Ben,

Easy to critique a game when you can see all of his territories and all of mine and what he ultimately ended up doing. When all of that is unknown, it is not so obvious what the best moves are.

As for turns 10-13, as I said, he got very lucky to defend.

He really didn't. He had two points of contact with you. In Southeast Asia you weren't fighting back, so he had no reason to put any troops there. In North Africa neither of you could complete a bonus, and he had no reason to do anything other than defend until after he completed SE Asia.

He wasn't "lucky" to defend, it was merely the only course of action he had. A smart player would have noticed that. A smart player would also not have broken down his troops into multipl smaller attacks (Lybia, seriously?) and would have broken into Algeria.

Ben,

Easy to critique a game when you can see all of his territories and all of mine and what he ultimately ended up doing. When all of that is unknown, it is not so obvious what the best moves are.

As for turns 10-13, as I said, he got very lucky to defend.

wow

You got lucky, simple as that.

If luck went my way instead of yours on any one of 6 turns in that game, you would have instantly lost.

So (1/6)*(1/6)*(1/6)*(1/6)*(1/6)*(1/6) = 1/46,656 times you win, 46,655/46,656 times I win. I don't call that destroying somebody, more like winning the lottery, but whatever makes you feel better.

Billy: LUCK DID GO YOUR WAY EACH TIME, AND YOU STILL LOST.

Is my caps lock broken? No.... I'm YELLING!!!!!

John,

Sorry to inform you, but you're wrong. You were the one who got lucky.

Even if you were right that I was the one who got lucky, you still got lucky - lucky not to get unlucky.

Say you had an 85% chance to win those 6 times. 85% to the 6th power is 37%. So 63% of the times you should have lost at least once - but you didn't, you won every single time. Each time, if you lost, the game was over.

Sorry if your intellectual fortitude is such that you can't grasp the relatively simple math involved here, but you got lucky. Period.

I think I found your problem. Math.

It's an error in judgement on your part to keep making attacks with a 15% chance to succeed. Previous iterations do not change future odds, so the sixth time you attacked with a 15% chance to win was just as stupid as the first try. Each turn you attacked you thought "15% chance, huh? That sounds good." Each turn John says "85% chance? I'll take it."

That's even ignoring the fact that you DID get lucky over the course of those turns. You just needed to get really really lucky in order to win the attack. So you weren't attacking with a 15% chance to get lucky, (because that paid off, but didn't take the territory). You were attacking with a .01% chance to get lucky enough to break Algeria with your plan in action.

That was a hypothetical. I had an advantage. I said even if he had an 85% change of winning, he still got lucky.

Billy:

In your infinate wisdom, and my vast ignornace and puny intellectual fortitude, please explain your logic.

"Say you had an 85% chance to win those 6 times."

Why is that a good assumption?
-You screwed up the first 3 turns and didn't attack (lucky?) Not gonna even anaylze your poor playing for luck.
-And an analysis shows for the last 3 turns, the first time you had 0%, the last two 12%. So, for two turns in a row, I won when there was an 88% chance of me winning each time. Can you do the math of how many times you will succeed in either the 1st or 2nd attempt when you only have a 12% chance of winning in each instance?

Analysis:

Turn 11:
13 v 11 has a 0% chance of winning.
3 v 3 has a 0% chance of winning.

Turn 12:
14 v 11 has a 0% chance of winning.
2v2 has a 12% chance of winning. (Only reason it was 2v2 and not 2vmore than 2 was that your 14v11 was so lucky)

Turn 13:
Same as above Turn 12, 0%, 12%.

So, which turn were you supposed to get lucky in and win?

Was it before or after I took you Asia bonus and would have been able to defend Europe?

Please Please help me understand where my luck was.

Here's the way I go about it. I know you don't have enough income to break me, so I just defend. If I knew you could break me, I would have done something else. It was a remote stretch based on your lucky first attacks that your 2v2's with a 12% chance of success.


My Recommendation to Billy.

Just admit it. I wasn't lucky, you played poorly. The more insistance you have that I was lucky when EVERY SINGLE FACTOR SHOWS THAT YOU WERE THE LUCKY ONE will degrade any litt ecredibility that you have left.

I beat you because you played poorly and I didn't die of a heart attack and get auto-booted.

Otherwise, please go on about how triple picks only beat poor players.

John, regardless if you was lucky or not, keep in mind you got to be good to have luck ;)

Also I think you both should relax a bit, it is just a game :p

Just admit it. I wasn't lucky, you played poorly.

You were lucky, extremely lucky.

But in hindsight, if I had known you only had one bonus I would have simply broken it early at all costs and the game would have been over. So I guess you can call that a 'mistake'. Most people would not be dumb enough to triple pick the bonus you did, so I never considered it as a possibility. I suppose the lesson I should take away is, never underestimate the stupidity of your opponent.

Thanks for that.

So Billy, Thank you for admitting your mistake.

At what point was it not clear to you that I triple picked? Was it when I was deploying 10 armies visible to you for several turns in a row (5+5=10 - for those of you that can't do math, and Base Income is 5, and Europe Bonus = 5, and it wasn't a card turn)

The good thing about playing Monday Morning Quarterback is that you already know what happened. The thing that makes you a good in-game quarterback is how you read what is happening on the field as its happening.

Here, a good quarterback would have been able to determine by turn 6 that I had Europe as a triple pick by using simple arithmatic.

Aha, now the tables have turned!

-I have proven that Billy was Lucky and I was unlucky.
-I have Billy admitting he made a mistake.
-I have proven that Billy cannot analyze a game properly.

Now my next challenge to Billy. Please identify how you would have broken my Europe Bonus.

The answer is easy: Look at turn 10 and just ask yourself where else you could have attacked other than Niger.

If you would have attacked Algeria (14v4) I won't do the math, but I think thay may have won and left you with 10+ armies on my border. The next turn, you could have attacked my 11 armies in Spain, with 19, and... hey, you probably would have broken Spain and won.

So, In Summary:
I have proven that I did not have luck on my side.
I have proven that Billy should have known I triple Picked Europe.
I have proven that there was a course of action given the known facts that would have guarenteed Billy's victory.
The game shows Billy Obviously deviating from the path to victory.
I have not died of a heart attack and didn't get booted.

Now, ladies and gentleman of the jury, I now ask you. Would the greatest player in the world have really made this many mistakes?

And bringing it back full circle to the original topic of the forum post.

This game, analyzed ad naseum (sp?) just shows that a triple pick can give you a tremendous income early on. From there, its up to the other person to make mistakes for the triple pick to win.

a triple pick can give you a tremendous income early on. From there, its up to the other person to make mistakes for the triple pick to win.

I agree with that. With the caveat that you also getting extremely lucky can lead to a win as well, as happened in our game.

Please, please do NOT try to use math when you do not know anything about it... I have no time nor interest in reading every detail, but... that just hurts my eyes...

http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=3566086

That was a bit greedy burgoo, what if he picks ant 1 (as he should) and gets first pick?

#yolo

terrible choise....

3 picks to take + 3 ?? and no bonus the turn after ?

If the opponent comboed in russia or africa , he'll destroy you