Warrior General Games

Without further ado, here are the Zeta Conference Rankings for Week 1.

Formula Changes: Reference Level to 24, Stats assessment to 0%, Margin of Victory assessment to 0%, Record assessment overridden with Season 3 playoff results and set to 10%, Roster assessment to 90%

1. Bikini Atoll Mushroom Clouds (91.6) - A result that should surprise no one.

2. Tonga Thunderbirds (86.8) - Though slightly edging out the Shrooms for the highest ranked roster in the conference by the most miniscule of margins, playoff results drop them to the second slot. They face an incomplete team in the Pumped Up Pistons in Week 1, and will be looking for Bort's new coasting code to save their energy levels for the Week 2 matchup with Christchurch.

3. Chinese Bandits (75.7) - We come to the first surprise of the day, as the Bandits predilection for recruiting has finally resulted in a marked change in their power ranking. Hey, it only took a season, right?

4. Dunedin Wolverines (75.1/72.3) - Not as big a surprise as it looks, Dunedin scored well throughout Season 3 on the roster assessment. They stopped underachieving towards the end of the season - but they'll need to do a lot better than just perform up to expectations if they want to deal with Bikini Atoll in the game of the week.

5. Christchurch Knightmares (69.3) - They're back among the contenders, and drastically reduced their level disadvantage. Cimmeria has improved some, but not enough to pose much of a Week 1 threat.

6. NMI Ramekins (68.7) - Sneaking in the rear entrance to the playoffs was not what this team had in mind for Season 3. They'll have to take all games seriously to avoid a similar fate this time around. A good game to take very seriously is Week 1 against the Horsemen.

7. El Fuego (67.9) - Another season, another soft early schedule for the Fuegans, who have to be getting tired of wake-up calls from Tonga and will hope to avoid yet another this time around. It won't be quite as easy to make it to Week 5 undefeated this season, but it is not an unreasonable goal.

8. Four Horsemen (67.4) - Sorry guys, it's just math. In fact, I added in Season 3 playoffs mostly to boost your score. Nice scrimmage wins, a bunch of Pro Bowlers and stat leaders and a playoff victory suggest they have a pretty good chance at outperforming 8th place this season. They'll get plenty of shots to move up these rankings in the first 3 weeks with a vicious NMI, Bikini, Dundedin start.

9. Coney Island Warriors (60.4) - Those Coney Island hot dogs must have extra grease, because I think these guys bordered on season-ending heart attacks pretty much every one of the last 6 games. Somehow they survived them all to grab a playoff spot. They'll get a chance for more drama when facing Redscape, who's roster score is practically identical to theirs. Then they get a game against the revenge-minded Bandits and follow it up with the less-angry-but-still-dangerous El Fuego to start the season.

10. Redscape Diplomats (58.5) - These guys got destroyed by a tough opening schedule last season and have to be happy to see karma has given them one of the more spread out schedules this time around and a very real chance of a 4-1 start. They may be the underdogs hosting the Warriors week 1, but it has to be one of the more competitive games on the list, and I expect they like their chances.

11. Tasmania Sand Gnats (56.7) - They've moved up the power rankings a bit, but Week 1 against the Bandits is going to be tough to survive. In any case, their rush offense is a good fit for the Season 4 changes and they'll be looking to capitalize.

12. Uluru Rockies (55.2) - While the #12 ranking may be unhappily familiar for them, the score differential isn't so bad this time around. They've got a tough Week 2 through 5, but get to start off with a much improved, but still out-leveled FPQA.

13. Cimmerian Barbarians (55.1) - They'll be looking to shake off Season 3 and start a new winning tradition. Christchurch is probably not going to be the place to do that, however.

14. Mauna Kea Chenabogs (52.0) - The 6th ranked passing roster in the conference means they'll be hoping to beat teams through the air. Which is good, because the underleveled remainder of the roster means they may be behind a lot.

15. FPQA Ronnie Rockerz (37.5) - Still badly outleveled, they'll hope to steal one of their first two games against Uluru and the Pistons. Look at it this way, guys - #15 is a new high ranking, right?

16. Pumped Up Pistons (Incomplete) - Finish the roster before those crazy high levels count for anything.

Nice work Sarge.

How on earth can we talk you into doing this for the Alpha?

Nice work sarg

As it is, it takes me between 2 and 3 hours to compile all the data and find little things to point out just for Zeta. There's no way I can justify spending the 4-5 hours every two days on it that doing it league-wide would require.

I've started trying to convert it to a script to slash the amount of work involved. Only problem is I don't know javascript, so Greasemonkey isn't the easiest thing for me to work with. I'm trying to figure out how to do it based on how other scripts work.

I think the roster score component and statistical assessments should be able to be completely automated - which eliminates having to manually enter every team's roster into a spreadsheet like I am doing now. If I can figure out how to store historical data, the margin of victory component might be able to be automated as well. At that point, the work is reduced to just data mining for things to point out, schedule analysis, some sarcasm, and then typing it up.

YEah, that is absolutely understandable then.

While this is fascinating as usual, I think that the formula cannot be perfect as individual player builds cannot be taken into account. I also think the new tactics section can potentially do a lot to level the playing field across the board. However, this only helps in the close matchups where tactics can make the difference. While I will not go into my own philosophy on player builds, I am confident that the Horseman will perform better than expected.

Keep up the good work Sarg!

Nirav, that's supposed to be what the margin of victory component and statistic pieces are for. Of course, this being week 1, both of those are zeroed out.

The margin component looks at your current power ranking difference and actually calculates how much you are expected to win/lose by. Beating the expected difference consistently significantly improves your score. That's how Christchurch ended up in the top 4 towards the latter part of Season 3, despite their roster being ranked in the bottom half level-wise.

Originally posted by Sarg01

As it is, it takes me between 2 and 3 hours to compile all the data and find little things to point out just for Zeta. There's no way I can justify spending the 4-5 hours every two days on it that doing it league-wide would require.

I've started trying to convert it to a script to slash the amount of work involved. Only problem is I don't know javascript, so Greasemonkey isn't the easiest thing for me to work with. I'm trying to figure out how to do it based on how other scripts work.

I think the roster score component and statistical assessments should be able to be completely automated - which eliminates having to manually enter every team's roster into a spreadsheet like I am doing now. If I can figure out how to store historical data, the margin of victory component might be able to be automated as well. At that point, the work is reduced to just data mining for things to point out, schedule analysis, some sarcasm, and then typing it up.

We in the Zeta conference salute you! Hell of a report, always a good read! Thanks alot Sarg

Originally posted by Sarg01

15. FPQA Ronnie Rockerz (37.5) - Still badly outleveled, they'll hope to steal one of their first two games against Uluru and the Pistons. Look at it this way, guys - #15 is a new high ranking, right?

It's definitely a glass half full mentality we've got going on, we're definitely looking to try and at least steal one and be more competetive this year. Cheers to all, and good luck.

This really hits the spot, Sarg! In a smoker-taking-the-first-puff-off-a-cigarette-for-the-first-time-in-a-week kind of way. .

Thanks for all the hard work you put into this, and I hope we can break through into that #1 spot. Of course, we'll need to beat Bikini Atoll to do that, and that's more than a half season away. I can't wait to "welcome" the Pistons to AA this week.,

Finally getting to read the rankings was like holding in a shit for three weeks and then finally finding a toilet - Ultimate relief.... thanks Sarg..


...Although we were hoping for 10th on the rankings! The Rockies have improved drastically, still we have a pretty good OC and DC and i'm confident our use of the AI will prove us a match against even the top four teams.

I'm not sure I follow the Pistons roster...it looks like they might be super-slow building players for lvl 13 cap leagues down the road by the amount of lvl 1's they are hosting at pretty much every position.

For those not aware, there is a new trend of "super slow building"...training on intense with no game-time for 3 seasons, setting you up to be one of the LVL 13's that can boost in the current season and then at any time in the first season of a capped league (basically making you a 16.9 player in a capped league with 3 boosts at your disposal) and you've been maxing out training on key attributes so for a lvl 16 you should be pretty f'ing tough.

I'm wondering if Bort could include a scouting report for each team that included that team's average numbers for each skill. In other words, take the speed rating for each player on the team, add them together, and divide by the number of players. It wouldn't sacrifice the team's privacy all that much, but would give an idea of whether a team is a speed team, strength team, vision team, whatever... in reality, I think most NFL teams can be classified as such. I constantly hear about some LB corps being "quick" or another being "hard hitters".

Pie in the sky idea... but an idea none-the-less.

Originally posted by SCACE
I'm not sure I follow the Pistons roster...it looks like they might be super-slow building players for lvl 13 cap leagues down the road by the amount of lvl 1's they are hosting at pretty much every position.


They only have two players over level 10 whose contracts don't expire in the next two days. All the 20+s will be gone at midnight.