11 minutes ago, gennataos said:

Just about every game of X-Wing ends up a joust, so why not bring the most obviously good jousting thing?

I agree.

2 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

Specifically commenting on this. I think people will gravitate towards Punishers and Trajectory Sim just because its such an obvious answer to swarms and it can turn the joust in their favor.

Additional pro: I already own a punisher, and I don’t want to buy bombers beyond the single I already own. This will drive local list-building for sure.

2 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

Specifically commenting on this. I think people will gravitate towards Punishers and Trajectory Sim just because its such an obvious answer to swarms and it can turn the joust in their favor.

Double post

2 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

Specifically commenting on this. I think people will gravitate towards Punishers and Trajectory Sim just because its such an obvious answer to swarms and it can turn the joust in their favor.

triple post.

2 hours ago, PaulRuddSays said:

triple post.

Looks like you need three Punishers.

I have a topic I‘d like to hear more about: forced errors.

I always hear „sure, a bad player will do X, but a good player won‘t.“

I agree if you are talking about unforced errors. But what about forced errors? Isn‘t that a huge part of a game like X-Wing? To force your opponent into a bad decision because it‘s the best he has remaining?

3 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

I have a topic I‘d like to hear more about: forced errors.

I always hear „sure, a bad player will do X, but a good player won‘t.“

I agree if you are talking about unforced errors. But what about forced errors? Isn‘t that a huge part of a game like X-Wing? To force your opponent into a bad decision because it‘s the best he has remaining?

Good point, tennis and baseball keep stats differently for situations where a player is umder pressure and screws up vs just screwing up out out of the blue. The second type is usually considered an "error", but not the first.

4 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

Good point, tennis and baseball keep stats differently for situations where a player is umder pressure and screws up vs just screwing up out out of the blue. The second type is usually considered an "error", but not the first.

Hah, I initially had An example from tennis and an example from military theory in the post but then deleted it...

My example for tennis was that Federer will never miss a serve against me, but he does against Nadal. Because Nadal will punish anything that‘s not pushing the limit. The better the player the more he‘s forces to cut corners.

Starcraft2 shows the same in an easily understandable manner.

The example in military theory would have gone into why that‘s the case, but I prefer reading blogposts as I‘m not good at writing them.

The xwing saying „highlevel xwing looks like lowlevel xwing“ is based on the same idea I believe.

12 hours ago, gennataos said:

Just about every game of X-Wing ends up a joust, so why not bring the most obviously good jousting thing?

Truly a man after my own heart.

This is how I plowed through Regionals and many a store kit.

People have 2 main modes

- Joust (or "faff about and then joust)

- Bail

They typically only bail when it gets drilled into them to not via meta osmosis.

6 ship Crackswarm? No joust. 3BQD? No joust.

If you make a list that's not an exact match of a "no joust" list, people will joust you.

Everyone jousted my All-Omega Crackswarm. Everyone jousted my QD+2Crack HLC boats.

Just bring something really jousty and collect lunch break games.

On that note, what's a good squad idea to build towards for alphastriking now that Crack Shot no longer reads "**** You Take A Damage"?

Just now, GreenDragoon said:

The xwing saying „highlevel xwing looks like lowlevel xwing“ is based on the same idea I believe.

I don't know what the saying was originally based on, but it's common usage stems from results-based backwards justifications of moves on the table.

Spoiler: most high level x-wing looks like high-level x-wing, and we don't see very much high-level x-wing to remember what it looks like.

1 minute ago, Tlfj200 said:

I don't know what the saying was originally based on, but it's common usage stems from results-based backwards justifications of moves on the table.

Spoiler: most high level x-wing looks like high-level x-wing, and we don't see very much high-level x-wing to remember what it looks like.

I‘m giving the benefit of the doubt here, always assume the best

The point is, sometimes you have to take an option that‘s not the best as the best option is obvious and will be covered, which turns the best option into not the best option anymore.

Luttwak (that‘s now the military theory part) calls this the paradoxical logic of strategy, as opposed to linear logic. By linear he means situations where you do not have to take reactions of your opponent into account. (I believe there is a discussion about NPEs in here, too, btw.)

The paradoxical logic covers situations where, as mentioned, an option other than the linearly best becomes the best because your opponent reacts.

There are two take aways: try to turn a conflict into a linear one (Which is our infamous agency burglaring), and there sometimes are reasons why not the clearly best option is chosen - and why that‘s the better choice.

That doesn‘t stop anyone from misusing the saying we‘re talking about. Or I‘m just trying to read reasoning into it when that was never there.

Just now, GreenDragoon said:

I‘m giving the benefit of the doubt here, always assume the best

The point is, sometimes you have to take an option that‘s not the best as the best option is obvious and will be covered, which turns the best option into not the best option anymore.

Luttwak (that‘s now the military theory part) calls this the paradoxical logic of strategy, as opposed to linear logic. By linear he means situations where you do not have to take reactions of your opponent into account. (I believe there is a discussion about NPEs in here, too, btw.)

The paradoxical logic covers situations where, as mentioned, an option other than the linearly best becomes the best because your opponent reacts.

There are two take aways: try to turn a conflict into a linear one (Which is our infamous agency burglaring), and there sometimes are reasons why not the clearly best option is chosen - and why that‘s the better choice.

That doesn‘t stop anyone from misusing the saying we‘re talking about. Or I‘m just trying to read reasoning into it when that was never there.

Sure, but all of that is glossing over some tenants of social economics that are pretty important to the game theory:

1. It assumes both players know and agree on what the "best" maneuver for both players is, in a vacuum. And rarely does everyone agree.
2. It assumes everyone has the same risk tolerance.
3. Then, it simplifies that doing the 2nd best maneuver is the best. But the opponent should also see that, so what actually happens for the game theory solution is you have a set of solutions with a probability distribution, based on what each player gauges on the opposing players risk tolerance, ability to identify and act "rationally", etc.

18 minutes ago, Kaptin Krunch said:

On that note, what's a good squad idea to build towards for alphastriking now that Crack Shot no longer reads "**** You Take A Damage"?

Maybe something involving Richard and a couple copies of Juke.

16 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

I‘m giving the benefit of the doubt here, always assume the best

The point is, sometimes you have to take an option that‘s not the best as the best option is obvious and will be covered, which turns the best option into not the best option anymore.

Luttwak (that‘s now the military theory part) calls this the paradoxical logic of strategy, as opposed to linear logic. By linear he means situations where you do not have to take reactions of your opponent into account. (I believe there is a discussion about NPEs in here, too, btw.)

The paradoxical logic covers situations where, as mentioned, an option other than the linearly best becomes the best because your opponent reacts.

There are two take aways: try to turn a conflict into a linear one (Which is our infamous agency burglaring), and there sometimes are reasons why not the clearly best option is chosen - and why that‘s the better choice.

That doesn‘t stop anyone from misusing the saying we‘re talking about. Or I‘m just trying to read reasoning into it when that was never there.

AKA: never go in against a Sicilian when DEATH is on the line.

As The Princess Bride illustrates, the winning move is to make all opponent's decisions bad. Ultimate agency burgling.

Just now, Biophysical said:

AKA: never go in against a Sicilian when DEATH is on the line.

As The Princess Bride illustrates, the winning move is to make all opponent's decisions bad. Ultimate agency burgling.

I mean, honestly, yes?

This can happen in L5R often, if the opponent isn't thinking farther ahead - you get into game states where there's effectively the illusion of choice, but the game ended the turn before on a previous move/mistake.

28 minutes ago, Kaptin Krunch said:

On that note, what's a good squad idea to build towards for alphastriking now that Crack Shot no longer reads "**** You Take A Damage"?

Both named Punishers can throw bombs AND fully modded Proton Torps any time they want. That seems like the obvious start, but is probably "Is Crack Swarm" more than "almost as good as Crack Swarm, but doesn't look like it until it's too late".

Just now, Tlfj200 said:

I mean, honestly, yes?

This can happen in L5R often, if the opponent isn't thinking farther ahead - you get into game states where there's effectively the illusion of choice, but the game ended the turn before on a previous move/mistake.

It was a joke, but the kind of joke that's true. I absolutely agree with you that it's the kind of thing that happens when someone doesn't think enough turns ahead.

Just now, Biophysical said:

It was a joke, but the kind of joke that's true. I absolutely agree with you that it's the kind of thing that happens when someone doesn't think enough turns ahead.

I know, but man, it was quite apt!

31 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

The xwing saying „highlevel xwing looks like lowlevel xwing“ is based on the same idea I believe.

It seems to me that "High level X-Wing looks like Low level X-Wing" is basically flying over rocks and bumping/self-bumping. People do it a ton on accident when new, go out of their way (to their detriment) to avoid it when learning, then do it quite purposefully when seasoned, because it can sometimes be the best move.

8 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

Sure, but all of that is glossing over some tenants of social economics that are pretty important to the game theory:

1. It assumes both players know and agree on what the "best" maneuver for both players is, in a vacuum. And rarely does everyone agree.
2. It assumes everyone has the same risk tolerance.
3. Then, it simplifies that doing the 2nd best maneuver is the best. But the opponent should also see that, so what actually happens for the game theory solution is you have a set of solutions with a probability distribution, based on what each player gauges on the opposing players risk tolerance, ability to identify and act "rationally", etc. 

For instance, I usually just do what I think the best maneuver is, and dare my opponent to 1) correctly understand what *I* think is best, and 2) premptively do a generally worse move to counter it.

On 1): yes, and I argue that we often do agree. I realized the last few GSP streams how often the commentators predict the maneuvers.
On 2): I'd say it more assumes rational actors, and that there is an optimal risk tolerance. Of course we know that this is not usually the case. But then again, neither is high level xwing.
On 3): Sorry, I didn't make myself clear here. I made sure to never mention "2nd best" but always said "other than best" because you are exactly right: not the second best but something down the line will become the best choice, A historical example Luttwak mentions in his book is the Germans moving through the Ardennes in WW2. Pretty far down the line.

So, two rational players at a high level should often come to the same conclusion what each player wants the next turns to look like, and how to prevent that from happening.

16 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

All of that aside, it sounds more like your definition of "forced error" is just one opponent slowly bullying the other opponent into many bad positions, where all outcomes are usually bad.

Bullying invokes the wrong image as far as I understand it. But yes, absolutely: forcing errors can include basic things like range control where all your options are covered and you'll never get the protons off. That's a low level example because I wouldn't know what high level examples look like

4 minutes ago, gennataos said:

It seems to me that "High level X-Wing looks like Low level X-Wing" is basically flying over rocks and bumping/self-bumping. People do it a ton on accident when new, go out of their way (to their detriment) to avoid it when learning, then do it quite purposefully when seasoned, because it can sometimes be the best move.

I should not have mentioned that phrase, I see how it's triggering

41 minutes ago, Kaptin Krunch said:

Just bring something really jousty and collect lunch break games.

There's so much value in this statement.

8 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

I should not have mentioned that phrase, I see how it's triggering

It's early and that's the only thing which my brain could comprehend.

7 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

On 1): yes, and I argue that we often do agree. I realized the last few GSP streams how often the commentators predict the maneuvers.

I don't watch streams a ton, but a lot of this comes from the fact that an early key choice can make 2-3 subsequent turns obvious, even though that initial key decision was not predicted.

34 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

Both named Punishers can throw bombs AND fully modded Proton Torps any time they want. That seems like the obvious start, but is probably "Is Crack Swarm" more than "almost as good as Crack Swarm, but doesn't look like it until it's too late".

Im not sure this qualifies as a "ninja jouster".

7 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Im not sure this qualifies as a "ninja jouster".

"Redline" — TIE Punisher	44
Trajectory Simulator	3
Proton Torpedoes	9
Proton Rockets	7
Seismic Charges	3
Ship Total: 66
"Deathrain" — TIE Punisher	42
Trajectory Simulator	3
Adv. Proton Torpedoes	6
Barrage Rockets	6
Seismic Charges	3
Ship Total: 60
"Whisper" — TIE Phantom	52
Juke	4
Darth Vader	14
Ship Total: 70

damnit, internet

2 minutes ago, gennataos said:

damnit, internet

I would be very surprised if all three of those pilots didn't see a points bump on the next adjustment.