Rampage 15mm Rearguard comp

[sarissa]

Good weekend of gaming, with some testing games.

Thanks to Peter and Simon.




Si

I would leave the format the same, I think it worked well.


Steve M

[lawrenceg]

I'm curious about the degree of correlation between points mismatch and scores. For example, did players with 4 even games score better than those with three games at -100 and one at +200?

Did the points bonus for mismatched wins reflect the actual difficulty in getting the win? Ideally, the average points actually given out for an army rout probably ought to be the same for each level of mismatch. Possibly the number of games was too low to draw any conclusions on this.

If no-one won the bonus at -200 then does that mean it is impossibly difficult and the points spread needs to be reduced?

[azrael86]

I suspect that the sample is insufficient to be conclusive about the impact.

Factors such as terrain and individual army match up will make a significant difference in terms of whether you can make the points advantage tell. And of course you can also nullify your advantage by having a flank march that either fails to arrive or only shows up in part....

[paulcummins]

I have just worked out that my 700 pt army list was actually more like 740 - somehow I had extra troops.

Luckily (!) I lost, but Ian deserves some extra points........

whoops

sorry

[shall]

The one you entered has 695 pts and 11 BGs.

Sounds like you put out an extra BG of longbowmen by accident? See this is what happens when you have so many of the same thing - go and confuse yourself!

I am sure we'll forgive you. Very honest to raise it.

When I send final scores off for rankings later in week I will see if it might have made any difference and make a call.

Si

[paulcummins]

somehow the one I printed out (from what I thought was the same sheet I sent in) had 12 BGs and added up to 795. Something must have gone horribly wrong.

stupidity is not out of the question.......

so a 150pt deficit is really difficult to over come too

[timurilenk]

Well I was quite surprised you could go edge to edge!

[paulcummins]

I still could have - I deployed one BG behind the others!

Really sorry though, I am just so embarrased. Brilliant game though.

Im now going to have to get people to check my lists for every game.

[shall]

Paul

Worry not, I am sure others have made such mistakes at times - you are just brave enough to own up to a minor cock up (and it is just a minor one in the grand scheme of the comp).

The 800 you enterred has 12 BGS and is exactly 800 by the way, so perhaps an old sheet.

All done now with this I would suggest.

No real harm done.

Next year I can always give you your army list, as entered, in a sealed envelope.

Si

[timurilenk]

Really sorry though, I am just so embarrased. Brilliant game though.

No worries at all from me - as you say it was a really enjoyable game - and I learned a lot from how you played which is really much more important to me than an extra point I may (or may not!) have gained.

As Simon says, it is really honest of you to have owned up anyway - I would have never have known any different.

Ian

[shall]

Here are the full results. Ian and Paul it made no difference to placings at all - needed a few more points shift to change anything.

11 LANCE FLINT Farnborough Christain Nubian 68
8 STEVE MURTON Reigate Bedouin Dynasties (H of Aleppo) 61
1 NIK GAUKROGER Reigate Hittite Empire 59
14 DAVID FAIRHURST Oxford Medieval Portuguese 57
17 ANDY KITCHER Harlequins Imperial Medieval German 55
16 IAN MACKAY Central London Later Ottoman Turkish 53
6 LINDA FAIRHURST Oxford Palmyran 49
18 IAN STEWART Milton Keynes WOTR Yorkist Pretenders 47
3 DAVID CUTNER Essex Greco-Bactrian 47
5 ALAN CUTNER Essex Bosporan 45
2 Umpires Umpires Later Carthaginian 42
15 STEVE HAMMOND Central London Tatar 40
12 PAUL CUMMINS Wycombe Warband HYW English (Continental) 40
13 JON AKERS Mercenary Catalan Company 33
9 DAVE MORRISON Gloucester Khurasanian - Samanid 31
4 GORDON JAMIESON Central London Indo Greek 30
10 MARTIN NEIL Reigate Ilkhanid Mongol 25
7 DAVID PARISH Brighton Thematic Byzantine 11

Si

[shall]

A few interesting stats to follow .... here are how players lined up against their opponents in points. On the left is the average point suprlus or deficit per game. The points system is intended to largely compensate for this so wjile Jon had the "easiest" games he also had the least opportunity to score bonus points.

The winner is just above average. 2nd place steve Murton had a +50pt advantage of average, 3rd place Nik Gaukroger a 25pt deficit on average. So no clear pattern which is a relatively good sign.

Poor Paul Cummins - everyone respected his high FOG ranking and put down a beastie against him ... that said he scored the highest single score of anyone with a 26pter due to the bonus system, and left with a free piece of terrain for getting the most bonus points. And came 12th out of 18 despite the very significant average deficit in pts.

Subjectively I am not sure what draw I would prefer - arguably and average of -100pts would be great as it gives you mroe bonus point potential and the games are very winnable. Onthe other hand a nice 100pt suprlus is a relatively easy root to 16/7pts a game perhaps, which was enough to come 2nd.

75 JON AKERS
50 STEVE MURTON
50 DAVID CUTNER
25 LANCE FLINT
25 LINDA FAIRHURST
25 Umpires
25 DAVE MORRISON
0 DAVID FAIRHURST
0 ANDY KITCHER
0 IAN STEWART
0 ALAN CUTNER
0 DAVID PARISH
-25 NIK GAUKROGER
-25 IAN MACKAY
-25 MARTIN NEIL
-50 STEVE HAMMOND
-50 GORDON JAMIESON
-125 PAUL CUMMINS

(edited) Si

[shall]

And heres the mix of games. 1/3rd of games were even points, 2/3rd uneven to some degree. Just over 10% had the big 200 pt difference to play against.

No of games Rounds MIX
Type Total 1 2 3 4 % %
Equal pts 800 vs 800 8 2 1 2 3 22% 33% EVEN
Equal pts 900 vs 900 1 0 0 1 0 3%
Equal pts 700 vs 700 3 0 2 1 0 8%
100 DIFF 800 vs 700 9 4 2 1 2 25% 56% 100pt gap
100 DIFF 900 vs 800 11 2 2 4 3 31%
200 DIFF 900 vs 700 4 1 2 0 1 11% 11% 200 pt gap

Si

[shall]

And here's the points averages for different points matchups. Average scores for +200, +100 and even all equal. Highest score came from a 100pt deficit.

Ave Best Worst
up 200 12 15 6
up 100 13 22 1
level 11 25 0
down 100 9 26 1
down 200 8 14 5

edited since lawrence comment to correct error. SAH

[shall]

Anyone know how I reformat these? Phil you had a neat trick for putting them in as images.

Si

[lawrenceg]

And here's the points averages for different points matchups. Average scores for +200, +100 and even all equal. Highest score came from a 100pt deficit.

Code: Select all

            Ave Best Worst
up 200      12	15	6
up 100      13	22	1
level       12	25	0
down 100     8	26	1
down 200     8	14	5

Interesting. Average of 12 for even matches suggests a lot of games were decisive.

Average of about 12 for being up versus 8 for being down gives the average for the two players about 10, indicating that most of these games were indecisive. That suggests that if the weaker player played for a draw then he often got it, and it was very difficult for the weaker army to get a win.

It also looks as though fighting at a (army) points deficit on average costs you 4 (tournament) points. Perhaps next time round giving a bonus of 50% to the score of the weaker army would make the tournament results much less dependent on luck of the draw.

[lawrenceg]

Anyone know how I reformat these? Phil you had a neat trick for putting them in as images.

Si

copy from your spreadsheet and paste into any graphics program. Save as a jpg.

Then proceed as for any image.

[shall]

Tx lawrence

Luck of the draw was fairly minor in its effect I think, and an interesting effect anyway as not random. This comp is not attempting to create a result free of the draw. If anything it might create some handicap effects as people use larger armies against stronger opponents on average. It will be easy to see how it evolves over time.

Most people who were disadvantaged played for a win to try to get the bonus points and even if losing did a lot of damage in the process to score points. You can see this from the points they scored, usually in the course of losing. The ones who did well tended to get some result from it - e.g. Pauls 26 points for winning big with 00 pt deficit. A few played for draws and that is part of the interest o the games as you need to have ago when well up in points, and there were some more dramatic tabletop strategies than are attempted in even games, which subjectively was very good.

Have corrected a couple of data errors. More accurately we have an average of 22.8 from even games, 22.2 from 100pt differences, and 20.2 from 200 pt difference games. I think it will take people a while to figure out the 200pt difference games, but I could alter the profile for these in due course if it were sustained. However with a sample of 5 for the last score the variance is huge, so its not statistically significantly different from the other two, which have sample of 12 and 19 and are more decent averages. We will have a better view after next year so i may leave it the same for now to find out.

So far it would suggest to me that the points system is about right and not bad for a first shot.

Si

[lawrenceg]

Tx lawrence

Have corrected a couple of data errors. More accurately we have an average of 22.8 from even games, 22.2 from 100pt differences, and 20.2 from 200 pt difference games. I think it will take people a while to figure out the 200pt difference games, but I could alter the profile for these in due course if it were sustained. However with a sample of 5 for the last score the variance is huge, so its not statistically significantly different from the other two, which have sample of 12 and 19 and are more decent averages. We will have a better view after next year so i may leave it the same for now to find out.

Si

at +200 the win bonus is only +1 isn't it? So the variance can't be that much (game scores are either 20 or 21, presumably 4 20's and a 21 to give an average of 20.2). Also it's not a normal distribution - it's approxiately binomial as the probability of the weaker army winning appears to be negligible. But you may be talking about the individual player scores. Anyway, you have the data and are a competent statistician so I'll leave it at that. Leaving it unchanged until you get more data is not a bad idea. The players all seemed satisfied with it as it is.

[shall]

at +200 the win bonus is only +1 isn't it? So the variance can't be that much (game scores are either 20 or 21, presumably 4 20's and a 21 to give an average of 20.2). Also it's not a normal distribution - it's approxiately binomial as the probability of the weaker army winning appears to be negligible. But you may be talking about the individual player scores. Anyway, you have the data and are a competent statistician so I'll leave it at that. Leaving it unchanged until you get more data is not a bad idea. The players all seemed satisfied with it as it is.

The statistical profiles are not binomial, and indeed it would be a Poisson profile if your comment was correct about rare occurances. You are assuming that the big army was winning and the small army doing no damage. 1 of the 5 200pt gap games had the smaller army winning and very close to getting an army rout (if it stays at 1 in 10 for a big bonus that would be good IMHO). 3 times out of 21 an army rout was achieved with 100 pt deficit, which is not bad ( 1in 5 perhaps?).

Essentially looking at the 5 200pt gap games what I observed in play and scores was roughly what I had hoped for, with some players opting to play a rearguard and try to hang on for close to 10 points, and then it was a puzzle for the bigger side to use its advantage to break this - 1 did and 2 didn't . Then some players going gung ho with 700pts and shooting for getting the bonus points and doing lots of damage in the event that they failed. Two did this, one nearly won and the other lost but did lots of damage. Small sample but a nice mix. Had the 700pters that was close completed the big win, then the average for these games would have been 22.2 ... small sample effect cutting in there. Far from seeing 20-0 or 21-0 results, or even close to this, the lowest score by a person 200pt down was 5 and the highest 14.

If you start from the assumption that the big army wins easily then of course you will get such conclusions, but the whole point is that doesn't happen. The system rewards skillful play when in a deficit, and also in managing to pick a defensive smaller army apart. Over time I think this will affect army desing and tactics, and I suspect players who were there this year will be able to come up with some interesting plans for the system.

You probably needed to be there to interpret it further, its hard to get the full picture from just the stats on such small samples. You need to have seen the game and have a view of each that is beyond the random scatter.

I think I will leave it roughly as is although I may tweak the bonuses a little once I have got more feedback from other players.

Tx for the thoughts, as ever very useful and gets the grey matter whirring!!

Si