In another thread Thingol wrote:

In my 4 team tourney games on Invention, we have gotten blown out twice when we went 2nd and cruised to 2 easy victories when we went first.  In our 5th game now, we went 2nd, so let's see how that plays out.

I didn't want to hijack that thread, so here's a new one.  I'd be more than happy to adjust the 1st round bonuses on invention.  I brought it up once with some playtesters and the general consensus was that seat order didn't matter much.  Of course maybe any affects are multiplied in a 2v2 game.

I was thinking of giving 5,6,6,7 as the bonuses for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th to go.  What do you think?

I've had no such ill effects while playing 2v2 invention and actually have a better record playing from 2-4 then 1-3.  Between normal play and tournament play I have played about 50 2v2 (default) invention games and the team I was on has never lost from the 2-4 positions.  I have lost two games when my team was seeded 1-3.  Seat position is not a serious or  determining factor to game outcome in my opinion.  Very well balanced and thanks for the excellent board Ozy!

Ozyman wrote: I brought it up once with some playtesters and the general consensus was that seat order didn't matter much. 

I don't play the board but a quick look at the charts for games with 2 - 5 players (and it's a sizable sample group) suggests that there's a significant advantage for early seats - In my opinion, it's enough that first round bonus allocation alteration is in order.

M57 wrote:

Ozyman wrote: I brought it up once with some playtesters and the general consensus was that seat order didn't matter much. 

I don't play the board but a quick look at the charts for games with 2 - 5 players (and it's a sizable sample group) suggests that there's a significant advantage for early seats - In my opinion, it's enough that first round bonus allocation alteration is in order.

I'm not sure what you're looking at M57, could you send a link?  When I look at the charts for invention, for the regular play 4 person chart it is remarkably balanced (29.3/27.6/21.9/21.2).  Even though the board is designed for 4 players, the 3 player chart is still really well balanced (39.7/29.8/30.1).  For the topic at hand 5+ is irrelevant because then it's showing barbarians and not the default scenario.  I'd actually be more interested to see the win% by nationality as that might be even more telling then by seat only.  The other problem is that I'm not sure if the chart is just showing for regular play, or team regular combined, but, the two are not played at all in the same way.  Different can of worms all together.

While you might disagree that those pie charts are relatively balanced or not, compare to Civil War where 4 players is 29.6/23.9/24.6/21.9 or Colossal Crusade at 30.4/26.8/22.3/20.4.  They're all in the same ballpark.  To try to get 25/25/25/25 is really just an exercise in futility I'd reckon, and the data showing is pretty much as close to parity as you'd get for these sorts of things.  I wanted to look at WarGear Warfare as well but it wasn't showing the charts for some reason.

Is it possible to see for team games only?

I consider all of those numbers to be pretty bad.  There's basically a 10 point difference between 1st and last seat. Same for 3 players at.. 40/30/30

Compare to some of my boards (so I'm not picking on anyone else)

Roses @ 35/33/32 & 28/26/25/21

Fall of Rome @ 34/33/33  is almost perfect but @ 4 players is 32/20/24/24

New Earth Board is horrendous at 42/27/32 but @ 4 players is looking OK at 25/19/29/27

For some reason I couldn't get the charts for Anarchy to come up.

I think it's like elections where even a "close" race doesn't look so close once the results are in because in order to take a few percentages the other has to give and all of a sudden by the percentages doubling to give and take the margin looks much larger then it actually felt to begin with.  So, while one might be hoping to see a perfectly equitable split between seats, when you have one seat winning two or three more games of each hundred, some other seat has to lose those games and then it might look like a big difference, but really, we're still only talking about 3-4-5 games in each HUNDRED to get those results... Which is measly. 

In fact I would be willing to say that your own examples are really pretty much the same splits as the ones I gave and the only one that might be looking only slightly more equitable is a luck board and not a skill board... which I guess makes sense since pure luck should drift towards an even split with a big enough sample size as there is not much for a skill player to capitalize with when luck becomes such a determinating factor.  Also, don't forget your other luck based board, Renaissance Wars, which has not yet reached a sample size to normalize and is currently showing the third seat with a distinct advantage at 30.7% and the first seat at 21.3% (in 4 player games).  So, sure a skill based board will probably start off with a slight advantage to the earlier seats and it will stay that way slightly even as the sample size grows.  Whereas a luck based board might come off with a wildly different seat preference to start but should look more "equal" with a large enough sample size... But, invention isn't really a luck based board, so, I don't think that any amount of tinkering will negate the 3-4-5 games in a hundred that is the first seat advantage, nor, that it is really necessary to nitpick over something that fits into the normal spread of board seat averages already... Just to handicap the first seat to hopefully effect them just negatively enough to throw 4-5% of their games?!?!

I made a beta version with 5,6,6,7 cards in the 1st round.  I know it's hard to say from just a few games, but let me know if you play one what you think.

http://www.wargear.net/games/create?boardid=6114&devmode=true

http://www.wargear.net/boards/view/6114

berickf wrote:

M57 wrote:

Ozyman wrote: I brought it up once with some playtesters and the general consensus was that seat order didn't matter much. 

I don't play the board but a quick look at the charts for games with 2 - 5 players (and it's a sizable sample group) suggests that there's a significant advantage for early seats - In my opinion, it's enough that first round bonus allocation alteration is in order.

I'm not sure what you're looking at M57, could you send a link?  When I look at the charts for invention, for the regular play 4 person chart it is remarkably balanced (29.3/27.6/21.9/21.2).  Even though the board is designed for 4 players, the 3 player chart is still really well balanced (39.7/29.8/30.1).  For the topic at hand 5+ is irrelevant because then it's showing barbarians and not the default scenario.  I'd actually be more interested to see the win% by nationality as that might be even more telling then by seat only.  The other problem is that I'm not sure if the chart is just showing for regular play, or team regular combined, but, the two are not played at all in the same way.  Different can of worms all together.

While you might disagree that those pie charts are relatively balanced or not, compare to Civil War where 4 players is 29.6/23.9/24.6/21.9 or Colossal Crusade at 30.4/26.8/22.3/20.4.  They're all in the same ballpark.  To try to get 25/25/25/25 is really just an exercise in futility I'd reckon, and the data showing is pretty much as close to parity as you'd get for these sorts of things.  I wanted to look at WarGear Warfare as well but it wasn't showing the charts for some reason.

Is it possible to see for team games only?

I'm not a statistician, but a gap of nearly 1/3 vs 1/5 seems pretty significant...  

berickf wrote:

I've had no such ill effects while playing 2v2 invention and actually have a better record playing from 2-4 then 1-3.  Between normal play and tournament play I have played about 50 2v2 (default) invention games and the team I was on has never lost from the 2-4 positions.  I have lost two games when my team was seeded 1-3.  Seat position is not a serious or  determining factor to game outcome in my opinion.  Very well balanced and thanks for the excellent board Ozy!

Lol, 48 & 2?

I don't think we can use your experience as a norm there berick (That was a compliment btw).  

itsnotatumor wrote:

berickf wrote:

I've had no such ill effects while playing 2v2 invention and actually have a better record playing from 2-4 then 1-3.  Between normal play and tournament play I have played about 50 2v2 (default) invention games and the team I was on has never lost from the 2-4 positions.  I have lost two games when my team was seeded 1-3.  Seat position is not a serious or  determining factor to game outcome in my opinion.  Very well balanced and thanks for the excellent board Ozy!

Lol, 48 & 2?

I don't think we can use your experience as a norm there berick (That was a compliment btw).  

 

But it does imply that skill is a more important factor than seat position.

Ozyman wrote:

In another thread Thingol wrote:

In my 4 team tourney games on Invention, we have gotten blown out twice when we went 2nd and cruised to 2 easy victories when we went first.  In our 5th game now, we went 2nd, so let's see how that plays out.

And in the 5th game:

Thingol in 4th position was just taken out in the 3rd round...

Korrun wrote:

itsnotatumor wrote:

berickf wrote:

I've had no such ill effects while playing 2v2 invention and actually have a better record playing from 2-4 then 1-3.  Between normal play and tournament play I have played about 50 2v2 (default) invention games and the team I was on has never lost from the 2-4 positions.  I have lost two games when my team was seeded 1-3.  Seat position is not a serious or  determining factor to game outcome in my opinion.  Very well balanced and thanks for the excellent board Ozy!

Lol, 48 & 2?

I don't think we can use your experience as a norm there berick (That was a compliment btw).  

 

But it does imply that skill is a more important factor than seat position.

Yes... This ^ ;-)

I always like games where the skill factors in higher, and I believe that Invention certainly does that to the point where the learning curve has been reached.  In our tourney, however, pretty much everyone knows the workings of the map, especially 4 or 5 games in.

Thingol wrote:

I always like games where the skill factors in higher, and I believe that Invention certainly does that to the point where the learning curve has been reached.  In our tourney, however, pretty much everyone knows the workings of the map, especially 4 or 5 games in.

I think even when many players think they have reached the learning curve, they still don't play it best to maximize on their opportunities nor mitigate their mistakes.  And that's not just invention.  Maybe some players just don't care, or, maybe there are different learning curves and more skilled players push the curve further out then some?  Anyway, it seems to me "knowing the map" is not necessarily the same as knowing how to play it best.