Is Destroy Buyout a game of Chicken? » Forum Post by GalacticWino

This is why im running data I dont think your economy was not as far ahead as you felt it was.

Dbo is risk reward. Its not just +1 to victory. I think soren tweaking of stock prices correctly addresses some of that issue.

But I feel the real issue is dbo is not the same as normal buyouy. You cant play them the same. And data I am seeing is showing more second and third player economies making the first purchase. Which would result in a faster loss.

The bigger issue from what I am seeing. Is poeple making mistakea more than I see a good play no mistakes ending up in a loss. Dbo is less intuitive for winning only because a lack of evaluation or metrics of power.

Obviously dbo isnt in the best state. But to say chicken? There are to many games where the first to buy also wins straight up.

The issue here is lack of data showing how a match was going. , you feel you were ahead, but without many metrics showing this its hard to agree or disagree.

I do agree its a common opinion. But im seeing to many games in counter argument. So clearly its more complex thus data is needed to correctly concepualize the problem.

Also a very blarring trend I see in the data I have so far is a lack of transition from mid game to end gsme. 50% of the game is played wiout upgrades. Fuuuun stuff )))

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Without DBO+MBO players have a very clear vision of who the threats are and what is the correct order of targeting opponents, With these two mods the clearness is gone and the chaos piles up. That's my main conclusion from this tournament. But even without them OTC is often the game of chicken and almost 100% time if there are 3 players left in equally strong positions. I am not a fan of DBO, but I do think that more experimenting is needed with only DBO enabled and MBO disabled and the other way around. GameSlayer mentioned these two modes are tied together, but maybe this shouldn't be the case.

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I mentioned that mohawk likes to ties these 2 together, not that they are!

Nearly every stream zultar has played with majority buyout on and destroy buyout off, so if you want data you can look there

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I just took your word for it, because I haven't heard Soren talking about that myself.

I don't remember many (if any) majority buyouts happening during Zultar's streams. Could be my not so perfect memory. But my feeling is that majority without destroy has little to no impact. If someone manages to get MBO, it's even more steamrolly than usual. If nobody does, it doesn't exist. Destroy without majority though potentially could be very different. In order to make the first buy you need a much bigger lead than just 70k-100k laying around. Thus much stronger economy that can take a hit of the necessity to re-construct all the buildings. On the other hand, if you invest your very last penny into that buyout, it's fair to say you'll not be rewarded enough. It's unclear to me which assumption of the two is more accurate.

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Majority without destroy has a much larger impact on a game when alone than with destroy, bercause with destroy buyout people just don't bother defending other players. When a buy is so powerful everyone focusses on stock much more. A guy starts to go for a buy? the person being bought suddenly has defence. Dynamic alliances form on the fly as the stocks become rainbow coloured, because when 2 guys own part of your stock, you want to hamstring the clear leader and have those 2 start killing eachother to buy as much time as possible to buy your own stock back from them, or kill them yourself. With majority buyout stocks can get fully purchased up before players hit level 5, without majority buyout players will hit 5 then start buying stocks, with destroy buy people just won't buy stocks. The stock market is a huge part of the game and whilst yes, majority buys themselves rarely happen, that option does influence the game to create interesting scenario's, and adds a whole extra level of complexity, even for the player sitting in a corner with only his own stocks bought, as suddenly all the targets present many different opportunities. For example, do you go after the guy who has a stronger economy that you can assimilate, do you go for the guy with some valuable stock or do you go for the cheapest buy, because a buy is a buy.

Destroy buyout on the other hand basically makes it so people just shouldn't bother investing into their own stock until someone starts getting close to 100%, because everything you do needs to be milked for the long term as the games drag on forever, rather than making a short term play, and I know the engineering lab doesn't work very well and is supposedly the definition of long term but that's actually false, the engineering lab requires you to haev made a buy so that you have enough claims to be able to be in enough markets for it to be worthwhile. Besides in temrs of pwoer levels offworlds were seen as the only viable thing before the hacker array buff, which now that I am using it probably didn't necissarily need the buff to be viable, we just never used it because the hacker array is the new ultimate late-game tool since the profit you get directly scales with how much money you currently have, and without destroy buyout people were not playing for the super-late game. The hacker array was also not that great simply because your opponent get more claims in control buyout, allowing them to be in more markets, weakening the hacker array.

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Alright So,

I have a few updates for you on at least 1 of your games Wino

http://puu.sh/kvzyx/6d9572298f.png here is your game 1, There are actually a few issues with this so here is a "more accurate" version http://puu.sh/kvArY/288a75cd79.png

the top graphic is your efficiency

the bar's are the "stock total purchase" so your defense value

the solid lines (bottom) are your cash+resource

the "fill" is your debt.

It is all color labeld, but I didn't change the actual legend for each point. Just know that Anything blue is for cubit, Everything orange is for SB and so on.

The one thing this does not include is Milestones, the second version has blocks (milestones) posted into the graph It looks worse but shows more information.

Besides my own analysis, This graphic really shows what was going on in game 1 a lot more than was maybe obvious watching or playing it.

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I don't know which is scarier, that graph or the fact that I understand it

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Quoting duelking2000,

reply 5

Majority without destroy has a much larger impact on a game when alone than with destroy, bercause with destroy buyout people just don't bother defending other players. When a buy is so powerful everyone focusses on stock much more. A guy starts to go for a buy? the person being bought suddenly has defence. Dynamic alliances form on the fly as the stocks become rainbow coloured, because when 2 guys own part of your stock, you want to hamstring the clear leader and have those 2 start killing eachother to buy as much time as possible to buy your own stock back from them, or kill them yourself. With majority buyout stocks can get fully purchased up before players hit level 5, without majority buyout players will hit 5 then start buying stocks, with destroy buy people just won't buy stocks. The stock market is a huge part of the game and whilst yes, majority buys themselves rarely happen, that option does influence the game to create interesting scenario's, and adds a whole extra level of complexity, even for the player sitting in a corner with only his own stocks bought, as suddenly all the targets present many different opportunities. For example, do you go after the guy who has a stronger economy that you can assimilate, do you go for the guy with some valuable stock or do you go for the cheapest buy, because a buy is a buy.

Destroy buyout on the other hand basically makes it so people just shouldn't bother investing into their own stock until someone starts getting close to 100%, because everything you do needs to be milked for the long term as the games drag on forever, rather than making a short term play, and I know the engineering lab doesn't work very well and is supposedly the definition of long term but that's actually false, the engineering lab requires you to haev made a buy so that you have enough claims to be able to be in enough markets for it to be worthwhile. Besides in temrs of pwoer levels offworlds were seen as the only viable thing before the hacker array buff, which now that I am using it probably didn't necissarily need the buff to be viable, we just never used it because the hacker array is the new ultimate late-game tool since the profit you get directly scales with how much money you currently have, and without destroy buyout people were not playing for the super-late game. The hacker array was also not that great simply because your opponent get more claims in control buyout, allowing them to be in more markets, weakening the hacker array.

People don't bother defending other players just because they don't, not because destroy buyout makes the buy unprofitable. That's far from being true. It's a matter of timing (cash situation, stock situation, resources availiable, prices etc) whether the buy is profitable. People don't bother defending others because usually they are too busy with doing their own stuff and miss that little window when they can save someone who's dying. Or when the buyer is smart enough, he or she will wait for the moment when none of their opponents have enough money to effectively interfere with their plans (when everyone hits lvl 5 for example). Again, this happens quite often.

And by the way, I absolutely hate how the late game turned into hacker array spam. Production doesn't matter, prices don't matter, special buildings don't matter, just hack, buy, sell and hack again. IMO, that sucks every single game mechanics out of it. Just the same as offworld rush in 1v1.

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Hacking isn't that simple and overpowered. Without holograms and with spies, your opponents will know what you are shorting. Moreover, in many games everyone overproduces everything making hacking even less effective. Hacker arrays need spies to be absent to be effective, and one or another resource market must be open.

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Oh, I am the last person to claim they are easy, Cubit. I wouldn't even say they are OP, just as I didn't say OW are OP in 1v1. But the late game did become a battle of hacker arrays. Nothing else really matters. You can have patents, claims - you name it, but a couple of good hacks will put end to that. Just as in 1v1 the game is about who gets first to the offworld and nobody cares about "stronger economy". In 1v1 it's semi understandable, it's a race. In FFA, in my opinion, the balance is supposed to be different. Hmm... more balanced. :/

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In my experience the hacking array is very powerful when not countered (such as vs incompetent opponents or a resource monopoly) and they are a major factor in most games but I usually see them coupled with engineering bays for the best benefit.

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Not having spies is not that uncommon, holograms or not. And being the only scav on the map pretty much gives you a monopoly, not that you really need it. What bugs me about hacker arrays is that you don't have to invest in production of the resources. You can hack whatever you want whenever you want it and make money out of thin air. Sure you can have 3 hacker arrays, to tech the helluva everything and have natural supply of the shorted resource. Or you can just buy into your shortage without investing anything really. Then into the next one and the next one. And of course even if you're trying to counter somebody's hack, there are two more people that have hacks of their own going. So it's just a battle of the hacks while the rest is kinda neglected.

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I had a long arguement planend about how the late-game strength of the hacker arrays coupled with the psychology of destroy buyout naturally leads to a hack-off late game but without destroy buyout that becomes a much less viable option and so doesn't affect the base game, but then I decided I'm too lazy to do that, so instead I'll tell everyone the secrets to counter it: Don't ctrl+shift+down, buy small amounts of resources you don't own whenever your opponents sell them after a hack, and surplus the expensive reasources our opponent is hacking. It costs the same amount of time and less money to surplus 2 markets with 1 hacker array than it does to short 2 markets with 2 hackers. Simply keep yourself diversified, and keep as much of your money in resources as you can, and your opponents hacker arrays will be much less effective, because remember: almost all of his money comes from hacks, and he has to constantly sell down his other resources to invest into the hack, and eventually those hacks are going to get expensive. When they're too expensive you can do 1 or 2 strategical hacks of your own and close out the game.

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Quoting duelking2000,

reply 13

I had a long arguement planend about how the late-game strength of the hacker arrays coupled with the psychology of destroy buyout naturally leads to a hack-off late game but without destroy buyout that becomes a much less viable option and so doesn't affect the base game, but then I decided I'm too lazy to do that, so instead I'll tell everyone the secrets to counter it: Don't ctrl+shift+down, buy small amounts of resources you don't own whenever your opponents sell them after a hack, and surplus the expensive reasources our opponent is hacking. It costs the same amount of time and less money to surplus 2 markets with 1 hacker array than it does to short 2 markets with 2 hackers. Simply keep yourself diversified, and keep as much of your money in resources as you can, and your opponents hacker arrays will be much less effective, because remember: almost all of his money comes from hacks, and he has to constantly sell down his other resources to invest into the hack, and eventually those hacks are going to get expensive. When they're too expensive you can do 1 or 2 strategical hacks of your own and close out the game.

This is exactly what I do every FFA where hackers are everywhere. I rarely ctrlshiftdown because those stockpiles of resources left and right usually end up becoming suddenly very valuable all the time in every game, even when hacker arrays are not in play. Shorting tactics depend on single resources, from which the opponent must shift to something else as his opponents get into the resource that he is hacking. In many games, there aren't enough open resource markets in which to use the hacker array.

Expansive players are especially good at attacking hacker tactics because they have a lot of real estate with which to laser-focus on manipulated resources in which they don't even have any stockpiles.

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Quoting duelking2000,

reply 13

I had a long arguement planend about how the late-game strength of the hacker arrays coupled with the psychology of destroy buyout naturally leads to a hack-off late game but without destroy buyout that becomes a much less viable option and so doesn't affect the base game, but then I decided I'm too lazy to do that, so instead I'll tell everyone the secrets to counter it: Don't ctrl+shift+down, buy small amounts of resources you don't own whenever your opponents sell them after a hack, and surplus the expensive reasources our opponent is hacking. It costs the same amount of time and less money to surplus 2 markets with 1 hacker array than it does to short 2 markets with 2 hackers. Simply keep yourself diversified, and keep as much of your money in resources as you can, and your opponents hacker arrays will be much less effective, because remember: almost all of his money comes from hacks, and he has to constantly sell down his other resources to invest into the hack, and eventually those hacks are going to get expensive. When they're too expensive you can do 1 or 2 strategical hacks of your own and close out the game.

So, what you're saying is that the way to counter hacker arrays is to have your own hacker arrays. That was my point exactly. Thank you sir. I rest my case.

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well my definition of spam is vastly different to yours then, since I think 1-2 hacker arrays can shut down a very large amount of hackers, and I wouldn't call 1-2 hackers per person spam

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Yep, in a game with 4 players and 13 resources in total, I'd call 8 simultaneous hacks in addition to natural shortages/surpluses hack spam.

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In 6+ FFA it overproduction of all resources is almost quaranteed and in 4p FFA it is very common. Hacking resources for profit isn't all that easy especially against competent opponents because you need an open market, otherwise you're just donating your cash to somebody who's already in the market.

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I would like to point out the matchup between Wino, Nate the great, Cubit, and SG in the first round as a perfect example of what Wino is talking about. Wino was clearly ahead playing expansive (noted by the commentary as well) and yet making the first buy effectively kills him. He gives up all of his cash and gets a minimal return. If destroy buyout wasn't on he would've had a lot of good tiles and territory and not had to spend money to rebuild things. He could've purchased cubit and had 2 offworlds for instance. He was playing the best so why shouldn't he have been rewarded for it?

Right now by striking first you put yourself at an extreme disadvantage because there is no way to make up that money when you buy someone. When destroy buyout is off you are able to buy someone (and their buildings) and double your production, keep offworlds and other special buildings, and strengthen your hand by making the move. By buying someone Wino took all his money off the table and can't make up that deficit with the measly new territory he gained. Destroy buyout effectively penalizes you for buying someone whereas it used to reward you. I don't like seeing the game penalize you for doing well. Wino is 100% correct. DBO is a game of chicken. The first person to blink makes themselves vulnerable and more often than not loses the game. Proof positive.

I'd invite someone that's pro DBO to provide a counter point as to why it was good in this case. This scenario happens all too often and I hate it. Buying someone should be about gaining an advantage. Soren mentioned in the finals yesterday that DBO hasn't been disproven this tournament and I completely disagree. If you want more evidence look at my matchup in round 1 where I buy Hydroponos and it kills me (combined with my poor late game play but still). It effectively gives underperforming players a way to get back into the game which I think is unfair. If you had the money to buy someone clearly you were playing well.

Right now it's a no-win situation for someone that has gotten ahead and has a lot of cash. Your only good option is to kill the player with the second most cash and even then that doesn't necessarily reward you with a victory. The scenario that it leads to is what happened twice in the finals - 3 people with cash and nobody wants to buy anyone out because they lose if they do. That was awful to watch because it's a no win situation. What player likes to play for 45 minutes and end in a catch-22 where you have no good options and won by luck of the draw because you weren't the one purchased?

EDIT-Watched the last part of that match where zultar and soren discuss this exact scenario. THANK YOU ZULTAR FOR YOUR COMMENTS!

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If you mean this game

the first one cubit wins

http://puu.sh/kvzyx/6d9572298f.png

then I think you are making an assumption that is incorrect :/

I could be incorrect on what game you are talking about, but this data clearly shows Wino was not in the lead.

this is the key issue with DBO, The only metrics given to players are disingenuous to the lead they may have.

i also point out cubits second game where he DBO a player very quickly and then wins.

so its clearly not as 0 - 1 as you are claiming it to be.

is it an issue? I think it is, but factual comments do more to fixing the problem then over compensating to opinions

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I also had one game in the finals where I DBOd pbhead after he debt spiraled hard and stalled out while somebody else out there came up behind me and killed me as that DBO stalled me for quite a bit.

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KCIV, we all appreciate your work on the graphs. But you seem to be missing some important points from that game that your graphs don't indicate. As a data science guy, I love graphs. However, I want to caution you that a graph can lead anyone to conclude anything with the right/wrong choice of paramaters or metrics. Hence Mark Twain's famous quote about statistics... "lies, damn lies, and statistics".

As I explained in the other thread, efficiency of tile usage doesn't mean as much as net economic production totals (an expansive players has more tiles that will always be less efficient than a scientist, a robot doesn't have life support, etc). Another thing your graphs don't indicate is the economic potential of a colony. In that game, part of the reason why I (and others) percieved I had a stronger economy was the 17 techs and half dozen patents I had. These are long-term economic advantges which take a little time to show up in net economic production rate, but allow the holder the ability to switch resources efficiently and benefit from or shield a player from market manipulation late game. These things are not easy to quantify with graphs, but experienced players are demonstrating an understanding of this as we see more and more players building patent and engineering labs in the early stages of the game.

As these longer DB games are showing, debt is another important long term factor. A player with large debt does not have same buyout purchasing power as another player with the same cash on hand but no debt. In that game, I also owned a lot of other player's stock, which could have been sold off at any time. Thus, my economic purchasing power was actually much higher than it appears. Perhaps your bottom graph showing a solid line "power" for total cash + resource value would tell a more complete story if it included a pro-rated portion of the current debt and current value of stock owned.

Keep up the good work, but please keep in mind that in any statistical endeavor, the interpretation of data cannot be done by an analyst alone, it requires the wisdom of domain experts (like soren, cubit, pbhead, blackmagic, insync) for proper interpretation.

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Quoting GalacticWino,

reply 22

Hence Mark Twain's famous quote about statistics... "lies, damn lies, and statistics".

As these longer DB games are showing, debt is another important long term factor. A player with large debt does not have same buyout purchasing power as another player with the same cash on hand but no debt. In that game, I also owned a lot of other player's stock, which could have been sold off at any time. Thus, my economic purchasing power was actually much higher than it appears. Perhaps your bottom graph showing a solid line "power" for total cash + resource value would tell a more complete story if it included a pro-rated portion of the current debt and current value of stock owned.

Keep up the good work, but please keep in mind that in any statistical endeavor, the interpretation of data cannot be done by an analyst alone, it requires the wisdom of domain experts (like soren, cubit, pbhead, blackmagic, insync) for proper interpretation.

Mark twain was specifically referencing the ability of statistics to lie to the uneducated or uninformed. not that the statistics themselves are wrong.

Although it is fun to quote, the context is very important.

Also what I am hearing is that you you made 2 long term plays (patents and buyout) which never kicked in much at all I mean facts are they didn't matter. It was a choice you made and sure it had pros and cons, but in that game it had mostly cons. had the game lasted another 2 days? I have no doubt your economy would have done well but Cubit successfully played a massive short into tons of economic gain to win.

What I see more and more from this, is people not playing the mode correctly and then complaining when they didn't win. On the same token I see people playing the mode correctly making the First purchase and then being able to win. OR waiting and executing a specific plan to beat out stalled players. MOST of those issue are from lack of knowledge on opponents and potential win conditions. Its not black and white. Its 70-30% DBO stalls you out for sure, but its not 100 or 90% as people are saying.

Dont' get me wrong I 100% agree that DBO right now sets you back too far. But you made choices that did not work well with the mode you were playing. If you know this information to be true right? you know DBO stalls you out? then why on earth would you purchase 2 people? I can't rationalize that from your game as a reason to vote against DBO.

but you were perceived strong in that match, that is not in doubt however perceived strength is not ACTUALLY strength. Nobody saw cubit as a threat very much, until it was too late (BM started to hit him but then stopped) as of course you were only second strong. You didn't make debt mistakes to get bought out first, and you managed to also buy out the second player, But why? why not save up and buy out cubit? Why buy out bottom and third place while knowing the mode you are playing would not reward it? Again it is beyond me to use your game as metric for this conversation.

Are you'r points valid? sure, But not from the game you are saying at all. Nor should ANY 1 game be used to prove anything.

And no I don't think my opinion is above veteran players. But I think using that game specifically as an example is extremely disingenuous, and confirmation bias.

ALL I have been saying is that DBO is not "you buy first you lose", That is obviously NOT true. It does set you too far back i agree, but not for the example you give. Are you frustrated? clearly. You expect the mode to reward your choices when it doesn't . But that doesn't validate a game as a metric nor should it. There are many in game factors that come into play and none of them are black and white. You lost 2 games in that series, One you claim due to DBO setting you back, and yet the very next game Cubit buys first and won. I mean even looking at before you bought someone, you were already behind, So if your game plan was in late game, why intentionally stall yourself out with a buyout?

I'm not trying to start beef, Nor do I think I know better, But using 1 game as a "validation" is a mistake, And specifically that game.

Also yes there are MANY issues with my graphs, 90% of that is due to it being impossible to by hand calculate and gather the proper data, I don't claim my data is flawless nor its visualization, but It was not a 2% close finish match when it came to buy out :/

TLDR

many flaws in that match, impossible to use as a metric.

DBO is not as binary as you claim, 70-30 for sure but not 100-0 or 90-10,

DBO needs to not stall out so far I 100% agree, but surely not because of 1 game.

the claim was "wino was clearly ahead", this is false, he was potentially ahead better set up for later game. until he made his first purchase at which point he will stall out as DBO will cause.

My data is flawed as it can not be collected by hand properly. but its not to be ignored either.

after talking a bit with a few people I think using the finals as a case study is better. and provide better context for DBO issues specifically.

speaking of which I will put my money where my mouth is if anyone has a reply of the finals I will gladly run them and see if what I have even holds up or if it proves my errors. (I'm all about the facts even if it means being 10000% wrong)

I think after the upcoming tweaks to DBO with stock and claims, DBO will be in a much better place to evaluate.

also pretty much everyone in this forum is a better execution player than I am Wino specially I would lose to you Every game probably. I don't wanna make it seem like I know better. I do not. But I also think I bring something unique to the analysis table

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No idea why I have this weird urge to play devil's advocate, but I just do... In that particular game, Wino, you weren't in the lead at the point of the purchase. Stock situation was a bit deceiving, While you only needed 400k for the buy, Cubit already had 750k in cash. With destroy buyout or without it he had an advantage. That was a typical 3-way contest (Nate was out of it, unfortunately), and in those the first one to blink usually loses. Again, with destroy or without it.

At the same time we can look at game #4 of the finals, where Pb stomped all over his opponents from lvl3. Destroy buyout didn't even scratch him. Obviously, robots and scientists are less vulnerable to it. However, it seems to me that if your lead is solid enough, it can't really hinder your progress. On the other hand, if you invested you very last penny and barely got to the buy, you're almost guaranteed to find yourself in a spot you won't like.

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Quoting InSyncOTC,

reply 24

No idea why I have this weird urge to play devil's advocate, but I just do... In that particular game, Wino, you weren't in the lead at the point of the purchase. Stock situation was a bit deceiving, While you only needed 400k for the buy, Cubit already had 750k in cash. With destroy buyout or without it he had an advantage. That was a typical 3-way contest (Nate was out of it, unfortunately), and in those the first one to blink usually loses. Again, with destroy or without it.

At the same time we can look at game #4 of the finals, where Pb stomped all over his opponents from lvl3. Destroy buyout didn't even scratch him. Obviously, robots and scientists are less vulnerable to it. However, it seems to me that if your lead is solid enough, it can't really hinder your progress. On the other hand, if you invested you very last penny and barely got to the buy, you're almost guaranteed to find yourself in a spot you won't like.

I really think the finals are a better study of what DBO is/does. The finals have assumed better skilled players or at least players better in line with the DBO mechanics.

The finals saw the first to buy winning like 80% of the time.

First 2 games the first person to buy won.

the third game the first person to buy lost to the second person to buy.

fourth game saw the first person to buy win.

fifth game saw the first person to buy win.

that is 4/5ths of games on DBO having the first to buy win. :/

I will be running game 4 because its the only replay I have and will post it soon

Game 3 would be the best one to run if anyone has that replay

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