Right, I've spent a fun hour or two playing at devising a scoring
system etc. for a Perikles "league". I enjoy devising such things.
I'm open to comment and suggestions.

1) It's only a league in the sense of keeping track of whoever plays
and how they do. There are no "fixtures", no game that you have to
show up for. Not everybody will play everybody. It just counts up
games you DO happen to be in, and cumulates scores and some kind of
average or rating.

2) I suggest we only play (or only count) games with 4 or 5
players. People can give it a try with 3 players (or 6?) but those
are outside the league keeping count.

3) I suggest points per game be as follows:

4 players: 1st gets 5 points, then 3,2,1 points.

5 players: 1st gets 6 points, then 4,3,2,1 points.

[I know I'm rewarding a total defeat with 1 pt rather than zero, but
it's nicer that way; I hate to see people on zero].

4) What with our turnover, we'll always have SOME people playing a
game of Perikles for the first time, sometimes as the only new player
with 3 others who have played before. So, there is a bonus point if
it is your first game - one extra point - unless you are ALL
playing it for the first time, and only if you don't WIN. So, even
if you play your first game and come last, you'll still score 2 pts,
not 1.

5) I do favour the above approach of points for positions. Rather
than cumulating vp-points scored in each game, eg, 65,64,53,41. And
rather than ONLY counting people's WINS, and ignoring whether they
finished 2nd, 3rd or 4th, as some leagues do. One reason for this
is, it will actually HELP the play within each game, IMHO. Y'see,
all conquest-type games are more or less prone to Tall Poppy
Syndrome, the 3 currently losing ganging up on whoever went ahead
early on... This approach tones down that effect a bit. Given the
league, you would, or should, care whether you ended second, and so
might try to overtake someone in the game to win second place rather
than all have equal incentive to take out the guy who is ahead early
on. Yep, a league system, points for position, helps to mitigate
Tall Poppy Syndrome.

6) OK, that makes it easy to award points across games, and put
people in order of total points scored across games played. OK so
far. EXCEPT: That favours whoever plays most often, cumulating most
points. So you need some kind of averaging : eg points earned
divided by games played... That is not as obvious as it sounds ...
(as many of you will know).

7) The biggest problem with simple averaging is this: a player who
just plays once only, and happens to win, gets a 100% record, and
sits at the top of the league, never to play again and impossible to
overtake.

8) There are various ways round this (as many of you will know).

9) I suggest a formula for "Rating", by which the league-table-
positions will be sorted:
The formula is:
Cumulated points earned, divided by [2X the number of games played,
+1].

I've tried this (and other formulae) on our results to date, and
lokked ahead to see what effect playing another game would have, if
you came 1st or 2nd or 3rd or 4th in that game.

" games so far:

2 Dec 07
BobR
FelixK
AndrewM
NeilP - ALL first time, therefore no +1 bonus

9 Dec 07
BobR
NeilP
DaveB - first time, therefore +1 bonus
MichaelY - first time, therefore +1 bonus



Using the points system, with the bonuses for first-time playing,
plus the formula, the league would currently look like this:

Player Points Played Rating

BobR 10 2 2.000
FelixK 3 1 1.000
DaveB 3 1 1.000
NeilP 4 2 0.800
AndrewM 2 1 0.667
MichaelY 2 1 0.667


Note how this is closer to an average-per-game than to a cumulative
total? That's why Neil, having come 4th and 2nd, comes out lower
than Felix (a 2nd) or Dave (a 3rd, but first-time). Looks fair.

It's quite variable over time. When Bob plays again, if he comes
4th, his Rating will drop to 1.571. When Felix or Dave play again,
if either wins, their rating would go to 1.600 - thus topping the
table.

It looks like it would work fairly over time. Not TOO dependent on
how many times you play, but not letting played 1/won 1/100% top the
charts forever.

Any comments?

AND, any suggestions on scoring and league-position formula (Rating)
for Formula De, and/or for Team RoboRally? Feel free to add to the
posts and suggest!

Bob