Re: Case by case probabilities' study

From: philip.hibbs_at_...
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 15:10:40 +0100

>I remember having found on someone's website a case by case
>analysis of the victory chances in simple contests, though
>I don't remember the URL. Can you help me?

You could run some tests yourself, if you have access to an MS-Dos compatible command prompt, with "hw.exe" on my web page:

http://www.snark.freeserve.co.uk/hw/

Here are some interesting statistics:

If you have a level of mastery advantage over your opponent, your chance of winning a simple contest or an individual exchange in an extended contest varies between 70% and 90%, depending on how near or far from the middle of the number range your target is (70% at 10W vs 10).

In an extended contest, your chance depends additionally on your bidding strategy. If you have 10W vs 10, and the opposition bids default, you should win 99.99% of the time, if they bid all their points on every exchange, they will win nearly 1% of the time. If you always bid high as well, say 50% of your APs, you reduce your chance of winning to 95% or so. So, if you are up against a tough opponent, it is worthwhile antagonising them so that they might tend to bid high, or pressure them for time so that they have to try and finish you off quickly - and use your Hero Points to exploit lucky dice rolls.

If he is allowed to overbid, then the 10 vs 10W guy can win 15% of the time by bidding 50 APs.

Philip Hibbs http://www.snark.freeserve.co.uk/ Opinions expressed may not even be my own, let alone those of any organisations, nations, species, or schools of thought to which I may be affiliated.

Powered by hypermail