League Rule Changes for 2014 AAG40 2.0

[gamerman01]

:evil: :evil:

Must…. find… John… Connor…

[boldfresh]

@Cmdr:

Yes, but everyone who plays you knows you are worth, say, 4 points or whatever a tier 2 is worth then.  There’s no ambiguity.

jenn, that statement is just silly.  have you been talking to cow too much?  seems it may be scrambling your brain.  :-P

[gamerman01]

Whatever system, exactly, we use next year, things will be reset.  We are towards the end of the year when “learning curve” effects are the greatest.  I’m currently thinking about implementing Jenn’s suggestion, at least in part.  Players who have played many games and we know where they stand, will have a fixed tier based on 12-13.
One of the problems with non-retroactive changes to points, is that highly ranked players will have a disincentive to play a newcomer.  As it is now, if the newcomer is good, they will rise in the rankings and the player who played them early on will eventually get the credit they deserve for playing a new player.
There are +'s and -'s to whatever system you use.  I will probably make some tweaks for next year, but no matter what I do there will be criticism, and some of it will be valid.

Still, like I said, my 2 wins against Snake only got me 2 extra points, IF he was truly a tier 3 when I played him.  Like I said, I told him he was going to win a lot of games, which I wouldn’t say to your average tier 3, because I could see that he had high A&A IQ - just inexperienced with G40.

But the opposite can happen, too.  You play someone who is 2-0 and has a 4.00 rating, but all he did was beat 2 tier 3’s and is currently over-rated.  You beat him and it takes him down to tier 2, so you get 5 points and not 6 because of the retroactivity.  Works both ways.  Tends to average out.
One more time…… show me a few players who are significantly under or over-rated.  I don’t think you can.  Which means the system is working very, very well, as several accomplished players have spoken out and said over the past several months.

[gamerman01]

@Gamerman01:

One more time…… show me a few players who are significantly under or over-rated.  I don’t think you can.

Who have played 6+ games

[gamerman01]

@Boldfresh:

@Cmdr:

Yes, but everyone who plays you knows you are worth, say, 4 points or whatever a tier 2 is worth then.  There’s no ambiguity.

jenn, that statement is just silly.  have you been talking to cow too much?  seems it may be scrambling your brain.   :-P

It made sense to me….
She’s saying that players know if they beat you they will gain the points for beating a tier 2 and it won’t change on them.

Anyway, the idea behind retroactive changes is that we now have a better picture of how good the player actually was all along, and so people who played him before should get credit added/taken away for that…

Either way, I think the effect is pretty minor.  It’s not like a 4.00 player is going to be a 3.50 if I did it different.  :roll:

[boldfresh]

i think that once a player is a known quantity to gamer he can assign a tier value to that player.  if gamer has a record to go on for the previous year, he can feel pretty comfortable making that determination.  I think a good compromise would be to make 5 tiers.  give new players tier 1 status for the first 5 games, then have gamer adjust the tier as appropriate.  no retroactive changes in points after the new tier change.  then if there is further improvement over the next 5 games the player could be moved up again - and again, no retroactive points.  but someone who beat that player in their second set of 5 games would get the points for beating a tier 2.

remember, the goal for all of this is to give the best approximation of skill levels in the league so good matches can be found and a rightful champion can be crowned right?

if someone thinks gamer would make changes in tiers without good reason, i challenge them to show me once that it happens.

[boldfresh]

sorry, meant to say new players would start at tier 3 status.

[gamerman01]

Good ideas there, I can see myself doing that or something quite similar - thanks for helping to mold the future

[Jennifer]

If we adjust for tiers, perhaps it should be quarterly instead of every 5 games.  That way gamer doesn’t spend his entire life readjusting.  Keep in mind, some players can do 5 games in 3 days (hell, I used to play upwards of 10 games at a time!  Course, I am not that involved anymore, but still, precedent is set for it.) Â

If we say adjustments by 30 March, 30 June and 30 September that gives us 3 pretty evenly spaced adjustment dates.  The 4th, of course, being the first Monday of November when we determine who will and will not be playing in the playoffs for the year.

[boldfresh]

means and methods by you guys - i am just drawing broad strokes.

[allweneedislove]

@Cmdr:

Let’s start discussing what the player community would like to have changed for next year’s league.  Gamerman and I will then take the suggestions and attempt to reason out which ones have the most support and don’t conflict with other ideas, and codify next year’s rules.  AKA same as last year, only instead of me doing it by myself, Gamer will help out (which will at least make me feel a lot less guilty about declaring things!)

great idea jen.

@Cmdr:

I see bidding as the follows:

A.  You are bidding for units to be placed at the start of the game.
B.  Bids are for the allies, negative bids are not allowed.
C.  You must place as much of the IPC awarded to you for winning the bid on the board prior to the start of the game.  (ie, you may ONLY retain 1 or 2 IPC to be spent during your first round’s purchases.)

NEW:
D.  You may not bid units for China (therefore no risk of stacking Yunnan, no question on if you can bid a second fighter, etc.  Don’t even have to worry about if they can bid for tanks or artillery or flying foo-foo pink bunnies with huge teeth and thus Japan won’t need Holy Hand Grenades of Antioch to win.  This is humor of course!)
E.  You are limited to 3 units in any specific territory or sea zone from your bid.  (Regardless of what is present already, you may only add up to three more) and these units can only be placed in a territory or sea zone that you control and start with at least one unit in at the start of the game.
F.  No bid units in Victory Cities (there, problem of stacking France, etcetera fixed.)

bidding is the most fair way to determine sides.
it should be left up to the two players to decide what is fair.
adding restrictions such as your C, D, E, F, and the first half of your B should not be needed.
the problem with the first half of B is there is not unanimous agreement that allies need a bid…

i would set a very basic default template for determining sides and then have an option to allow the 2 players to exercise additional bid rules and restrictions.

however, i have seen many requests for the restriction of one unit per territory. because of the popularity of this restriction, i would recommend having this be part of the basic default template and only allowing it if both sides agree to the option.

possible wording could look like the following.

Determining sides.

When setting up a game both players ‘Player A’ and ‘Player B’ declare their preference to play as the Axis or Allies.
If the players both want to play opposite sides the game begins.
If both players want the same side an auction begins.

The Auction
‘Player A’ offers ‘Player B’ the side that he/she does not want and adds a bid to entice ‘Player B’ to accept.
‘Player B’ has two options decline the offer and increase the bid or accept the offer and the game commences.
If ‘Player B’ declines the offer and increases the bid it is now up to ‘Player A’ to decline the offer and increase the bid or accept the offer. The bidding goes back and forth until both player are happy with their side.

Bids
Bids are an IPC amount that is added at game setup.
The player that received the bid can divide up the IPCs among the powers that he/she controls as they see fit.
The player can use the IPCs to purchase units pregame or add to the powers existing IPCs.
Purchased units can only be placed in territories or sea zones that currently have units from that power.
here is where you might addNo more than one bid unit can be added to any one territory or sea zone.

Optional bid rules if both players agree to the option.
Bids that alter rules of the game manual are not allowed.

Players can add restrictions to bids such as but not limited to;
no bid IPCs can be added to a specific power, such as China,
all IPCs must be used to purchase units pregame and not allowed to be added to a powers existing IPCs,
certain territories or sea zones may not have units added to them,
No more than one unit purchased with bid IPCs can be added to any one territory or sea zone.

Players can add optional styles to the bids such as but not limited to;
adding a specific technology breakthrough to a power,
adding a specific unit to a specific territory, such as a Soviet bomber to start in Moscow,
a certain power will/will not declare war on specific turn.
units purchased with bid IPCs can be placed in territories that you control that do not already have existing units,
units purchased with bid IPCs can be added to friendly powers territories,
units purchased with bid IPCs can be added to any sea zone.

[allweneedislove]

@Cmdr:

I have no problem with this for this year, but are we disallowing Low Luck for next year?  I’d say LL has to be denoted as such in the Subject line so that if Gamer or I are called in to moderate a dispute we can clearly see it is a LL not ADS game.

i agree

@Gamerman01:

I am not aware of a single LL game having been played in 2012-2013 in league.  My opinion is that they should not be allowed in league play at all, so yes, I think we should disallow LL for next year as you said.

Reason is, it is a different game.
If you want to play LL, nobody is stopping you - play in the “Play boardgames” section, but not in league.

@seththenewb:

I agree with no LL for League play. LL brings a completely different strategy to the table and LL and dice strats aren’t interchangeable… But the games themselves should all be dice…

i agree that lowluck creates a different game, but players that like to play lowluck should not be excluded from the league. if you don’t like lowluck you do not need to agree to a lowluck game. it might be more difficult for them to find games if they exclusively want to play lowluck.
allowing lowluck is very congruent to allowing tech in league play.

the main argument that gamerman and seth present for not wanting to allow lowluck is that it creates a different game. technology also creates a different game and is being welcomed.
the base league rules should be regular dice and no technology. if both players agree to play with either lowluck and/or technology they should be allowed to. let’s make the league more inclusive and allow our games to be more diverse.

[allweneedislove]

@Cmdr:

Next Year’s ranking system:

PPG
ELO
Percentage
Other

@alexgreat:

…

• Remove win percentage as criterium for play-off / finals 
  …

@seththenewb:

…I like the ELO idea, but it’s a ranking system that would be better used in a league that doesn’t reset every year. And as Gamer said, he’s not a computer…

@MrRoboto:

…You actually convinced me, that ELO might not be the best solution in our case. And that’s mainly because a game lasts so long here. Thus, some players don’t play a lot of games and ELO system actually needs, as you stated, a certain number of games to accurately measure strength…

ELO is great for larger data. however, most participants will not have enough games played in a year to make ELO work
percentage is not the best way to determine rank as it does not factor skill level which should be the main focus of rank. it also encourages noncompetitive games.

point per game is the best system. the tricky part is determining the point system

[allweneedislove]

@Cmdr:

What if your tier is determined by the previous year’s record?

@Gamerman01:

… I’m currently thinking about implementing Jenn’s suggestion, at least in part.  Players who have played many games and we know where they stand, will have a fixed tier based on 12-13…

this is a great idea for the start of next season assuming we use a tier system.
however, i do not think that the opening tier should be fixed for the whole season. for all the reasons that a fluid system is good for this year are all the reasons why it will be good for next year.
i think a point per game system should be used for determining rank and playoff inclusion. i like gamerman’s current system(maybe some tweaks can be done) of tiers and basing points off of those tiers. it is a great tool to find players of similar strength which creates great competitive games.

@Cmdr:

I’d then say top players are tier 4, new or not so strong players are tier 1.  What tier you are is how many points you are worth if you are beaten by your opponent.

the problem with new players being assigned in the weakest tier is that they could be a very strong player.

@MrRoboto:

…
And I still disagree with you, concerning always gaining points when winning.
Grinding on weak players should still award me with some kind of reward, albeit very little of course. Maintaining a near 100% Winchance, even against weak opponents, is a feat by itself. So if I decide to put so much effort and time into defeating newbies (since A&A is a long game and I would need LOTS of games against newbies), then that could be a potential way to slowly work on my ranking…

@Cmdr:

Perhaps we could devise a way to rank players where wins gain you points and losses don’t cost you any points but you don’t earn any points either?  The stronger the player the more points you earn for beating them?  Not sure how that would look exactly, but it’s just an idea.

it is an interesting suggestion but is open to abuse and creates noncompetitive games. i would leave it out.

[gamerman01]

@allweneedislove:

however, i do not think that the opening tier should be fixed for the whole season. for all the reasons that a fluid system is good for this year are all the reasons why it will be good for next year.

I agree.  Hadn’t thought it through yet.

the problem with new players being assigned in the weakest tier is that they could be a very strong player.

Agreed

Thanks for taking the time to make those posts, allweneed
It’s gradually coming together and taking shape, thanks to everyone’s thoughts

[seth4god]

Say hypothetically that there are several players who play LL and one of them amasses enough games/wins to qualify for the end of year playoffs and gets in. Now what are Gamer and Jenn supposed to do? LL and dice are SO different that a strategy that might works with one won’t for another. Forcing the LL player to play dice will likely just result in him getting trounced faster than it takes me to write this sentence. Forcing the dice player to play LL will result in the opposite result and no purpose will be served in taking either player outside their game. Maybe in the future there will be enough players interested in LL to form their own league and playoffs. But unless that happens there’s too many differences between the two game styles that they may as well be AAR and G40.

[allweneedislove]

using your hypothetical example the lowluck player reaches the playoffs and states his/her desire to play lowluck. their opponent can accept or decline and play by the default mode which is standard dice.

the standard would still be regular dice and lowluck would only be played if both players want lowluck.

i think you might have an incorrect perception that players that like lowluck(such as myself) do not enjoy/are bad at playing regular dice games.

i do not think there is any harm or negative in allowing lowluck games in the league.
it might attract new players to the league or enhance the playing experience for some that are already in the league(such as myself)

[gamerman01]

Wow.  First off, I have to admit I’ve never tried even a single turn of low luck.  But I understand how it works, and I’m with Seth, FWIW.  I disagree with the comparison with tech for multiple reasons.
Tech is an official optional rule in the rule book.  There is no sign of low luck in the rule book, of course.

An analogy is playing chess with dice.  You wouldn’t mix regular chess players and chess with dice players in the same league.

[seth4god]

I’ve tried a couple games of LL for other games triplea supports and it’s a totally different animal from dice games. I can see why some people prefer it, but it’s not my taste. By removing the element of luck it almost turns the game into pseudo-chess; just on a bigger board and with many more pieces.

[allweneedislove]

gamerman and seth,

i understand that you do not like lowluck and even why many players do not like lowluck.
i do not understand why you would not want other players in the league to be able to play lowluck.

it gives more game play options for those that do enjoy lowluck(such as myself)

i understand that technology is an official option in the rulebook but bidding is not and we allow it.(i encourage it as it is the most fair way to determine sides and have an evenly matched game).