Ladders

[Solver]

OK, this has been very succesful with Call to Power, and now it's time to try this thing here, with AC. First, you can refer to PBEM Ladders thread of CTP Mutiplaying forum for more. But, here is the idea:
PBEM games that are played, become (at wish, and most of the new ones), rated. This means that after each 10 turns, a snapshor of a powergraph is taken and sent to the Ladder Administrator (Solver) and copied to Quinns for calcualtions. Then the new ratings are getting calculated, and the ratings table on the forum is updated.
What about the rating everyone starts with? This depends on what difficulty level have you ever beat in SMAC (yes, this AI is very easy for civers, but that it is). Then you get the starting rating.
I also like that you have set up a PBEM tournament, but as this thing has proved to be working, I have no reason to believe why couldn't SMAC be involved in it as well.
Soon, I think, quinns will post at this thread, with some more info and so on, but let us think it is startd.
BTW: even though I am ratted in CTP and play a lot, I won't be rated here, as I don't own SMAC now, got bored with it, and I'm anyway too busy with my two other games.
Why not become rated now, LOL ?
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Solver - http://www.aok.20m.com
[This message has been edited by Solver (edited January 05, 2001).]

[Horus]

You are not very good at rallying players for your idea, are you. I like the idea with a ladder but just don't tell people that you are bored of the game, even if it is true; it is contra productive.

Good luck

[Solver]

I didn't quite mean it, I meant I was bored of the AI, so started PBEM, and now too busy with the others for playing.

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Solver - http://www.aok.20m.com

[Horus]

I understood that, almost

Well I'm not very keen on doing my work today I guess.

[stuntman19]

It seems like alot of work for someone who has lost interest in smac\x. I'm normally content with PBEM's that I actually get turns on a regular bases.
Have you contacted Tau Ceti about this at all, considering that Tau has put in alot of his time to setup the tournament. It seems that it might be the prudent thing to do in my opinion.

[quinns]

I haven't yet purchased Alpha Centauri, so I don't have an opinion yet, Solver. (Maybe my wife will get SMAC for me for Christmas... right... more games, just what she needs ). But I don't see any problem with Alpha Centauri being rated, provided I get some help from someone. It would really help for the ladder administrators of CTP and SMAC to filter out all the results, emails, and postings from all the players, and just send me the pertinent information on a weekly, or twice weekly basis. Primarily, this would be listings of:
1) New Players -- (Name or Handle, E-mail Address, Intial Rating, Nation and Territory of Residence);
2) New Rated Games -- (Name of Game, Current Turn, How Many Rated Players Involved)
3) Results of Ten Turn Mark Rated Games -- (Name of Game, Current Turn, Names of Players In Order Of Power Graph Finish)

I would then send the ladder administrators the updated ratings and let them post to the respective forums.

We'll see how popular this is here, Solver, before we do any more work on this.

[WhiteElephants]

I'm not familiar with CTP, but I have invested some time in SMAC and X fires. In my experience the power graph rarely accurately reflects the ability of a player or the actual status of who is "winning" the game. I'm also at a lose of what exactly is being rated. Is it the player (I assume so because of the starting rating formula)? Besides, some factions don't even begin research in the first ten turns while others begin with extra techs, particularly the crossfire factions, which automatically inflates their position on the power graph. And the fact of the matter is some factions are just plain better than others whereas in CTP there are no factions or social engineering choices (if I understand correctly) so every player essentially plays the same vanilla civ which would be more appropriate for a rating ladder.

I've gotta say this, and I hope it isn't taken the wrong way, but judging from your posts it seems you lost interest in SMAC before you ever got interested. If you had put more time into it I think you would realize that a sanpshot of the power graph every ten turns isn't enough to rate anything by.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and go ahead and check the thread in CTP multi playing. Perhaps I'm missing something.

[Googlie]

Not wanting to throw cold water over what might be a neat innovation in ranking PBEM'ers, I'm at a bit of a loss to see what a ladder adds to the Tourney stats that Tau Ceti keeps.

PBEM's fall into three categories - "official" or "sanctioned" games where stats are kept and published; "pick-up" games where someone just ups and organizes a game and others sign on; and "specialty" games, where there are restrictions/innovations/rules in play that apply only to that game (e.g. RP1, where we are playing the faction preferences to the hilt, or he two nato games which are team games, to name just some that I am in)

And team games might be unique to smac/x (I don't know about CtP) and these brign their own conventions - e.g. a pactmember might refuse a tech for several turns 'cos he/she doesn't want their tech costs to skyrocket (# of techs you have is a contributing factor to new tech costs). I don't know if that applies to CtP, but it could skew the ten year ratings significantly.

But let's air it out in this thread.

What do CtP players get from the ladder? Is it just a PBEM ranking, like a post count, so that we can say "I'm # 1 (or 101, or whatever) or is it used for matching skill levels for games?

I guess I should mosey over and read the proffered thread.

Don't lose heart, Solver. We just need to see what it would add to our gaming experience.

googlie

[WhiteElephants]

I checked out the short thread on the ratings in CTP multiplaying and I don't think the same rules would apply to Alpha Centauri. I don't see how you can look at the University's ranking on the powergraph after 10 turns and look at the ranking of say the Believers, who don't even start research by then, and determine who is "winning". There are far too many factors in the game to just let it ride on the ranking in the powergraph, or any of the available stats in the game, to determine who is better. I could tell you now that the people with the highest ratings would be the players of The University and some of the Crossfires factions because they would automatically be "winning" because of their extra tech at the start of the game. I can't speak from a lot of multiplayer experience, but I'm under the impression that games don't last past 100 turns that often. Another interesting example would be from a PBEM I'm currently in where The University, who was leading on the power graph, was wipped out right around the 20th turn, by the Believers, who were far from first on the powergraph. In this instance the University would have gained points until they were wiped out and then what? Do they continue to lose points every ten turns the game goes on? And what if the other players concede shortly after one is wiped out? Wouldn't the person who lost, The University in this case, retain a gain in ranking even though they lost. Because the ten turns never elapsed when they were lossing on the powergraph it never effects their ranking? Or what if the opposite happend and the game lasted 200 turns and every 10 turns The University was penalized for being wiped out?

I'll try to get through the other thread and give a report back.

[quinns]

Solver, it sounds like the Power Graph won't work over here, but I should really get the game and try it before saying for certain.

By what I hear in this thread, there are examples where some player has a high power graph rating but then that same player gets wiped out right away! This NEVER happens in Call to Power so there are definitely important factors here in SMAC that the Power Graph doesn't reflect at all. In CTP the Power Graph doesn't reflect everything, (like tile improvements and advances), but it gives a pretty accurate picture of who is the most POWERFUL (not necessarily the best player, Civilization wise, but the most powerful).

The Power Graph is something that all players can see all the time (i.e. it's public knowledge) so it is very good tool for ranking in CTP. Maybe there is something in Alpha Centauri that shows a better public graph of player progress, but it doesn't sound like there is any good method. I'll get the game and check it out.

Quinns (ratings processor for CTP PBEM)

[Solver]

I know, it's a bit tough and difficult early on, but then it all goes better.

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Solver - http://www.aok.20m.com

[Solver]

Quinns, please note that I am a very experienced Alpha Centauri player, and quite a good one (even though I don't say I could top the rating table).
PowerGraph here is different. Like most real-time strat games (and unlike CTP), SMAC offers special abilities for each of the civilizations (called Factions here). Say, University excels at research, while the Gayans have excellent Nature factions that let them capture native wildlife creatures (called Mind Worms).
I see no reason why can't we create the same system as we did in CtP, with me being the ruler (once again, but if anyone minds, I won't ), and quinns calculating everything as I send to him.
Tomorrow my schedule will be better, so that in addition to some other ladder work done, I will here contact Tau for the tourney questions. I think it would be nice to leave the tourney here as it is, but at the same time make the tourney games rated.
Again about the way to rate players: powergraph isn't as objective here as it's in Call to Power, but we can take the Alpha Centauri rating of each player and that the rated players send them to me and Quinns.
You see, Quinns, just like in CtP, there are ratings (in %) in SMAC, so that while the turn goes, we could ask each player to take a snapshot of his achievements page (the one with the rating % shown), and send it to Quinns and me as the snapshot.
SMAC players, I think this is objective enough by all means, as this allows the integration with a PBEM tourney, and gets us rid of the Power Graph non-objectivity problem.
Example, IMO: after the first 10 turns, University will have some excellent research %, but due to more kills and military success, the Believers will yet have a nice overall %, too.
I have also got a question for the SMAC PBEM players: do you (I hope so) use quickstarts (more Colony Pods, energy and others) in the start as well? This happens in all CtP games, and some of them also offer more advances.

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Solver - http://www.aok.20m.com

[Googlie]

I'm still unclear as to the purpose of a Ladder, other than for bragging rights. (Yes, I did read the threads over at the CtP forums)

We do things differently here at AC.

Bragging rights are earned from success at the various challenges (mostly SP against almost unbeatable odds), mano-a-mano matches, compare games (fastest, largest, etc.) and, for those who are "score inclined" the Tau Ceti and other tourneys.

I sense a big collective yawn among SMAC'ers to the idea of a ladder.

Googlie


[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited December 13, 2000).]

[quinns]

Fair enough Googlie. Let's see what the others players have to say. If they agree with your opinion of the "collective yawn" then so be it. Thanks for checking out the CTP set up and responding.

It was worth a shot, Solver, but if the other SMAC players share the same attitude as Googlie, you are wasting your energy.

Edit: If you remember though, Solver, they poo-poo'ed your idea over in CtP when you first mentioned it. Remember? Similar phrases, "...rain on your parade...", "...boring...", "...who cares?", etc. Now, it is very popular with CtP. We'll see what the others say first before giving up.
[This message has been edited by quinns (edited December 13, 2000).]

[WhiteElephants]

I kind of feel like Googlie and I are "beating up" on you two, but I have to note that Ctp and SMAC are "turned based" not "real time" as Solver suggests. Perhaps that was just a mix up. But, I also don't know what he is talking about when he says their is a screen with an achievements page. There are three things I can think of what he means 1) The page that shows the percentage of tech you have acquired in Discover, Build, Conquer, Explore catagories (which, again, favors the tech factions) 2) The screen which shows your individual score based on population, tech, and special projects build and 3) When you end a game you are given a certain percentage based on your end score which is derived from #2.

I wish others would post their opinions here, but as for me I feel like the ratings are just a picture of who looks the best at a given time when I think the important thing is who ends up winning. For example, if a football team is leading in the first quarter they don't move up the ladder because of it. They only move up if they are winning at the end of the 4th quarter.

[WhiteElephants]

Oh, and no, most games I have played do not use accelerated start because the winner of the game is usually decided based on their ability to grow and expand which happens in the first 50 to 100 turns.

[quinns]

Don't worry White Elephants, you are not "beating up" on either of us, we can fend for ourselves just fine.

Using your football game analogy then, it doesn't matter if they just win one football game, it only "matters" if they win the Superbowl or World Cup. What does any of it "matter" anyway? Ratings are just a way of roughly gauging players, mainly, so that people don't get in totally mismatched games together. Like in most sports, people want to play against people of their own caliber. The ratings bring players together to compete at the same level. Also, it posts to a single place where people can get a listing of people who play the game and their "approximate" ability -- (Is there some post similar to this already in SMAC?). "Bragging Rights" are only a small part of it. Sure, it's fun to talk trash about being on top of the heap, but that is not, AT ALL, what this is about.

[mark13]

To be honest, I echo Googlie and WE's sentiments - I don't really think it would catch on. The fact that there is already an extremely well-run tournament going on would immediately douse water on the ladder, IMO.

BTW, the achievements page Solver is talking about is when you press F8, i think. Also, the games played on the tournament map start with 5 colony pods, rather than the normal two.

[WhiteElephants]

Thanks Mark, if I think of it I'll try the f8 thing, but I thought that was just your score not a %. I've never been too big on the actual score thing anyhow so I, quite easily, could have overlooked something on that page.

Edit: Quinn -- OK I can see what the advantage of the rating system would be because currently we only match skill level by the level you have beat the AI at which, unfortunately, leaves a lot out. I still have difficulty seeing how we could use any of the available "ratings" or percentages in the game to come up with an objective way to rate a player. I also don't think the football anology is working in your favor because the game isn't complete after one quarter there is no clear winner, just like a game of SMAC/CtP isn't complete after 10 turns. Would it be fair to send the teams to the Super Bowl who were winning most of the time or the teams that won most of the time?
[This message has been edited by WhiteElephants (edited December 13, 2000).]

[mark13]

I think it is the score, rather than a %, but the two are very closely related.

[WhiteElephants]

I've also thought up another negative side effect of all this rating mumbo-jumob. Yes, I'm a cynic. Say we do set this up and it does get running, are people going to be so concerned with their rating that they are going to refuse to play lower rated players? For example, if someone is top dog are they really going to want to play someone who has just started to play multi player games even if they have beaten the AI at the highest level? Doesn't the top dog have more to lose in a scenario such as this? Can our tiny community afford to have players refusing to play others? Would this system promote or discourage more PBEM games in the long run?

[RedFred]

Just wanted to poke my nose in to say that I agree with WE, Googlie, Mark et al.

"Yawn."

[big_canuk]

It's not whether we win or loose, it's the playing, the meeting, and the discussing that's fun. If you really want to rate something, how about turnaround times.

[quinns]

Well there you have it. No interest. Fair enough --

[Solver]

For sure, not to say I am happy with your yawning, but that's the way it goes. Quinns is right, people at CtP hated it first, too.
Why is the ladder interesting? In fact, I think it's very interesting to see who is the top player at the moment, and it also adds some thrilling effect to the game - you wish to be better, you fight and so on.
Also, IMO, it's boring when the results of games are lost, buried somewhere there, and thus noone will ever know how many games have you won / lost.
Yes, SMAC and CtP are different, but this doesn't mean that you can't get compared with the others.
Then, let me ask you SMACers some questions:
1) Why was there such an interest in the PBEM tournament, with so many games and players in it? I don't understand why, if the interest for tournament is present, you don't like the ladder. Your business, though.
2) Yes, there will probably be announced a winner of the tournament, but will the results of all games be carefully stored, seeing how the players compare to each other closely, how many points (percentage, etc.) have they earned and so on? I have serious doubts about it being so, admittedly. While the ladder presents presents comparision, and ability to know who the best is over time. With CtP ratings, it will be, as games go on, clear who of the players form the "Best 5" or 3.
Quinns, yes I remember being criticised a lot with the CtP ratings system, but, all in all, it came to a succesfull end, didn't it? Yes, the lack of interest here might be total and forever, in this case I am really losing my energy. But I want way more people to reply to this topic, and to overthink the purpose of the ladder.
If most of you say no, however, I will not check back at this forum.

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Solver - http://www.aok.20m.com

[WhiteElephants]

Googlie is right about my concern for the methodology and I too am not complete dismissing the whole idea (I am still posting here, right?).


Solver you asked, "Why was there such an interest in the PBEM tournament, with so many games and players in it?"

I don't know that there really is "such and interest". I've been in several games that die after the first five turns as I'm sure most of us here have. I'd be interested to know exactly how my players are currently in PBEM games, Tua Ceti? My susupicion is that there is a core group of players in several different games, such as myself (currently 4) and then there are another handfull of players in a game or two that fill in the cracks, so to speak.

Solver also asked, "Yes, there will probably be announced a winner of the tournament, but will the results of all games be carefully stored, seeing how the players compare to each other closely, how many points (percentage, etc.) have they earned and so on? "

Actually, we have a point system worked out and the results are posted at the end of the "season" and I suppose they are "carefully stored" when the post is eventually archived. After the post is archieved we have elected a secret board of protectorates who are responsible of overseeing these tomes of ancient wisdom. After my passing from this world my children will inherit this honor and holy responsibility and their children will inherit it from them and so on, and so on.

[quinns]

I thought this was dead. I guess not.

Googlie, I'm glad to see that you have modified your initial position...

"... I sense a big collective yawn among SMAC'ers to the IDEA of a ladder.

Googlie"

I think that "concept" and "idea" are about the same thing. (See last post by Googlie above.)

Please excuse Solver's English when he talks about "carefully guarding" the reports. English is not his first language and so I think that his translation, from what he was trying to say, was a bit misconstrued.
He only meant to suggest that the reports are readily available and that they can't be tampered with (by angry players who don't like their ratings).

Yes, the rating system should reflect, as close as possible, the actual ability of the players. At the same time, the system has to be feasible. All of this rating collection work is done by volunteers. If we come up with an elaborate system of taking snapshots of screens and e-mailing each turn, then it might be more accurate, but it won't WORK because the volunteer will quickly say, "I don't have time for this $#@!", after one or two times of compiling the data.

If we determine the winner by game "completion" in order to determine the ranking (this was the original idea in CtP, also), it could take up to a year for the ratings to change. Also, when does a game complete? When the first player resigns? No. At a set number of turns? No. When there is only one player left standing? Maybe. I think that in SMAC, like in CTP, the game just kind of fizzles out after one player gets a substantial lead. It doesn't end at a definite point.

Granted, "10 turn" based rankings are not a true indication of who the winner will be in a game. How about this analogy then, (your right about my football game analogy, it didn't really follow) -- The Stock Market! Which Company wins in the Stock Market? There is no clear cut "winner", IT DEPENDS UPON WHEN YOU LOOK AT THEIR MARKET CAPITALIZATION -- (roughly, the stock value multiplied by the outstanding shares of stock) and even with a high market cap, a company could be in bad shape.

Actually, I think the stock market is a good analogy to both CTP and SMAC. These games have huge civilizations growing over many decades of time. The civilization doesn't "win" it just exists (or doesn't exist ). Some civilizations did quite well at a certain period of time. Assyria, Greece, Rome, England, Spain, France, Germany, Japan, United States, etc. all had their great times in history. Who won?

The ten turn system in CTP has increased turn around time because players (including myself) want to see their ratings change -- (because we are a bunch of egotistical pigs! ) It just makes it more interesting, I'm not sure why, exactly.

Though the Power Graph doesn't sound like it's the greatest measure in SMAC, at least it's something that all players can see all the time. There can be no fudging this, everyone knows what everyone else is doing in regards to the Power Graph. That is, at least, one good thing about it.

Someone brought up a good point about players not wanting to play lower rated players because it might hurt their rating. This doesn't happen with this system. For example, even if a player was rated 25.000 and another was rated 10.000 (huge difference), if the lower rated player defeats the higher rated player in one 10-turn phase, then the lower rated player's rating goes up to about 10.500 and the higher rated player drops to 24.500. The maximum a player can gain or drop by defeating another player in a phase is one-half of a point (with an average increase or decrease of about one-quarter of a point per win or loss).

Anyone that is interested in exactly how this system works should visit the CTP-MULTIPLAYER thread called "PBEM LADDERS" where I go into detail to explain it. The actual ratings report is located at the CTP-MULTIPLAYER thread called "CTP RATINGS (12-DEC-2000)".

[Googlie]

Solver:

I agree that seven responses isn't a majority (maybe in Florida, though ..) and you shouldn't give up until the "giants" of the smac PBEM circuit have been heard (my list would include Aredhran, JimmyTrick, Ogie, Tigtoad, Tau Ceti, Misotu, among others - and I apologize in advance to the other "giants" that I have omitted - to say nothing of Vel and Zso ..)

And how do we know that they are the "giants" in the absence of a ladder?

Well, we read of their exploits as described in these forums by their victims, and we can easily bring up Tau's tourney score results.

I don't think we seven were sceptical re the concept of a score tracking ladder - rather it was with the purported scoring methodology. Ten year interval logs just don't work in smac. Tracking who won, who lost or conceded, which faction, what size map and what playing conditions, and how soon, appropriately weighted, would tell much more about playing ability than just logging the power graphs or the AC score (either absolute or percentage).

We're (at least I'm) not dismissing the concept out-of-hand. In fact, you answered one of my questions as to why the ladder exists in CtP - to enable matched player games. We tend to do that somewhat haphazardly right now (e.g. "Newbie looking for game" ... "experienced players wanted" or "transcend level" etc.)

Maybe if you postulated a more appealing methodology there'd be more enthusiasm ...

Googlie

[Solver]

First, thank you quinns, for defending my English language positions - not only it's not my first, it's not even my second.
The PowerGraph in SMAC isn't as good as in CTP, but the score that is seen by pressing F8 (or F7?) is, IMO, a better measure. Then, why is it good to change the ratings after each 10 turns, you ask? Just because it lets the things become more dynamic, and unless someone fights Impact Squads with Tachyons and Quantum Planet Busters , many things can change in 10 turns, thus determining new changes in ratings. Then, as more and more games become rated, the ratings are changing quite dynamically. I don't think we have many rated games in CtP at the moment, but existing games are becoming rated, and all the new games become rated, too. With this we update the ratings weekly, adn the picture does change in a week.
One more reason why that's good for us - don't know whether this happens in SMAC too, but in CtP we often have a situation when the turn is stuck. This means there is no turn moving on for several days, up to a week sometimes. And there's one player, who is rarely checking his email and Apolyton, and he's also using a free ISP, that "sometimes just stops providing". The rating system makes it so that if a player doesn't play his turn in 24 hours, his turn is nexted and being sent to the next one in the game, and 0.1 rating points are deducted from his rating. Before the rating system some games did involve the "24 hour rule", but that was only nexting, no other punishment, and really few games did play involving this rule.
As for the metology you're whining about, I yet think the metology being used in CtP is the ultimate. In SMAC there are a bit more variable factors, like the differences between factions, but this, IMO, yet allows us to use the metology with absolute score, not the powergraph. Basically, here is no reason to say that the faction with the highest score isn't the best one.
Also, I think that the score changes in SMAC might be even more than in CtP - in one turn you might be lucky enough to capture 4 Isle of the Deep, and kill all enemy Transport Foils in the next 2 turns. Presence of these factors makes it more dynamic. Comparision of score - believers, university, gaians and the morganites:
Believers will have a very low research score, while they'll axcel at their military achievements.
University will have very high score for their scientifical research, and nothing spectacular in economy.
Gaians will have good score for capturing tons of MindWorms (yet my fav faction, as walking around the Xenofungus squares and having MWs largely eliminates the need to create an army).
Morganites, with their arranged economy, will have many energy, thus able to buy many base facilities, excellent economy score, trying to achieve an economic victory.
Quinns, I'm afraid that you can't understand many of my statements here, as you have absolutely never played SMAC, but that's not so important for you to understand it now.
Anyway, that's my reply at this point.

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Solver - http://www.aok.20m.com

[Googlie]

I guess there's no obligation to submit every PBEM we're in for official rating.

(I'm thinking of situations where e.g. we're in team games - and I'm in about 4 of these. We might decide as a team that one of us should go for the Virtual World Secret Project, for drone control purposes. heck, the other might even assist thru energy credit transfers. This is worth 10 points on the AC score, and might put that player completing the SP as the undisputed #1 for that game for, say 30 turns. Misleading.)

So for a true measure I'd only submit these games where I was in single competition with other humans.

And how would game difficulty be factored in (In smac/x your AC score is higher if you win faster, which can be done more easily on smaller maps)

Here's the formula which determines how the power graph during the game and the final AC score at any point in the game (the F8 screen) is calculated (from conceptsx.txt):

#ADVCONCEPT11
The formula used to compute a faction's might is as follows:

4 points for each point of population
4 points for each $LINK (Transcendent Thought=140088)
?? points for each $LINK {Tech=140062} (sum of Explore, Discover, Build, Conquer values)
10 points for each $LINK (Secret Project=110102)

For each non-combat unit, add Cost/40 (technically MineralRows/4)
For each psi unit, add Cost/20 (MineralRows/2)
For each planet buster, add Cost/10 (MineralRows)
For combat units, add Cost/10 in ratio of weapon strength to best weapon of any unit currently in the game.

(So a 2-1-2 unit is only worth half value if "4" weapons are the best available).

Thus a player can inflate his score by doing a number of things that don't necessarily make him/her a more skilful player - e.g. build thirty planetbusters in the end game or pop boom beyond any degree of necessity to win the game.

(But you are right quinns - the fact that the thread is still active with some of us "sceptics" shows that it is not a lost cause. There must be an algorith somewhere that can capture relative skill through results - we're just not convinced the scoring system that AC itself uses is the answer)

Googlie


[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited December 15, 2000).]