MP: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI. Game Over. Team ACGHHS wins!

[rdonj]

You can change the title of the thread by editing the first post.

I actually think several of the teams have the potential to be quite strong. In particular, the Blessed Ones with the inestimable micah advising them could be quite the dark horse.

[Septimius Severus]

Originally Posted by DrPraetorious

Uh-oh.

Uh... actually, my friend RodSuoirotearp, who is a totally green newbie and no good at this game at all, let alone a threat to anyone, will be subbing in as captain, er... until I get back.

So there is totally no need for the rest of you to ally against us.

Ally against you and the Deva's, perish the thought! : What gave you a crazy idea like that?

I was just speculating about a hypothesis, I know I don't know nothin!

ACGHHS, with their emphasis on teamwork (as exemplified in their team name) are a force to be reckoned with as well.

[Septimius Severus]

I'm also interested in seeing whether the BI mod will make any meaningful/significant difference in the effective difficulty of the AI team. If it doesn't, then its use might be discontinued in the next game.

Ok, well my gut feelings about the odds on each team seem pretty much on the money.

Having some time to waste, I did a calculation using each starting players Shrapnel forum join date to give a general idea of how long that player has been playing Dominions (I know it is a flawed measure which doesn't take into account actual games played/and other shrapnel games like SE) but what the hell.

Based on that, here's what I found:

Avg starting player experience = % chance of winning:

ACGHHS - 3yrs, 7 months = 46% (Hoplo has earliest join date of anyone, followed by Chris!)
Deva's - 2yrs, 1 month = 27%
Mysterios - 1 yr, 5 months = 18%
Blessed Ones - 9 months = around 10%

This seems to favor ACGHHS. But you could then add in a bonus of x percent * the number of nations that team has that are listed among the top 10 winningest EA nations in the victorious nations thread. Depending upon the weighting of x, the Deva's could be seen to have the real actual advantage. You could also add in an adviser bonus, etc, etc.

This is just for fun of course.

[Hoplosternum]

Well in my defence for how rubbish I am considering my great forum age I must confess I joined the board for Space Empires not Dominions. And although I owned Dom 2 I did little more than load it up. Never really playing till Dom 3 and then I was a late starter

And I am still waiting for my Gold Pen icon for being on the boards 5 years....

[DrPraetorious]

Do we have an ETA on the actual start? The troops are getting restless...

[Septimius Severus]

Originally Posted by Hoplosternum

Well in my defence for how rubbish I am considering my great forum age I must confess I joined the board for Space Empires not Dominions. And although I owned Dom 2 I did little more than load it up. Never really playing till Dom 3 and then I was a late starter

And I am still waiting for my Gold Pen icon for being on the boards 5 years....

I suspected as much, since your forum age is older than both Chris and DrP. So assuming your effective forum age is say only 2 years, I can recalculate my figures appropriately (forgot to add a base of 25% to the above not counting the AI team):

Deva's - 2 yrs, 1 month + nation bonus = 75%
ACGHHS - 2 yrs, 7 months = 63%
Mysterios - 1 yr, 5 months + nation bonus = 56%
Blessed Ones - 9 months - nation bonus = 26%

Sounds better.

I've no ETA yet DrP, I know Gandalf said he was ill for a bit, but I'll try to get you one soon. It won't be long now I suspect. While your waiting there's a nice new poll on team names/themes on our forum, if you haven't noticed.

[rdonj]

If you go by games actually won per player, Chris' team clearly comes out on top.

Chrispedersen has won 2 games, got a draw in a 3rd, and either a team victory or another draw in a 4th game... it's slightly unclear from the HoF. Hoplosternum has a newbie game victory, plus NvV3. Grudgebringer has a big team victory, where he was the punching bag for the opposing team

Dr P has (in the hall of honor) 1 recorded solo victory, and one team victory. Pyg and I share in the same, large team victory from NvV1, and no one else we have on our side has won a game. Edit: Actually, I take that back, I played a scenario game with a few people that my side technically won also (the game was abandoned due to various map imbalances), so I have two team victories.

From your team, agema has 1 win, you have two team wins, and you're being advised by Lingchih, who has 2 team victories.

The blessed ones' AlgaeNymph has one victory, and is the only playing member with a victory credited. However, they are being advised by micah, who has 7....


If you want to count wins by nation, chris' is also hardly deficient.

Wins for ACGHHS nations - 15.5
Wins for Deva's Darlings nations - 15.5
Wins for Mysterios nations - 12.5
Wins for Blessed Ones nations - 8

So, if we examine the raw data rather than the anti-giant hype/propoganda machine, clearly it would seem that ACGHHS is the team to beat, not the Devas, as under every measure of player skill and nation capability, they come out either even with or ahead of the Devas. In some cases by significant margins.

[Hoplosternum]

There are many other ways to determine the favourite of course. If we go by quantum_mechani's rankings in the Dominion Nations Evaluations thread (excluding the irrelevent SP rank and I have had to use CPs rank for Lanka as QM did not list them) we get rankings of:

Devas (18+10+15+12) = 55
Mysterios (18+11+13+12) = 54
Blessed Ones(14+11+11+17) = 53
ACGHHS (16+11+11+12) = 50

Then there is the Hot Air or to be topical Global Warming rankings. Found by adding all the posts of the players in the team together.

Here we get rankings of:

Devas (2513+1615+109+639) = 4516
ACGHHS (2983+316+286+892) = 4477
Mysterios (751+509+663+53) = 1976
Blessed Ones (354+88+25+40) = 507

As Global warming is sometimes considered a contentious subject there is always the noise index. Found by dividing total team posts by total months on the board.

Noise Index rankings are:

Devas 4516/105 = 43
Mysterios 1976/70 = 28
ACGHHS 4477/175 = 26
Blessed Ones 507/41 = 12

And what can we learn from these rankings (and Septs & Rdonj's)?

Well which ever way you slice it the Deva's are looking at the top of the pile And it's not looking like a good idea to invest too heavily in the Blessed Ones

[rdonj]

Well, how much a player posts doesn't really have much to do with their skill level. Just look at you, 300 some posts to your name and one of the larger numbers of victories scored of players in the game.

Clearly what we need is a count of how many times on average each team has read their manuals to decide this close and exacting contest.



More seriously we devas certainly are a strong team. And if you say mean things about us we may have to stomp on you a little. Just don't blame us if during said stomping, hordes of jaguars and androphags creep in to molest you.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by rdonj

Well, how much a player posts doesn't really have much to do with their skill level. Just look at you, 300 some posts to your name and one of the larger numbers of victories scored of players in the game.

Clearly what we need is a count of how many times on average each team has read their manuals to decide this close and exacting contest.

Ut-oh. laughing I've read my manual sooo many times the front cover, the back cover, and the first page are all torn off. Its looking very dog eared. And sadly, I have the pages for certain things.. memorized.

Castles. 40.
turn sequence 72.
Dominion. 92.

And we promise not to use jaguars on anyone the giants have stomped.

As for age... Um. my age is actually discounted quite a bit, since I played original dominions. Must confess, the demo was so good, I never bought the actual game.
My date on here was when I came back for dom2 - couldn't remember name or password = ).

Seriously, for a moment, I think you all are way overlooking micah's team. Deva's are it for raw power - but as soon as micah joined the blessed's ... it became even.