I may have talked with people about this before, but it's been rolling around in my skull again.

What do you think is the optimal game size and why?

Games with a lot of players gives the opportunity for huge points if you win, but you have much less control of who does win. But, your Global Rankings seem to take hits that are much higher than they should if you don't win.  Example I've lost 71 points from just one 12 player game. Even with a H rating of say 80 the net result could be a big loss. 

On the flip side with a two player map it takes forever to collect points for global or champ points. Sometimes taking 2 wins just to cover one loss much less move ahead.

What do you think?

I think it depends on other factors.  Luieuil, ranked #1 in GR, is a master of large games, with an average game size of 8.1. Falker1976, ranked #2, made his points specializing in a couple of smallish boards, with an average game size of 3.1. If you look at a lot of players, you'd find those are both towards or at the extremes among high GR ranking players.

As for where you get hurt the most losing, I did a quick look at my 261 losses. Average game size of my losses is 5.9. The worst 40 losses, where I lost from 44 to 98 points, happened on games averaging 5.8 players. The best 40 losses, losing from 10-20 points, were on games averaging 7.1 players. So it looks like I'm safer in larger games, which makes sense to me ... more chances for some good player to overcome a lucky "bad" player.

Of course, you also have to account for the reduced odds of winning the larger game to make a reliable determination of which size to favor. But it would all depend on personal playing strengths and game choices.

Personally I prefer the 4-6 player range.  Avoids the monotony of multiple 2-3 player games and it gives it some variances, without being forever before I get my next turn.

While I keep an eye on my rankings and statistics, it is mostly just for information purposes.  I do it to help myself become a better player.  I play in games that I think will be fun, and tend to look for opponents that I feel will make things interesting. That said, I 'create' most of my games, so the latter isn't an option all that often.

Also, I prefer to play medium to heavily fogged games, in part because I think I'm a stronger "stealth" player, but also because ..well, it's more fun.

smoke wrote:

I think it depends on other factors.  Luieuil, ranked #1 in GR, is a master of large games, with an average game size of 8.1. Falker1976, ranked #2, made his points specializing in a couple of smallish boards, with an average game size of 3.1. If you look at a lot of players, you'd find those are both towards or at the extremes among high GR ranking players.

As for where you get hurt the most losing, I did a quick look at my 261 losses. Average game size of my losses is 5.9. The worst 40 losses, where I lost from 44 to 98 points, happened on games averaging 5.8 players. The best 40 losses, losing from 10-20 points, were on games averaging 7.1 players. So it looks like I'm safer in larger games, which makes sense to me ... more chances for some good player to overcome a lucky "bad" player.

Of course, you also have to account for the reduced odds of winning the larger game to make a reliable determination of which size to favor. But it would all depend on personal playing strengths and game choices.

Hmm… I think I may be the opposite.  I seem safer in smaller games where I have a higher degree of influence.  I have a little less data to work with but my avg. game size for losses is 5.6.

The worst 10 is 6.3,

The worst 20 is 6.2

The best 10 is 5

The best 20 is 4.45

M57 wrote:

While I keep an eye on my rankings and statistics, it is mostly just for information purposes.  I do it to help myself become a better player.  I play in games that I think will be fun, and tend to look for opponents that I feel will make things interesting. That said, I 'create' most of my games, so the latter isn't an option all that often.

Also, I prefer to play medium to heavily fogged games, in part because I think I'm a stronger "stealth" player, but also because ..well, it's more fun.

Yeah, I think I'm the same. I've realized I'm not a big fan of the stalemate sieges that result from no fog, it's much more exciting to see waves of rolling fog or conquest.

Yertle wrote:

Personally I prefer the 4-6 player range.  Avoids the monotony of multiple 2-3 player games and it gives it some variances, without being forever before I get my next turn.

I think I'm starting to feel the same. A couple months ago it was getting a lot harder to make progress or even hold in place (GR 20's), because my wins in 4-7 player games were barely covering an equal number of losses. So, I significantly upped the % of big maps 12+ players, cause I guessed that you needed to get the big wins to keep climbing.

I think it ended up having the reverse effect cause I dropped to the 50's. I was waiting so long for turns to come around I started losing track not to mention interest. 

I'm now trending back to 2 player (simul) and 4-7 player med-total fog with more board variety and everything has reversed.  I guess lesson learned. =)

You should consider giving up 4-player games altogether :)

Hugh wrote:

You should consider giving up 4-player games altogether :)

Hah! I don't know if you noticed, but I had Stargear back for like half a day before the dice turned horrible and Sportlust took me down.

Lol, I just took my first 100pt loss in a 10 person. The player who one made a 556pt jump. =D