Hey all. So my local beginner's league is wrapping up in a few weeks. We had a surprising turnout, and I'm hoping to capitalize on it by running something a little more in-depth this coming fall. What I'm working on right now is modeled after the old GW mega campaigns (Eye of Terror, Storm of Chaos, Armageddon) and the Privateer Press leagues from several years ago (Windless Wastes, etc.). So it'll have two main parts: a story-driven map campaign that requires minimal effort and participation on the players' parts, and a more competitive ladder league. It's the latter I'm having trouble with right now.

As I see it, there are two traditional ways to run a ladder. One is to have the rankings based on some sort of points system. For example, you use normal tournament MoV to total tournament points, and rank people in the ladder based off of that. The other is more "King of the Hill," where how far up/down you travel with a win/loss depends on the rank difference of the players involved. So if #2 beats #1, they swap. But if #12 beats #1, then 12 would shoot up to about sixth place, and 1 would drop down to seventh. The way I see it, the first has the weakness of the players who play more will get to the top and stay there the entire time, discouraging others from the competitive aspect. The second means that a single bad game or bad matchup can harm the top player significantly.

Has anyone played in a ladder league that's a balance between the two systems? I'm thinking something along the lines of a player lower on the ladder gaining a bonus for playing someone higher on the ladder. Or a player toward the top receives fewer points for beating players that are lower. Something to increase the risk for the top player but not to the point where they can get dice shanked once and lose the league.

One thought I do have to this end is to base ladder rankings on win percentages based off of potential points earned, rather than total points earned. So let's say you have two players who do the following over the course of the campaign:

Player One

6-4, 6-4, 5-5, 7-3, 4-6, 8-2, 0-10, 1-9, 8-2, 6-4

Total Potential Points - 100

Points Earned - 51

Percentage - 51%

Player Two

7-3, 7-3, 8-2, 6-4, 4-6

Total Potential Points - 50

Points Earned - 32

Percentage - 64%

So player two would be ranked higher, even though player one has more points. I think a system like this might balance out two factors. One, it won't automatically be the players with the most time will win, because cramming in the max number of games does nothing if you're losing or barely winning. And two, a single bad game won't eliminate you from the league.

There are, of course, other factors to look out for, too. Someone could play their one friend over and over, whom they always beat (this has happened in leagues in my area before. . .wish I were exaggerating). And players with more time can always play more games to even out a serious loss.

But do you think this kind of system gives all players a better shake?

You could give the person on the ladder twice their position in extra points for each game. So 6th on the ladder gives you 12 extra points either to take as extra upgrade cards, an extra squadron or simply added to your initiative bid.

Another way I have seen is to take the average tournament points gained in your last 4 games or the average points gained in all your games in the last four or six weeks.

I would dislike a rating off win percentages because it discourages a large number of games, even a good player is going to lose every now and then, or have an off day, and in such a small sample size of games (since playing armada takes time, even someone playing "a lot" may only reach double digits in your league) those few losses could punish them way more than the guy who showed up for the league minimum game, had some dice luck, and pulled out 3 decent wins then sat on them.

If you maybe use something like (Average MOV as a decimal)(Games Played)= (Final point standing) it might solve that issue, but that is a total guess off the top of my head, trying to stay close to what you were looking for. This way would also provide built in tie breaking for people with identical MOV, while still incentivizing playing more games in your league.

I think the large number of games is what we're trying to avoid. Things my local club has seen in the past revolve around a few people playing tons of games, and some individuals playing the same people over and over again. I'm trying to figure out a way to resolve the first one.

The main issue with the number of games is that it hands the top positions to the people with the most time. The majority of our players have full-time jobs and families, so playing more than one Armada game in a week can be a stretch, more than two is generally out of the picture. But someone who has lots of free time and can just spam games? They have a significantly unfair advantage.

Actually, something that may help solve both - a challenge system. I'm already planning on requiring games to be played at our LGS, and have a stated league night (which may just be our club night). Each week, starting with the lowest-ranked player, you challenge someone on the ladder above you, until everyone has issued or received a challenge. So if there are ten people, there will be five challenges per week. You must answer a challenge. Failure to play your challenge game gives you a penalty (maybe a Forfeit, so a 0-10 loss). So someone can't just win a few big games early and then sit on their victories, because they will be challenged, and refusal means they're going to lose their lofty position. And since things happen, maybe give each player one Postponement, where they can put off a challenge game until the next week if they are unable to make the league night.

So the challenge system would look like this:

- Challenges are issued on league nights

- Starting with the lowest player, challenges are issued to any player above their rank

- If a player is on the receiving end of a challenge, they cannot issue one that week

- By default, challenge games are played on the league night. If both players agree, the game can be played at a different time. If they cannot agree and cannot play on the league night, the challenged player Forfeits (10-0 victory to the challenger).

- Each player can Postpone one challenge game to the next week over the course of the campaign

- Each player is allowed one additional game to affect their ladder score, but they can play unlimited games to affect the campaign map

And maybe add in something that prevents playing the same player over and over again. We once had someone literally play their girlfriend for the max number of games per week in a different league.

Challenges looks like a good mechanic here, I think (as long as you're allowing changing fleets between games)

One more idea that comes to mind is to calculate the avergae number of games played and adjust the winning points down for a smaller number of games/weaker opponents. This will be pretty tricky though.

A bit of offtopic: where/when do you usually play? I'm still trying to find a place to play Armada and might stop by at some point.

We're up in western Massachusetts. Off the Wall Games in Hadley.

We're up in western Massachusetts. Off the Wall Games in Hadley.

Oh, I know that area (one of my friends used to live there). That's within a reasonable distance for weekends.

Where are you driving from?

And to your other point, yeah, I'm having a hard time balancing the simplicity of the system/simplicity of the math against trying to keep it even and fair.

I'm in the Framingham area, so its a bit more then a hour for me. The other options are Battlegrounds or NH, which is still 50 minutes for either of them with no guarantee of getting a game.

How did you do your beginner league? Can we have posts in how you set up and ran said league? I am looking to build a league

I like the challenge system, but I s there a reward for defeating a more highly ranked player? And conversely is there not too much of a disincentive for highly ranked players to accept challenges from lowly players? Need to balance both interests so players get good games in with people of similar skill levels, and different. Both can be learning experiences, but too much of either can get boring.

(Ahh Hadley and Framingham I know well...I went to Amherst and did my internship at MetroWest. Still have friends out there - may have to bring my Armada next time I visit. What's your game night?)

The only other time I've played in a ladder league, it was organized such that a lower-ranked player could challenge either of the two next-higher-ranked players, who then had to accept. He could also challenge any other higher-ranked player, but those challenges were optional for the higher-ranked player, to prevent super-high-stakes matches where #1 would fall to #12 in one game.

The challenged player would have some amount of time to respond (in this case it was an online card game, so it was a 3-day turnaround... for an Armada league it would obviously be longer). If the lower-ranked player defeats the higher, they swap positions on the ladder.

It was a while ago now, but if I recall correctly, you were prohibited from playing someone twice in a row, which would prevent both immediate-turnaround revenge challenges if the higher-ranked player lost, and prevent the same guy right below you from challenging you every single afternoon.

pt and Maturin - We'd always love to have more Armada players. Off the Wall on Wednesday nights. Right now we have twelve people in the league, with about six or so showing up pretty much every week. Just drop me a line if you're planning on heading out, and we'll see if we can get a game in!

Lyr - The league we're running right now is very, very laid back and simple. Before it, there were about four of us, and I couldn't get the others to play regularly (one I hadn't even met). So it was designed just to get people to throw dice and push around ships. Four sessions, two weeks each. Session one was 150pts, two was 225, three was 300, and four will be 400. No MoV, which I've noticed kind of weakens the game, because all you have to do is kill one squadron and run away. Thankfully, the Armada community is pretty nice, so people play pretty hardcore anyway. But if you have some grognards who like to play cheesy, it's something to watch out for.

Ard - Yeah, I've seen leagues like that. I was thinking this could just be a little easier than having players swap position. You could go the entire league not losing a single game, then lose your last one 4-6 and not finish first.

Ard - Yeah, I've seen leagues like that. I was thinking this could just be a little easier than having players swap position. You could go the entire league not losing a single game, then lose your last one 4-6

Yeah, I was thinking about that on my drive home today. You'd really need to account for MoV in some way in order to maintain the integrity of the game. I'm not sure how to do that elegantly (i.e., without a lot of arcane math).

That's why I'm leaning toward the points percentage. It's really easy to calculate: P/(10*N). P is total points earned, N is number of games played. So someone who does well consistently but has one or two bad games doesn't get severely penalized. Someone who loses lots of games then has a big win or two at the end of the league doesn't get unfairly bumped up. So the math is simple for me, it's easy to explain, and it's more balanced than the other ladder league systems I've seen. I'm sure it has its flaws, but they seem fewer than other systems.

You could spend a lot of time and effort reinventing the wheel.

Or you could just enter their names here and have it running in about 5 minutes.

http://www.challengeboards.net/boards/details/2167

Thanks, Matt. In my searching around online, I had read about Elo rankings, but the potential math made my brain hurt. The fact that they do it all for you is nice.

The only concern of mine is that MoV plays no part. It's a straight up Win/Loss/Draw. This works exceedingly well for X-Wing, as in a league you play until one player is completely dead. There is no MoV, it's Win/Lose. But you're still limited to six turns in Armada, so Win/Loss/Draw doesn't really work. I'm not saying that a lot of people would do it, but that one gamey git (and let's face it, every tabletop group has one) could craft lists designed to pop one ship or a handful of squadrons and then run away for the rest of the game, providing 6-4 win after 6-4 win and handing them top spot on the ladder. So as a standalone ladder league, I don't think Elo rankings would work with the system.

But combined with a map campaign in a small gaming community, it just might. MoV would have an impact there, so gaming the system to win the ladder would earn the ire of your teammates, and the peer pressure might be enough to keep it from happening (and who says peer pressure can't be a good thing?).

I suppose the ladder could be based off of straight MoV, but limit the number of ladder games someone can play in a week?

Building league rules is really building a meta-game outside of the game, and game design is about incentivizing behaviors. I don't think playing the game within the rules laid out to maximize your chances of winning makes you a gamey git--that's blaming the player for poor design.

That opinion makes me the gamey git, doesn't it...? I'll ask around and see.

Anyway, if you're going to have a league with more than just a couple buddies who are doing it informally, or whatever, I think you need to incentivize the behavior you want to see, e.g., playing for MoV. I toyed with the idea of an Elo ranking, but I can't find or figure out a way to make it jive with MoV. It's going to be tough to draw on any existing system, because there aren't a lot of games out there where MoV is important to the game itself.

I like the average performance idea: (total points)/(games played). You'd still need to mitigate the problem of the one guy who showed up on the first day, got a 10-0, and wins the league. You could handle this with a participation minimum, but that's a little clumsy. You can't provide direct flat bonuses for participation either (+1 point per game played, etc) without opening the system up to being gamed by people playing a billion games with their brother or girlfriend. You could give +1 point for participating at least once in a week, though.

Your structure also depends on whether you want a rolling, ongoing league (which is what I personally think of as a ladder league), or a set beginning and end. If you want an ongoing league, older games should probably fall off after time, to prevent improving players from being saddled by old losses--say,a rolling average of their last 7 or so games.

So, a first hack at a structure. My assumptions are that this is for a rolling league of 10ish players that meets weekly.

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* Each player's position on the ladder is determined by his average tourney points gained over the previous 10 league games.

* Until he reaches 5 games played, a player will be in provisional status, and ranked provisionally. He will be constrained in issuing challenges as though he were on the ladder with his average score, but will not hold a rank on the ladder until after his fifth game. At that point, he will be ranked on the basis of the average scores for all of his games until he reaches 11 games.

* To engage in league play, a player may issue a Primary Challenge (PC) to either of the two players immediately above him on the ladder, or to any player in provisional status. He may issue a Secondary Challenge (SC) to any player in the league.

* Any player receiving a valid PC must accept it in the order received before he may play any further league games.

* A player who has accepted a PC must resolve the game before the end of the week following issuance of the challenge. Extended unavailability will be arbitrated on a case-by-case basis, and should be coordinated with a League Organizer (LO) ahead of time if possible.

* Any player receiving a Secondary Challenge may choose to accept or decline it at his prerogative.

* A player may not issue a Primary Challenge to the same player twice in a row. He may not in any case play against the same player more than twice in a row, whether by issuing or answering a challenge.

* Collusion will be grounds for removal from the league. Collusion is defined in the SW:A Tournament Regulations. Any League Organizer will be the final arbiter in cases of suspected collusion.

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Prize support could be done in monthly-ish "seasons," depending on your particular circumstances, quality of your prize support, etc... say, prizes are awarded based on standings at midnight on the first of the month or something like that.

You are the gamiest of the gamey gits, Ard.

And I definitely like your thoughts. This is more as part of a set league. I suppose I should explain further.

The campaign/league (campeague?) consists of two parts: a map-based campaign and a ladder league. I'm still hammering out a rough draft of the map portion, but the basic concept is that players are battling over control of a planet/system/sector. Each map location has a separate control percentage, and also provides a potential benefit (like an ordnance depot that gives one ship in your fleet a free ordnance upgrade, or a fighter factory that gives you bonus squadrons, etc.). You find an opponent, and whoever is lower ranked on the ladder chooses where the battle is to be fought, then you play a normal game of Armada with minor tweaks from the campaign rules. Your game results will have an impact on the control percentage of the location you were fighting over and affect your standing on the ladder.

So together, hopefully gaming the system will be kept to a minimum.

And as far as a person winning one big game and refusing to play, then they'd suffer that forfeit penalty I mentioned earlier. So after one forfeit, their 10-0 combines with a 0-10, and their 100% becomes 50%.