Ghana is hella good in World Dip IX gunboat, right?

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pyxxy
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Ghana is hella good in World Dip IX gunboat, right?

#1 Post by pyxxy » Mon Sep 07, 2020 11:43 pm

Ghana just seems to always get a great start of out of the gates. Note, I'm not complaining about balance, just curious if other people agree?

The only post I've found that's somewhat related to this topic is a popularity poll in which Ghana placed third best, which is circumstantial evidence that it has good positioning (e.g. people who dislike playing countries with worse/harder positioning, probably?).

Maybe there's some statistical analysis that someone did on this? I could go scroll through all the "World Gunboat-#" games and compile results, but that sounds like effort.

Again, I'm not complaining about balance. I actually dismantled a pretty strong early/mid-game Ghana as Kenya in https://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=264773...not to brag. So the country isn't completely unstoppable. But if there is a gunboat meta for World, there might be some benefit to Libya allying literally anyone else against the powerful being that is Ghana.

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Re: Ghana is hella good in World Dip IX gunboat, right?

#2 Post by Mercy » Tue Sep 08, 2020 6:47 pm

I did some stats on World Dip IX in the past. I believe Ghana is indeed statistically the best power, not only in gunboat but also in press. Kenya, Western-Canada and Quebec are very strong powers too.

I think the main reason for the dominance of Ghana and Kenya is because of the following. There are four nations in Africa: Ghana, Kenya, Libya and South Africa. Ghana and Kenya are not positioned to attack each other, and neither are Libya and South Africa, so the African battle can be simplified as Ghana + Kenya vs Libya + South Africa, at least in the early stages in the game. Due to the fact that Libya and South Africa have important borders with players outside of the African continent (Libya borders another power with one of his home SCs and South Africa literally starts with 1 center outside Africa, leaving it with only 2 home centers inside Africa), Ghana and Kenya can usually overpower Libya and South Africa with quite ease.

You made it clear that you are not complaining about balance, but let me still bring up that in the past I created a new world map for vDip that aims to solve some of the imbalances of World Dip IX, mainly by giving players more options in the early game.
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Re: Ghana is hella good in World Dip IX gunboat, right?

#3 Post by pyxxy » Tue Sep 08, 2020 8:52 pm

Yes, sorry Mercy, I should have just linked your post so that you didn't have to rewrite the whole thing here :razz:

I didn't open your variant before though, looking at it now, I like the changes! I'll miss Kenya but I understand the reasons for the adjustments. I see that only 5 games have been played on vDip, do you have any info about those games? Did the changes work as hoped?

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Re: Ghana is hella good in World Dip IX gunboat, right?

#4 Post by TheMadMonarch » Tue Sep 08, 2020 11:23 pm

Vdip has the ability for you to just see variant's stats really easily, and Ghana is still performing the best.

https://vdiplomacy.net/stats.php?variantID=129
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Re: Ghana is hella good in World Dip IX gunboat, right?

#5 Post by pyxxy » Tue Sep 08, 2020 11:47 pm

And a big Thank You! to Macca as well. I guess I should have done more than just create a vDip account :razz:

Ghana still powerful in the X version, huh? I guess they've been a roll since the 2010 World Cup...

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Re: Ghana is hella good in World Dip IX gunboat, right?

#6 Post by Mercy » Wed Sep 09, 2020 5:13 am

Macca573 wrote:
Tue Sep 08, 2020 11:23 pm
Vdip has the ability for you to just see variant's stats really easily, and Ghana is still performing the best.

https://vdiplomacy.net/stats.php?variantID=129
Like pyxxy said, only five games have been played on World Dip X so far. The only reason Ghana has the best stats is because it achieved the only solo victory. If you disregard that single game, suddenly Ghana's stats would fall below average. I think it is too early to draw statistically significant conclusions from old games, but I hope the variant will continued to be played so that that will change in the future.
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