Giving Up Before You Get An Opponent

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(03-27-2014 04:05 PM)ElPared Wrote:  I notice FTA the most on Peekaboo where I can't see anything my opponent did until it's too late and they're in a position to kill your stuff for free, especially against adorables where they can save their runner or whatever and get a unit advantage.

As far as quitting before I get an opponent, I admit I do this. When I get Thorn Gulley as Feedback I always give up if I'm player 1. That's such a frustratingly bad map for Feedback that I refuse to play on it as them if I don't have to. I also do it if I screw up my opening move somehow, like I forget to cap a wit space or something.

I actually rather like that this can be done, and I don't consider it cheating so much as poor sportsmanship. In Thorn Gulley's case, though, I couldn't give 2 sh*ts about sportsmanship.

I think that this is cheating because it gives you a higher chance if winning. Say you win 50% of the time except on TG, where you win 0% of the time. Then your win probability goes up from 45.5% up to 50%. Even though the probability only goes up a little, it is still cheating. You could take this to the extreme by quitting every time unless you get glitch, where Feedback has a strong advantage.

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(03-27-2014 10:30 PM)SuperDonkey Wrote:  

(03-27-2014 09:01 AM)Bbobb555 Wrote:  There is no wit advantage... FTA only exists on Foundry and War Garden.

Now that we're getting more data in OSN, we might be able to make a better determination as to which boards have a nice first-player advantage. I suspect you'll find a lot on 4-wit-point boards since that's where the first player also has the wit advantage.

Don't know how you're analyzing the wit advantage, but since play is asynchronous, I think you have to look at the total wit you have had to spend up to that point compared to your opponent. So on 4-wit-point boards, the totals go: 5, 8, 12, 15, 19, etc. Thus as P1, you have the following surplus/deficit by turn: +5, -3, +4, -3, +4, -3, etc. That means on Turn 5, all things considered, I have 4 more wit to play with than my opponent, while on Turn 6 he has only 3 more wit than I do. This might be slight but I bet it shows up over the course of hundreds of games.

On 2-wit boards it's the opposite though, so it evens out.