will be there for ROW VI if it happens.

[WineCape]

.....I saved a bottle for years, but drank the last bottle with good friends.

32 bottles you drank in 10 friggin years?! It says so in your profile.

[GreenAsJade]

FWIW, ROW V AARs are still available here

The way the AAR rules were was good. So was the NABLA.

GaJ

[Cpl Carrot]

Glad to see them still around. The authors put a lot of work into them.