Nordic Wannabee Tourney - finals

[Redwolf]

I'm thinking of this:

The good player (GP) who is willing to give us his side of the game

announces what his plan are at this point in time.

Then he gives the last move to Treeburst, Treeburst sends a ceasefire

back. GP gets a chance to say what he thinks will happen for the rest

of the game, now that he knows what the enemy units are, and where.

Based on the other ARRs, people judge whether these projections are

valid. These may be the scenario designer, Treeburst and anyone else

who played the scenario. If people can agree on what will happen,

everything is fine, if not, the scenario designer (if available) or

Treeburst decides.

I or anyone else understanding the scoring system will then make a

calculation for the final score based on further projected losses and

flag possesion. A recent move where one flag is neutral will be very

helpful to do that. People can and should review the calculation.

The description of the scoring is on http://thforums.com/CMBO/

And I want results, better sooner than later, I can certainly

understand why Treeburst is pissed

[Mr. Johnson--]

I think most people who have played these scenarios should be able to make a decent and fair judgment, would just take a few seconds. And then we can move on.

[Sir Uber General]

Here is my current game status:

Meeting of Devils, V Michael Cooper

Last received turn on 27March, replied with turn on same day

Aftermath v keenedder@aol

Last received turn on 11March, replaied with on the 12th

I am sending reminders to these guy now. I'd love to finish these and will IP at next chance to get the games out the way. Will take sickie if needed

**if these guys cant do it I am more than happy for a fill-in to take their place**

[ April 14, 2002, 08:01 PM: Message edited by: Sir Uber General ]

[imported_WARHAMMER]

Dido.....I'll throw my hat in if needed!

Kurt

[Sir Uber General]

ok Ive organised with Coops to get the meeting of devils game done tonight my time. Hopefully I'll get a response from keenedder soon and finish that game tommorrow.

Fingers crossed.

Uber

[ April 15, 2002, 02:20 AM: Message edited by: Sir Uber General ]

[edgars]

Please please please, don't shut down this tourney (i think i have a chance to get into finals). If i can help in any way, i'm ready to do so!

[Sir Uber General]

Curse my stupidity.

I left the password for the ALLIED side in the scenario meeting of devils at work. If you played this side / know the password please send it to adam@atnet.net.au

thanks

[ April 15, 2002, 08:37 AM: Message edited by: Sir Uber General ]

[edgars]

Treeburst has all the passwords. Ask him.

[Sir Uber General]

Yeah I did ciks... unfortunately Ihave my allied opponent waiting to IP me and he wont wait forver.

You didnt happen to play ALLIES on that one?

**note I am not a cheat, i'm just a mindless idiot**

[ April 15, 2002, 08:24 AM: Message edited by: Sir Uber General ]

[edgars]

Mail is on the way.

Ok, as i've started talking, i had an idea that when BOTH Nordic championships are over, the winner of this tourney and the other, could meet in some kind of SuperFinal.

What do ya think?

[Sir Uber General]

I think I should go lay down on the highway.

I'm playing allies.

Fortunately I didnt learn anything b4 alt-A'ing out.

So if anyone has the allied pass... please do me a favour.

Much appreciated.

Uber

sigh

[Treeburst155]

Uber-General,

The ALLIED password for "Meeting Of Devils" should be in your box if you still need it. What about your game with Sgt. Gold? I don't have result for that one.

To All,

If I can collect all the latest files of the unfinished games, I could then ceasefire the games and send the files and passwords to all of you, who are NOT in section one, to judge the final scores.

I would then take the average of all the judged scores for each game to get the final score. Luckily all the MIAs are in one section. That means the rest of you will have less trouble being impartial since nothing is at stake for you in your section.

I think this is an excellent solution!! Thanks guys for helping me work this out.

Hmmm....rather than make everybody a judge (unnecessary I think), how about we take the first 10 volunteers? This will give me a nice average for the final score. Section One is ineligible for judging duties.

The judges' duties will be simply to assign a final CM score to the unfinished games based on their analysis of the entire situation (turn #, casualties, VLs, unit locations, ammo levels, unit morale, global morale, etc.).

What think ye?

EDIT: I could even send the judges the files WITHOUT cease-firing the games first. They could then cease-fire themselves to see the current AAR report and/or play the game out PBEM against themselves. I would of course supply both passwords.

Treeburst155 out.

[ April 15, 2002, 03:43 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[Wreck]

I volunteer. Um... am I in section 1?

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Treeburst155:

If I can collect all the latest files of the unfinished games, I could then ceasefire the games and send the files and passwords to all of you, who are NOT in section one, to judge the final scores.

I would then take the average of all the judged scores for each game to get the final score.

There is one problem with that and that is to tell the final score.

People will have an idea what losses and flag possesion the rest of the game will see, but making that into a final score includes some math.

Intuition won't do, see complains about end-game flag rushes, not knowing how useless they are. The in-game score display is very approximate and modifying it to include further losses or changed flags is not trivial.

[Treeburst155]

You're right, Redwolf. The judges would be making judgment calls based on what they can learn from looking at both sides of the games carefully. There would be no real calculation of a score, just a carefully considered opinion (guess?) as to a likely outcome.

If a judge thinks side A has a slightly better situation he might make a call of 55-45 or 60-40. The judges would be able to play out the games themselves to help them decide. IOW, the judges would just be predicting a degree of victory and assigning a score based on that. With ten people doing that in a careful, deliberative manner I think things could work out well. Remember I'll be taking the average of all the judgments for each scenario. No one judge's decision will carry a great deal of weight. In fact, I could throw out any extreme outlier decisions before calculating the average. It's not perfect, but it's not a bad either.

Having the judges predict specific future losses and calculating a score would be tough and require intimate knowledge of the CM scoring system. I'm not sure the community actually has that knowledge. We have a good idea how things work, but do we know everything?

Dividing casualties inflicted plus VL points obtained by total casualties and total VL points may not be the whole story. Contested VLs are very difficult to predict as you say. I think it will have to be a "feeling" or "impression" that the judges go by. The judges will have to use their best judgment.

Treeburst155 out.

[Redwolf]

(This response is not to press the point, more to answer the questions in general)

Originally posted by Treeburst155:

Having the judges predict specific future losses and calculating a score would be tough and require intimate knowledge of the CM scoring system. I'm not sure the community actually has that knowledge. We have a good idea how things work, but do we know everything?

I am pretty sure I know everything except I would have to determine some more exit value multiplicators, but that is trivial.

Having said this, I can only project with precision when I have a current or at least recent game state where one flag is neutral. This could be done by test-playing one of the games for a turn and make one flag neutral by evacuating it.</font>{*}

Dividing casualties inflicted plus VL points obtained by total casualties and total VL points may not be the whole story.

They are not, I know more. It's on the thforums link above.

Contested VLs are very difficult to predict as you say.

I think you misunderstood me. I need the neutral flag to eliminate one variable from my equotations.

If you meant it will be hard to predict whether a flag is neutral - yepp, that touches the heart of why I would prefer a real calculation instead of guessing. A small or even big flag doesn't mean jack in a game with high casulties. Making a flag neutral has only one implication: it makes the knockout points more important. But people are likely to give a player a big bonus if they predict he will reach a flag, which would not be correct and no good for the unbalanced scoring system in use here.

Again, I don't want to press the point, but I know for sure that the majority of players does not know how what effect various events have on victory level. See all the complains about flag rushes, or not understanding losing on the opponent's surrender.

{*}in fact, I think this would be a fun experiment:

1) somebody plays a game he got in turn 25 or so to the end, say turn 30

2) he give me the state at turn 25

3) he tells me what got knockout out between 25 and 30 and which flags changed, but not the final score

4) I predict the final score

5) he/she tells me the actual score

6) we have a good laugh and spend our free time on useful things (taxes...)

[ April 15, 2002, 06:24 PM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[Treeburst155]

Redwolf,

I just read your entire CM scoring article. That's a really fine piece of work there! I agree that some scenario designers don't take size, location, and number of VLs under consideration as much as they should.

Treeburst155 out.

[Treeburst155]

I'm thinking, Redwolf. I will post again later. I'm really impressed with your research on the CM scoring.

Treeburst155 out.

[Jack Trap]

To judge an incomplete game seems a little dicey. I still remember how I did in each game, and if I were to judge I would end up comparing their performace against mine. The judging perimeters would have to be very tight, but then why use a judging panel in the first place?

Is there anyway to finish those games automatically? This may sound strange, but could an AI be plugged in for both sides and the game resumed to conclusion?

For those player who can't find their Nordic Wannabee Tournament Commemoration Socks remember- they are the ones embroidered with the phrase: These socks will never run!

[Treeburst155]

I have another idea. Since all the MIAs are in section one, we will score the tournament as if Section One never existed. Don't panic, Section One, read on.

Sections 2-4 will be scored as normal with the Nordic Championship results used to determine the median. Section One's partial results will not be used at all. This will give 42 games to determine the median.

We then need to pick a Section One winner. Section One now officially consists of Redwolf, Mare Ichthys, and Uber General. The other three are hereby relieved of command. The deadline is passed.

These three could play a two game round robin with small scenarios I can create rather quickly. This playoff will be scored just like the finals. Since there are only three players and two small scenarios this might be accomplished within a few weeks.

Having selected the Section One winner in this manner, we could then move on to the finals. I think we would need new scenarios for these finals as this tourney will be far behind the Nordic Championships. The finalists would probably be stuck with scenarios created by me.

If we do all this, 75% of the players are not affected by the MIAs. The remaining 12.5% will have their tourney results thrown out, but they will get to have the two game playoff instead.

Whaddaya think?

Treeburst155 out.

[Redwolf]

Before we come to a conclusion, I want to know which turns Sir Ueber Generals games are in, obviously that plays a big role and we didn't see that info yet. Sir?

Even better, the current victory status (if Treeburst would ceasefire them it would be more precise than Sir just posting).

[Treeburst155]

I agree. We need to hear from The Uber General himself. We need the last files sent to the MIAs. When I get these files I will cease-fire them and see what's up.

Apparently, Uber General's TCP/IP arrangements didn't work out since I don't have the results. Good try anyway, Herr Uber General. TCP/IP is above and beyond the call of duty since this is a PBEM tourney.

Treeburst155 out.

[Sir Uber General]

Darn.

Real life and exploding modems have stopped Cooper and I doing meeting of devils. We are going to be played 2night even if we are canned (cmbo is fun remember?)

Tree: I'm sending you my last turn files for all games thus far.

[Treeburst155]

Uber says, "CM is supposed to be fun, remember?"

Good point, Uber General!!

I have received information on the following unfinished games:

Cooper_fytinghellfish: On turn 5

fytinghellfish_UberGeneral: On turn 15 (of 28)

Cooper_UberGeneral: On turn 7

It is clear that none of the games have progressed far enough to even waste time trying to predict a likely outcome.

There is also a problem with my plan above for a section one playoff. I must have an even number of players in order for the scoring program to work. Because of this, and the fact I have already spent quite a bit of time and energy on the MIA problem, not to mention I would need to create two scenarios; I think we should wrap this up since it has become more work than fun for me at this point.

I will post the final stats for sections 2-4 so those guys will know who won in their sections. With that done, the tourney will be officially completed. Thanks again to all who finished or at least tried to finish; and thanks to Nabla and Wild Bill for the great scenarios.

You can expect the Section 2-4 results to be posted here within, say 36 hours. It takes some time to prepare the input file.

You may now discuss the scenarios if you want to. I will start a thread in the "scenarios" forum. The Nordic Championship players will be directed to that thread too since they played the same scenarios.

Treeburst155 out.

[Ricochet]

Treeburst, let me just say thanks and thanks again for putting this together. It was a most enjoyable tournament. The scenarios were well designed and the competition superb.

I’m sorry things didn’t come to a complete conclusion but what there was worked great.

A hearty well done.

Ted

(And boy am I looking forward to a CMBB tournament)