New Tournament champion: buster!

[Tau Ceti]

Slightly delayed, the results for season 4 are up (you can find them here). The new champion, by the largest margin and with the highest score in the tournament's history, is buster! Congratulations!

I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to all the players who have waited and are waiting for new games. Unfortunately, I have less free time available now than in the tournament's early days, and the service rate has suffered accordingly. You are not forgotten, but I can only say that I will get to it when I get to it, no specific time. Sorry.

Happy gaming!

[Flubber]

What is even MORE impressive is that Buster won solo with each of the UNi, Hive , Believers and Pirates and a team victory as Morgan. He scored the ONLY solo victory for the Uni and the only win of any type for Morgan.

Although 10 games are not "statistically significant" there are some interesting factional results.


Faction SV-TV-Loss

Drones 3-0-2
Hive 1-1-0
Pirates 1-1-0
Believers 1-0-0
Cult 0-1-2
Uni 1-2-5
Cyborgs 0-0-1
Data A 0-0-1
Morgan 0-1-6
PK 0-0-4
Gaians 0-0-6

Total 7-6-27 (Spartans and aliens were not played)


These stats don't mean all that much since the " Buster factor" meant he won everything he was in and that was 5 of the 10 games completed. So I don't think we can draw many inferences except that Buster was dominant. I just thought the numbers were interesting.


The season was fun and I want to thank Tau Ceti and Googlie for their continuing efforts. You should never feel the need to apologize for making players wait a bit to get into a game. In fact, I think that all the players should be appreciative of your efforts to add some organization to the gaming experience.

[Tau Ceti]

Thanks, Flubber, and congratulations for taking the second place! Unfortunately your victory in AXT042 had not been recorded in the first version of the tables, but this has now been corrected. The extra 3 points were enough to send you to second.

[Flubber]

I am just bumping this thread to see if it moves. Despite the fact that both Tau and I posted to it this afternoon it did not move up and was still listed as having 0 posts

Edit-- what do you know-- it works now--

[Rastapopoulos]

Thanks for these results, Tau Ceti, It's fun to look at these things, even when you're not involved yourself. I can't wait to find myself in the rankings one day (even though it doesn't look like I'll be anywhere high up...)
I have some questions/comments on the ranking system:
how come the first three seasons lasted 6 month, this last one 4 months? Does it depend on the number of games finished?
This seems to introduce an arbitrary factor into the whole thing: suppose I defeat someone and the same guy wins three games, but they fall into the next (or last) season, then I will not receive the 3 points I would've received if he had finished those games, say, three weeks earlier (resp. later). Might just happen with Flubber (unless he teams up with The Commodore, which he has done before as can see from the season 4 results. Don't make that a habit...)
So at least it would seem prudent to calculate an "all-time" results table, taking into account all the games played since the start of the tournament.
I have done so, BTW, just for the heck of it. Plus I didn't want to be the one complaining without doing something. I can post these results here, if you want, and I will also take the season 4 results and put them into my table.
If you do things that way, it follows that every game finished may change the total scores of a lot of people in the whole field, which creates a lot of work. But I've been thinking: One should probably be able to toss the whole thing into a database and simply enter every new game started and the result of every game finished and have a brandnew and up-to-date ladder at all times without big hassle once the system is set up.
Anyway, fun watching those results and maybe I can start a little discussion here on how best to handle these issues.

[Tau Ceti]

Originally posted by Rastapopoulos
[H]ow come the first three seasons lasted 6 month, this last one 4 months?

They did not.

• Season 1: March through July, 2000 (I took over the tournament from zsozso late in February)
• Season 2: August through December, 2000
• Season 3: January through May, 2001
• Season 4: June through October, 2001

Five months each. Next season ends March 31.

So at least it would seem prudent to calculate an "all-time" results table, taking into account all the games played since the start of the tournament.

Yes, that could be interesting. The season concept was introduced to allow players to start with a clean slate, so to speak, not being forever stuck with a poor score. Also, quite a lot of the players from yesteryear have been inactive for some time. But by all means, post the results. You made me curious, and I would not want all your work to be for nothing.

One should probably be able to toss the whole thing into a database and simply enter every new game started and the result of every game finished and have a brandnew and up-to-date ladder at all times without big hassle once the system is set up.

I have been thinking along those lines, but a) it is a fairly large programming project and b) the number of games each season is not so large as to make the job hard to do by hand. But if results were to be calculated for all games ever, then it would soon become a necessity.

This would also allow the ratings to be dynamic, officially changing every time a game is finished.

[Rastapopoulos]

Originally posted by Tau Ceti


They did not.

• Season 1: March through July, 2000 (I took over the tournament from zsozso late in February)
• Season 2: August through December, 2000
• Season 3: January through May, 2001
• Season 4: June through October, 2001

Five months each. Next season ends March 31.

Oops, got that one wrong.

Originally posted by Tau Ceti

I have been thinking along those lines, but a) it is a fairly large programming project and b) the number of games each season is not so large as to make the job hard to do by hand. But if results were to be calculated for all games ever, then it would soon become a necessity.

This would also allow the ratings to be dynamic, officially changing every time a game is finished.

Exactly. I think it would be great. But that's asking for the job, uh-oh.
I don't have a copy of Access, else I'd give it a shot. I think it could be done fairly fast.
Anyway, I'll post that table soon. Although I don't know how to post in that table format you are using. Can you give me a hint?

[Tau Ceti]

It is more or less standard HTML table code. The needed tags are these (without spaces between the brackets and the text):

< table border="1" >< caption >< b > Games completed... < /b > < /caption >
< tr >< th >GameID< th >Player 1< th > ...
< tr >< td >ACT037< td >buster, Hive< td > ...
< tr >< td >ACT040< td >Hobbes, Gaians< td > ...
< /table >

Technically you are supposed to close the tr, th and td tags too, but it makes the code less readable and no modern browsers should have problems if you leave them out. The last complication is that vBB converts carriage return/line feed to HTML < br > tags, so all the code for the table must be on a single line.

[Rastapopoulos]

Well,
kinda complicated to post this list here. I have no idea how html works.
Anyway, according to my calculations there are sixteen players with a positive score if you include the first three seasons (if my calculations are correct). Including the Fourth season is a hell of a job, so I didn't do that.
These players are:
Misotu
Flo
Viriato
Pagan[CyC]
Garth Vader
Paul
Oniron
Korn469
big_canuk
Tau Ceti
buster
TigToad
cbn
Zaphod
Basil

and their scores are:
30
16
16
15
14
11,5
11
7
4,5
4
3
2
1
0
0
in the same order as above.
I've been thinking, though. It doesn't really make sense to let someone gain points for victories someone else they have defeated wins AFTER that defeat. People learn and become stronger and if I beat someone while he is still unexperienced (say, in his first PBEM), then I shouldn't receive credits if that same person becomes a brilliant player sometime later. I'd have to beat him again.
Anyway, I've managed to get a copy of Access and have started some programming. We will see where it leasd me, but I would find it very nice to jhave some sort of ladder for this tournament that reflects all games played and that can be easily updated everytime a game is finished. We'd have to think more about the scoring system, though. I'll let you know how I'm getting along.