Top 100* GR Round Robin Series Roundup
Posted: Mon Oct 14, 2019 12:28 am
Friends,
Back in June, I organized two round robin gunboat sets with experienced players well-regarded in the Ghost Ratings, with a lot of help from (and much thanks to) Claesar and Magnetic24.
As announced in this thread, the series recently finished.
Claesar was kind enough to compile results in a spreadsheet here. Thank you Claesar!
Some quick navigating info: We "scored" the games by assigning each game 420 points, and then splitting the points among all players in the game who won or drew. For instance, a solo was worth the full 420 (and all survivors get 0), a 3-way draw is worth 140, etc. Because there are seven countries playing seven games, the expected value of a given country over the seven-game set, assuming all countries are equally good, is 420 points, and 840 for the full 14 games played.
First, I want to thank everyone who participated for a fun set with some pretty good play all around. Special shoutouts to Matticus13, mdrltc, and 90kicvesb for finishing first or tied for first in their respective groups--mdrltc and 90kicvesb had the only solos of the series, and Matticus had the most centers of any player in the series with 69 (nice) across seven games.
Second, I want to discuss some of the broader narratives about gunboat Diplomacy strategy that one might take from this series. We need to dispense with some important caveats first: fourteen games is far from a statistically significant sample size, and patterns that emerge among seven specific players playing against each other repeatedly (albeit anonymously) won't necessarily be reflected in the broader metagame.
That said... personally, I was very impressed and surprised with how strong Germany was in this series. Germany had both solos, and more than doubled the expected value of an average country, with a total of 1729 points over 14 games (EV = 840). One wonders how many German players were consulting The Biggest Gunboat Journal of All Time during the series. Germany's metagame position has looked very good to me for some time so I'm not too surprised Germany did well here--it's the sheer dominance that surprised me.
I was similarly surprised and unimpressed with Italy's showing. I apparently had the best Italy, and it was a very mopey game where I successfully took Marseilles and Iberia from France, Smyrna from Turkey, and waited for the 3-way draw. I've recently come to appreciate Italy as one of the stronger gunboat powers, but I guess it still has a tendency to stall out and put up middling results.
Back in June, I organized two round robin gunboat sets with experienced players well-regarded in the Ghost Ratings, with a lot of help from (and much thanks to) Claesar and Magnetic24.
As announced in this thread, the series recently finished.
Claesar was kind enough to compile results in a spreadsheet here. Thank you Claesar!
Some quick navigating info: We "scored" the games by assigning each game 420 points, and then splitting the points among all players in the game who won or drew. For instance, a solo was worth the full 420 (and all survivors get 0), a 3-way draw is worth 140, etc. Because there are seven countries playing seven games, the expected value of a given country over the seven-game set, assuming all countries are equally good, is 420 points, and 840 for the full 14 games played.
First, I want to thank everyone who participated for a fun set with some pretty good play all around. Special shoutouts to Matticus13, mdrltc, and 90kicvesb for finishing first or tied for first in their respective groups--mdrltc and 90kicvesb had the only solos of the series, and Matticus had the most centers of any player in the series with 69 (nice) across seven games.
Second, I want to discuss some of the broader narratives about gunboat Diplomacy strategy that one might take from this series. We need to dispense with some important caveats first: fourteen games is far from a statistically significant sample size, and patterns that emerge among seven specific players playing against each other repeatedly (albeit anonymously) won't necessarily be reflected in the broader metagame.
That said... personally, I was very impressed and surprised with how strong Germany was in this series. Germany had both solos, and more than doubled the expected value of an average country, with a total of 1729 points over 14 games (EV = 840). One wonders how many German players were consulting The Biggest Gunboat Journal of All Time during the series. Germany's metagame position has looked very good to me for some time so I'm not too surprised Germany did well here--it's the sheer dominance that surprised me.
I was similarly surprised and unimpressed with Italy's showing. I apparently had the best Italy, and it was a very mopey game where I successfully took Marseilles and Iberia from France, Smyrna from Turkey, and waited for the 3-way draw. I've recently come to appreciate Italy as one of the stronger gunboat powers, but I guess it still has a tendency to stall out and put up middling results.
oo