Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Bar » Validity
 Validity |
Sun, 07 March 2004 11:57  |
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It seems to me a debate is brewing concerning the tournament in the new games forum.
Personally, I have some feelings:
What makes something valid and acceptable as a standard?
Normally a standard is adopted after it has been bounced back and forth by experts for a while and then it is accepted by the community. Check out the RFC process.
Consider the American dollar, it is accepted as currency because the American public accepts it as American currency.
In this tournament, the idea was posted, comments were fielded, then the tournament was announced. There is room in the definition for redefinition of the GLD section after the tournament is finished.
In Stars! there are three very distinct groupings of the players, the newbies, intermediates, and experts.
The newbies are new to the game, and therefore are quite aware that they are newbies. The intermediates have won a few games and feel slightly confident of their abilities in stars! in limited situations. The experts have won, time and time again, and rarely play any more because they find "little challenge" in the game.
It seems that the experts sit back in their ivory tower, and only will have an interest in playing if the universe definition is to their liking, and the race restrictions are to their liking.
Hmmm, does a general choose the ground for his battle? Yes, but does the general choose the economic climate and the general nature of the universe to his liking? No.
The Stars! community is in need of a rating system for players. This is an attempt at doing so. The dueling club is also an attempt at rating players... the difference between playing in a duel and this tournament is one of scale. And when you duel, you are rating yourself directly against one player. In this tournament you are rating yourself against many players.
I suspect the reason so few "experts" have not chosen to participate, is because they are afraid that they will end up with a lower ranking than some of the firey intermediates. A slight embarrassment eh?
Perhaps there is no "expert" community in stars! Perhaps they are all "intermediates" who have touted themselves as experts. Perhaps the reason for their so called success is in the control over the domain of the game.
Just some thoughts.
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| Re: Validity |
Sun, 07 March 2004 12:58  |
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I'm a lower intermediate... the only games I have "won" were due to lucky alliances. However, I would say I'm a pretty good host, and come up with some very interesting scenario designs.
[Updated on: Sun, 07 March 2004 13:01] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Validity |
Sun, 07 March 2004 13:35 |
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 EDog |
 | Lt. Junior Grade |
Messages: 417
Registered: November 2002
Location: Denver, Colorado, USA | |
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| donjon wrote on Sun, 07 March 2004 09:57 |
It seems that the experts sit back in their ivory tower, and only will have an interest in playing if the universe definition is to their liking, and the race restrictions are to their liking.
Hmmm, does a general choose the ground for his battle? Yes, but does the general choose the economic climate and the general nature of the universe to his liking? No.
The Stars! community is in need of a rating system for players. This is an attempt at doing so. The dueling club is also an attempt at rating players... the difference between playing in a duel and this tournament is one of scale. And when you duel, you are rating yourself directly against one player. In this tournament you are rating yourself against many players.
I suspect the reason so few "experts" have not chosen to participate, is because they are afraid that they will end up with a lower ranking than some of the firey intermediates. A slight embarrassment eh?
Perhaps there is no "expert" community in stars! Perhaps they are all "intermediates" who have touted themselves as experts. Perhaps the reason for their so called success is in the control over the domain of the game.
Just some thoughts.
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Well-thought out, donjon. Talk about an empirical rating system for Stars has been under discussion for as long as I've been involved in games on Autohost (something like six years now). My intent in establishing the Dueling Club was to develop something along those lines. In a one-on-one game, you have no strategic alliances, diplomacy or any "soft" variables. It's strictly based off of race-design and strategic ability. Apparently a lot of the more "expert" players have no interest in truly testing themselves this way, as very few of them have deigned to put up or shut up in a duel. I'd like to commend two players in particular - Chee, who has by war the highest winning percentage of 90% (but who to my knowledge hasn't dueled at all during the last 6 months) and Chagarra, who has by far the most duels under his belt (20 and counting).
There's no need for an empirical ranking system in Stars. People can say and believe whatever they choose. On the other hand, it might be nice to be able to differentiate players by how they've done in previous games. I would be much more likely (for example) to want to play with/against players that have fought more duels in the club, merely because it means they are participating in Stars more than others are.
Right now there are 72 games on Autohost. That's the lowest number I can remember in a long time. The fact is that donjon is absolutely right - a lot of people are not playing in games, lurking on the forum, or may have left the community entirely. It's up to those of us who really ENJOY the game to keep it going. Ron, for example, is under no obligation to maintain Autohost, but I'm sure glad he does!
Like Zoid says, I'm not an expert. I don't pretend to be. Hell, my dueling win percentage is 22%. But I've fought 9 duels to date. I'm in 3 different games right now (which is the only reason I'm not hosting a game, which I generally do 2-3 times a year). I haven't won very many games - in fact, I'm not entirely sure if I've won any, but I've played in so many it's hard to keep track.
Let's see some more participation in Stars. I applaud all the newbies who I've seen on the Forum during the last year. Your new blood is what keeps Stars fresh and alive for me because you haven't been around long enough to get a superior attitude yet, and not play because you're too good to play against humans anymore.
I'm playing in donjon's tourney, not because I care all that much where I rank among the players (I don't have any illusions about my abilities as a player), but because it will be an interesting and fun series of games. What more criteria do you need to play Stars?
Let the flames begin! 
EDog
...
http://ianthealy.com
Born, grew up, became an adventurer
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| Re: Validity |
Sun, 07 March 2004 18:32 |
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| LEit |
 | Lt. Commander |
Messages: 879
Registered: April 2003
Location: CT | |
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I don't consider myself an expert, mainly due to lack of experience in several parts of the game.
| EDog wrote on Sun, 07 March 2004 13:35 |
I'm in 3 different games right now
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Congatulations on having enough time to do that.
I don't have the time to play 3 games at once. Part of this is my style of play, I play every game to win, so I do a lot of work on every turn (some people think I'm a little insane - they're probably right).
The problem with this style, is that if I play a lot of games at once I have no time for anything else in my life. So I've had to limit myself to one game at a time.
Although now I'm hosting one game and about to start another. This is probably too much, but I couldn't turn down the EA challenge, especially with the team we've put together.
However, this means I have no time for any other games. And when these settle down or end, I'll go back to FreeStars coding.
- LEitReport message to a moderator
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| Re: Validity |
Mon, 08 March 2004 07:30 |
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| Kotk | 
 | Commander |
Messages: 1227
Registered: May 2003 | |
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Ranking players ... how to rank them? I think there are very different factors that help one to win the game. Let me name some: Racial design skill, economic skill, ship design skill, military tactical skill, diplomatic skill, available time for playing and plain luck.  Other ideas?
Now lets see how to measure these things... 
Economic skill is simple to rank i think....  How many score one get with standard Humanoids with 50 turns in same small dense for all players. Something similar to it. Maybe set of 5 different pre-set single player games, all competitors have to play 50 first turns.
Ship design skill is also measurable to extent.  Ranking game idea: host is naming 10 fleets that need to be killed and race design + tech levels at what player has to do it. Now each player tells fleets with what he wants to kill the fleets host named and then the battles are testbedded say each battle 10 times. Rank is calculated based on did the player actually won the battle 10 times, how many minerals used to build the fleet, resources used and casualties taken on players side.
Military tactical skill... not sure ... maybe only by pre-set situation where all players play same 10 turns against same expert player or AI-s.  Best outcome wins.
Racial design skill is measurable only until the race has no significant flaws  and if it meets the game parameters. It can be measured maybe only by experts. I cannot imagine how to rank someones racial design with some mini-game.
Time available to play, plain luck and diplomatic skills are probably not measurable at all.  OTOH it seems these are the main factors why i win or lose. Now am i expert? Its not measurable by games. I consider myself ... "experienced player". Someone who has been long around and is hard to surprise with something. 
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| Re: Validity |
Mon, 08 March 2004 16:00 |
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| EDog |
| Lt. Junior Grade |
Messages: 417
Registered: November 2002
Location: Denver, Colorado, USA | |
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| Kotk wrote on Mon, 08 March 2004 05:30 |
Military tactical skill... not sure ... maybe only by pre-set situation where all players play same 10 turns against same expert player or AI-s. Best outcome wins.
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Sounds like a prototypical "Kobayashi Maru" test. Although I'm not much of a trekkie (trekker? trekkist?), I think that one was supposed to be a test of character. What we'd need here is to outline a specific list of tasks to accomplish in a standardized scenario and then to give each task scoring criteria.
Here are some examples - each one would take place in an artificially established universe (like a testbed). Neither of these should be construed as "official" - these are just ideas that came to me.
Scenario A:
Capture five defended enemy worlds from a possible list of twelve, using a race of your design advanced to an established level of technology (I suggest BBs, jihads, Wolverine Shields, Super Battle Comps). You begin with X amount of resources worth of ships of your own design. Complete the task in 1-10 years: 100 points; Complete in 11-15 years: 80 points; Complete in 16-20 years: 50 points. Each additional world captured by year 10: +50 points
Scenario B:
Defend ten worlds from a variety of attacks for twenty years, using similar established settings to Scenario A. Suggested scoring: Each world with population over 50% capacity: 5 points; Each world with population under 50% capacity: 2 points; Each world with Space Station (or better): 3 points; Each world with defensive coverage greater than 80%: 2 points. Any opposing world captured during 20-year period: +25 points.
Might I suggest that if we as a group pursue a more definitive scoring system, a separate forum be established for it (possibly limited to a selected focus group - a la the game hosts forum)?
EDog
http://ianthealy.com
Born, grew up, became an adventurer
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| Re: Validity |
Mon, 08 March 2004 23:11 |
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| goober |
 | Chief Warrant Officer 3 |
Messages: 175
Registered: December 2003
Location: +10 | |
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I've been following the arguments with interest.
I class myself as intermediate so while I might wish to have a go at your competition I don't appear to cut the mustard.
Anyways, you name a 5 points that need to be assessed to rate a player. MM and empire building (which I read, perhaps incorrectly, as economy building) among them. To my mind we all have to gain reasonable mastery of these in order to get to and be able to compete in the good bits: aren't we all in it for a good scrap after all? Why not assume they are at least comparable amongst the experts and aim to assess the other attributes that you want to be rated.
For example, I recall a very enjoyable One World Wonder game, 16 of us in a tiny universe, where the first 50 years were genned more or less straight away. So here's one that tests race design, diplomacy and tactics and does away with alot of the MM. Should be over relatively quickly too!
Why not -f only game. Short, bitter warfare over 60 years say of the RWIAB variety.
A longer game could be run in the background to something like these, perhaps.
As to using any races, why not implement the penalty RW points left over system.
How about a game where the habs, growth rate and economy settings are fixed, and folks get to design around that so they are playing on a more or less level economic playing field and have to design around that and their RW penalty points depending on race?
Medals from Ron for 1st/2nd/3rd in each category would be great and make each category worth a strong effort from everyone no matter how they are doing elsewhere.
A max tech game to test how we use the big guns could be fast and furious.
That the GLD game is causing consternation is no surprise. Surely, in assessing relative abilities, the one thing we are trying to minimise is the influence of chance. Yes it's gotta play a part, but I can't imagine anyone enjoying a situation where the luck is purely on the other foot. Isn't the main reason for playing stars is so we can enjoy it? Yep, there are times when poor race design or sheer bad luck have put us through pain, but did we enjoy it? At least with something like Dark Ages III, you know what your getting into and you can 'control/minimise' the pain relative to your strengths.
I know this has rambled on and on, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that above all the competition should be as much fun as you can make it, with plenty to comment on and boast about as it progresses.
Finally, such a competition is a great idea. Big thanks for getting the discussion going and hopefully getting the actual event happening.
Goober.Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Validity |
Thu, 11 March 2004 10:26 |
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| Steve |
 | Officer Cadet 1st Year |
Messages: 217
Registered: November 2002
Location: 40 deg N, 90 deg W | |
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| LEit wrote on Sun, 07 March 2004 17:32 |
I don't consider myself an expert, mainly due to lack of experience in several parts of the game.
| EDog wrote on Sun, 07 March 2004 13:35 |
I'm in 3 different games right now
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Congatulations on having enough time to do that.
I don't have the time to play 3 games at once. Part of this is my style of play, I play every game to win, so I do a lot of work on every turn (some people think I'm a little insane - they're probably right).
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I am playing three games at a time as well (down from 5 in January). I take about 15-30 minutes to do a turn. It sometimes gets annoying when I have to keep redoing moves because of alliances.
I play to have fun. Sometimes that means winning, sometimes that means annoying people!
Some "experts" drop in the first 50 turns if they decide they don't have a winnable game. I find that objectionable.
I very often experiment with races. This could put at a very competative disadvantage. Also, I sometimes find myself with a very poor starting position. I play the game out and don't drop.
No trees were harmed in the making of this sig. However, many electrons were terribly inconveniencedReport message to a moderator
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| Re: Validity |
Fri, 12 March 2004 16:48 |
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| mlaub |
 | Lieutenant |
Messages: 744
Registered: November 2003
Location: MN, USA | |
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| Quote: |
Some "experts" drop in the first 50 turns if they decide they don't have a winnable game. I find that objectionable....
I very often experiment with races. This could put at a very competative disadvantage. Also, I sometimes find myself with a very poor starting position. I play the game out and don't drop.
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As you most likely surmised, those people are not experts, and they probably never will be. Part of being an expert is hanging in there, even against the odds. Losing should be viewed as a learning experience.
-Matt
Global Warming - A climatic change eagerly awaited by most Minnesotans.
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Re: Validity