Treeburst155

I agree the horse race is fun to watch as it unfolds. I would probably vote for full disclosure inspite of how it affects player tactics toward the end, just for that reason. However, modifying tactics based on various statistics isn't too realistic. Every battle should be played like it is the ONLY battle. On the bright side, the revelation of the tourney results will be fun. For example, Player A scores an 80-20 victory on a scenario, only to find out at the end he was only 2 points over the median for his side of that scenario. LOL! There will be much to discuss when all is finally revealed. Scoring AARs AARs will be scored as follows: I edited this out as I thought of a problem. I'm back to the drawing board on this. 9-5 in favor of full blackout! Cast your vote today!! Treeburst155 out. [ 10-01-2001: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

I like the Wildcard idea!! The Wildcard player would play the section winner with the best score. The two playoff games would use the same scenario. The winners move on to the final championship game with a new scenario. I think any game categorized by CM as a "draw" should be replayed using yet another scenario. I'll be thinking about the playoffs seriously in the next couple weeks. I have plenty of time. I'm putting Wreck down for no battle result information. That makes it 7-5 AGAINST battle results info. I kinda like the idea of giving fairly worthless info out like total CM points earned to date by the players. This info is virtually useless IMO. You know who scored the most CM points so far but you don't know what scenarios/sides they played, how many tourney points result from the raw CM points, or even how many games are reflected in the point total. Anyway, right now we're 7-5 in favor of total blackout. Treeburst155 out.

It appears the program does not like CM scores that do not add up to 100, a common outcome in CM. Once that rather large bug is fixed this will be a great tool! Especially for tourney managers. Let me attempt to clarify for interested players how to use this program. 1) create a .txt file called "battle-results" using the format Nabla described. Keep all Allied scores on the same side. Place this file into the folder that contains the program. 2)from a DOS prompt type "nabla-score-tournament .055 battle-results.txt final-scores.txt" without the quotation marks. Be sure you are in the folder first. The program will generate a file called "final scores.txt" in the same folder as the program, which you open to see the results. You can score a whole tournament all at once, not just one scenario at a time. Treeburst155 out.

I see no problem with taking the average of the final scenario scores rather than just summing them up. Like you say, the final ordering of players is the same. I will be playing with the program over the next few days. Proposed matchup selection program: This would be a good thing to insure players aren't repeatedly compared with the same players in their scenarios. I'm going to look at my Wild Bill schedule which was set up to split attack/defend duties without regard to who gets compared to whom just out of curiousity. I suspect this may only be a significant issue with smaller tournaments. Proposed program #2: This is the one most useful to the players I think. If they can get the tourney score for different distances from the median they will gain a good understanding of the curve. However, once the curve has been decided on there would just be one chart/graph necessary. I assume this program would allow players to change the curve and look at results. This would be nice. There could be tourneys with steep curves and shallow curves based on players' wishes. With this program they would be able to determine the curve they like, just as I have done with my calculator. I'm downloading your latest now. Thanks, Nabla!! Treeburst155 out.

Time for a bump. What's the scoop, troops? You have exactly one month from tomorrow to finish your games. All is proceeding smoothly I hope. Treeburst155 out.

Outlier results such as Fionn's in the above example are really not adequately compensated using this curve if one assumes the victory was achieved against an opponent who was trying his best to score well, as opposed to playing for "fun" because he can no longer win the tournament. However, if a player shows consistent excellent play his large victories are rewarded amply enough that he will still pull away from the pack and win the tournament. The difference between Fionn's final tourney total and the next in line may not be proportional to the actual CM point difference between the two, but first place is still first place. Treeburst155 out. [ 09-30-2001: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

I never discussed how AARs will count towards your score with the new scoring system. That's because I haven't decided how to work that yet. Rest assured all AARs are being entered on my spreadsheet. I'll be discussing the scoring of AARs with Nabla. I want them to help a player out, but not win the tournament for him unless two players are fairly close before applying AAR points. I do know that AAR points will not figure into the median. They will be in the form of tourney points tacked on after your CM score has been run through the formula. Treeburst155 out.

As reported by Fuerte, Ari Maenpaa won their game by a score of 63-37. Congratulations, Ari!! Ari is undefeated after two games and has an average score of 70.50. I will update the standing sometime today. Fuerte, Don't pay any attention to jShandorf. He's a member of The Pool. Nothing he says makes any sense. Besides, he's just mad because his average has slipped recently. LOL!! John Kettler, We need a rocket attack on Shandorf ASAP!! Treeburst155 out.

Tabpub, How we are going to handle the 3 way playoff series is still way up in the air. I don't know what scenarios, or even what type of scenarios to use yet. I agree determining the median from such a small sample is probably not the best way to go. The scoring of the finals should probably be more conventional. I'm open to any and all suggestions concerning every aspect of the playoffs. I really haven't spent a great deal of time thinking about the playoffs yet. JPS, I'll switch your vote to "no information" which tilts the tally to 6-5 AGAINST information on completed battles. Giving players scores of scenarios they've already completed is labor intensive, just like giving AARs to players as they finish a scenario. I've come to the conclusion I wouldn't have the time to do all that. The AARs in all their glory will be made available at the end of the regular "season" before the playoffs begin. Battle outcome info would just have to be a post to this thread or a website update. OK, we're 6-5 in favor of complete information blackout. Cast your votes! EDIT: How about this idea? Once per week I would publish players' total raw CM points achieved so far. You would know who has the most CM points on record but you wouldn't know how many games are represented by those points or which scenarios he earned the points on. This would be just teaser information, really. Just a thought. Treeburst155 out. [ 09-30-2001: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

It's good to hear you're back in business, John. We haven't heard any good arty stories in awhile. LOL!! I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. Forgive me, please. Wild Bill's Rumblings of War Scoring System (complete explanation) First of all, the primary purpose of this rather elaborate scoring system is to make it possible to measure skill inspite of scenario imbalance, since balance in CM is VERY difficult to achieve and is also not very realistic. The other thing accounted for with this scoring system is inconsistent play that gives big victories to players simply because their opponent surrenders prematurely or tries very risky tactics just for the fun of it. A person might play like this when he no longer feels he has a chance to win the tourney. His play, in such a case, would not be up to his real capabilities. This scoring system limits to a certain degree the points awarded for huge victories while still giving a nice bonus to those who manage one. The result is that a couple huge victories will put you noticeably out in front, but you will not be able to run away with the tournament. You will still have to exhibit strong play in the rest of your games to win the fine wines. A player exhibiting consistent strong performance with no huge victories will be nipping at your heels. By the same token, if you have an especially bad game you do not find yourself hopelessly out of the running. Strong play in your other games will overcome your lapse of command ability in that disastrous game. HOW IT WORKS Across the three sections each scenario will be played twelve times by the twenty four players. Your score in a scenario will be listed among the eleven others who played that scenario from the side you did. When all the results are in for that scenario the median score will be determined for each side of the scenario. The median of a list of numbers is the number that has an equal amount of numbers lower than it, and higher than it. For example the median of this group of scores is 7 {1 3 6 7 8 10 14}. If there is an even amount of numbers in the group the median is midway between the two numbers that split the center. The median of this group is 6 {1 2 5 7 8 9}. You can think of the median as the average, but with less weight being given to extreme outliers. The median will usually be fairly near the average except in the case of outliers. Once the median for a side in a scenario is determined by looking at the twelve scores for that side, your distance from the median comes into play. If the median score for a side of a scenario is twenty five and you score thirty five points then you scored ten points over the median. BTW, if the median is much less than fifty using twelve games to calculate it then you have an unbalanced scenario. This does not matter using this system. After we figure the difference (either +/-) between your score and the median we plug that figure into a formula Nabla came up with. You do not need to worry about this formula! Nabla is making a simple program so you can see how it works in various hypothetical situations of your own creation without the need of a fancy calculator or college level math skills. If you can figure out the median you can come up with final tourney scores. The formula translates your distance from the median (+/-) into a tourney score. This is your final score for that scenario. The sum of all your final scores for the eight scenarios is how the winner will be determined in your section. Keep in mind that although game scores will be compared with players across the three sections to determine the median, the final tally of your scores will only be compared with those in your section. The more games used to determine the median, the more accurate the median will be. Determining the median is, in effect, determining the balance of a scenario. The more samples the better. That's why we go outside your section to come up with the median. Scoring summarized: 1) Compare scores of all players playing the same side in the scenario and determine the median. 2) Determine each player's distance in points , either plus or minus, from the median. (CM score - median = distance from median) 3) Plug this number into Nabla's formula and out comes your tourney score for that scenario. 4) Total all eight tourney scores to arrive at players' final scores. 5) The highest final scores in each section win that section and move on to the playoff series. There ya have it. In case you are mathematically inclined here is the formula: (d) represents your distance from the median. (d) can be positive or negative. (sgn) This represents the sign of (d). In place of (sgn) you will put either a "+" or a "-" into the formula. a This is the variable that determines the shape of the curve. To use the formula you need to substitute .055 for "a". e This is an interesting number equal to approximately 2.718. Like "pi" it has interesting mathematical properties which is the only reason it is used, according to Nabla. Scientific calculators have an "e" key on them. Now the formula: (sgn)(1/a)*(1-e to the power of (-a*|d|)) Don't worry about it!! Nabla's got a program coming you can use that will do all this automatically for you. I'll also be posting hypotheticals from time to time to help you get a handle on this. The main thing to understand is that consistent strong play is what you should strive for without getting caught up in the desire for overwhelming victories. If you see a golden opportunity for a Major victory you might go for it; but don't take big risks to achieve it. Treeburst155 out.

I like what Lawyer did too, Rommel. You, living in population center, probably do have many CM fans within an hours drive of you. Perhaps one of them will catch on to Lawyer's idea. The free beer is the real attractant, I think. Maybe one of the older CMers in your area will throw something together. Unfortunately, you would not be able to attend if it was in a bar. Being young is tough sometimes, eh? Who lives between Dallas, Memphis, New Orleans, and Springfield, Mo.? We could have a CM convention in Little Rock. So what, you might have to drive 6 hours. That's what we get for living in the stix. I'll buy a few rounds. Treeburst155 out.

OK, adding Mpisi and Holien to the tally we now have 6-5 in favor of limited battle results info. This is going to be one of those "you can't please everybody" situations, I can tell. Cast Your Votes!! Moving on to the scoring system. I'm just about satisfied with what I've worked out using Nabla's fancy formula. Here is an attempt to try to illustrate, using a practical example, how the "Nabla System" works: Consider a scenario balanced in favor of the Germans such that the Allied median CM score is 30. Below is a typical set of Allied player results with one extreme outlier who we will call Fionn. Fionn represents the guy who demonstrates consistent excellent play. The CM score is on the left and the converted tourney score is on the right. Fionn.....70...16.17 Player B..50...12.13 Player C..33...02.77 Player D..30...00.00 Player E..27...-2.77 Player F..24...-5.11 Player G..11...-11.79 Keep in mind these are all Allied scores achieved on the same scenario that is out of balance in favor of the Germans. Player B did well having managed a dead even draw inspite of the German advantage. For this he scores almost 10 full points more than Player C who just beat the median. Fionn actually managed a high tactical victory from the disadvantaged side. This is quite an accomplishment. His reward is 4 more points than player B even though player B himself did substantially better than the median. Hardest hit by this scenario is player F who only fell 6 points short of the median but lost 5.11 points. Since he is in the steep part of the curve every point from the median costs him close to one tourney point. Of course, the same is true on the plus side of the median, which makes up for this. Player G took quite a beating compared to the others who played his side and suffers accordingly. Interesting to note is even if player G had scored 0 points he would only lose approximately 14.25 points. This is because he can do no worse than -30 of the median with this side of the scenario. Regardless of the median score players should keep in mind that the most points you can lose or gain using this curve is 18.11. A bad game can only do so much damage to your situation. A couple moderately good games will make up for it. By the same token, a lucky overwhelming victory because your opponent had other things on his mind will not allow you to run away with the tournament title. Consistent play at 10-15 above the median is what players need. Major victories will add noticeable icing to the cake but you can't rest on your laurels. I like it, but am still looking at other curves. I have now mastered the formula on my fancy calculator so I can explore the curves. Nabla is working on a program for everyone that will allow them to explore the scoring system themselves without the need for a $100 calculator. Unless Nabla comes up with something he thinks is better, I think we've just about perfected "The Nabla CM Scoring System". Treeburst155 out.

Get some sleep, Nabla. You have two hours. Let's test out the curve above. Consider a scenario balanced in favor of the Germans such that the Allied median CM score is 30. Below is a typical set of Allied player results with one extreme outlier who we will call Fionn. Fionn represents the guy who demonstrates consistent excellent play. The CM score is on the left and the converted tourney score is on the right. Fionn.....70...16.17 Player B..50...12.13 Player C..33...02.77 Player D..30...00.00 Player E..27...-2.77 Player F..24...-5.11 Player G..11...-11.79 Keep in mind these are all Allied scores achieved on the same scenario that is out of balance in favor of the Germans. Player B did well having managed a dead even draw inspite of the German advantage. For this he scores almost 10 full points more than Player C who just beat the median. Fionn actually managed a high tactical victory from the disadvantaged side. This is quite an accomplishment. His reward is 4 more points than player B even though player B himself did substantially better than the median. Hardest hit by this scenario is player F who only fell 6 points short of the median but lost 5.11 points. Since he is in the steep part of the curve every point from the median costs him close to one tourney point. Of course, the same is true on the plus side of the median, which makes up for this. Player G took quite a beating compared to the others who played his side and suffers accordingly. Interesting to note is even if player G had scored 0 points he would only lose approximately 14.25 points. This is because he can do no worse than -30 of the median with this side of the scenario. Regardless of the median score players should keep in mind that the most points you can lose or gain using this curve is 18.11. A bad game can only do so much damage to your situation. A couple moderately good games will make up for it. By the same token, a lucky overwhelming victory because your opponent had other things on his mind will not allow you to run away with the tournament title. Consistent play at 10-15 above the median is what players need. Major victories will add noticeable icing to the cake but you can't rest on your laurels. I like it, but am still looking at other curves. I have now mastered the formula on my fancy calculator so I can explore the curves. Nabla is working on a program for everyone that will allow them to explore the scoring system themselves without the need for a $100 calculator. Unless Nabla comes up with something he thinks is better, I think we've perfected "The Nabla CM Scoring System". Treeburst155 out.

Yep, Kump is right. V5 FSAA just looks better than Geforce in CM for whatever reason. The price you pay is performance. If CM was all I played I would go with the V5. Since I like to play racing games I want the performance of Geforce. Treeburst155 out.

I'm not sure how to count either JPS's vote or Juha's vote. I like Juha's idea of only giving the current average scores for a scenario. This would be fairly useless knowledge until the last weeks of the tourney. I'll put Juha and JPS down as a "YES" vote for limited info. That makes it 6-3 in favor. Cast Your Votes!! Limited info on finished battles or complete blackout. Treeburst155 out.

The little program works great! In a matter of a few minutes I've calculated the values for "a" yielding max rewards from 10-30 by twos. Thanks, Nabla! EDIT: Heres some thoughts on the curve we get with a=.055. Maximum reward for this curve is 18.11. The curve provides a nice reward for scoring 15-25 over the median when compared with scores within 10 of the median. I think it will be somewhat uncommon for scores to go over 25 of the median. Supposed the median for a scenario is 60. If a player scores 85 he will get 13.58 points while the player on the median will get zero. This is ample reward for outstanding play IMO. Even if a player only manages 15 above the median he gains 10.21 points on anyone at the median. +40 of the median yields 16.17 points. Considering that max (+100 of median) is 18.11 points the curve is nearly flat by +40. This is good since scoring that high would be very rare IMO, and would likely come about by an opponent slipping into "fun and experimentation" mode. If anything, I'm leaning toward an even flatter curve. Here's the numbers for max reward=18.11 achieved with "a"=.055. (d)=40, score=16.17 (d)=35, score=15.53 (d)=30, score=14.69 (d)=25, score=13.58 (d)=20, score=12.13 (d)=15, score=10.21 (d)=10, score=07.69 (d)=05, score=04.37 Another EDIT: Punishment for dropping below the median will be felt but staying just a few points above will be rewarded. Players will want to strive to beat the median rather than take risks to gain huge victories. Consistent strong play is rewarded. I will be studying the effects on the near median scores of different curves now. Treeburst155 out. [ 09-29-2001: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

OK, I'm awake here in Zulu -6. I'll download the program now. BTW, I was wondering why you used "sgn" instead of "sine". I'm sure it will work for me now. I agree with Fionn that it's much more difficult to score 80 points that it is to score 65 points in general, but we're counting on consistent play for that to be true. If player A goes into "experimentation and fun" mode due to perceived poor performance in previous games these overwhelming victories would not be as difficult to achieve against him. We're back to the uniform and consistent play concept. Fionn's proposed use of some sort of calculation involving standard deviation may be the answer, but I certainly wouldn't know considering my high school math skills. I'll follow where Nabla leads as far as the scoring formula is concerned. It would seem to me that consistent excellent scores would result in a player pulling well ahead of the pack using the current Nabla system. It's all a matter of adjusting that value for "a" in the Nabla formula. Treeburst155 out.

EDIT: I just carried my formula out to 100. It appears to be almost linear between 15 and 70, then flattening to 90 and actually begins a slight turn down from 90 to 100. I'm obviously not doing something right. Ah well, it's been fun. Treeburst155 out. [ 09-29-2001: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

Including Wild Bill's vote it is 4 to 3 in favor of names and scores. Kingfish, I don't really understand what you want? Just numbers? That really doesn't help much at all. You at least would need names with the scores, eh? Cast your vote! It could be a close decision. Treeburst155 out.

Peter, I'm working with the formula right now with a scientific calculator I dug out of the closet. Unfortunately, my curve does not look like Nabla's. I'll get it worked out however as soon as Nabla gets online. When I do I will be able to make available lots of charts showing what is happening with the scoring. It will be clear. Nabla, Using a value of .054 for "a" in the formula I calculate a high reward of 18.15 points. Trying various values for (d), the CM score minus the median, my curve looks quite different than yours. As I approach the median it flattens. +/-10 of the median only gives 1.34 points. This means there are only 2.68 points separating -10 from +10. I'm not getting the one for one correspondence you were gettin very near the median. Here's the formula I'm using: sine(d)*(1/a)*(1-"e" to the power of (-a*|d|)) What's wrong with my formula? :confused: Treeburst155 out. [ 09-29-2001: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ] [ 09-29-2001: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

OK, we've got a vote for posting the final scores. I must admit, if I were playing I would like to know scores, sides, scenarios, the whole works, just because I would enjoy following the race. With little to no info you guys won't feel much pressure because you have virtually no idea where you stand. Even if you lost three games in a bad way you could still be alright because you played the tough side of those scenarios. I count two votes for names and scores only, and two votes for complete blackout. Cast your votes!! [ 09-28-2001: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

Attention Jarmo and Fuerte! MickOZ has asked me to inform you that his computer is down, and he can't take it to the shop anytime soon because of a heavy work week followed by a week of vacation when he will not be home. He requests that you hold any turns you have for him. I expect he will be back in action in about 3 weeks. John Kettler, What did Karl do to solve your problem. Is it something I can do next time a situation like yours occurs? Treeburst155 out.

Yes Nabla, I've been editing feverishly for the last couple hours trying to make myself clear. As a matter of fact I do have a C++ compiler, Microsoft's Visual c++. I intended to teach myself C++ at one point but didn't get too far with it. I've probably forgotten how to use the compiler. I'm on a PC BTW. Why do you ask? What good does a compiler do if I can't write programs? Treeburst155 out.

Using a relatively flat curve punishes the median only as the median relates to extreme outliers. I think we should concentrate on the portion of the curve from -40 to +40 of the median, ignoring the effects of outliers further from the median. IOW, outliers more than 40 from the median will be rare enough that we can disregard those tourney scores'relationship to scores packed around the median. A flat curve will appear to punish the median, but only when compared with scores achieved by the extreme outliers beyond +/- 40 of the median. We're in the ballpark with 20.6 as max reward IMO. Like I said above, 18 might be even better. Treeburst155 out. [ 09-28-2001: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

Consider the last graph which depicts a maximum score of 20.6 for being 100 pts. above the median. Only the left hand portion of the graph is really of concern because chances are the highest/lowest outliers will rarely be more than 50 points above the median. This is because it is impossible to score more than 100 CM points in a game. Only if a scenario is extremely out of balance and played very poorly by the person using the strong side would the resulting score be more than 50 off the median. Say the median for the strong side in an unbalanced scenario is 75. Now assume our poor player only manages 10 points from the strong side. This is only -65 from the median even though this is an extreme situation. So, it would seem to me the only relevant portion of the curve is about +/- 40 of the median, maybe even only +/- 30. In that last graph (20.6 max tourney points) the curve works well out to +/- 40 of median. The outlier victories of 80/20 and 70/30 that you compared to the tightly packed group around the median seems to score nicely compared to the median IMO. 15.6 points for those nice victories doesn't seem out of line to me. Perhaps we can flatten it just a bit more. What if max reward was dropped to 18 as opposed to the 20.6 depicted in the last graph? My main point here is that the entire curve is not relevant, only +/- 30 or 40 of the median. Do you agree? Treeburst155 out.