Council of the Wise

mepbmlist
#1

  1) last point first: a rating for Best Enemy Player would be great.

How do you know which is the best enemy player?

Imagine you are in a tug-of-war. All the enemy players are pulling in the same direction. you may see the guy in front, but you can't know how much of the pull is from him and how much is from the people behind.

How do you know which enemy nation did all the LATs and RCTs and artifact recoveries that made the CL/Elven agents and BS/Elven mages so powerful?

How do you know which nation sent the cash to the front line guy that burned your pops?

Even ranking your teammates is tough? Who is the better player? The guy that had the frontline nation that absorbed all the team resources but held off the enemy for 20 turns, or the guy in the back that sent all those resources to the front line nation? At least with teammates you can know who did the most planning and coordinating and communicating. With enemies? Stupidity to think you could rank them as "best".

  2) The reason I don't like 100-150 votes to spread amongst the team is because, as Brad pointed out, it is possible for a player to spread those votes exactly evenly amongst his team-mates. How do you square this with "rating" players?

How about this. All the pro-ranking people pull their heads out and realize that it is impossible to come close to creating a system that will in anyway measure how good or bad a player anyone is. That the idea was horriable from the beginning, and it just be allowed to die!

  3) You raised a very good point that the top player in one game is not necessarily as good as the top player in another.

And that is a VERY SMALL issue to work around. There are so MANY issues that are SO big, that the whole thing will be so innacurate as to be of no value, yet a major negative as people work it to get their egos boosted at others expense.

···

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#2

> 1) last point first: a rating for Best Enemy Player would be great.

How do you know which is the best enemy player?

Imagine you are in a tug-of-war. All the enemy players are pulling in the
same direction. you may see the guy in front, but you can't know how much
of the pull is from him and how much is from the people behind.

How do you know which enemy nation did all the LATs and RCTs and artifact
recoveries that made the CL/Elven agents and BS/Elven mages so powerful?

How do you know which nation sent the cash to the front line guy that

burned

your pops?

Even ranking your teammates is tough? Who is the better player? The guy
that had the frontline nation that absorbed all the team resources but

held

off the enemy for 20 turns, or the guy in the back that sent all those
resources to the front line nation? At least with teammates you can know
who did the most planning and coordinating and communicating. With

enemies?

  Stupidity to think you could rank them as "best".

RD: A vote for "best enemy nation" is of course be based on the caster's
opinion. Opinion is formed by what the caster can see, and what he can
deduce. I know which enemy nations start with good mages, good economies,
agent bonuses of different kinds etc and I can use that knowledge and my
dozen years' experience to deduce what goes on behind the scenes. Of
course, I could still be wrong!

Earlier this week I received voting forms for various officers of the trade
union to which I belong. I've never met any of these guys. The only thing
I have to guide me is the spiel which comes with the forms. The information
I have is far less than I have about the opposition in a ME game. Does that
mean I'm not entitled to express an opinion, or that I shouldn't vote?

Of course voting is flawed, because it is based on impressions which may be
correct, partially correct or totally wrong. But isn't it better than an
arbitrary points system?

Maybe we should give the enemy TEAM a score, based on how good a fight they
put up? That is likely to be fairer to the opposition players than a vote
for any individual. But I recall Clint's point that some players like
individual scores.

> 2) The reason I don't like 100-150 votes to spread amongst the team

is

>because, as Brad pointed out, it is possible for a player to spread those
>votes exactly evenly amongst his team-mates. How do you square this with
>"rating" players?

How about this. All the pro-ranking people pull their heads out and

realize

that it is impossible to come close to creating a system that will in

anyway

measure how good or bad a player anyone is. That the idea was horriable
from the beginning, and it just be allowed to die!

> 3) You raised a very good point that the top player in one game is

not

···

----- Original Message -----
From: "corsairs game 101" <corsairs101@hotmail.com>
To: <mepbmlist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, November 01, 2002 10:52 PM
Subject: Re: [mepbmlist] Council of the Wise

>necessarily as good as the top player in another.

And that is a VERY SMALL issue to work around. There are so MANY issues
that are SO big, that the whole thing will be so innacurate as to be of no
value, yet a major negative as people work it to get their egos boosted at
others expense.

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