Chance Encounter double-blind game complete

[Guest L Tankersley]

John Hough and I just wrapped up a PBEM game of Chance Encounter. Neither of us read the opponent's briefing, and we avoided spoiler posts as much as was practicable. It was a hard-fought, bloody contest, with both sides having more-or-less equal shares of luck (both good & bad) and mistakes (strategic and tactical). The final standings: German 55, American 45 (the post-game screen called that an Axis minor victory, but I wouldn't be upset calling it a draw).

The Axis suffered 176 casualties (43 KIA) plus 4 men captured and 2 vehicles knocked out, with 74 men remaining. The Allies suffered 142 casualties (40 KIA) plus 9 men captured and 4 vehicles knocked out, with 81 men remaining. Both sides had final global morale levels of 28%. The Germans held the two northern victory locations, while the Americans held the south. The two remaining AFVs (a StuG and the up-armored Sherman 75) both had bogged and been immobilised on opposite sides of the main ridge, out of sight of each other.

Although both of us did a pretty good job estimating the opposition's forces early on, not being certain definitely added sauce to the game. I definitely recommend that people consider playing a few games blind in this manner. [bTW, a German AAR is available if anyone's interested - John might be convinced to throw together a US AAR as well.]

Nice fight, John!

Leland J. Tankersley

[John Hough]

Aye, great game... As much as possible, in the final version, I think I'll try to play the scenarios that come with the game (and any others) double blind. And this leaves me with the firm conviction that the duplicate bridge method is better than the duplicate game method for doing tournaments.

btw, the score was looking like 47-53 before that surprise nahveridigungswaffe caused those 8 guys to surrender...

And we discover my ulterior motive for asking Fionn to post the victory percentages for each victory level. But that game really did look like a draw... shattered infanrty forces and an immobilized afv on each side, both sides able to hold position but not advance... The cease fire was called after 25 minutes of brutal fighting.

btw, no one play Lee... he uses voodoo magic, and infantry AT is worthless against him.

-John

[Guest Captain Foobar]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>in the final version, I think I'll try to play the scenarios that come with the game (and any others) double blind. And this leaves me with the firm conviction that the duplicate bridge method is better than the duplicate game method for doing tournaments.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hallelujah! I've been waiting to hear somebody else say that. I am on turn 14 of a double blind "chance encounter" right now, and its the most fun I've had yet! I am personally confident that we can come up with some well balanced scenarios to do this with!

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"when in doubt, run in circles"

[John Hough]

Ah, but the beauty of the Duplicate Bridge style tournament is that you don't even need balanced scenarios...

[Fionn]

47 vs 53 is DEFINITELY a draw.

John, explain the bridge concept in as much detail as you can please. I'm not very familiar with it and so want an explanation so I can evaluate it as fairly as possible.

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___________

Fionn Kelly

Manager of Historical Research,

The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers

[Guest L Tankersley]

Ah, but the actual final score when the Americans finally accepted the cease-fire was 55-45. I figured that's probably also a draw, or maybe on the border between draw and minor victory. Judged on the merits, I'd have to call it a stalemate.

In a duplicate bridge tournament, say there are enough players available for 10 tables. In that case, there are 10 pre-built hands ("scenarios") that are played. Half of the players will play North-South ("Allies") in each hand, while the other half plays East-West ("Axis"). Every pair plays every hand, but against a different opponent each time. So every Allied player (ok, I've abandoned the bridge analogy, everyone still with me?) gets to play every scenario, but against a different Axis player every time. The Allied players are competing against the other Allied players, while the Axis players are competing with the other Axis players. The goal is to do "better" on every given scenario than the average player of your side did. So even if a given scenario is completely unbalanced against your side, you can earn points and move up in the standings by doing better than the other people on your side did with that scenario.

A simple example: say in 10 playings of Chance Encounter the average Axis score was 38. If you scored more than 38 as the Axis, you would gain points relative to the rest of the Axis players, even if you lost the scenario. Conversely, Allied players of the same scenario would need to score more than 62 points to avoid losing ground on this scenario. The tournament is self-balancing in this manner.

Another feature of this style is that everyone plays every scenario, unlike an elimination-style tournament where fewer people play in each round. (This might or might not be considered an advantage.)

If you didn't want to be restricted to always playing Axis or Allies during the tournament, that wouldn't really pose a problem - you would score based on performance of your side in any given scenario. Just a bit more bookkeeping is all.

Particulars of how to do the scoring don't matter all that much - at first blush I'd suggest that players just earn points equal to the difference between their score and the mean score of all playings of that scenario.

One potential flaw is that you can't really know how you're doing until the tournament is over, since the means can't be computed until all playings are complete. If you post the scores so far, you can at least get a good idea, though. And that might be a plus, as it keeps interest alive longer.

One other possible plus is that if you want to play new scenarios double-blind in the tournament, this scoring system discourages people from sharing details about the scenario, as it would only help people they are in competition with. Probably the potential for leaks would outweigh that, though, over the timeframe of a tournament.

Leland J. Tankersley

[John Hough]

Ok, I thought I went into it in sufficient detail in my previous post on the subject, but I shall do so again.

The problems facing those who wish to organize a bridge tournament are threefold:

1. You must have a tournament that is fair to all participants.

2. Randomly dealt hands of bridge are inherently unfair.

3. A large portion of the game of bridge, the bidding, is lost if both parties do not go into it blind. With 'fog of war', if you will.

This seems a situation analagous to cm, so is worth pursuing further.

The typical Duplicate Bridge tournament has 26 pairs of players, 13 north-south pairs, and 13 east-west pairs. In truth, this is mostly custom, as any even number of pairs works, though it helps to have an odd number of pairs on each side, because of the method of assigning hands.

At the beginning of the tournament, each table deals out a random hand. This hand is saved, after it is played out and the score recorded. The north-south pairs stay at their tables, while the east-west pairs move around the room one way, and the cards are passed around the room the other. (this is why it helps to have an odd number of pairs on each side, so every team plays every hand and every team on the other side without fiddling around with the order) Every team plays every hand once, and every north-south team plays every east-west team once. The scores for each hand are recorded. For each team a team does better than on a hand, it scores one point, and for each team it ties, it gets half a point. The scores are tallied, and a winning north-south team and a winning east-west team are declared at the end of the tournament. (this is because there are still possible hands that are harder to bid on one side or the other.) Team of four contests are similar, except that some fiddling with the order must be done, as the entirety of each team faces each other team on the same hand. (so n-s of team 1 faces e-w of team 2 on the same hand that n-s of team 1 faces e-w of team 2)

So on to how this works for cm. You have a number of commanders, some on the axis side, and some on the allied side. The tournament administrators make a map each week (or so, maybe 2) Every axis commander plays each allied commander once, and plays each map once. (and each allied commander plays each, of course.. ) You record the scores, and For each other player on the same side a player beats on each map, he scores one point. Half-points are probably a lot rarer in cm than in bridge, but you award them too. At the end you have a winning axis and a winning allied commander. (or a team of two, if you choose to structure your tournament that way)

This does take a fair amount of time for the number of players involved. (far more than an elimination tournament) But it does accomplish the main goal of having a fair contest in an inherently unfair game, while preserving fog of war. It also rewards exceptional effort and ability, and encourages players to take risks for the big scores, making games more exciting for those watching. There is the slight drawback that you don't get one clear winner of the tournament, and if that's really important to you, you can have one final duplicate-game match at the end.

-John Hough

btw, sorry if I'm overly long-winded or sound like I'm 'talking down' to you. Just want to make sure I'm clear, since I'm not terribly good at explaining things...

[John Hough]

Yeh.. Lee explained it better, and faster too.

[Moon]

55 to 45 is still a draw. I think you need at least 58 points for a minor victory.

[SS_PanzerLeader]

Hey guys sounds like a tough fight and I'm glad people are already debating ways of handling this competitively.

One thing I that I noticed with the idea of a blind game in a tournament, is that there is no gauarantee that this will truely be blind.

THere is nothing stopping a person checking out the scenario whilst playing an opponent. For example they can evaluate each sides foreces terrain and even run a sample game if they so chose while concurrently playing their opponent, this would give them a significant edge.

I would never do this I hate people that cheat -it doesnt prove anything, but unfortunately winning is the only thing to some no matter how.

Any feedback?

SS_PanzerLeader.......out

[Harold Jones]

There is no way to completely prevent cheating in a pbem tournement. It seems there is always some sad little person who defines himself by his ability to massage the system and "beat" other players.

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If something cannot be fixed by hitting it or by swearing at it, it wasn't worth saving anyway.

[Strider]

If it were possible for the scenerio designer to password protect each side and only release the password to the side playing, this might reduce the problem.

I agree with Harold

I too, look forward to playing 'blind'. Got in a hurry with Chance Encounter and didn't think about trying this til it was too late. At least I'll get my chances in a month or two (or three)

[John Hough]

Unfortunately, preserving fog of war simply requires you to trust people. No matter how secure you make scenarios, you can still get a couple of players colluding with each other, telling each other troop dispositions and such. I'd like to think you can get enough people who care more about Honor and enjoying the game than about Glory to get a reasonably sized fun tournament. I'd also think that it would be fairly obvious, after a few games, if people were getting access to information they shouldn't...

-John

[Moon]

Actually, I think with CM there is a way to preserve complete FOW, and that is with the DYO Scenario generator. If you start it up as PBEM, no player, also not the one that generated it, can have a peek before the actual game starts.

[SS_PanzerLeader]

It would still be possible even after the game starts to view the scenario

SS_PanzerLeader.....out

[John Hough]

Well, yes, I suppose the DYO thing will work out for one-off battles. But one-off battles you generally don't have to worry about trusting the other guy, there's not much in the way of Glory to be had. Unfortunately, in tournaments of whichever variety, you want to have multiple players playing the same scenario. Also, I expect human-designed scenarios, for the most part, will be superior to computer-designed ones.

-John