[WIKI] Creating pages for variable open setups and EVs

This forum is for discussion of individual Open Setups, including theoretical balance.
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[WIKI] Creating pages for variable open setups and EVs

Post Post #0 (ISO) » Thu Mar 29, 2018 11:32 am

Post by mith »

I'm considering spending some time putting together and/or standardizing pages for the various variable count open setups (specifically "Vanilla Variants" that I spend too much time mathing about). This thread is for feedback on the proposal.

1. Currently under Open Setups there are sub-categories for Micro, Mini, and Large. I propose a fourth category for Variable setups.
2. Each generalized setup should be a sub-category or page (only a page is needed if the information is purely theoretical, whereas if games have been run at multiple counts we should make it a category), with the simplest and most straightforward name for that setup - "Vanilla (Open Setup)", "Nightless (Open Setup)", "Vengescum", "White Flag (Open Setup)", "White Flag Nightless", etc. (Setup names which are also mechanics or modifiers should be specified by the (Open Setup) postfix, and the mechanic or modifier should have its own page.)
3. Each specific player count that has actually been run (or proposed, or there is something interesting to say about it?) should have its own page. For example, rather than "Nightless Vanilla" showing a 4:8 setup, there should be pages for "4:8 Nightless", "3:9 Nightless", etc., while the category page should give the generalized setup, rules, and EV calculation (perhaps along with recommendations for which player/scum counts are good).
4. Everyone will agree to stop using the term "Mountainous" to describe all Vanilla setups, because it's dumb and we hates it.

5. EV information should be greatly expanded. While the EV Project is well intentioned, the format is terrible and not actually necessary with a simple recursive formula for the EV (and non-recursive with proof, where available).

Thoughts/concerns/etc. before I spend time actually doing any of this?
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Post Post #1 (ISO) » Thu Mar 29, 2018 11:47 am

Post by Mathdino »

1. Agree.
2. Agree.
3. Fair enough. I think just for aesthetic purposes, 3:10 White Flag should be titled
- Mini White Flag
- White Flag 13p
- White Flag 10:3
Just doesn't look pretty with the numbers in front.

5. How do you propose this is done? I found the page's organisation pretty logical. Every calculation builds on those above it.

I can help.
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Post Post #2 (ISO) » Thu Mar 29, 2018 12:01 pm

Post by mith »

See viewtopic.php?f=115&t=67368 for example. (There are also some things that are just wrong on there - Multiball is more complicated than those calculations take into account, for example.)

I'd be fine with White Flag 3:10. Listing the player count last makes sense as far as going from more general to more specific.

The reason I prefer to write number of Mafia first is that it is the most important piece of information when evaluating the balance of (almost all) setups. (For Nightless setups, M and T matter about the same, in some sense.)

I guess I'd be fine with White Flag 10:3 if that's were the standard, but in actual games the number of Mafia is almost always listed first, so 3:10 seems more natural to me, and I don't know if there is a consistent standard otherwise. (The good thing is it's never confusing for most setups, since Town is always the bigger number.) The other advantage to listing Mafia first is that it makes setups such as Nightless with IC easier to read (at least for me - 3:5:1 is much easier to interpret, I think, since the town splits the Mafia and IC counts).
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Post Post #3 (ISO) » Thu Mar 29, 2018 12:06 pm

Post by Mathdino »

I've been using The EV Project as standard, which puts the number of townies first, often listing factions in order of decreasing size (so jungle oligarchy would be 8:3:2).

Aesthetically, I think that looks better, but functionally, I agree with you that the number of mafia seems most important. It just strikes me as something that could cause hangups over how to format, for example, SK setups.
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Post Post #4 (ISO) » Thu Mar 29, 2018 12:26 pm

Post by mith »

I mean, it's standard in that it exists on the wiki. (I don't want to knock the EV Project too much; like I said, it's well-intentioned. That said, most of the calculations there had been done previously, and more extensively, though I believe some of the record of that was lost in a server move.)

As I said, it's also standard to list Mafia first in almost all actual games. It was also more common (not universal) in the original Open Setup thread to list Mafia first, and particularly so among the originators of these setups.
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Post Post #5 (ISO) » Thu Mar 29, 2018 12:34 pm

Post by Mathdino »

Fair enough.

What I appreciate about the EV Project is that it posts its full work, so I can use the fractions for my own calculations. The series starting with Numbers, Part 1 is harder to parse. I haven't seen any other pages detailing calculations like that.

How do you propose it be overhauled?

On a sidenote, I think the Numbers pages should probably be phased out/moved entirely due to redundancy, difficulty in reading, and outdatedness.
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Post Post #6 (ISO) » Sat Mar 31, 2018 7:42 am

Post by mith »

It’s not clear from the current wiki, but I wrote the original “Numbers” pages. I don’t disagree that the format of them is awful - they were written 15+ years ago in a non-wiki context. (At least part 1 also appears to be incorrect in some places, probably due to a bad translation from html to wiki somewhere along the line).

Note that part 2 is actually pretty similar to the format of the EV project. I think that style is perfectly fine for individual games, I just think it’s redundant to have for a variable setup when you can provide a single formula.

What I am envisioning currently is that each page would have the recursive form listed, followed by a table of percentages (like the Vanilla Variants thras). If people found it useful, we could perhaps also include specific calculations as hover text or something like that. i’ll think on it. But the important thing to communicate IMO is not the fractions in a specific case, but rather the information needed to calculate *any* EV.
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Post Post #7 (ISO) » Sat Mar 31, 2018 7:51 am

Post by mith »

Actually looking at the again I think it’s just that the number of players is one too high all the way down.
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Post Post #8 (ISO) » Sat Mar 31, 2018 7:52 am

Post by mith »

If I have time this afternoon, I’ll put together a mock up of what I’m thinking and then we can refine it.
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Post Post #9 (ISO) » Sun Apr 01, 2018 11:29 am

Post by mith »

Rough demo, based on the existing setup categories. The hover text is a pain to get right, but I automated it in excel. Category:Vanilla (Open Setup)
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