Slitherine

While having lots of fun reading this (you may get a diploma for the most complex sheet to fill in for a simple task) I think the biggest issue and most complaints about the currect system is, that the players are normally not able to say the exact result of their game.
No matter of using a decimal system or the roundes system, most players on tournaments I organized were asking: Hey, here is our result, what does it mean?

After talking to them, I realized, that most of them have not even heard or read about how the system is working, they think:
I give the result to the oprganizer, and the organizer is doing something very magical, which results in some point I get.
Also, that an attrition point is something negative is not always clear, at least for starters (OK, most of them are non-english players, and the word attrition is not well known in non-english speaking countries)

So, what I will do from now on is to have some very short words about the ranking system before each tournament starts, clarifying hopefully most of the questions.
In addition, the score calculation table will be posted so that everybody can have a look and come to a final result with the 4 numbers (own attrition points, own army size, opponent attrition points and opponents army size) if he wants to.

We have roughly 50 - 100 players which are very interested globally in ranking sytsems, etc (it's only a rough guess), all other are playing for fun and if the games are resulting in winning a game or a tournament, they are happy.
And I also think that many players will being annoyed if we start to change an existing (and working) system.

The decimal discussion for sure is a good one for bigger tournaments to remove the need of additional tie-breakers, for tournaments with less then 16 players I think also a non decimal system will work most of the time.
What I'm really afraid of is a decision saying to use decimal systems as standard now, and start the discussion again about how many decimals to use

Martin

Well 'What I'm really afraid of is a decision saying to use decimal systems as standard now, and start the discussion again about how many decimals to use'.

Pie for most human purposes is good enough at 3.14. I know that accelleration at 10ms/2 is not good enough to it has to be a minimum of 1 and I can't immediately think of any tiebreak where more than two would be material unless there are more than 128 players in a 6 round tourney even for the draw in round 2.

Lets propose 2 DP as we are not yet dealing with irrationals (well at least the numbers are rational).

bertalucci wrote:A recent BBC Radio 4 programme on infinity gives us all hope.

In an infinite universe of infinite universes an exact copy of me exists and in that universe I won - even if in this universe I lost.
So I can take great confort from knowing in this alternative reality I always throw 6's.
I'm a winner not a loser - hurrah.

But somewhere else I lost and you won even if I've never met you.

Ow my brain hurts

Dont you mean an infinite number of you that lost and a infinite number of you that won. I think that is too many bertalucci's.

bertalucci wrote:In an infinite universe of infinite universes an exact copy of me exists and in that universe I won - even if in this universe I lost.
So I can take great confort from knowing in this alternative reality I always throw 6's.
I'm a winner not a loser - hurrah.

But somewhere else I lost and you won even if I've never met you.

But some infinities are bigger than other infinities, so you might win again.

I would prefer a simpler system that enabled players to readily calculate their own score each round and therefore favour something like Hammy's suggestion of basing scoring on AP losses inflicted suffered, and a tie break system that was also based on something easily verifiable such as Army Routs inflicted. I think that a simpler system would be less error prone.

But some infinities are bigger than other infinities, so you might win again.

Not true I am afraid.

Infinity is such a massive large number that nothing is bigger than it. Which includes infinity squared.

dave_r wrote:

But some infinities are bigger than other infinities, so you might win again.

Not true I am afraid.

Infinity is such a massive large number that nothing is bigger than it. Which includes infinity squared.

I beleive Mr Powell may well be correct.

There is no single infinity there are a whole load of them - for example there is an odd infinity and an even infinity - and I believe some are larger than others

It gets quite mind bending when you look into it - I tried once but couldn't understand it once it got beyond the basics

dave_r wrote:

But some infinities are bigger than other infinities, so you might win again.

Not true I am afraid.

Infinity is such a massive large number that nothing is bigger than it. Which includes infinity squared.

Oh, ignorance is bliss.

Now if you had an infinitely large house with an infinite number of rooms and an infinite number of children, children 2 per room the child infinity is bigger than the room infinity but the house is finite. And your wife would rob you blind for child support, and your wallet is certainly finite.

And parrallel lines meet at infinity, but I'm not sure which one.

dave_r wrote:

But some infinities are bigger than other infinities, so you might win again.

Not true I am afraid.

Infinity is such a massive large number that nothing is bigger than it. Which includes infinity squared.

Ah, but the infinite number of real numbers, ie all numbers, is bigger than the infinite number of natural (integer) numbers, ie 1,2,3..., the former being uncountable, the latter countable.

From this we can postulate that when using decimal places, there are an uncountable infinite number of possible scoring systems, and when using whole numbers, a countable infinite number of scoring systems.

Summing the two, we have an infinitely uncountable countable number of scoring systems.

And so wargamers will never be satisfied with the current scoring system, as out of the infinite number available, there will always be an uncountably countable number, minus 1, of other scoring systems, and thus they will infinitely debate the subject.

peterrjohnston wrote:Ah, but the infinite number of real numbers, ie all numbers, is bigger than the infinite number of natural (integer) numbers, ie 1,2,3..., the former being uncountable, the latter countable.
From this we can postulate that when using decimal places, there are an uncountable infinite number of possible scoring systems, and when using whole numbers, a countable infinite number of scoring systems.
Summing the two, we have an infinitely uncountable countable number of scoring systems.
And so wargamers will never be satisfied with the current scoring system, as out of the infinite number available, there will always be an uncountably countable number, minus 1, of other scoring systems, and thus they will infinitely debate the subject.

Can you explain in more depth what an integer is again, I don't think I got that bit.?

Thems the ones you can count on your fingers and toes...

Thems the ones you can count on your fingers and toes...

I was amazed by the account of person at Lawrence's club who can add the sum of two dice on just his fingers. Maybe having lived in Suffolk I shouldn't be...

Clearly somebody who doesn't throw more than 10 on two dice....

Kill many generals does he?

Dave,

On infinity try this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert's_ ... rand_Hotel

Dave

You have not spent much time in Suffolk have you?

'
Clearly somebody who doesn't throw more than 10 on two dice..
'

There you will find more than a few Anne Boleyn types who can... In Norfolk if there was anyone who could count it would be even more common...

Regards
Tim

kevinj wrote:

Thems the ones you can count on your fingers and toes...

I was amazed by the account of person at Lawrence's club who can add the sum of two dice on just his fingers. Maybe having lived in Suffolk I shouldn't be...

There are 10 kinds of people in the world.


Those that know binary, and those that don't.


For the first type, fingers and thumbs will happily cope with numbers up to a thousand and twenty-three.

lawrenceg wrote: For the first type, fingers and thumbs will happily cope with numbers up to a thousand and twenty-three.

or 1048575 on a good day...

peterrjohnston wrote:

lawrenceg wrote: For the first type, fingers and thumbs will happily cope with numbers up to a thousand and twenty-three.

or 1048575 on a good day...

FFFFF'ing hell

Phil, no need to be negative...