Standard WoK scores. Debate instead of maths.

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Should players' scores show how strong or how much of a threat?

It should show how strong they are right now.
8
73%
It should show how much of a threat they could be with their resources.
3
27%
 
Total votes: 11

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Standard WoK scores. Debate instead of maths.

Post by korexus » Thu May 31, 2007 11:24 pm

Ok, so I got a bit carried away on the other thread. The numbers started out pretty simple but I guess I didn't spot the time to stop... This is why most of the developement stuff is kept private I guess.

Simple question then, to decide which route to go down. Do you think players' scores should show how powerful they are now or how powerful they are potentially? - By this I mean do you want to allow things like sleepers masking their score by having a low EFF. This makes them very weak right now, but if they have 250 tech points they can go right up to full strength in a turn.

Please vote and explain!


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Post by korexus » Thu May 31, 2007 11:29 pm

So, to get the ball rolling (then I promise I'll go to bed!) I think the score should show the threat posed by a player. Showing the current strength is fine, but it will increase the strength of sleeping as people can hide how much of a threat they are by leaving their empire appearing weak but in a state which can quickly be brought up to full strength.
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Post by Brykovian » Fri Jun 01, 2007 1:00 am

It should show how strong they are at that exact moment. Their "potential" depends almost entirely on experience and skill and style of play. If someone wants to mask their true strength until dance-time ... that's a valid tactic, imo. It's also a risk.

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Post by Saladin » Fri Jun 01, 2007 7:38 am

Well having a low eff should be reflected in a player's score. So i would go for how powerful they are and not based on their potential.
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Post by korexus » Fri Jun 01, 2007 8:46 am

Well, as I said over on that other thread. I'll go with the community on this one. I am surprised though, as several people have complained in the past that the current system under-rates sleepers. This will continue to be the case if we go down this route as a sleeper is very weak militarily before waking up...

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Post by Saladin » Fri Jun 01, 2007 9:02 am

Korexus, if i'm not mistaken by seriously increasing the value of level 'sleepers' will have a much higher (and more realistic) score.

I doubt that there are a lot of 'sleepers' out there that actually let their eff drop very low. I tried it once and nearly was caught out when i missed a turn and couldn't get the eff back up (luckily Calidus missed my armies). So personally i find it a dangerous method to use and i don't think it's widely used.

Anyway, people are never really fooled by a players score. Sleepers tend to have lower scores than their actual strength and missiles maniacs tend to have an inflated score.

I think that the changes that are being made will make the scoring much more realistic than it now is. It probably won't be perfect yet, but we can always adjust them again if necessary.
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Post by trewqh » Fri Jun 01, 2007 3:56 pm

If we reflect in the score that a sleeper COULD max his EFF in two turns then we decieve people into thinking that right now his 0 EFF doesn't make his ARMies useless and vulnerable right now.

Korexus (it's the beginning of a sentence :) ) I liked the way you made DEF relevant only when ARM are present. I didn't think of that myself, but it does conform to the 'trewqh's approach' :)

As for MIS, in my approach it doesn't matter how painful the damage will be to the opponent. What I think should be taken into account is only the relation between how much WOK-TURNs it takes to produce MIS and the statistical losses per missile (but I guess that one's hard to figure out since MIS can destroy all sorts of things).

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Post by korexus » Fri Jun 01, 2007 5:21 pm

trewqh wrote:If we reflect in the score that a sleeper COULD max his EFF in two turns then we decieve people into thinking that right now his 0 EFF doesn't make his ARMies useless and vulnerable right now.
As I said, I'll go with the community opinion. You're the insomniac, not me. Having the score calculated this way will only help the traditional Scholar tactics...
Korexus (it's the beginning of a sentence :) ) I liked the way you made DEF relevant only when ARM are present. I didn't think of that myself, but it does conform to the 'trewqh's approach' :)
No charge. I actually modified the formula a bit further since then, to give armies an attack rating (using LEV and TEC) and an defense rating (using LEV and DEF). The average of these will show how strong your amies are. (after EFF modification, of course)
As for MIS, in my approach it doesn't matter how painful the damage will be to the opponent. What I think should be taken into account is only the relation between how much WOK-TURNs it takes to produce MIS and the statistical losses per missile (but I guess that one's hard to figure out since MIS can destroy all sorts of things).
TEC, DEF and SPY are all pretty much the same value throughout the game. The big issue comes from missiles killing armies. I feel the value of a missile should represent the amount of points you expect it to knock off your opponent, but with Level 10 armies counting 19 times as strong as level 1, there is no way to do this which doesn't give away in-game information. We could set an arbitrary amount of, say level three, that armies are at "on average", or we can make missiles worth more points over time to reflect the higher LEVs out there, or we can use the player's own LEV as a guide. Each system has flaws, right now I'm going for option 2...

But again, this is going down the potential strength route. Just having missiles doesn't make you any stronger. It's having the skill to fire them properly that counts, so maybe we shouldn't include them in the formula... :twisted:

I'd also like to define workers in terms of what they can make and POP in terms of what it can be transformed into. The more I think about it, the more I feel that POP is wrong as the basic unit of WoK. It should actually be the level 1 ARM, with everthing else being calculated to represent how well it creates, supports or destroys that unit...

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Post by Saladin » Fri Jun 01, 2007 7:18 pm

I do agree with Trewqh that the score of missiles should not depend on what the other player has. Like you said it would be impossible to say how strong another player's armies are. Plus you don't even know on who those missiles will be used.

So keep it simple. :twisted:
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Post by korexus » Fri Jun 01, 2007 7:29 pm

I already said that. If you'd care to comment on any of the three options I suggested, that would help.

Also, I curious about EFF. Under this system, do you want to multiply ARM, SPY and MIS by EFF/100 or something more like Bryk's suggestion of (3/4 + EFF/400)?
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Post by Brykovian » Fri Jun 01, 2007 7:56 pm

korexus wrote:I already said that. If you'd care to comment on any of the three options I suggested, that would help.
I'd do the thing where you assume all opposing armies are LEV 3.
korexus wrote:Also, I curious about EFF. Under this system, do you want to multiply ARM, SPY and MIS by EFF/100 or something more like Bryk's suggestion of (3/4 + EFF/400)?
It should not be EFF straight-up ... I still think letting EFF only reduce about 1/4 or 1/3 of your score would be best.

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Post by korexus » Fri Jun 01, 2007 8:18 pm

Both answers as I wold like them, Bryk (although I pulled 3 out of thin air, so I'm happy to change that number...)

I just have a feeling that trewqh's world view doesn't include any points for ARM when your EFF is 0. I'd like them still to be represented in the score, but this is "potential" strength, not actual...


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Post by Saladin » Fri Jun 01, 2007 9:00 pm

korexus wrote:Also, I curious about EFF. Under this system, do you want to multiply ARM, SPY and MIS by EFF/100 or something more like Bryk's suggestion of (3/4 + EFF/400)?
Hmm...i'm in doubt about this one.

On the one hand EFF/99 is the most honest solution.

On the other hand though i can see sense in having EFF only influence a part of a player's score. Though then i would rather go with something like 1/2 instead of only 1/4.
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Post by trewqh » Fri Jun 01, 2007 9:49 pm

No charge. I actually modified the formula a bit further since then, to give armies an attack rating (using LEV and TEC) and an defense rating (using LEV and DEF). The average of these will show how strong your amies are. (after EFF modification, of course)
Neat! :)
I feel the value of a missile should represent the amount of points you expect it to knock off your opponent, but with Level 10 armies counting 19 times as strong as level 1, there is no way to do this which doesn't give away in-game information.
I don't see that 'give away in-game information' part as a problem. That wouldn't bother me, besides, score is not that static POP grows, WOK do something so the score will not be affected only by the loss of ARM.

Having said that, if I HAD to choose, I'd choose the first solution as Bryk did.
But again, this is going down the potential strength route. Just having missiles doesn't make you any stronger. It's having the skill to fire them properly that counts, so maybe we shouldn't include them in the formula...
Having MIS doesn't make you stronger, but there's a relation between the amount of MIS you have and the resources you had to use to build them. Also MIS have fixed capabilities of their own - based on the statistical damage they do.
I'd also like to define workers in terms of what they can make and POP in terms of what it can be transformed into. The more I think about it, the more I feel that POP is wrong as the basic unit of WoK. It should actually be the level 1 ARM, with everthing else being calculated to represent how well it creates, supports or destroys that unit...
That's what I want as well, establishing relations between the resources themselves, which are independent of player skill. That's why I said at the beginning that, in terms of score, 4POP=2WOK=1ARM sounds logical to me.
I just have a feeling that trewqh's world view doesn't include any points for ARM when your EFF is 0.
True. Good thing I don't run things around here, right? :)

1. If POP and WOK are not influenced by EFF then it's not like anyone's score will go down to zero.

2. The stuff influenced by EFF is useless when your EFF is at 0, and I think it's half as useful when you have 50EFF then it could be when your EFF is maxed out - Bryk's suggestion wouldn't reflect that.

Of course, in case of a poll I wouldn't make a peep if the ones who would care about voting thought otherwise.

We're making progress, that's brilliant! :)

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Post by trewqh » Fri Jun 01, 2007 10:02 pm

trewqh wrote:1. If POP and WOK are not influenced by EFF then it's not like anyone's score will go down to zero.
Hmm, I thought about a scenario where a player has 0 POP, 0 WOK, decent ARM @ decent LEV, 0 EFF and 999 TEC.... It looks like he had 0 points but actually he could trade TEC and become a decent threat (yes, threat :) )

I think I'm leaning towards honouring the potential of TEC trades... :) Or rather honouring that some resources (worker-turns) have been put into producing these TEC points. :P

Scoring the case mentioned above at 0 would be more deceiving than the bonus that would go to players with no ARM for the TEC they have.

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Post by korexus » Sat Jun 02, 2007 9:39 am

trewqh wrote:
korexus wrote:I feel the value of a missile should represent the amount of points you expect it to knock off your opponent, but with Level 10 armies counting 19 times as strong as level 1, there is no way to do this which doesn't give away in-game information.
I don't see that 'give away in-game information' part as a problem. That wouldn't bother me, besides, score is not that static POP grows, WOK do something so the score will not be affected only by the loss of ARM.

Having said that, if I HAD to choose, I'd choose the first solution as Bryk did.
I can do it dynamically, so the intrinsic value of everything depends on how much of everything else is around on the game map. (So, to take an extreme example, if no players have any arm, spy, def or tec then missiles are worth 0 points as they can't do anything.) Doing this over the entire game board will not give away info easily especially as player are just given a final score. It will also help give the clearest picture of who is the strongest in game at any given point. The downside is small. Game to game comparisons will mean less as your score depends on how well other people are doing as well as how strong you are...
I'd also like to define workers in terms of what they can make and POP in terms of what it can be transformed into. The more I think about it, the more I feel that POP is wrong as the basic unit of WoK. It should actually be the level 1 ARM, with everthing else being calculated to represent how well it creates, supports or destroys that unit...
That's what I want as well, establishing relations between the resources themselves, which are independent of player skill. That's why I said at the beginning that, in terms of score, 4POP=2WOK=1ARM sounds logical to me.
I know it sounds logical, but it's actually misleading as it states that a worker is half as useful as an army. If this were true, then most balanced empires would have roughly twice as many workers as armies in order to run their war machine. This is untrue and is another example of how armies are under-valued in the scoring system.

What I propose is to work out the value of one point of EFF, TEC, LEV & DEF and the value of one unit of MIS & SPY and then rate workers on their ability to make these. We then rate POP on the ratios to make WOK and ARM as before, but we've started from ARM as the basice unit, not POP.

Don't worry, I'll do the calculations on paper, not on the boards.

There is another question tied up in this. On an 'actual strength' method, do you value workers differently for different AIMs? - Workers making DEF in a province with no armies will not increase your score any, so do they count for no points themselves? We're summing the score over each province already so we can do this.

My approach would have been to average the values of all the things a worker can make, but that is more down the 'potential strength' route. - A player who never changes AIM in provinces will end up with a whole lot of DEF and his workers have been effectively useless exept where his armies are...
True. Good thing I don't run things around here, right? :)
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We're making progress, that's brilliant! :)

Couldn't agree more! :P


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Post by trewqh » Sat Jun 02, 2007 10:30 am

korexus wrote:I can do it dynamically, so the intrinsic value of everything depends on how much of everything else is around on the game map. (So, to take an extreme example, if no players have any arm, spy, def or tec then missiles are worth 0 points as they can't do anything.) Doing this over the entire game board will not give away info easily especially as player are just given a final score. It will also help give the clearest picture of who is the strongest in game at any given point. The downside is small. Game to game comparisons will mean less as your score depends on how well other people are doing as well as how strong you are...
I wouldn't like the score to be that relative.
korexus wrote:There is another question tied up in this. On an 'actual strength' method, do you value workers differently for different AIMs? - Workers making DEF in a province with no armies will not increase your score any, so do they count for no points themselves? We're summing the score over each province already so we can do this.

My approach would have been to average the values of all the things a worker can make, but that is more down the 'potential strength' route. - A player who never changes AIM in provinces will end up with a whole lot of DEF and his workers have been effectively useless exept where his armies are...
Our approaches converge on this one it seems. Making the score for workers dependant from the AIM would mean we score them depending on what a player might do with it - I wouldn't like that. Figuring out and scoring the overall capabilities of workers is the way to go.

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Post by korexus » Sat Jun 02, 2007 10:59 am

Ok then, I think we have enough to decide the format of the final score. It sounds like it should look like:

The sum over all provinces of {POP X POP + WOK X WOK + (ARM X ARM + MIS X MIS + SPY X SPY) X EFF/100} + TEC X TEC

Where italics denote the value of that item based on what it can produce/kill or otherwise do.


I quite like the 'everything in terms of everything else' approach, but we can go with a simpler route. Does anyone have a suggestion for what level I should assume armies are at, while determining the value of missiles?


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Post by trewqh » Sat Jun 02, 2007 11:05 am

And DEF is in the ARM somewhere right?

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Post by korexus » Sat Jun 02, 2007 12:13 pm

Well, at the risk of another maths overload, I reckon, the value of ARM can be given as

ARM = [(2 * LEV - 1) * min[ intval { (TEC + 150) / 7}, 7] + {2 * (LEV + 2 * DEF / 5) - 1} ] / 2

That is, the bonus from level times the number of attacks, plus the bonus from level and defense in the province, all divided by two. (The average of the attack and defense rating of the army group).


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