League General Discussion Thread

[gamerman01]

And that’s just ONE of the opening round matches.

We also have the Titan veteran ADAM514 as #2 seed ONCE AGAIN facing Pacifier’s board, a REMATCH of the first round 2023 playoff.
Pacifier is known to play very unconventionally and as such is a dangerous wildcard. Adam crushed the rebellion last year, but now he will have to prove it again.

Oh my goodness, we have a CLASSIC Ghostglider vs. Me1945 first round matchup, are you kidding me? These guys go waaaaay back and are VIP names in this league. Winner faces Axis-Dominion, assuming he squashes Flying Badger as a warm up (I can only say that because I now know Flying Badger is very cool and will not be offended. So if you are offended, stop it.)

That is quite the reward for the winner of the #4, #5 there. You get to face the all-time highest rated A&A player in the league, who has roared back in 2024 to make sure he was not forgotten.

[gamerman01]

Those are your first round Balanced Mod matchups, but backing up, big picture, I would say your top 6 are rock hard iron man veterans facing off, and only one. will. win. it. all.

[gamerman01]

Lunch time.

PTV and OOB hype to come

[gamerman01]

Path to Victory…

Apparently this version really agrees with Ghostglider, as he is lifetime more than 100 rating points above any other human being.

On the ratings boards, after our standout, Adam, General D, Gorshak, and the late-coming fast riser Axis-Dominion are somewhat tightly bunched. All have fantastic records.
19-3
14-2
6-0
4-0
These guys just do not like to lose. But it’s the playoffs! All will lose except one?!

Last minute peer-pressured signup Stucifer gets to face Ghostglider for a chance at a major upset.

Gorshak vs. Axis-Dominion. Gorshak should certainly not let that innocent little 4-0 record be deceiving.

General Disarray v Daaras. Daaras has a lot of recent PtV experience, and a serious 14-6 record, with 17 of those games finished in the league in 2024. Daaras loves the Path to Victory version, that is for sure. That’s a lot of recent experience, WOW

And then there’s #7 666 v. #2 Adam514
666 also loves his Path to Victory, but has slowed down in 2024. Still, with 41 games completed, he is a grizzled veteran. But Adam is 19-3 with 6 completed in 2024, good luck 666, you will need it!

I won’t make picks, that’s not appropriate, but I will say your #1 and #2 are #1 and #2 for a reason. But at the same time I will not be terribly surprised by whoever wins this thing, each of these veterans are that good.

GHOSTGLIDER is the defending champion, though, make no mistake.

[gamerman01]

And, last and least,
Out of the Box version is still being played…

For the ONLY official, out of the box, not house-ruled or made-up version…
We have TWO TIME Defending champion Arthur-Bomber-Harris looking to THREEPEAT, which has never been done in any version. It could happen, times 2, with farmboy running tables in Balanced Mod, but Arthur-Bomber-Harris is laser-focused on out of the box.

BUT
ABH is the #4 seed coming in to 2025, and faces, yes, General Disarray who (you’re tired of me saying this) is in all 3 brackets, he played the minimum games, he wants in the playoffs!
Wait, that means…

GENERAL D IS FACING FARMBOY AND ABH, who are each trying to three-peat. This is dramatic. For General D to win the triple crown he would have to topple Farmboy and ABH, going for three-peats, AT THE SAME TIME. OK, who wants to put money on that. Nobody. General Disarray, Farmboy, and Arthur Bomber Harris each have the opportunity to make history, or they could all fall miserably short. That is just some of the drama we are looking at, here.

Farmboy is lurking, at #3 seed, looking to win an unprecedented TWO championships simultaneously, wouldn’t that be something? A threepeat and also an OOB championship at the same time? Come on, guys, we can’t let that happen.

And then there’s your weaselly moderator, inexplicably abandoning the Balanced Mod to go back to the “new and fresh” OOB experience. Well, after 5 years, it is new and fresh.
In weaselly fashion, he manages to squeak out the 3rd win literally on New Years’ Eve to crash that party and claim the #1 seed by life-time ELO rating, which by HIS OWN RULES… just, wow, that is scandalous.
A paper tiger, no doubt, but at least the perpetual contenders AndrewAAGamer, Farmboy, and ABH/Disarray are not disadvantaged and the over-ratedness that comes from an era long past can quite well be exposed.

[gamerman01]

Reminders,

This is the postseason. Don’t be TOO serious, but there are certain considerations.

1. Time limits technically apply, but we just don’t bump people after 3 days or call a game after 14 or whatever it is. Ample time is given to an opponent who is AWOL for a little while. Unlike the regular season, the timing of playoff games was not really chosen. If you’re busy in May, for example, in the regular season you just wouldn’t take on more games. But you may be deep in a game in May in the postseason, and maybe that’s just not a good time of year for you to be playing some serious A&A so you struggle to play every 3 days. So we are gentlemen and try to keep things moving, but in the playoffs the time limits are not as strict.

2. Moderator support. You didn’t actually agree to play the individuals you will be matched up with (that is part of the beauty of the postseason), and maybe you don’t really get along with your “assigned” opponent. It’s the playoffs, so you try harder to make a proper game out of it, and you can always flip the board (well, actually you can’t) and quit, but nobody wants that.
   If you start to have trouble with your opponent, remember I’m here to try and help everyone have a good experience, while being fair.

3. Be mindful of your bracket. If the bracket next to you got decided pretty speedily, the whole bracket may be waiting on you. No one will really apply pressure to you, but be mindful and try to keep the pace going if a lot of other tournament participants are waiting on you.

4. Highest seed has prerogative to bid first.

5. Same as regular season, there is actually a lot of latitude for how you play your game.
   IF BOTH PLAYERS AGREE, you can even play low luck, or with house rules that significantly alter the game, but as soon as you get to the next round and they don’t agree, you have to play the game agreed upon. If not agreed upon, of course the default game and league rules (like for bidding) apply.

Again, please consult the moderator (me) when there are differences that are not being quickly resolved, before there is a forest fire.

A beautiful thing with the playoffs is you are paired up with a player you did not choose, who loves A&A, is competitive, and has played several games recently.

I said way too much! Enjoy! Happy New Year!
You may start your playoff game whenever.
The brackets are here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Larckt6iOuBZtZ-AVzDPv-HEofZJdeN8ptXXotun0Og/edit?gid=1039763555#gid=1039763555

[Booper]

@gamerman01

Great hype posts! Happy to be in the playoffs amongst all these legends. Having been smashed numerous times, and also being from the same state as General Disarray, I will not be surprised if he takes at least 1 of these championships!

[farmboy]

@gamerman01 loving the commentary!

[axis-dominion]

agreed, i enjoyed them very much, thanks for taking the time. excited about competing in the playoffs once again, it’s been a few years.

[gamerman01]

Thanks for the positive feedback guys, I’m hoping I achieve at least a ratio of 3 to 2
of pleased, to offended

[AndrewAAGamer]

I think it was extremely well done.

[Stucifer]

Was curious so I looked at some of the stats for the year in PtV, Allies won 51 of the 83 games. I can’t filter the google doc so I didn’t catch all the bids but looks like average is around X+12, which I believe is higher than last year.

When Roboto first made the charts included on the Statistics tab, the lifetime bid average was X+6.6. Although, there were plenty of 0-bid games included in the data, which skews it…median is probably closer to X+9.

And Happy New Year everyone :)

🍾 ✧˚ ༘⋆2025✧˚ ༘ ⋆ 🥂

[gamerman01]

In case I did not make it clear,

Brackets all set, you all may start your first game.

Also, playoff game results count in the ELO rankings just the same as a regular league game does

[simon33]

If rankings are by lifetime ELO does that mean I wouldn’t get in the playoffs if I played a year with 2 wins on each of the top 3 players and no other games? I have so many results that would only bump my rating a little bit.

[Stucifer]

@simon33 It would bump it significantly, but you might need more than the four games to enter the top bracket. The number of games you have completed has an effect, but is surmountable, especially if you are winning against someone with a high ELO.

@MrRoboto said in The new ELO-based ranking system:

Climbing is always possible
ELO is not set in stone. 
Climbing or falling can always be done: 
The more drastic the change in skill, the faster the ELO change will be.

ELO reflects the CURRENT strength
You can see how strong every player RIGHT NOW is and not how strong the year on average was.

For example, if I look at BM4, Axis-Dominion has an ELO of 2174. If you played him once and won, with your ELO of 1352 for BM, you would score 68 ELO points and be at 1420. A second victory would raise you to 1487, a third, to 1552 (his would have dropped to 2039 at this point).

If you then play Adam with an ELO of 2169 and win, you would be up at 1618 which is top 12 right now.

[gamerman01]

Thanks for saving me some time, @Stucifer ,

Actually, @simon33 posed 2 wins against each of the top 3 players, I guess for the 6 game minimum.

Even though that is virtually impossible, if it happened, your rating would be much higher after these 6 wins. You would be at 1685. That would be the 5th seed of those who’ve played 6 games in a year, after 6 games. That’s up from 1352 to 1685 or 333 points in 6 games, which really demonstrates the fairness of the ELO and how most of your past deeds do not drag you down too much.

[simon33]

oh ok so it’s not a lost cause then.

[gamerman01]

There’s always hope at A&A.org!

[Arthur Bomber Harris]

Idea for next year’s OOB playoff system: #1 seed sets the bid for every match (exact same for every game for every player. The worse ranked person in a match gets to decide which side to play.

There is a strong incentive to set a fair bid as the top player will be forced to defer side selection in every match.

[Booper]

@Arthur-Bomber-Harris

I like this idea! Less experienced players may not bid as appropriately as more experienced, so it can help even things out.