Larger MP Community?

[JayA55]

I'm trying to decide between Black Sea and FB and would like to base my decision off of which game would be easier to find a variety of MP opponents for. I'm assuming it would be FB, can anyone speak on that? I'm really just looking to buy and play for PBM so I hope one of the two would be viable for that. 

 

Thanks

[A Canadian Cat]

 I have no idea. Both theBlitz and A Few Good Men have active communities for both games. There are more ww2 players probably but CMFB is no more active than CMBS as far as I can tell.

Both are good games. I would recommend picking the time frame you like best.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I just looked at the latest results for the past 90 days on TheBlitz ladders and there have been 40 FB games completed over that time span compared to 4 BS games

[Jammersix]

Most BS players don't play on ladders.

P.S. You're asking your question in the wrong place. The answer here will be weighted. (Obviously.)

Edited September 6, 2016 by Jammersix

[Ithikial_AU]

Over at the Few Good Men our ladder system maintains a whole bunch of data behind the scenes on the type of games being played by our members. It's a hands down win for the WW2 era games at our club. I honestly thought when CMBS came out that the modern era wouldn't necessarily beat the WW2 games, but I thought it would have a bigger presence that it's actually developed. That's not to say there isn't a modern era player base!

WW2 games are the four colours at the bottom of the graph.

[Vanir Ausf B]

nm

Edited September 6, 2016 by Vanir Ausf B

[A Canadian Cat]

Well there ya go.  Better answers with actual data - nice.

[The Steppenwulf]

4 hours ago, Ithikial_AU said:

 It's a hands down win for the WW2 era games at our club. I honestly thought when CMBS came out that the modern era wouldn't necessarily beat the WW2 games, but I thought it would have a bigger presence that it's actually developed. 

 

BS shows a higher battle count than all the other games, does it not? That means therefore that BS is healthier than any other single family when taken in single comparison.

If one were to group all the ww2 games together to illustrate comparative interest against BS that may be a distorted picture; I can imagine that many gamers will interchange between playing BN/FI and FB and perhaps even have multiple games going across the ww2 era families. BS  -as a different era game - won't necessarily benefit as much as th other families in this regard.   

[sburke]

9 minutes ago, The Steppenwulf said:

BS shows a higher battle count than all the other games, does it not? That means therefore that BS is healthier than any other single family when taken in single comparison.
 

I think you are reading the chart wrong. That CMBS is on top is only based on it's release date. The chart is total games. CMBN over all is usually the hands down winner 

[A Canadian Cat]

LOL I was going to say something about the use of a stacked chart but decided not to.  I have now changed my mind .  Data presentation is an interesting area and the misinterpretation that  @The Steppenwulf made is classic (not picking on you man it is a problem with the use of the chart).  So to critique @ithikial_AU 's use of that type of chart there are two issues:

1. A line char is not really appropriate.  Each month has a discrete number of battles.  If you want a trend line then a regression can be applied if you want.
2. A stacked bar makes very hard to compare one thing to another.  This is especially a problem when there are several small values and one big one in the data set.  The scale has to accommodate the total which makes seeing the small values even harder. Then you have the issue of what kind of stacking is this?  One value on top of another?  One value in front of another?  Hence @The Steppenwulf 's confusion.

The most appropriate chart type here would be a multi bar chart where each month had seven bars next to each other.  It might make showing all those months impractical but the scale would change accommodate only the largest and the smaller numbers could be more easily compared.  Plus, no one would interpret the top item as being the largest when it is actually not.

And don't get me started on the misuse of pie charts

[Jammersix]

That chart shows Black Sea as having the highest number of games.

 

[Muzzleflash1990]

No. The area of the entire chart is how many games have been played total. The height of all colors at a given month is how many games were played in total that month.

The area of a particular color is the number of games played with that particular game module - like sburke says, CMBN is the most played (at FGM). The height of a particular color is how many of games with a particular module was played in a given month. For example 2 CBMS games were played in March 2016, but 14 CBMN games in the same month.

The chart for example also indicates there were a large drop drop in interest of RT at the shortly after FB was released.

Edited September 6, 2016 by Muzzleflash1990

[sburke]

22 minutes ago, Jammersix said:

That chart shows Black Sea as having the highest number of games.

 

No it doesn't   it shows BS at the top of the chart, but with the fewest number of games. For example in July 2016 it had 2 games, not 29. As Ian noted, it isn't the best way to display the data.  Note the blip of CMA in July 2015. I doubt it suddenly had 20 games going.  It would be better with actual columns and the number of games for each title in the column. I see a lot of charts of that type at work. This one is too fuzzy. 

 

Err what muzzleflash said. . I type slow. 

Edited September 6, 2016 by sburke

[gnarly]

13 hours ago, Jammersix said:

Most BS players don't play on ladders.

P.S. You're asking your question in the wrong place. The answer here will be weighted. (Obviously.)

This.

 

But I also find I have the highest rate of vanishing/drop-out opponents mid-game with BS players (from my PBEM experiences) .

 

My general feel is that the WW2 titles (obviously) have a much more robust and stable player base (with experienced PBEM opponents), whereas BS, whilst owned by some of these same existing veteran WW2 PBEM players, is also attractive to many players brand new to the CM-series, many of whom aren't ladder players and have little PBEM experience. So finding reliable BS PBEM partners may take a few games....

 

[Vergeltungswaffe]

Also, the lethality of modern weapons can put someone who isn't experienced at playing H2H in a bad position much more quickly in BS than the WWII titles.

[JayA55]

Thanks guys, I guess the activity at FGM and Blitz pretty much sums it up. I wonder why the modern era isn't anywhere near as popular, at least for MP. 

I was hoping for a change of pace, but I still enjoy WW2 era games as well, I bought FB yesterday and love it. Still have my gripes with the static AI, but PBEM will solve that.

[Artemis258]

7 hours ago, gnarly said:

But I also find I have the highest rate of vanishing/drop-out opponents mid-game with BS players (from my PBEM experiences) .

 

My general feel is that the WW2 titles (obviously) have a much more robust and stable player base (with experienced PBEM opponents), whereas BS, whilst owned by some of these same existing veteran WW2 PBEM players, is also attractive to many players brand new to the CM-series, many of whom aren't ladder players and have little PBEM experience. So finding reliable BS PBEM partners may take a few games....

 

This is true, but I think there's also something to be said with the popularity of the game since BS... I think (and the data seems to support this) that there's been a growth in players on the back of the release of RT (somewhat) and BS (more) and then FB benefiting from this increased popularity (and publicity!) even more... TFGM has grown a lot of late, and there's a natural attrition that will become more pronounced as the proportion of vets-new members ebbs and flows... I've lost my first opponent mid-game recently, and I've had one other slow right down... both were comparatively new members... One was a BS opponent, the other was RT.

If you're still looking for an opponent @JayA55 I can heartily endorse @gnarly ! He's a regular rival of mine, feel free to check out our DAR ongoing here and in TFGM (damn, need to update that!) 

[Ithikial_AU]

<Sigh> There you go you chart Nazi's. The area chart it's just nice to see the proportions change month to month in a nice continuous series. As long as you realise the different series are being added on top of each other it's pretty easy to read. However CMBN as a proportion has dropped off once CMFB has been released.

Our ladder has always been that one step more casual than other clubs as most of our members have vastly different amounts of time to commit to playing games. It's more of an ongoing record of achievements over the long term. The idea is to get this information loaded up onto the website proper as a bit of a player database to help even planners and members find opponents a bit easier. (ie you can easily check who owns what games and what sized battles they prefer to fight with a simple click). RL for Bootie and myself is simply too busy at the moment to push ahead on with this so it stays behind the scenes for the moment.

 

For the super nerdy... our ladder also has a 'Country of Origin' rivalry going on behind the scenes.

 

 

[Artemis258]

@Ithikial_AU & @gnarly how are we letting the spanish beat us? 

[Ithikial_AU]

16 minutes ago, Artemis258 said:

@Ithikial_AU & @gnarly how are we letting the spanish beat us? 

Whoops. And I just discovered a bug. Was still counting the 2015 member list rather than the updated 2016 equivalent. (Australia is actually beating the Spanish). It's just a fun side count, doesn't have any baring on the main FGM ladder results.

[A Canadian Cat]

Cool.  If this is adjusted to a per-capita rate Canada jumps up.  Mind you it also helps Australia and the Netherlands so we probably only wind up third.

PS. Still not a fan of stacked bars but hey better than a stacked line chart

[Jammersix]

Those are the worst charts I've ever seen.