From: leonard@mimsy.umd.edu (Leonard Dickens)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: INL Victory Condition Proposal
Date: 28 Sep 92 16:51:33 GMT
Organization: Deep Thirteen, Gizmonics Institute

Craig Boas writes:
>Problem:
>	The current INL victory conditions allow a team which is temporarily up
>by a small margin to win a close game which they may have been losing
>the majority of.  Also, unbalanced games drag on into useless LPS's. 
>Finally, overtime is fine if nobody has any committments after the game,
>but the game has the potential to run way over if the teams are evenly
>matched.
>
>Solution:
>	Make the victory conditions genocide *OR* twenty planet-hours.

When I first read this posting, I almost decided to post some snide
comment about the SS/XG game, maybe with some sort of cruel putdown
like "Bite the bullet, wimp."

But I didn't.  In spite of that game, the idea is worth *serious*
consideration.  The whole idea of "victory" in INL should be carefully
thought about, and the sooner the better.  Right now we can still
change it to more carefully accord with what we intuitively believe is
quality netrek play; eventually whatever system gets used will build
up conservative momentum and be unchangeable.

Should INL victory be an ending total of 11/8/1??  What criteria do
you think should we use to decide whether a scheme for INL victory is
good or not?

Here are the ones I could think of:
(1) Victory conditions, when fulfilled, should truly indicate dominance.
(2) Victory conditions should be easy to understand
(3) Victory conditions should encourage the same play as one would use
	in a normal pickup game.
(4) Victory conditions should lend themselves to statistical analysis
	to that teams that have not played each other, but have played a
	common team, may be compared by their relative performances versus
	that team.

Let us look at both the current scheme and Balton's, given these
criteria.

The current scheme has problems.  It *is* easy to understand, given.
But it fails to various degrees on the other criteria.  First, as
XGolems found out, a last minute surge can lose the game between two
evenly matched teams.  Frontline planets seem to be fairly often
traded between even teams, even up to two or three of them, without
indicating real dominance.  Especially if the defending team is only
going through a sequence of bad pops and has no armies to fight back
with.  Second, (though related): the time limit, a rather necessary
evil, encourages just such a last minute saveup of armies and surge
strategy that defeated XGolems... a strategy not used in normal netrek
because there is no timer.  (A violation of criterion 3.)  Finally,
while it is true that the number of planets left at the end is a crude
statistic that can be used for tie-breaking, a lot of times this stat
is worthless in determining the true strengths of the two teams.

Balton's idea is a lot better in a lot of ways.  First off, I think it
is better about indicating dominance.  A team which owns the enemy
frontline for most of the game but gets pushed back due to bad pops,
or bad luck, or whatnot may not deserve to win; but they certainly
deserve more consideration that a team that loses its front early and
never recovers it.  (I do think that a team should have to accumulate
a 5% higher score than the other team after two hours, or maybe a 3600
point differential, in order to prove dominance; otherwise, have
overtime.)

Second, Balton's approach is much easier to use as a statistical tool:

>	Other advantages to counting score this way is that games can be
>compared between different teams more easily (ie: at your 100% victory,
>was the enemy team at 30%, 50% or 98%?).

Finally, I think Balton's idea is better as far as it encourages
planet-taking as a goal in itself, which is typical of netrek, rather
than planet-ownership-in-two-hours, which is not.  But it is still not
ideal.  (No system with a time limit can be, actualy, but there is
still room for improvement I think.)  The problem has already been
pointed out by someone else: Balton's scheme promotes foolish planet
taking to a small, but significant degree.  In particular, rather than
stockpile armies on a base or planet at a particular time in the game,
it would seem always better to try to take a planet with them ASAP.

I think that a team that expends all of its initial armies (and wastes
many of them) trying to get an early lead on its opponent's front line
is not playing well -- but Balton's system seems to reward this.

So here is my similar, but counter proposal.  Instead of accumulating
planet-ownership-seconds, accumulate army-seconds.  Note that the two
are roughly the same, since the typical planet never varies long from
having 4 armies on it.  But my scheme allows stockpiling as a viable
strategy, whereas Balton's does not.  Furthermore, my scheme directly
rewards good moves like putting down 3 armies on an enemy planet but
not taking it, or bombing armies rather than ogging them...

Comments?

-Leonard