Public Demand: Who wants to see Titans of TH, RD, BoB clashing?

[Broken]

I think the format of only 5-6 players is too small. There are a fair number of excellent players out there, not just the big names. How about 3 players each from TH, RD, and BoB, plus the outstanding "free agents" such as Fionn and Wreck? I would suggest first round mirror match elimination followed by a round robin of mirror matches with the winner determined by overall point total, somewhat like Wreck's suggestion. I agree with Fionn that predominantly ME battles would be pretty boring. Mirror matches with well made human-generated maps, with a look at the map before purchase, would be balanced, allow the contestants to display their skills under a variety of circumstances, and remove the luck factor of not knowing what the battlefield looks like before purchase. For example, Robert Hall produced a great map for the RD tournament, round 4, as can be seen in his post on this board.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Broken!:

Mirror matches with well made human-generated maps, with a look at the map before purchase,

I don't think that is a good idea since it will allow for high-precision gun shopping. But I agree with Fionn that each player pair would probably come up with rules by themself.

[Treeburst155]

Originally posted by Wreck:

I think my simple 2-1-0 point system would work just as well; probably better given that Nablas might do weird stuff with outriding scores.

In defense of the Nabla System, extreme results are tempered rather nicely IMO. That is why we use the median instead of the average. Also, extreme victories are tempered by "the curve". There's not much difference in Nabla points between 30 over the median and 40 over, for example.

The fewer the samples, the less accurate the median however. For this reason, Wreck's 2-1-0 method sounds good to me if the Titans don't want to wait on the RoW II results. In fact, the 2-1-0 idea may be better than the way we ran the RoW finals. Hmmm....

Treburst155 out.

[Fionn]

Umm, I dislike the 2-1-0 system.

Reasons:

1. If a scenario proves unbalanced then all the defenders might get decisive wins ( 2 points). No modification would occur. That simply isn't fair.

2. If a player only BARELY loses he gets ZERO points even though the score may have been 44-56 or something. One gets 0 the other possibly gets 2 points.

Wreck, you're in the ROW tourney so you must know that the organisers have said that the games may/probably will be unbalanced. A non-adjusted scoring system is simply unworkable unless the scenarios are perfectly balanced.

The more I think about it the more I'm coming around to either:

1. the ROW II tourney games + Nabla scoring system OR

2. Player-negotiated QBs. (open to a whole lot of disagreement, arguments over gamey force purchases etc etc)

re: the size of the group:

I think there are 5 major ladders out there ( Rugged Defence, Tournament House, WarfareHQ, Blitz and Band of Brothers). Each of those should be able to nominate their TOP player.

Nominating their top 3 wouldn't do anything much to increase the quality of the opposition in the tourney since, by definition, the top player in each ladder should be better than the second and third-best players.

All that you'd gain in going from 5 to 15 players is an extra 10 games ( If the others are anything like as busy as I am... my RL job involves a lot of long hours, weekends and draining days ... they simply can't have the time to play 15 (or 30 if the games are mirrored) games in any reasonable amount of time) to have to wade through.

Another change of position:

I've outlined the two systems I think are workable above ( QB and ROW). If going with ROW I think we NEED to have adjustable scoring ( because the organisers have publicly stated that the scenarios will NOT necessarily be balanced). Since people have pointed out that a small score sample will lead to error ( and I'm sure none of us want the 2nd best player winning due to some statistical anomaly) why don't we just wait for the ROW main tourney to finish so we can get the required large sample.

Charl,

Any news back from any of the ladders? I think that once the guys are nominated they'll be able to argue this out amongst themselves pretty quickly.

Wreck,

One other concern I have about MEs ( and one of my major ones) is that I've come across players in previous tourneys who REFUSED to actually play a real ME against me. They simply chickened out and set their troops up in defensive positions and waited for me to come to them and dig them out.

Needless to say I found this completely unsportsmanlike and I'd be worried of it happening again in this tourney as players seek maximum points etc. That's one major reason I dislike MEs ( it has happened to a lot of good players I know in tourneys and it REALLY leaves a sour taste in their/my mouth... I know I won't voluntarily play people who did that again.)

Of course all of the above is just throwing opinions and discussion around in a bit of a vaccuum until players involved are nominated and accepted etc. At present no-one even knows whether it will be 5 players or upwards of 20 .

[ June 03, 2002, 06:12 PM: Message edited by: Fionn ]

[WWB]

Regarding the tourney battles, I believe that negotiated QBs is the way to go in terms of forces. But as for maps, that is a different story. It would make alot of sense to use pre-made maps for the battles to control variables and allow more interesting battles than the QB map maker can consistently create.

As for the ME vs Att/Def, I suggest a round robin of sorts, one attack, one defend, one meet. If humans make the map, we can set things up so that not advancing will not work, and similarly will punish gamey flag rushers.

The fact that there is wine on the line does not concern me in the least <G>.

WWB

[Agua]

Charl,

"Major Taktik" is the nominee from TheBlitzKrieg Ladder. He has accepted and I've directed him to this thread.

[Fionn]

Agua,

Mind me asking how you decided on him as your representative?

He has fewer points than several other players and a lower win % than others. Admittedly your ladder seems to have a fair mix of people at the top ( with some having a lot of points but others having far superior win%es but fewer games and points). I was just wondering what criteria you used?

I'd imagine it was a mixture of experience, good win percentage and current activity.

[MajorTaktik]

Originally posted by Agua:

Charl,

"Major Taktik" is the nominee from TheBlitzKrieg Ladder. He has accepted and I've directed him to this thread.

Hello,

Reporting to this thread as requested by Les. I will represent the Blitz unless instructed otherwise by the Blitz CM staff.

Craig

[Treeburst155]

Originally posted by wwb_99:

If humans make the map, we can set things up so that not advancing will not work, and similarly will punish gamey flag rushers.

WWB[/QB]

I would really like to see a map that accomplishes these two goals. I haven't been able to come up with one. To force aggressive behavior you need lots of VL points in no-mans land. Once you do that, you have created prime flag rushing terrain. I'm not saying it can't be done. I'd just like to see an example of such a map.

EDIT: I'm talking Meeting Engagements here.

Treeburst155 out.

[ June 03, 2002, 10:09 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[Wreck]

Fionn, the 2-1-0 system does not work as you are modelling it. It balances the results, in essence by having all the attackers play each other, and all the defenders play each other.

Take your example of an imbalanced scenario, for instance. Assume that the mean outcome for a huge number of games for some scenario is 75-25. Three games of are played, and they come out as follows:

player A vs D: 80-20

player B vs E: 75-25

player C vs F: 40-60

The scoring using 2-1-0 are: player A and player F both get 2 points. Players B and E get 1 point each. Players D and C get zero.

Incidentally, this is similar the system we used in the finals for ROW, except that there we had only four players, so it was a "1-0" system. Same idea, though: attackers competing against each other, defenders against each other. There were tiebreakers set up, which fortunately did not need to be used. In the case of Titans, if we play say 6 games I doubt they will come into effect.

[Wreck]

Fionn: regarding people refusing to fight in a ME: that seems like a very strange thing to do, to me. That's why the flags are in the middle: if you give them up you basically lose. It might be a boring battle, but seems to me if the other guys refuses to come forth you can just sit in the middle (shading to his side), and wait for him to either attack to get flags, or lose.

Was this perhaps an artifact of whatever scoring system was being used in the tournament(s) you are recalling? I don't think 2-1-0, or Nabla's, could possibly reward such behavior.

[Wreck]

Fionn, one more comment. While in theory we could wait for ROWII to finish before playing, this has some big disadvantages. Either the game balances there are published, or they aren't. If they are not, then ROW has wait for us, which they won't want to do. If the results are published, then that will give the Titans some excellent information about game balance. Of course that's not the end of the world but it does partially negate one of the reasons to play in ROW to begin with.

Another problem with waiting, is that the ROW players are naturally going to want to talk about it. It is hard enough waiting until everyone is done with a scenario; but to add on another three months or whatever would be terrible! Similarly, Boots and Tracks will probably want to publish the scenarios; again we would be pushing that back.

[Agua]

Originally posted by Fionn:

Agua,

Mind me asking how you decided on him as your representative?

He has fewer points than several other players and a lower win % than others. Admittedly your ladder seems to have a fair mix of people at the top ( with some having a lot of points but others having far superior win%es but fewer games and points). I was just wondering what criteria you used?

I'd imagine it was a mixture of experience, good win percentage and current activity.

I didn't Fionn. As per Charl's directions, I contacted the club's CM ladder custodian, informed him of the tournament and requested a nominee for a "best of the best" type tournament. I had no involvement other than informing the ladder custodian. Same with WarefareHQ.

[Moriarty]

Originally posted by Wreck:

Fionn: regarding people refusing to fight in a ME: that seems like a very strange thing to do, to me. That's why the flags are in the middle: if you give them up you basically lose. It might be a boring battle, but seems to me if the other guys refuses to come forth you can just sit in the middle (shading to his side), and wait for him to either attack to get flags, or lose.

Was this perhaps an artifact of whatever scoring system was being used in the tournament(s) you are recalling? I don't think 2-1-0, or Nabla's, could possibly reward such behavior.

You could also play MEs without VLs. I would hope that the caliber of player you're talking about here would stick to the spirit of the game and search each other out. It also would be apparent if one player was sandbagging to avoid taking losses and a suitable penalty could be assessed.

[Treeburst155]

Wreck,

Going defensive in an ME would only serve the purpose of securing a relatively minor loss against a suspected superior opponent. It only works if there are not many VL points in the game, and the "defender" is able to inflict some casualties from afar, say with arty on the VL.

In order for the flag holder to get more than a minor victory he would have to inflict casualties on the defender and/or avoid taking casualties himself. Occupying a VL is not a good way to avoid casualties (defender's arty).

An all out attack on the defender might not be too smart since it would be essentially a 1:1 attack/defend situation. As long as the "defender" can maintain a 1:1 kill ratio, he welcomes the attack, because as the casualties mount the VL becomes less and less significant.

It's an underdog's way of minimizing his loss, and is the result of a flawed map and a flawed tourney scoring system. IOW, not enough VL points in relation to force points on the map; and the tourney scored by simply totalling points from game to game. The underdog opts for a sure 40 points rather than actually trying to win.

Treeburst155 out.

[ June 04, 2002, 12:41 AM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[Treeburst155]

LOL Moriarty,

Yeah, you guys could use the rules I played with Moriarty.

1) No flags

2) NO POINT LIMIT!!

3) NO force restrictions

4) Unlimited editing of ammo, morale, command bonuses, and units

5) Choose your own reinforcement times, places (anywhere on the map), and probability!

It was probably the most interesting game I ever played. The gamey bastiche brought in reinforcements behind me; but luckily mine came in a few turns later in the same place and shot his guys in the back!

Um...probably not a good idea for a competition, but it sure was fun!

Treeburst155 out.

[WineCape]

OK, we tend to move to the following play format/suggestions/ideas:

 CMBO will be the battlefield of choice – so it will be!

 Player force selection should be worked into some games, if possible; this will give the experienced TITANS some exposure to own force buying that most of them play anyway. Match negotiations should be left to them entirely what is proper or not in this regard.

 QB ME should (maybe) also form part of some battles; they might be not completely realistic, but they are considered to be better balanced than attack/assault battles.

 Human designed maps with own force selection or forces given to commanders (i.e. RoW II format) will vary the stale QB ME’s;

 Participants seems to be in agreement that mirroring of battle maps (i.e. completely balanced designed by humans for ME’s) is too difficult to achieve;

 The use of the Nabla scoring for inherently unbalanced maps/scenarios, as used in Rumblings of War, seems to be OK with all;

 Do we go with RoW II, the TITANS playing the same scenarios? This entails:-

(a) Amount of player’s should be increased to 6 – I have no problem with this;

( Wreck has indicated he will play TITANS instead of RoW II;

© No force buying and ME’s for the duration of RoW II;

(d) TITANS have to wait for RoW II to finish to effectively score with the Nabla;

The 24 bottles wine prize will go to the SuperTed's Boots & Tracks Team for their RoW II scenario's. They deserve this for their tireless effort!

My proposal:

Why don't the TITANS fall in with RoW II scenario battles with the Nabla scoring, but as soon as they are finished they play QB’s (ME’s) against one another in addition to the RoW II scenario’s? This will give them their force selection experience etc. that they are most used to. By the time they have finished with this extra round, the RoW II tourney will also be finished. This will entail 5 games (RoW II scenario’s) and another 5 games minimum for TITANS in the “second round”, with an arbiter deciding who plays Allied or Axis.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but we have, according to me, the following main representatives from the tourney houses for TITANS:

1. Rugged Defence: Awaiting official nomination (if not, Broken!)

2. Tournament House: Swamp

3. Bands of Brothers: SurlyBen

4. Blitzkrieg: Major TakTik

5. WarefareHQ: DeathDealer

6: Fionn Kelley

7: Wreck

8: Ghost

I have stated that players in TITANS will represent themselves, and not their tourney houses.

We need 6 players IF we go with a combination of RoW II and ME’s. However, I could increase TITANS to 12 players (i.e. 2 sections in RoW II, as we need multiples of 6’s there), but then TITANS will play 16 matches total if players want to include their beloved negotiated, own force selection QB’s as per a “second round.” It seems that 6 players only are just too small a field in TITANS...

Comments?

Charl Theron

[ June 05, 2002, 05:26 PM: Message edited by: WineCape ]

[Wreck]

I would prefer Swamp represent TH over me. Yes he is that good, and as I have explained before I think he is more deserving in that I have not really played at TH for the last 9 months, whereas he is very active including running up that monstrous win streak.

If there is room for me in Titans, I play. Otherwise, I play in ROWII, which is also fine. I can't lose here.

[WWB]

Originally posted by Treeburst155:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by wwb_99:

If humans make the map, we can set things up so that not advancing will not work, and similarly will punish gamey flag rushers.

WWB

I would really like to see a map that accomplishes these two goals. I haven't been able to come up with one. To force aggressive behavior you need lots of VL points in no-mans land. Once you do that, you have created prime flag rushing terrain. I'm not saying it can't be done. I'd just like to see an example of such a map.

EDIT: I'm talking Meeting Engagements here.

Treeburst155 out.[/QB]</font>

[RobH]

With respect Winecape, there is no official nomination from Rugged Defense as yet for this Tournament. Edwin Vos, whose site is Rugged Defense, has not been contactable for the last couple of days to put in a nomination. Broken!, whilst having the highest current win percentage on RD is not currently near the top of the ladder and therefore it is premature to have him as the RD nomination unless Ed officially nominates him. Neither can I nominate him nor can anybody else from Rugged Defense nominate anybody else. That decision rests solely with Ed.

It may be Broken! will be the official nominee from RD since he is an excellent player, but there are also other excellent players on the RD ladder too. Please keep this post open until Ed confirms who the RD nominee should be. No offence in any way is intended to Broken! and I hope he will understand his nomination by a member of the RD CM ladder is a little premature.

Rob

[Wreck]

WineCape:

It occurs to me that ROWII will almost certainly have a playoff round; which means there will be scenarios. We might also piggyback on that. I.e., have two 6-man sections playing the "normal" ROWII allotment plus maybe a QB or two. Then we take the top two guys in each section for a final playoff of four players. The titans of the titans, so to speak. Similarly I suppose that ROWII will be taking the top guy from each section for a four man playoff.

[Wreck]

Another thought:

I don't see any reason why our sections need to be the same size as those used in ROWII. Nabla's does not depend on that. The only thing that depends on it, is that we need more scenarios if we make the section(s) larger. (We "waste" scenarios, if we make smaller sections.)

Assume for a second we want 8 players for Titans. Here are two things we might do:

(1) make a single section with 8 players, using the five ROWII scenarios and adding two additional QBs or other easily generated games

(2) make the section size 4, w/ two sections. Three ROWII battles used. Then have a second round, using the best four players from round 1, using the remaining 2 ROWII battles, and adding a QB.

Obviously we can also get reasonable results using 10 players as well. But right now, I think eight is about right: 1 each from RD, TH, BoB, Blitzkrieg, and WarefareHQ; then three independents which would include Fionn and me.

[Wreck]

Regarding "sandbagging" in an ME... Treeburst's explanation is what I was expecting. If you use CM-scores directly, then (say) add them up, then sandbagging seems like a good strategy if you really believe you are substantially weaker than the enemy. (Of course, running forward *some* seems even better to me, but perhaps not aggressively to the midboard which is typical in MEs.)

But that's the scoring system: if you have a 100% chance of losing 40-60, or a 20/80% chance of getting 60-40/20-80, then you optimize score by sandbagging.

With Nablas, or 2-1-0, there is less incentive. Both of them have the effect of compressing outlying scores, so that the proportion of scoring between losing small and losing big is not such a big deal.

However, even with such compression if you are certain enough that the enemy is vastly superior, then it would still pay (on average) to sandbag. There is no cure for this other than playing players good enough so that they think their chance to beat you is at least, say, 10% or something. Hopefully that should be case in Titans. If it is not, then the player doing the sandbagging does not really belong here.

[Treeburst155]

A couple of things here....

1) If the Titan's want to piggyback on the RoW II tourney the decision will have to be made fairly soon. The tourney will begin in 48 hours. I could hold Wreck's files back for a few days or so, but both he and I will need to know fairly soon.

2) How would QBs be scored in conjunction with RoW scenarios which MUST use the Nabla system? This is not really a big problem, but it is something that needs to be thought out.

IMO:

The easiest, fairest way for the Titan's to clash is simply for them to play an RoW tourney amongst themselves. You can't beat the RoW format and the Nabla Scoring System for fairness. With two sections of six players, each scenario would be played six times among the Titans. This would give us a fairly good median from the Titans' games alone; although I think it would be better to wait until RoW II results are in.

I would expect the Titans' final tourney scores to be packed fairly tight around the median since the competition is so tough; but since they are not competing with the RoW II players their scores mean nothing in relation to them.

The drawback to an RoW style Clash is that the Titans are taken out of their element (force purchasing, etc.). They may not wish to do this. They may prefer a showdown which allows them to utilize their ladder game skills.

I'd really like to see how they do with double-blind, human designed, possibly unbalanced scenarios. Wreck has been very successful in the transition, much to my surprise. How about the rest of the Titans?

I feel certain there are twelve people among the ladders who deserve to be called Titans. No player will have to play more than five scenarios (regular season) regardless of how many participate. If the decision is made to go with only six, that is fine too. In the case of six it might be best to use Wreck's 2-1-0 scoring method. The only alternative would be to wait for the medians from the RoW II tourney.

Anyway, there's my pitch for a "Rumblings of War II: Clash of the Titans". I would be willing to manage a tourney like this. It's up to WineCape and the prospective Titans themselves to decide if they want to have such a tourney.

Any other tourney format I am not willing to get involved in due to past experiences. I will follow such a tourney with great interest however.

Treeburst155 out.

[Treeburst155]

Originally posted by Wreck:

Another thought:

I don't see any reason why our sections need to be the same size as those used in ROWII. Nabla's does not depend on that. The only thing that depends on it, is that we need more scenarios if we make the section(s) larger. (We "waste" scenarios, if we make smaller sections.)

Assume for a second we want 8 players for Titans. Here are two things we might do:

(1) make a single section with 8 players, using the five ROWII scenarios and adding two additional QBs or other easily generated games

(2) make the section size 4, w/ two sections. Three ROWII battles used. Then have a second round, using the best four players from round 1, using the remaining 2 ROWII battles, and adding a QB.

Obviously we can also get reasonable results using 10 players as well. But right now, I think eight is about right: 1 each from RD, TH, BoB, Blitzkrieg, and WarefareHQ; then three independents which would include Fionn and me.

This is all true. The only thing limiting us to multiples of six is because we have only five RoW II scenarios. We are limited to an even number of participants however. The scheduling program will not accept an odd number.

This whole idea sounds good to me. I would be willing to manage a tourney like this as long as I had nothing to do with the design of the non-RoW scenarios. Wreck's 2-1-0 scoring would be the way to go here.

Treeburst155 out.