Fair territory matchups

[bert_the_turtle]

The news: the next version of Dedcon will have support for
a) forcing people into fair alliances pre-game (3 vs 3, 2 vs 2 (vs 2), all allied diplomacy style, nobody allied)
b) giving those alliances specific territory combinations (works for games with multiple territories per player, too)
c) randomly selecting between such combinations

And I want to include good sample files. I need the feedback of more experienced players for that to get a as many fair and fun scenarios as possible. Consider defection to be permanently disabled for the following discussion.

Duels are relatively easy, thanks to the stats you all collected. One just has to draw the line. Asia vs. Russia should be out, of course. Africa vs. Europe too, probably. But SA vs Africa or Europe?

What about 3 vs. 3? Is it enough to avoid a complete North vs. South scenario? Should North and South America be kept on different teams to avoid the situation that the third player allied with them is surrounded?

2 vs 2 vs 2: Looks easy to me. Giving each team one northern and one southern territory seems like a natural choice there, and keeping SA and NA in different alliances to avoid them getting a disadvantage in the points race (they'll be late at the parties in Paris, London and Moscow). Should the Europe + Africa and Russia + Asia alliances be avoided?

2 vs 2: I'd do either NA + SA vs EU + AF vs RU + AS (well, minus one of them) or a crossover (like EU + AS vs RU + AF). Or is it enough to make it South + North vs. South + North in all combinations?

[trickser]

Hey this is a great feature addtion, thank you.

Think its enough to avoid the direct South vs North avantages, where every player of the same alliance has his enemy to his North. Everything else should have good team strategic possibilities.
But its more a feeling then knowledege.
For example EU+Russia vs SA+Africa, looks difficult at 1st for EU+Russia, but then they have the possibility to attack from so many sides, i consider this a real fun setup.


Something else, sorry for going off topic so early: How many different random seeds are possible and can you make them setable? Maybe not a good idea, because it might be abused, but i wanna play with it.

[bert_the_turtle]

I'm using the system's random generator, that's 2^32 seeds. And the configuration looks like this:

Code: Select all

# 4 players:
MaxTeams 4
# teams of 2:
AllianceSize 2

# Alliance 1 gets SA and NA
Territory1 SA
Territory2 NA

# Alliance 2 gets EU and AF
Territory3 EU
Territory4 AF

So you can be very specific. The random selection of possibilities is taken over by a generic system (implemented mostly for Dedwinia, where random map selection is essential). You can't use it to give a specific team a specific territory; disable random territories for that It's possible I'll add specific matchups later, though. It may be useful to give players who already met the same scenario as last time, just with reversed roles.

[(MOR)]

First thanks for the new feature..

About 1 vs 1, the most hard setup is Africa vs Russia, after we have Africa vs Europe, Asia vs Russia, SA vs NA, Europe vs SA, SA or NA vs Russia.

I think avoiding all those setup is not the good idea, because the hard setup is the real challenge, and that make the game more easy and stop who improve his skills to fight in any setup..

That can work for 3 vs 3 or 2 vs 2 but not for 1 vs 1.


About avoiding the big cities advantage you can try "Equalised mode" it's more fair also more tactical..

[Ace Rimmer]

First thanks for the new feature..

About 1 vs 1, the most hard setup is Asia vs Russia, after we have Africa vs Europe, after we have Africa vs Russia, SA vs NA, Europe vs SA, SA or NA vs Russia.

I think avoiding all those setup is not the good idea, because the hard setup is the real challenge, and that make the game more easy and stop who improve his skills to fight in any setup..

That can work for 3 vs 3 or 2 vs 2 but not for 1 vs 1.


About avoiding the big cities advantage you can try "Equalized mode" it's more fair also more tactical..

Fix'd.

Also, if you switch the territories for 2v2 like so:

Team A: USA and Asia vx
Team B: SA and Russia

You get an evening out. Both teams have a "south over north" advantage.

[Blackbeard]

Dammit shmammit! Hard Territories are more fun. What's more, you feel twice as good when you win, and half as bad when you loose(sic) .

[Nightwatch]

I`m with Balackbeard and MOR on this one.
Bad idea to take away all those interesting setups.
Playing in an unfair setting is part of the fun IMO.

[(MOR)]

....the most hard setup is Asia vs Russia...

Not really, Africa vs Russia is the most hard setup and we can try it, how many you can get as Russia vs Asia and Russia vs Africa..

In Russia vs Asia you have 1 mkills as the % of losing or wining but in Africa you have 3 mkills as %

[Ace Rimmer]

I can win many more times as Russia vs Africa than as Russia vs Asia (if I were playing against myself in both cases).

If you see it the other way around, it's only because Asia is being used incorrectly. Especially seeing as you like to "maximize" the probability of the win.

Fact: there is no other territory, no other setup that is as lethal as the Star of India (Asia) vs Russia. No way around it.

Russia against Africa isn't easy, but Africa doesn't have the same geographical advantage as Asia does over Africa. Africa has an advantage over Russia, just not as big as Asia over Russia.

Code: Select all

Most Unfair Matchup: Asia dominates Russia with 23 out of 31 games won

*Source: http://pox.cerebrojd.net/defcon_stats/index.php

According to the same site with 492 valid games logged,

Russia beating Africa = 44%
Russia beating Asia = 21%

That is, Russia is twice as likely to defeat Africa as it is Asia. You can argue with me, but you can't argue with 492 games worth of data. (Ok, so not all 492 are these match-ups )

[(MOR)]

Statistics can't prove it, because the most of the games Russia beating Africa was a "average Player at Africa vs good Player as Russia".. Or a Player who ignore how playing at Africa..

I'm talking about two Players from the same level or almost of play..

[Ace Rimmer]

These aren't good players of equal/high level?

http://pox.cerebrojd.net/defcon_stats/game.php?id=155
http://pox.cerebrojd.net/defcon_stats/game.php?id=408

[(MOR)]

These aren't good players of equal/high level?

http://pox.cerebrojd.net/defcon_stats/game.php?id=155
http://pox.cerebrojd.net/defcon_stats/game.php?id=408

.. Or a Player who ignore how playing at Africa...

71.8 or 76.9 mkills aren't the good scores to beat Russia..

96 mkills is the poor score that you can get it if the game was hard, 98 mkills if the game was normal..

[Ace Rimmer]

These aren't good players of equal/high level?

http://pox.cerebrojd.net/defcon_stats/game.php?id=155
http://pox.cerebrojd.net/defcon_stats/game.php?id=408

.. Or a Player who ignore how playing at Africa...

71.8 or 76.9 mkills aren't the good scores to beat Russia..

96 mkills is the poor score that you can get it if the game was hard, 98 mkills if the game was normal..

So, those players didn't live up to your expectations on how to play Africa. That (MOR) method of playing Africa, where is it published?

[(MOR)]

Haha, ok ok no bad for Ace Rimmer have some fun from mor

[Ace Rimmer]

All I'm saying is that given enough time and a published strategy for Africa (vs Russia), most decent players could overcome it. So far, the best anybody has done to the Star of India was equal it. 99m:99m kills.

There has never been as far as I know any kind of "unbeatable" Africa. The Star of India so far has not ever been beaten. (if we're going to go with the "know how to play territoryX" argument).

That, combined with the Stats above, plus experience say to me that Asia vs Russia is harder than Africa vs Russia.