[FINAL] 2009 Clan League - THOTA are Champions!

[jiminski]

..
He is e_i_pi. Can't you read?

i think Scotty meant: "what is your stake in this conversation and why the inflammatory tone?", Bro (heh he can say a lot in a couple of words ) ... Eip has no avatar up, so it's not immediately obvious that he's a LOWarrior.

[Scott-Land]

..
He is e_i_pi. Can't you read?

i think Scotty meant: "what is your stake in this conversation and why the inflammatory tone?", Bro (heh he can say a lot in a couple of words ) ... Eip has no avatar up, so it's not immediately obvious that he's a LOWarrior.

Yeah what he said-- too bad Liz doesn't get me like you do Jimi.

Why do you have to be so literal Bro? And yes I can I read. I can play non-hasbro risk too-- pm me if you have more personal questions.

[Bonomo101]

..
He is e_i_pi. Can't you read?

i think Scotty meant: "what is your stake in this conversation and why the inflammatory tone?", Bro (heh he can say a lot in a couple of words ) ... Eip has no avatar up, so it's not immediately obvious that he's a LOWarrior.

Yeah what he said-- too bad Liz doesn't get me like you do Jimi.

Why do you have to be so literal Bro? And yes I can I read. I can play non-hasbro risk too-- pm me if you have more personal questions.

[TheBro]

Excuse my dry humor please! And the question was rhetorical, I gave you the benefit of the doubt!

[e_i_pi]

Strength of Groups
Just added up the placings of each clan within each group...

Group A - THOTA, Empire, Imperial Dragoons, Der Rovers, Regulators
THOTA: 3
Empire: 12
Imperial Dragoons: 8
Der Rovers: 15
Regulators: 6
TOTAL: 44

Group B - Immortal Assassins, Myhtology, Generation 1, Last Warriors, Black Sheep Squadron
Immortal Assassins: 4
Myhtology: 13
Generation 1: 9
Last Warriors: 14
Black Sheep Squadron: 10
TOTAL: 50

Group C - Sky Force, The Spanking Monkeys, Legion of the Damned, Legends of War, The Legion
Sky Force: 11
The Spanking Monkeys: 1
Legion of the Damned: 5
Legends of War: 2
The Legion: 7
TOTAL: 26

Looks like Group C is the 'group of death', with four teams placed in the top half of the table, two of the teams heading the overall group.

[Bruceswar]

Shaping up to be a good race. Cannot wait to see how it turns out.

[Blitzaholic]

2 suggestion jpcloet


1. make a week time limit for clans to join games, if not enforce some penalty

2. next event add some trips and quads to balance it more than just doubles




ty for your time considering this perhaps.

[jpcloet]

After the league is done, the CLA will look at #1. I think part of what is happening is that games are being made on Saturday for many clans, and then being delivered on Sundays or later. That means leaders then spend 2 or 3 weekdays waiting for players to sign up and then assign out. Very few have timed out, but some have. I'm definitely going to ask for feedback on the clan league contacts on that one. Some other changes in the league setup might help that as well. Eg if we went from 10 home to 5and5 as suggested for cross-overs. Although cross-overs might be gone, but 5and5 would still work.

Trips and Quads are definitely on the table and is probably the most likely situation even though no vote has been taken on season 2 ideas as we are still gathering all ideas. A separate league for trip and quads was also suggested.

[e_i_pi]

After the league is done, the CLA will look at #1. I think part of what is happening is that games are being made on Saturday for many clans, and then being delivered on Sundays or later. That means leaders then spend 2 or 3 weekdays waiting for players to sign up and then assign out. Very few have timed out, but some have. I'm definitely going to ask for feedback on the clan league contacts on that one. Some other changes in the league setup might help that as well. Eg if we went from 10 home to 5and5 as suggested for cross-overs. Although cross-overs might be gone, but 5and5 would still work.

Trips and Quads are definitely on the table and is probably the most likely situation even though no vote has been taken on season 2 ideas as we are still gathering all ideas. A separate league for trip and quads was also suggested.

Hi jp, thanks for organising this league, it's good fun, and is a very good way of getting clans to play each other.

One concern I have is that the game load (timewise) is pretty heavy. As you know, clans aren't involved in just the league. There are also clan challenges, along with CC Olympics, and other tournaments. Our clan has threads going left right and centre, and while we're keeping on top of it all, it is creating a very big workload for several clan members. I can only assume with the smaller and less-organised clans that this is becoming a nightmare.

Perhaps next season, introduce more byes to allow clans time to catch up. I know our clan just got Week 12 games out 2 days late - I checked this thread on the day they were due out, and rushed to get the games made and filled. Now week 13 is looming, and we've only just managed to organise week 12, with 2 of us taking on more than our fair share of games because we simply had to get them filled.

As far as cross-overs go, I think they're good, but I'm concerned about how many games you get against your group teams. Our group for instance has a raft of top-ranking teams. That makes it theoretically more difficult for teams in our group to get the big points required to rise in the table. I find it a little unorthodox to have teams playing within groups, yet ranked altogether. I realise a round-robin of 15+ clans would start to get ridiculous, but maybe it would be an idea to generate some discussion in this or another thread about different league formats, to create a more fair system for all the clans.

[Incandenza]

I think pi may be on to something. It might be interesting to have the current tourney format become the "regular season", then the 3 division winners and 1 wild card proceed to the playoffs... as far as the fact that there's clearly a Group of Death, well, I'm not sure how that could have been averted given the randomized creation of divisions, but perhaps in the future teams could be seeded according to their ladder rank (tho even that's no magic bullet, as the monkis are currently 10th in the ladder, a rank that certainly doesn't reflect their play).

[e_i_pi]

I think pi may be on to something. It might be interesting to have the current tourney format become the "regular season", then the 3 division winners and 1 wild card proceed to the playoffs... as far as the fact that there's clearly a Group of Death, well, I'm not sure how that could have been averted given the randomized creation of divisions, but perhaps in the future teams could be seeded according to their ladder rank (tho even that's no magic bullet, as the monkis are currently 10th in the ladder, a rank that certainly doesn't reflect their play).

I realise that it couldn't be averted, but even if the clans were seeded in some way, it still would not necessarily prevent the problem - people join and leave clans, and one clan may always have the edge over another clan for some reason. If that weakness in the second clan is something all other clans can exploit, then it imbalances the playfield a little bit if only 4 clans (the clans in that group) have the chance of gaining points in that manner.

I don't know what the solution is, and really it's not a -huge- problem, but it is a case where more balance could be introduced to keep the playfield level

[Incandenza]

I don't know what the solution is, and really it's not a -huge- problem, but it is a case where more balance could be introduced to keep the playfield level

Oh, I'm right there with ya, tho it's worth noting that we're only about halfway thru the season, and what looks like a Group of Death now might be a bit softer by the end of the season...

[jpcloet]

Which is the group of death, 1 or 3? Both are slightly tougher than 2 I think.

[Incandenza]

At this point in the season it's 3.

[jpcloet]

Being the home team is tough and I think LOD has been used to how we operate and can get games out quite quickly. I find that away games are easier to fill, yet this week's article in the newsletter is by a clan that finds it harder than being at home. I'm fortunate to be part of a very versatile clan, and I think that makes my job easier sometimes. In our back to back weeks of being home, I often ask for 25 doubles games and then pick 2 sets of 10.

As to the workload, I totally hear you as I think I'm in like 9 other clan related tournaments. The league is going smoothly but an extra week here or there would be nice. We are in the heavy part of the schedule and the second season will be a while after this one ends. (Guessing October 1st) That will give clans some time to do some challenges.

There are several different ideas out there for a second season around either many smaller divisions or a smaller league with promotions and demotions from season to season, but also smaller. Eg. going from the 15 now to 2 sets of 10, 3 sets of 7 would be nice. Another is to group the clans by size based on their game capacity, although I think playing the same clans over and over is not optimal.

Playoffs seem to be gaining momentum with people. Expand on that one, if we are playing 10 games a week, would you go to say 15 (7+7+1 neutral map) or go (5+5 and if tie?)

As for the ladder, I am working on additional tweaks to try and solve the lack of data issues. However, it may require collecting more data.

[jpcloet]

At this point in the season it's 3.

Agreed, ID's crossover games against that group tells me it is a very tough group.

Overall I think we see that many of the clans are quite evenly matched and results will vary week to week. There are a couple of clans getting beat on a regular basis. Some due to the fact that they don't know some of the specialty maps. The idea of "sets of maps"or standard maps has not been well received. Home advantage is important but some of the maps being picked don't sit right with me if it borders on exploitation.

Let's not forget that these clans represent the best clans on CC, there are others that are not in the league. Hopefully they will be ready next season, and yes the workload and ability to make games would need even further review for the newer clans.

[e_i_pi]

Playoffs seem to be gaining momentum with people. Expand on that one, if we are playing 10 games a week, would you go to say 15 (7+7+1 neutral map) or go (5+5 and if tie?)

To settle ties, and to truly test versatility of clans, you could make a further 5 games with random settings (excluding of course speed, freestyle, and anything other than 4p dubs). That would make it an odd number of games, meaning ties wouldn't happen, and would mean that clans have to have skills in more than one area to be competitive to the last.

EDIT: Fast-posted

The idea of "sets of maps"or standard maps has not been well received

I can understand how sets of maps would not be well received. Perhaps a middle-ground could be made... have a pool of maps (say 25-30 for instance), and each week the home team has to choose 5 maps from that pool, and 5 games on anything else. Still, I can't see a great benefit to this. I think it is reasonable for clans to be able to choose any map they want, with the current rule in place of no more than one instance of a map in one week. I think that works well, and forces calsn to diversify, yet still affords clans the option of choosing their favourite maps.

[jpcloet]

At this point in the season it's 3.

I'll try to show the stats for the groups as a whole in today's update. Group 3 is certainly shaping up to be a real dog-fight.

[jpcloet]

Updated.

Most clans are around .500 for weeks 10&11 so far with some really tough match-ups. THOTA is on fire currently at 14-1 over those 2 weeks and ID has come on strong with a 7-3 record. TSM at 10-9 and LOW 11-8, round out the tops clans followed by BSS and LOD.

Put up a table of the combined records for the groups, and it looks like Division 3 is turning into the "Group of Death" as described above.

[ahunda]

Maybe a stupid question: What does GB in the table stand for ?

[waseemalim]

For weeks 10 and 11. LoW should be 12-7 so far.

Week 10 vs LOTD (6-3)

1. Game 4505969 - Supermax, No Cards, Chained, Foggy - waseemalim, lt.pie
2.Game 4525498 - Waterloo, No Cards, Chained, Foggy - Humanist, Clanlord Carl - password dubs
3. Game 4513736 - Alexanders Empire, No Cards, Chianed, Sunny - Velvecarrots, TheBro
4. Game 4513561 - Crossword, No Spoils, Chained, Sunny - reptile, dcc1220
5. Game 4518083 - AoR2, No Spoils, Chained, Foggy - Prankcall, DBandit70
6. Game 4510211 - Germany, Escalating, Chained, Sunny - chard, Condor
7.Game 4513356 - Berlin, No Spoils, Adjacent, Foggy - Chariot of Fire, Daryth
8. Game 4514016 - BeNeLux, Escalating, Chained, Sunny - Shatners Bassoon, jpeter15
9. Game 4518069 - Africa, No Cards, Adjacent, Sunny - e_i_pi, HannibalSmith
10. Game 4510983 - Conquerman, No Cards, Chained, Foggy - thezepman, rabbiton -- on going

Week 11 vs. EMPIRE (6-4)

1.Game 4499859 Ardennes - Carl, Chard
2.Game 4496701 D-Day - Bandit, AA
3.Game 4499436 Prison Riot - Lt.Pie, Was
4.Game 4517517 Soviet - eipi, Prank
5.Game 4519390 Great Lakes - CoF, Daryth
6.Game 4528264 British Isles - DCC, Carl
7.Game 4506212 USA - Thebro, Velve
8.Game 4500425 WWII Europe, HS, eipi
9.Game 4542273 Canada - Thebro, Reptile
10.Game 4545700 Seige - Dbandit, Daryth

[waseemalim]

LOW vs. LOD -- should be 6-3 so far. Not 5-4. Please correct.

[hwhrhett]

Maybe a stupid question: What does GB in the table stand for ?

games behind.

[jpcloet]

LOW vs. LOD -- should be 6-3 so far. Not 5-4. Please correct.

Corrected.

[jpcloet]

Well that will make a big difference so I rechecked games and updated for any week 12 that happened to have finished.