I’m interested in doing a scientific analysis to determine how factors that you can observe during the game predict whether the Axis or Allies will win.
By using statistics (eg linear regression or one of the non-linear variants since we’re actually dealing with a yes/no outcome - so it isn’t linear), with a good bit of data, regression analysis should provide us with some answers.
What factors can you use to predict victory?
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Round - what round you are on is key. At least for the first five or so rounds where the Axis is behind in IPCs. I think round is a good proxy for position. The problem isn’t so much what round you are on, but how well the Allies have their convoys setup. (Turn would matter too, but I assume that the data collection will hold the turn constant. Eg. you’d take measurements before the turn of the same country every round.)
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IPC income - you could either use IPC income, or you could analyze the map on a common turn (ex. before the Russian turn, starting round 2) and use the IPC value of the territory everyone holds.
IPC income could be analyzed on a country basis, or by summing the Axis powers vs the sum of the Allies powers. You can try several things and see what works the best with regression.
3) Total unit values in IPC by class. Break down units by land, air, and sea - either for each country, or for the Axis vs the Allies. (Ex axis has 200 IPC of air, vs Allies having 225 IPC)
I think these three factors are key. Other factors could be added like whether the Russian or German capital is captured, but generally the game is decided by that point - and I’d like to be able to predict what will happen before that.
Can you think of any other factors that would be easy to measure and possibly good predictors?
I’d be very happy to do all the data analysis (using SPSS, I’m a former sociology grad student). The problem is that I need the data. I probably need at least 100 data points. 200+ would be better (eg 20 games that last 11 turns).
Does any such data set exist? Or is there anything that I could use?
One idea is to use the IPC summaries that people provide in “play-by-forum” games on this board, as I think just using this one factor could provide a good predictor of game outcome. There are some people who like to provide summaries of how much IPCs of territory each country has, and how much they have in the bank. However, I’ve noticed that they do it sporadically. Are they any forum members who do this consistently?
Alternatively I could analyze the maps - this is a lot of work. Is there any way to get ABattlemap to count the number of IPCs worth of territory each player has? Or the IPC value of the units?
What format does ABattleMap use to store info? I could possibly write a script to gather this type of info from AAM files.