Conquer Club

Concise description:

• Disable Battle Outcomes from Dice Stats Menu for Foggy Games

Specifics/Details:

• I've talk via e-tickets with admins before my break 2 years ago and tell them about this issue. They understood the issue and promised to fix it. But nothing is done about it.
• We know number troops owned by someone plays a big role in a game. In foggy some players hide their troops, and hope other player ignore him, and attack each others. But the Battle Outcomes from Dice Stats Menu make this strategy useless, because the Battle Outcomes "with one condition" can show us, how many troops everybody has. And sometimes this information is the key to win.
• Game 9981736 was a good example. It ended 2 years ago, but I still remember the situation lol. Round 6 : Silver owned Oceania and looked strong, but with Battle Stats from Dice Stats I knew, he had only 14 troops in 6 regions (4 in Oceania plus Bangkok and Mumbai). Pink, who made move before me, didn't know about it, because he didn't know how to use the tools from Dice Stats. He could deploy in Delhi, attacked silver, and won the game.
• Maybe you ask, how I could know the exact number of silver troops. It was simple, I just looked at the Battle Outcomes between each player in the game, made a table in MS-Excel, added some calculations, and I had the list of troops from every player in the game.
• The problem is not about someone know how to use the Battle Outcomes and the others don't know. But before I tell the problem, I'll give 2 others examples from my current games :
  
  • I know how many troops from every player in this Game 13566861;)
  • But in Game 13619985 the Battle Outcomes fail to show me how many troops every player has.
    
• I think you know the reason. The 1st game is the only game, where every player meets each other, so the Battle Outcomes, that show troop's loss between each player in the game, will tell how many troops everybody has. But the 2nd game is not the case, because everybody has played in other games before.
• Now the problem : Imagine in a 3+ player game player A and B play or have played another game, but this is the only game player C meet player A and B (if necessary I can look for such game). Running the Battle Outcomes will show the troop's losses from A, B and C against each other. And because C plays against A and B only in that game, so how many troops C has, will be known. But what A and B have are unknown. An unfair game for C.

This is the reason, the Battle Outcomes from Dice Stats Menu must be disabled for foggy games : just to make every game fair for every player.

Note : I tried my best to explain this suggestion, feel free to ask. And I wait for any helps to make this suggestion easier to understand.

Why can't C just look up the dice stats for A and B against each other and compile this information for himself? All he would need to do is record at the start of the game what A and B's battle outcomes are against each other lifetime, and then subtract that from the results he looks at later on in the same game.

Never occurred to me before.
Thanks Geger!

Metsfanmax wrote:Why can't C just look up the dice stats for A and B against each other and compile this information for himself? All he would need to do is record at the start of the game what A and B's battle outcomes are against each other lifetime, and then subtract that from the results he looks at later on in the same game.

The problem is, when A and B are playing in 2 or more games.

Yeah, I've used this before. Never to the level that you're talking about, but for me that was the most immediately apparent use of dice stats. The problem is that players often want to use the dice stats while playing the game to check their stats. Because the the same dice stats page is visible to you as it is to the rest of the CC world, you'd either have to disable the ability to look at your own stats during the game (disadvantage: perhaps unpopular) or you'd have to create a public page not including current foggy games and a private page for you to view your own stats (disadvantage: complexity). I'm not sure there's a great solution to this "problem."

Geger wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:Why can't C just look up the dice stats for A and B against each other and compile this information for himself? All he would need to do is record at the start of the game what A and B's battle outcomes are against each other lifetime, and then subtract that from the results he looks at later on in the same game.

The problem is, when A and B are playing in 2 or more games.

A and B would have to be keeping track of which rolls against each other occurred in which games to take advantage of this. This would be very hard to do unless they were colluding to take turns at different times so that they could write down what occurred in what game (and then they would be guilty of secret diplomacy). Furthermore, if A and B can do it, then so can C, in principle (by looking at A and B's other games together). This seems like a small enough problem that unless there's a solution that involves very little dev time, I don't think we should worry about it.

Metsfanmax wrote:A and B would have to be keeping track of which rolls against each other occurred in which games to take advantage of this. This would be very hard to do unless they were colluding to take turns at different times so that they could write down what occurred in what game (and then they would be guilty of secret diplomacy). Furthermore, if A and B can do it, then so can C, in principle (by looking at A and B's other games together).

I don't mean like this.
We know, hiding a big stack is a common strategy in foggy games. So because the number of C's troops is known, C can't use this strategy. But A and B can.

This seems like a small enough problem that unless there's a solution that involves very little dev time, I don't think we should worry about it.

I can't judge, whether this is a small or a big problem. I've stopped to play foggy in classic's map. But when reading a suggestion about "more foggy games", where less information should be given in game's log, I said to myself "they can't make the games more foggy, as long the battle outcomes from dice stats isn't turned off."

agentcom wrote:you'd have to create a public page not including current foggy games and a private page for you to view your own stats (disadvantage: complexity).

This!!

Currently we have 2 ways to access the Dice Stats. 1st from personal menu to see our own Dice Stats. This can stay as usual. 2nd from someone's profile to see his Dice Stats. This should exclude current foggy games.

Btw my suggestion is not about turning off the whole Dice Stats, but only the Battle Outcomes.

Geger wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:A and B would have to be keeping track of which rolls against each other occurred in which games to take advantage of this. This would be very hard to do unless they were colluding to take turns at different times so that they could write down what occurred in what game (and then they would be guilty of secret diplomacy). Furthermore, if A and B can do it, then so can C, in principle (by looking at A and B's other games together).

I don't mean like this.
We know, hiding a big stack is a common strategy in foggy games. So because the number of C's troops is known, C can't use this strategy. But A and B can.

My point is that whatever A and B can do, so can C. He has the same information they do, since battle outcomes from every game are in the public record.

At this point, there is very little that fog can hide from you. I would suggest that fog be revamped; the way it is coded.

I would be fine with hiding battle outcomes results from fog games entirely; not for Geger's reason, but just because it largely negates the fog.

Metsfanmax wrote:I would be fine with hiding battle outcomes results from fog games entirely; not for Geger's reason, but just because it largely negates the fog.

yea, with bOb and snapshots, it is amazing what one can figure out.

Metsfanmax wrote:My point is that whatever A and B can do, so can C. He has the same information they do, since battle outcomes from every game are in the public record.

If we talk about gaining information from battle outcomes, I agree that whatever A and B can do, so can C. In other words if A and B can gain information about their losses against each other in the specific game, so can C. So this is fine.

But in most case it's impossible for A and B to gain information from battle outcomes about their losses against each other, so it's impossible for C too. So A and C have no idea how many troops B has, B and C have no idea either how many troops A has, but A and B know how many troops C has, because C plays only that game against A and B. See the different?

Metsfanmax wrote:I would be fine with hiding battle outcomes results from fog games entirely, because it largely negates the fog.

Agree. I miss foggy from old days, when we have to guess the number of troops with probability

Geger wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:My point is that whatever A and B can do, so can C. He has the same information they do, since battle outcomes from every game are in the public record.

If we talk about gaining information from battle outcomes, I agree that whatever A and B can do, so can C. In other words if A and B can gain information about their losses against each other in the specific game, so can C. So this is fine.

But in most case it's impossible for A and B to gain information from battle outcomes about their losses against each other, so it's impossible for C too. So A and C have no idea how many troops B has, B and C have no idea either how many troops A has, but A and B know how many troops C has, because C plays only that game against A and B. See the different?

I do see the difference, but I wouldn't say C has "no idea" how many troops A or B have. C can still make an educated guess based on what is happening in this game and the other game(s) A and B have together. For example, if C looks at the log of the other game and sees that A has never conquered a territory from B, it's a safe bet that most of the battle outcomes between A and B are from the game where A, B and C are all playing. It will be harder to do, and the result will be less precise than what A and B have. And it will be basically impossible if A and B are playing more than two games together.

While it's a concern, I think the other reason to disable these stats is a lot better