I would like to do a statistical analysis to test a hypothesis. I lack the computer science skills to do it myself, therefore, I am looking for someone who would be interested in helping me.

Hypothesis:
You are more likely to win if you keep your order delay card instead of playing it immediately. The percentage of wins will rise with every turn you refrain from playing it until a certain point.

How to test it: Analyse (with a script) a large number of games on a variety of strategic templates including the order delay card. Put them into caregories based on how many turns (0 to X) each player keeps their order delay card before playing it, and look at the percentage of games won.

The reason why I believe this to be true is that the tactical advantage of an order delay card rises massively if your opponent has already played theirs. No number of delays in any future turn will make you safe, forcing you to make substantial tactical reservations.

Alex, do you know the manner of sitting?

I think learning the manner of sitting and rufus smashing will help you more in winning games alex

Another way of putting this is: The true value of the order delay card rises with every turn until a certain point, as each turn increases the likelihood that your opponent will play their order delay card first.

The reinforcement card likely functions the opposite way (decrease in true value), as the extra armies have a higher relative weight to the income in early turns than in later turns. Holding a reinforcement card is usually only useful in order to trick your opponent into miscounting or misinterpreting a situation by believing you have already played it.

@CraZy
I would like to test this without any concrete tactical considerations that would put limitations on the meaningfulness of the result. You are correct that sitting is frequently a good strategy, especially against an opponent holding an order delay card while you don't, but that information doesn't serve the purpose of this thread.

Edited 12/17/2024 14:52:30

I understand that it's about timing, and honestly there isn't a right timing for every game, but in general, it'd be something like turn 7 or 8, where you have build up enough income and bordering a lot of bonus.

Also, sometimes saving a reinf card is a good strategy.

Lastly, get back to work, Alex! :P

Edited 12/17/2024 15:00:25

(Small addition to the reinforcement card example: It can be useful to keep it to remain flexible where to put the armies if you cannot use it for reasonable expansion and do not see your opponent yet. This is mostly not the case by the time a reinforcement card is obtained, but for the sake of completeness, I wanted to mention it as another keeping reason.)

@CraZy
I believe the advantage likely keeps increasing even after you know positively that your opponent has played their order delay card. Because with every turn you don't play yours, your opponent's delays have a lower tactical value/the opponent has to keep the tactical reservations in place till you play yours.

It has to be when you know your oppo has played OD and 1-2 turns after it, else they would have a new OD card which can completely ruin your plan

Edited 12/17/2024 15:03:42

I added the restriction "till a certain point" to allow for the possibility that some people just forget to play their od card/do not know how to play a card, so after a certain number of turns, it is conceivable that the advantage would start decreasing or disappear.

The situation does not change once the next od card is obtained by both players, because holding 2v1 od cards vs 1v0 is very similar tactical situation. This only changes if you lost a card piece and your opponent didn't, which does not appear to be the situation you mean.

Usually games with OD lasts 9-14 turns, anything longer than that, you can't even predict if you know so less. So it has to be something like in between turn 7-9, turn 12-13.

Edited 12/17/2024 15:06:05

Also Alex, if you have 2 OD, just play it at the turn you think it matters the most... :D

You can go even further and claim that saving any card may benefit you more. But I see a problem here. I do not base my gameplay around the cards I have, but rather cards around my play.

Take for example reinforcement card. Many good players would save it if they see no great danger. Some of them would even save it in case of medium danger (may lose an army or two due to kill rates). So depending on how you value every single army, it is your choice when to play it.


The same goes with every other card. Immediate play may give you a small advantage that pretty much wins you the game. If your read on the situation is that you don’t really need the card (since you just play defense in OD case) and you see no benefits, then save it.

In conclusion, generally saving cards is something you should look for, but not just for the sake of it, but rather if you see no advantages gained.

I agree with all your reasons, every game is different and there are many possibilities that would make keeping the card a bad choice. My gut feeling is telling me, though, that the sum of all of these will be outweighed by the advantages of keeping the card, because these come without you actively doing anything, leave alone skillfully. I cannot be certain that I am correct, hence the idea to analyse this statistically.

At the risk of stating the obvious: Even if my gut feeling was to be confirmed, that would allow for the result to be untrue among elite players.

Chess players will know how keeping a threat alive is often worth more than executing it straight away - my hypothesis is that it will be like that.

I should like to emphasize: Will be outweighed on average

I would say that on average if you are playing against someone around your level, using the OD card (in a first appropriate situation) when your opponent does not, will give you the advantage (even if your opponent decided to save his OD, and played around your moves, assuming you will play yours).
The question then is, if your opponent can turn it back around using his OD, which I believe is more difficult to do, even if you have the threat of him using the saved up card in the following turns. There simply may be no another opportunity to use it well, with as great significance as the one it just had.

So, I have the opposite gut feeling, but seeing the data would indeed be nice.

*discards order delay card*