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Well, it IS an election year...nevertheless, not exactly a great vote-winner in states he won in 2008, necessarily...so--thoughts (both on Obama's backing it, the issue, and what impact this may have on the 2012 race?)
This is hilarious; the thread titled "What's so great about this move" accidentally triggered my vague memories of this book. Anybody read it? Anybody had a life-changing experience because of it? :-)
As I recently learned from webDiplomacy that being libertarian = I must worship the ground Austrian economists bless with the serene touch of their feet, I hereby dedicate this thread to His Greatness F.A. Hayek. Happy birthday, Freddy!
Words cannot express how lucky British politics is to have the presence of Dr Vince Cable and I know many people on WebDip admire him. To pay our respects to this beloved man, I hereby dedicate this thread to wishing Vince Cable a happy birthday. Happy birthday, Dr Cable!
I am planning to start a series in which the members of this CLUB will be eligible to play. Games will be on Classic Board and Bets will be of maximum 50 .
1. If you attempt to move to a square occupied by your own unit that is supporting another unit do you cut off support? 2. If you support a move to a square occupied by your own unit that you hope will move and an opposition unit attacks the same square without support do you win the square and dislodge your own unit?
I think the answer to both is "no" but I want to be sure.
I've been working with Vaft on a more detailed Openings comparison for each country and I came across what appears to be an anomaly and I'm curious, of all the Turkish openings, which do you favor (S01 moves only) and what do you think about this: Con -> Bul, Smy -> Ank, Ank -> BLA?
Hmm.. Perhaps a bounce in Bla was agreed. If the bounce is off, then Russia apparently stabbed Turkey, meaning Bla passes and the Smy unit automatically becomes more aggressive toward Russia. If the bounce is on, the Smy unit is better placed for something anti-west.
That being said, I'd still say it's a horrible opening.
Seems pretty horrible to me also, but in 52 games, it has the strongest measure of success. So far, I chalk it up to lack of use, especially compared to the other openings, but statistically it's pretty strong, even compared to other openings that have less than 60 uses in 4500 games.
I've read through the Turkish file pretty thoroughly and all the regular moves are accounted for and even some bizarre ones, but this is a bit strange.
I doubt it says something about the move itself, perhaps someone who reasons like above has some insights into bounces, the orientation of units to show hostilities, hedging his decisions, etc. that just means that it's an opening used by more experienced players. Or, it could be someone who's really confident, and his confidence stems from the fact that he's a good player. So the opening is successful because it is played by a player who already is successful to begin with.
That being said, I'd still say it's a horrible opening.
I bet that people who play that move are more confident about the move to Black Sea than average. Also, I think Turkey does better in lower level games.
(a) the BLA move succeeds, a convoy can take place to Sevastopol (b) the BLA bounces, then Con is safe anyhow since there's no Russian fleet already in Rum and an Austrian Serbia army can't take it alone.
I'm sure the fact that its done well is merely correlated because of inherent Turkish strength. You'd have to fuck up your opening moves pretty badly to not do halfway decent.
Not moving to Con can have an advantage such as being able to build a fleet there. Not moving to Arm can have the advantage of not antagonizing Russia too overtly.
By the way, it would be interesting to correlate the statistic above to see if Austria propers disproportionately when Turkey does this. It seems very anti-R/I.
The trouble with trying to compare openings is that there is a lot of missing information - hands up who plays the same if (a) it is a gunboat game (b) it is close to the deadline and you notice Austria hasn't entered any moves.
I'm guessing that not many players move smy-ank in those situations
The stats above are devoid of countries CDing in the first year and are also devoid of Gunboat games. They're simply Classic games where everyone participates (at least early on)
Could be a turbo boost for a juggernaut? Russia moves to armenia and disbands when Turkey dislodges it in A01. Russia's "problem" fleet is disposed of early.
I could imagine this having a use in gunboat games. It looks like a clueless move, which means powers are less likely to jump on Turkey given the choice. The only thing it costs Turkey is the ability to send Con - Bul, Bul - X in the Fall, and the vast majority of the time Bul - X serves to antagonize somebody while not succeeding anyway. So it's a way of delaying the decision, I guess?
Honestly, it's mainly just telling you that being in Con isn't all that helpful for Turkey after S01. That doesn't mean being in Smy is better, just that it's in the noise.
Y'all, it's the Turkish opening for a Slingshot Juggernaut. It's so successful because you just don't see Russians setting up a false Slingshot - so the vast majority of the times it's played, Turkey successfully moves to Bul/BLS/Ank. At that point, the Russian fleet is in Armenia, there's presumably Russian A War (bounce w/Vie in Gal) and A Sev (from Mos) to get Rumania.
In other words, if Turkey wants to continue the Juggernaut it has rolling, that's ready to go. If not, he's blowing up the Russian fleet with Russia's consent and able to bounce Russia out of Rumania as well, ensuring Russia only gets 1 build tops (Sweden), and getting Bul/BLS/Arm in A01.
Yeah I think this is a case of two things be correlated, not one directly causing the other.
It's not so much that this is a "strong" opening (although I think it's a fine opening), but more that it's a subtle opening that's only going to be employed by stronger players who know what they are doing. New players aren't going to recognize how to use this opening so they will never do it. Which means that your sample of Turkeys who opened this way is largely devoid of new players.
What you've done is manage to isolate a set of Turkish players who are more experienced than average. Given that, it's not that surprising that they have better results than average.
@CS in this game it doesnt really pay to be (or pretend to be) clueless since most people recognize most people on this site and if you "botch" your S01 moves, it statistically spells disaster for a country. the first year is the most vital year and the spring is at least as important if not more sp than the fall.
@Cspeiker: it is different than smy holds. Theres an entry for that which has a similar amount of games to it and it way under performs compared to this one.
@disclaymer - i dont think you can argue that point without evidenve. Have you ever used it? Most of the experienced players that have posted to this thread havent used it either. In fact i would be inclined to argue the opposite. New (at least new ones and new to the site) tend to play PPSC and that has more solos than WTA. In addition PPSC sees turkey doing exceptionally stronger than WTA games where players know how to eliminate T more effectively. That could be what were seeing.
Looks like the move has only been successful a handful of times, and the Slingshot played sparingly. The majority of time time, the move fails because of the bounce in the Black Sea.
Fuck, there's a CD game in there. It shouldn't be there. Hmm. Time to headbutt a wall some more. I already have three separate CD checks in the code but they KEEP SLIPPING THROUGH.
Tru Ninja, with so many factors in Diplomacy, 8 wins in 46 games doesn't really say anything. I'd chalk it up to the small sample.
@Tru - I'm just speculating based on the information that's provided. I haven't looked at the raw data.
If it is the case that the Turkeys in question did better than normal, it's either a random variation because of the small sample size, or it's the case that there is something non-typical about the Turkey's in question. As you pointed out, a ton of good players here are saying this is an opening don't much use or like. So I doubt the explanation is that it's an awesome opening that causes good performances.
I'm new to the site so I don't know much about your rating systems, but is it possible for you to simply take an average of the ratings and/or number of games of these 52 Turkeys and compare them to the overall average of the site? If so you should be able to quickly find out if these players are more or less experiences than average.
@dys claimer: it appears that most of the games are PPSC, even after WTA was introduced. It also looks like most of the players were pretty green or good players in their early years.
The stats arent a rating system, but they also dont lie. They might easily be misread, as here, so with that said, id say case closed.
@Tru - Thanks. That's exactly what I was wondering. Probably small sample size then. Still interesting though.
Hey, I know this totally isn't the thread for this (sorry) but the FAQ wasn't clear to me. So in a WTA game that ends in a non-solo, does the supply center leader win the entire pot? Or is it only in solo games where there is a true "winner" that the soloist gets everything. Basically trying to figure out if the systems only differ when there's a solo.
"Fuck, there's a CD game in there. It shouldn't be there. Hmm. Time to headbutt a wall some more. I already have three separate CD checks in the code but they KEEP SLIPPING THROUGH."
+1 for the humor, +1 another post for this one having profanity. ;)
@dys yeah the systems only differ in the event of a solo. Draws have pots split among all survivors.
There are 2 ranking systems to this site. The official system is like in poker where you ante points in an effort to win more points. Thus a heavier emphasis is placed on points-per-supply-center survivors since they still earn a share of the pot.
The unofficial system is an off-site system that is roughly equivalent to the ELO system in chess. Most players value that system higher
For clarification, the off-site system is Ghost Rating, http://sites.google.com/site/phpdiplomacytournaments/theghost-ratingslist made by TheGhostmaker and maintained by some lovely people. In a WTA game, the survivors (unless there's a draw) end up with nothing in both systems (you get negative GR score for underperforming too, it's relative to your current GR). So if you see talk about GR, that's what we're referring to. It's arguably a better indication of skill than the regular on-site point system, but both serve their purposes.
46 /really/ is too small a sample size. If the # of wins was below 3.5 or above 11, we could be 95% sure that the move really was better or worse than average.
Standard error for 46 repetitions of a 1/7 chance = (approx) squrt( (1/7 * (1-1/7) * 46) = 2.22. I think. Correct me if I'm way off (but if you want to niggle about the difference between standard error and standard deviation, you can go stick your coefficient in your null hypothesis)
First off, your have an error in the 1/7 chance. Not sure where you think youre getting this value because the comparison is among only Turkish games and has nothing to do with the other nations. Its merely a comparison to how well Turkey does in one opening move compared to another.
Second, I could perform a test on a sample size of 5 if I wanted, it just requires a test that utilizes small sample sizes. Versus one that uses larger sizes.
Third, the only thing a larger sample size does is allow you to tighten the confidence interval.
Last, there was never any discussion of standard error or standard deviation.
As England, sometimes it can be quite mind numbing in a Gunboat to watch a powerful Turkey or Austria have a field day with inept adverseries all around. The reason why its so irritating is because often France, Germany and England waste many good years battling for ground to retake or steal a lone center like Belgium, Sweden, Holland, Denmark, Brest, Liverpool ect ect.
I would like to play a game with people I've rarely or never played before. Standard Settings, Low Pot, 24-48hr, Non-anon. I reserve the right not to be friends with you for any reason. So, will you be my friend?
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EoG: Those crazy live gunboats
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