As some of you might have noticed already, I like playing with spreadsheets. Having a bunch of data on spreadsheets allows me to do some interesting data analysis.

For example, this is based on the numbers we have access to:-

Most of it is a mean, but two require a slight explanation.

• Count is the number of cards that were used.
• Bal is how balanced the cards are. That is, it is a measure of how balanced the cards tend to be. I calculate it by dividing the average difference between Skills by the highest average skill.

You'll note that Dragon is very balanced and actually has a higher average cost.

Here's also a table of the 'role' keywords by Clan.

Anything else people would like to see?

Could you more fully explain how you got your Bal amount?

I love seeing tables of traits like that, it tickles my theme loving little heart.

Okay. I'll do the numbers for the Crab Clan

First of all, find the mean of the Military and Political skills

• Military: 4 / 3 = 1.33
• Political: 5 / 3 = 1.67

Then, work out the difference between the Military and Politics skill of all relevant characters:

• Eager Scout: 0 - 0 = 0
• Shrewd Yasuki : 2 - 1 = 1
• Borderlands Defender: 3 - 3 = 0

Take the average of those: 1 / 3 = 0.33

Decide which skill is higher and its value: Political 1.67

Divide the average difference by the average highest skill: 0.33 / 1.67 = 0.2

Subtract that from 1 (because we want a high number to be good): 1 - 0.2 = 0.8

Turn it into a percentage: 80%.

I have a formula for this in my workbook.

You can add grafics and then your file is perfect!

What is Glo?

1 minute ago, Koriume said:

What is Glo?

Glory

Ok. Thanks.

I thought it maybe was Global stat, like a coeficient for dividing power and cost, or something...

Keep on!

Dragon has 3 Shugenja not 2.

(Swordsmith, Doomed Shugenja, Yokuni)

7 minutes ago, Bayushi Nono said:

Dragon has 3 Shugenja not 2.

(Swordsmith, Doomed Shugenja, Yokuni)

Good point. Don't know which one I missed.

This is simply the units we have access to I assume? This is quite interesting and I would be very curious to see how it grows in the future, thanks!

Could you make this available in spreadsheet form? I'd like to play with the data.

11 hours ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

Okay. I'll do the numbers for the Crab Clan

I have a formula for this in my workbook.

I like it. So you're saying that the Crab cards we have seen are, on average, 80% close to perfectly balanced between conflict areas?

How do you judge over-balanced vs under-balanced?

6 hours ago, Kitsu Seinosuke said:

Could you make this available in spreadsheet form? I'd like to play with the data.

From my other thread...

Hi,

So, I quite like tabulating stuff and have thus put together a Google sheet of what we've seen so far

This is the sheet: Google Doc

6 hours ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

From my other thread...

Dōmo arigatō, Karasu-san .

EDIT: Whoops, small correction needed. The difference should be absolute So, Shrewd Yasuki's different should be 1, not -1. This makes them balanced at 56.8% Not as balanced, but still, fairly balanced overall. I've edited the charts below. @Tonbo Karasu

So, I've been seeing a lot of people saying "How can Crab be a defensive faction but have bad political strength, that doesn't make sense."

I remember seeing this thread a while back and thought it was really useful in terms of informing the general balance of a clan so I thought I'd give it a go and make this same calculation for Crab to see if the whole "Crab sucks at political conflicts" holds up to scrutiny. Here are the results, using the same formulas that @Tonbo Karasu used.

62.2% balance. That's not quite as balanced as Dragon (who have become known for their balance so far), but it's not too far off. And it's far better than the 29% that both Crane and Lion are sporting. So, right off the bat, I'm suspicious of the previously stated assertion. They are obviously stronger in military, but they have a 3 characters with 3 political strength (1 2 cost, 1 3 cost and 1 4 cost) the 2 cheaper of which are non unique and 6 characters with 2 political strength, only 2 of which are unique. And they also have 2 characters yet to be revealed. One is a 1 to 2 cost character and one is a 2 to 3 cost character, so there's a good chance for another 2 strength and another 3 strength, potentially. Maybe even a 4 strength if the 3 coster ends up being a courtier or shugenja that is a 0/4 or something (may be grasping haha)

Comparing this with Lion, the notoriously "weak in political" clan, who has...jeez...3 3 strength characters, 2 of which are unique, and 3 2 strength characters, 1 of which is unique. So, suffice it to say, comparing Crab's political strength to Lion's political strength is folly in itself.

Yes, the Lion have a few characters that can honor themselves to get to 2 or 3 political strength, but that's additional work that the Crab do not need to do. Not to mention the fact that dishonoring one of Lion's few 3 political strength characters tanks their political capability, while dishonoring has very little impact on Crab (currently, an average of .85 glory per character).

So, my next question is how accessible is this political strength? If all their political strength is locked in their 3+ cost characters, then you may have trouble accessing that strength early game, which could be disastrous for trying to defend on the first few turns. So I did another modification not originally done in this thread's OP. I divided the military and political values of the characters by their respective cost in fate and averaged the results:

Lo and Behold, their balance improves! Turns out, their political strength is even more accessible in the lower cost slots than it is across the entire clan! Granted, this is mostly due to the Hiruma Yojimbo and Borderlands defender just being fantastic value, as well as the Shrew Yasuki providing a better political strength than military at the 2 cost slot.

This doesn't take into account things like the Stoic Gunso's additional strength in military or the Vengeful Berserker's strength multiplier in military, so there's certainly some room for error in this calculation, but from a pure stats standpoint, I am not buying the assertion that Crab are weak politically.

What are your thoughts? Am I missing some major factor here? Is there something that I should take into account that I have not? Did I do my calculations incorrectly or with misguided intentions? Let me know :D.

14 minutes ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

*snip*

Speaking as someone who insists Crab are weak politically, it isn't that they aren't a more balanced clan than Lion (who are obviously possessing a political weakness, as well) but the low average of their political skill coupled with the high cost of their stronger political cards, makes mounting effective political defenses difficult, in my estimation. Ultimately my point has never been that Crab are the worst at defending political, merely that it is their most decisive weakness. When I hear, as I have, that Crab really don't have to worry about Crane political attacks I just can't comprehend where that position is coming from, especially when Crane have control out the rear end to mitigate Crab's overwhelming military advantage.

19 minutes ago, Zetsubou said:

Speaking as someone who insists Crab are weak politically, it isn't that they aren't a more balanced clan than Lion (who are obviously possessing a political weakness, as well) but the low average of their political skill coupled with the high cost of their stronger political cards, makes mounting effective political defenses difficult, in my estimation. Ultimately my point has never been that Crab are the worst at defending political, merely that it is their most decisive weakness. When I hear, as I have, that Crab really don't have to worry about Crane political attacks I just can't comprehend where that position is coming from, especially when Crane have control out the rear end to mitigate Crab's overwhelming military advantage.

Well, Crab still have a 1-2 cost character and a 2-3 cost character that have not yet been revealed, so there's still a possibility for them to get a high value low cost political character, like how Lion did with the Ikoma Youth after their spoiler article.

But even ignoring that for the moment, their best value in terms of political strength (a cost to strength ratio of 1 or higher) are all contained within their 1 to 3 cost characters. Hiruma Ambusher, Hida Guardian, Hiruma Yojimbo, Shrewd Yasuki and Borderlands Defender each have a political strength to cost ratio of 1.0 or higher. The true value is obviously the Yojimbo, with a political value of 1.5, but having a value of 1.0 is solid, even if it is a 1 for 1 or 2 for 2.

And the cost of having to commit more defenders to stop a political conflict is offset by cards like The Mountain does not Fall, which mitigate your resource spending on defense, as well as their stronghold, which will take every single 2 strength political character (of which there are 6 in Crab right now) out of Crane's bowing range with their stronghold. Since defenders always get first action, that can easily be their first action if there's the threat of Crane using their stronghold to bow a critical character of some kind.

And as for Crab having to be concerned with Crane's political...I personally think every clan should be concerned about Crane's political haha. That's their thing. That isn't exclusive to Crab. Just like everyone should be concerned with Lion's military. Each of these clans were designed with an "all in" strategy for each case.

Yes, Crab is definitely weaker in political than they are in military. There's no disputing that. But the comments I've seen have been more along the lines of "they suck at political." If that's not your claim, then I don't think we disagree on anything haha.

5 minutes ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

Well, Crab still have a 1-2 cost character and a 2-3 cost character that have not yet been revealed, so there's still a possibility for them to get a high value low cost political character, like how Lion did with the Ikoma Youth after their spoiler article.

But even ignoring that for the moment, their best value in terms of political strength (a cost to strength ratio of 1 or higher) are all contained within their 1 to 3 cost characters. Hiruma Ambusher, Hida Guardian, Hiruma Yojimbo, Shrewd Yasuki and Borderlands Defender each have a political strength to cost ratio of 1.0 or higher. The true value is obviously the Yojimbo, with a political value of 1.5, but having a value of 1.0 is solid, even if it is a 1 for 1 or 2 for 2.

And the cost of having to commit more defenders to stop a political conflict is offset by cards like The Mountain does not Fall, which mitigate your resource spending on defense, as well as their stronghold, which will take every single 2 strength political character (of which there are 6 in Crab right now) out of Crane's bowing range with their stronghold. Since defenders always get first action, that can easily be their first action if there's the threat of Crane using their stronghold to bow a critical character of some kind.

And as for Crab having to be concerned with Crane's political...I personally think every clan should be concerned about Crane's political haha. That's their thing. That isn't exclusive to Crab. Just like everyone should be concerned with Lion's military. Each of these clans were designed with an "all in" strategy for each case.

Yes, Crab is definitely weaker in political than they are in military. There's no disputing that. But the comments I've seen have been more along the lines of "they suck at political." If that's not your claim, then I don't think we disagree on anything haha.

No, I don't think they "suck" at defending anything. Attacking , yeah, I'd posit they have no business attacking politically unless they are already in a win more situation. But that feels apt to me. Other than that all I maintain is that I want to see how Crane and Dragon play into Crab, cuz all we've done as a community so far is theorycraft and those matchups get me all hyped up

I've updated the two tables of numbers.

which is the other scorpion with shinobi?

43 minutes ago, Taki said:

which is the other scorpion with shinobi?

It was in the French site's card fan: Adept of Shadows. All we can see is the name, part of the picture and ..nobi.

Just now, Tonbo Karasu said:

It was in the French site's card fan: Adept of Shadows. All we can see is the name, part of the picture and ..nobi.

Can I trouble you for a link?

7 minutes ago, Taki said:

Can I trouble you for a link?

With a bit of searching, here's the pic.

wow, first scorpion card I've liked

2 hours ago, Zetsubou said:

Other than that all I maintain is that I want to see how Crane and Dragon play into Crab, cuz all we've done as a community so far is theorycraft

After watching a few Crane vs Crab match-ups last night I can say that Crab are very good at any kind of defending. Their Stronghold means that defending political attacks with 2 Pol guys bumps them out of Shizuka Toshi range so Crane doesn't normally have good targets for that bow effect. Borderlands Defender is also a pita as is Kisada's universal conflict aura.