Warrior General Games

(DISCLAIMER: I did not invent Beatpaths and I do not own the idea or any of the algorithms used here--I've simply did some reverse-engineering of the code. All credit goes to the good people at www.beatpaths.com.)

Shazam! Finally, they are finished (or at least finished enough to have some use). If you'd like to look at them in tabbed-out, non-messy glory, I also uploaded them as a .txt file here: http://www.mornacale.com/beatpaths/OProPR3.txt

Oceania Pro
Week 3 of 3
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Rank | Team Name | Record | BeatPower
1. So Cal BDC (3-0) 100.0
1t. Canberra Strike (3-0) 100.0
1t. Cook Island Convicts (3-0) 100.0
1t. Brisbane Heat (3-0) 100.0
1t. Mean Machine (3-0) 100.0
1t. Orlando Prime Timers (3-0) 100.0
1t. Tonga Ikale Tahi (3-0) 100.0
1t. West Scranton Invaders (3-0) 100.0
9. Playboy's Players Club (2-1) 66.0
10. Mata-Utu Voodoo (2-1) 50.0
10t. Papua New Guinea Cannibals (2-1) 50.0
12. Firmament Mystic Prophets (1-2) 42.0
12t. Vanuatu Kava Sharks (1-2) 42.0
14. Banzai Pipeline 'Nites (2-1) 33.0
15. Tasmania Swarm (1-2) 0.0
16. Cascade Cajun Crushers (2-1) 20.0
17. Melbourne Thorny Devils (2-1) 14.0
17t. Sth Queensland Crushers (2-1) 14.0
19. Fakaofo Bomb Squad (1-2) -50.0
20. Christchurch Knightmares (1-2) -66.0
21. Brantford Mustangs (0-3) -100.0
21t. Barossa Grapestompers (0-3) -100.0
23. Fiji Stingers (2-1) -33.0
24. Melbourne Dreadnoks (1-2) -60.0
25. Port Moresby Demons (1-2) -66.0
25t. Samoa Gangsters (1-2) -66.0
27. Emerald City Flying Monkeys (0-3) -100.0
27t. Fiji Sea Turtles (0-3) -100.0
27t. Brisbane Bandits (0-3) -100.0
27t. Aussie Cardinals (0-3) -100.0
27t. Brisbane Gods (0-3) -100.0
27t. Jersey Wildcats (0-3) -100.0

Now, you may be wondering what the crap is going on (especially if you did not see my introductory post). I will give you a little bit of background on what you are seeing. Beatpaths are an alternative method of visualizing and ranking the performance of teams based on which teams they have beat and lost to. They were developed for the NFL, and you can see NFL rankings, as well as all kinds of explanation and exploration of the methods at www.beatpaths.com. I have decided to take the Beatpaths idea and, as both a contribution to the awesome OPro forums and as a fun programming challenge, reverse-engineer them to use on GLB leagues.

Please read my (updated) introductory post for information on the algorithm used for these Power Rankings: http://goallineblitz.com/game/forum_thread.pl?thread_id=1775585

Please ask questions if you have them! Not only is it a waste if you don't understand how the rankings work, but your questions can help me find bugs. Also, since I don't have as much experience with the ins and outs as the creators do, your questions can help me find interesting tidbits to share with you all. If something doesn't look right to you, please bring it up.

I have a couple comments, but in the interest of keeping this post as free of clutter as possible, I'll make responses for them.

I approve.

PPC is at 66, Voodoo and Cannibals is at 50. Is that due to their opponents record(s)?

Probably the biggest standout on the graph this week is the pair of logjams at 3-0 and 0-3. These big swaths of ties should break up naturally as teams in them lose/win and get away. If they stick around too long, I'll have to look into implementing a decent second tiebreaker. It will almost certainly be the numerator of the BeatPower formula.

The second thing, and this is something that it would take a bit of looking for any of you to notice, is that we have yet to see a Beatloop appear on our graph. The only Beatwin that has been removed is the Canberra Strike's Beatwin over Emerald City, as they have a Beatpath of CAN => Tasmania Swarm => Christchurch Knightmares => ECM that makes the CAN => ECM Beatwin redundant. Do note that it is still there, though, lurking around in case that longer Beatpath gets disrupted by a Beatloop.

e: Booboo, the short answer to your question is "yes". The long answer follows:

Playboy Player's Club
PPC has direct Beatwins over the Gods and Cascade Cajun Crushers. The Gods have no Beatwins, but the Crushers have two: the Jersey Wildcats and the Melbourne Dreadnoks, who have yet another Beatwin (over the Brisbane Bandits). Thus, PPC has 5 win relationships.

PPC has a Beatloss to Tonga Ikale Tahi. Because the TITs have no Beatlosses, PPC has only 1 loss relationship.

Since there are no Beatloops, PPC can't have any beatloop relationships.

So, our formula for BeatPower is (win relationships - loss relationships)/(win relationships + loss relationships + beatloop relationships) = (5 - 1)/(5 + 1 + 0) = 4/6 = .667.

Papua New Guinea Cannibals
PNG has Beatwins over Fakaofo and Emerald City, and only Fakaofo has another Beatwin, against the winless Brisbane Bandits. This gives PNG a total of 3 win relationships.

PNG lost to Cook Island, who like TIT has no Beatlosses. 1 loss relationship.

Thus, PNG's BeatPower = (3 - 1)/(3 + 1 + 0) = 2/4 = .500.

Mata-Utu Voodoo
Mata-Utu is just like PNG. They have a Beatwin over a winless team (Jersey) and a one-Beatwin team (Christchurch, who beat Emerald City), for a total of 3 win relationships. They also lost to a 3-0 team, in this case Mean Machine, and thus have 1 loss relationship. And, of course, there are no Beatloops. So, MUV gets a .500 BeatPower.

Hope that helps!

It did, alot. Thanks.

Have you run your formulas on past seasons to see how beatloops, and beatflukes are going to be handled by your system?

Hats off to Canberra, the come back kids, who seem to be reasserting themselves this season.

I approve. Finally, a ranking system that accurately reflects how terrible MTD is.

Thanks for doing.

tied for last

im intrigued to see how this rolls out

I think this may have a mild form of dyslexia - it appears as though my Demons are 25 and I assume it's a misprint and should be 52nd.

Originally posted by fnordish
Have you run your formulas on past seasons to see how beatloops, and beatflukes are going to be handled by your system?

No. I just finally got it to this point last night. Next priority is working on making pretty graphs. Then I'll need to work up a website that will be a little bit more user-friendly than me just linking to images every week.

So when do we get an update? This should be pretty fast, no? Just updates scores into the sheet and check the output?