I have been playing mostly Wargear Warfare 1 v 1 lately.  I feel there are three facets of the game that are affected by luck,

1. Initial board setup (selection of territories)
2. Dice rolls
3. Card draws

Each of them could have a strong effect on the outcome of a game, but I want to focus on the initial board setup.

In your opinion, what % of the time is the initial set up so disfavorable that you are sure to lose?

My first estimate is:

• 20% Extremely disfavorable (certain defeat)
• 20% Slightly disfavorable 
• 20% Neutral
• 20% Slighly favorable
• 20% Extremely favorable (certain victory)

I am interested to hear your responses

Define "sure to lose". 

70% Not sure

75% Kinda sure

80% Almost sure

85% Almost pretty sure

90% Pretty sure

95% Very sure

97% Pretty damned sure

99% Extremely sure

100% Unreasonably sure

SquintGnome wrote:

I have been playing mostly Wargear Warfare 1 v 1 lately.  I feel there are three facets of the game that are affected by luck,

1. Initial board setup (selection of territories)
2. Dice rolls
3. Card draws

Each of them could have a strong effect on the outcome of a game, but I want to focus on the initial board setup.

In your opinion, what % of the time is the initial set up so disfavorable that you are sure to lose?

My first estimate is:

• 20% Extremely disfavorable (certain defeat)
• 20% Slightly disfavorable 
• 20% Neutral
• 20% Slighly favorable
• 20% Extremely favorable (certain victory)

I am interested to hear your responses

Should also include:

1. Initial setup (Starting position).

Being 1st vs. 2nd is a large factor.

AttilaTheHun wrote:

SquintGnome wrote:

I have been playing mostly Wargear Warfare 1 v 1 lately.  I feel there are three facets of the game that are affected by luck,

1. Initial board setup (selection of territories)
2. Dice rolls
3. Card draws

Each of them could have a strong effect on the outcome of a game, but I want to focus on the initial board setup.

In your opinion, what % of the time is the initial set up so disfavorable that you are sure to lose?

My first estimate is:

• 20% Extremely disfavorable (certain defeat)
• 20% Slightly disfavorable 
• 20% Neutral
• 20% Slighly favorable
• 20% Extremely favorable (certain victory)

I am interested to hear your responses

Should also include:

1. Initial setup (Starting position).

Being 1st vs. 2nd is a large factor.

Agreed with ATH. The winner is the one at seat 1 in 60% of the games.

To ATH,

Yes, of course! That was an important one that I forgot, seat order is important as well.

To M,

It would be nigh impossible and cumbersome to definitively define 'sure to lose'. However, for the purpose of the question I posed let me define it as: "Assuming the game continues with neutral 'luck' for all aspects of the game affected by luck, you will lose 95% of the time when facing a competent opponent"

Of course, this definition now begs for the definition of 'competent opponent'.  This is an equally difficult definition, but again, for the purpose of this thread, lets call a competent opponent someone who does, or would have, a rating of 1000 or higher after playing 30 games in the board in question. So this competent opponent would not necessarily be 'skilled' or a 'good player', just someone who can hold their own.

I would say about 1/8 games you lose right off the bat if you play 1v1. If you want a breakdown it would be something like:

20% Auto loss, 5% Bad odds, 50% neutral, 5% good, and 20% auto win. If you cap on the first turn you win a + or -1 bonus isn't very powerful, but +2 seems to be the breaking point.

I wonder - is there some way to calculate these #s in some way?  It would be interesting to compare this between maps to show that for example, map A is 50% already determined by your initial placement & turn order, and map B is only 20% determined.

Maybe you could somehow look at players win/loss record compared to the difference in their ranking scores.  If for each map you look at % wins by outmatched players (players more than 500 below their opponent) does that show us something interesting?

Uh oh...I see where this is heading...

Yertle wrote:

Uh oh...I see where this is heading...

Where are the qualitative comparisons when you need them :)

Yertle wrote:

Uh oh...I see where this is heading..

Is it a trap?

Not trying to hi-jack. This is a psuedo-sequitor..

This game isn't Wargear Warfare ..it's Micro Mission.  I'm black..

http://www.wargear.net/games/view/93935

I was feeling pretty good my chances to win it right out of the blocks; about as good as you can feel in a five player game.  I decided to go for the NA continent on my first turn, had decent rolls and then was thinking that things were looking REAL good.  Blue puts it all in Peru as expected and then the unthinkable happens.  He practically wipes me out in one turn.

I don't know if I'll ever feel good about an opening position again.

Ozyman wrote:

I wonder - is there some way to calculate these #s in some way?  It would be interesting to compare this between maps to show that for example, map A is 50% already determined by your initial placement & turn order, and map B is only 20% determined.

Maybe you could somehow look at players win/loss record compared to the difference in their ranking scores.  If for each map you look at % wins by outmatched players (players more than 500 below their opponent) does that show us something interesting?

Another way to look at determining what percentage of games start out as a 'Sure Loss' is to define what constitutes a 'Sure Loss' and calculate the probability for the scenario.  Add up the probabilities for all these scenarios and you would have a rough probability for how many games start out as a 'Sure Loss'

For example, lets say that if our opponent controls 3 out of 4 of the territories in either SA or AUS and goes first then that would be a sure loss (many would argue this buts lets use it as an example to get started).  There are 81 possbilities of how any 4 territories would be populated between you, your opponent, and Neutral.  Of these 81 possibilites, about 11% have 3 or 4 territories controlled by your opponent (I can provided details if needed).  So, if we now say it can be Australia OR SA, the probability is 11% + 11% = 22%.  So about 1 out of 5 times this will happen at the start of a game.  If we add the requirement that your opponent go first in these scenarious then we cut that in half.  So, we end up saying that 11% of the time your opponent will go first and control 3 or 4 territories in either Aus or SA - which is a 'Sure Loss'.

Now, this has been simplified to get things rolling, but any other conditions can be factored in a more detailed analysis. 

If there can be agreement and a precise definition of 'Sure Loss' starting scenarios then the probability for each can be calculated and then accumulated to give a total probability of any of these scenarios being present at the start of a game - in essence the probability of a 'Sure Loss'.

As M57 noted though, even when starting in a very bad postion luck can turn things around quickly.  This is true, but I assert that for all the times good luck turns around a bad situation bad luck will turn around a good situation.  So, it will be a wash, and therefore the analysis of starting situations is valid even though it ignores the future fluctuations of luck.

Well, let me know what you think.

I think what you are saying makes sense, but that requires human intelligence and judgment for each map individually.  I'm more interested in solutions that are automatable.

There was a thread before were we talked about trying to determine luck for starting positions.  There were a couple good ideas, but nothing really practical.

Ozyman wrote:

I think what you are saying makes sense, but that requires human intelligence and judgment for each map individually.  I'm more interested in solutions that are automatable.

I was just thinking that you could have an engine that output a simulated "fair" dice result.  I.e., for every attacking army that is defeated, a defending army wins.  It would do this by randomly starting with one or the other and alternating.

There are a number of problem with this idea.  The first that springs to mind is that correct play would be different than play with random dice, but I would think that on standard boards like Wargear Warfare, it would still be good enough to expose strong and weak positions.  Another is that Risk dice are not fair in the first place.  Though with an expected ratio of 1.17 / 1 wins to loses (I don't remember the exact number), I suppose you could have the engine throw an extra win in there every 9 rolls or so.

Anyways, there could be bots that play the game out. The boot bots that have been discussed might be good enough. If they all play with the same algorithm, the real game could be pre or post game played by bots and an outcome could be generated to see who "should" win.  One problem with this is that there is only one outcome, and no odds can be generated. Hey, at least it's an idea.

There was a thread before were we talked about trying to determine luck for starting positions.  There were a couple good ideas, but nothing really practical.

I could be mistaken, but I seem to remember that a number of them were practical.  At least a few involved something pretty simple like the statistical polling of a likely win based on territory holdings.  Just make up the rules for combining the data, shake and pour.