by yzemaze
First of all thanks to[username=diplojak]
He is an (the?) admin on boite-a-jeux, coded their excellent Castles of Burgundy implementation and kindly provided me with essential database-dumps. Without these I wouldn't have been able to analyze a few thousand games that quickly. Unfortunately board numbers have only been recorded for some weeks (since 10x boards went live) so I could use only about 40% of all CoB games played on boite-a-jeux up to May 23rd.
Please pay attention to the absolute numbers given in the second column. These should indicate that the sample just can't be representative especially for 3 and 4 player games. But the results shown in the tables/diagrams below are interesting nonetheless. I elected not to clutter up the post with quartiles, quantiles, averages (=arithmetic means) for each starting position and placement, max/min scores and some other more obscure stats as the ones given below paint a nice enough picture. I also didn't invest time to check if better players (by Elo points) fare better on specific boards or if board x really shines against board y. There's just not enough data (yet) to get significant results. But if you want more just let me know what you'd like to see explored.
A few tidbits:
- about 1-2% of games were decided by tiebreaker (2p 1.01%, 3p 1.67%, 4p 1.96%)
- starting the game seems to be an advantage with 2p (51% win%), but not with 3 or 4 (32.66%, 22.64%) - it's more extreme with some boards of course
- per extra player the average score goes up by about 17 points (2p 184.6, 3p 201.7, 4p 218.2 - for games with at least one expert board)
- board 8 is by far the best one (who would've guessed that?
)- board 7 is obviously better than people think (a 7 space city isn't that hard to complete)
- 10a/e/f/h are even worse than the standard board
- 10g really shines with more people (likely due to the 6 space meadow)
- the more players contend the closer the fight for 1st place (yeah, another astonishing discovery
)A few explanations:
- The 1vs1 row contains only games where all players used board 1. Therefore there are no win% and differences for these.
- diffW = 1st place points - 2nd place points
- diffL = 1st place points - (2nd|3rd|4th) place points [= point difference between 1st and achieved place]
- boards 10a to 10h are ordered so one can compare front and back easier
4p games
brdnavgsd1st2nd3rd4thdiffWdiffL
[hr]1vs1193204.725.6
1214206.925.315.3%22.7%24.1%38.0%12.843.8
2151215.927.222.2%25.9%21.5%30.4%18.237.5
3167220.623.725.7%27.5%24.6%22.2%17.134.4
4174210.822.511.2%28.7%30.9%29.2%15.839.1
5166222.321.823.4%28.1%30.4%18.1%19.729.5
6159220.924.829.7%24.2%24.8%21.2%20.135.6
7 53224.021.929.1%32.7%27.3%10.9%22.229.6
8167245.425.859.4%21.1%13.7% 5.7%28.122.2
9 51210.425.218.5%22.2%18.5%40.7%13.941.1
10a117202.323.6 7.4%17.2%30.3%45.1%11.046.0
10e100205.624.911.5%19.2%28.8%40.4%15.946.5
10b157227.222.434.2%29.8%23.0%13.0%21.129.2
10f 43204.520.5 6.7%22.2%37.8%33.3%35.341.9
10c133225.422.532.4%31.7%17.6%18.3%16.230.1
10g102227.726.037.1%27.6%22.9%12.4%22.035.5
10d108221.023.826.3%30.7%26.3%16.7%13.834.1
10h108202.220.9 8.2%18.2%32.7%40.9%12.144.1
3p games
brdnavgsd1st2nd3rd4thdiffWdiffL
[hr]1vs1220187.322.5
1197193.822.826.3%36.3%37.4%16.234.0
2128197.728.224.8%39.8%35.3%23.835.8
3149206.023.040.0%29.3%30.7%20.530.7
4168199.324.025.1%32.2%42.7%18.434.1
5168208.518.634.9%41.9%23.3%17.226.1
6161197.024.730.2%29.0%40.7%19.633.4
7 54203.423.832.1%32.1%35.7%29.329.6
8159226.122.868.8%25.6% 5.6%29.220.0
9 55194.725.121.4%37.5%41.1%27.039.5
10a129188.720.116.2%33.8%50.0%20.937.8
10e 75193.923.916.9%36.4%46.8%19.437.7
10b154207.221.144.9%31.4%23.7%23.029.2
10f 62184.026.225.8%17.7%56.5%15.149.0
10c109213.723.246.4%33.9%19.6%25.528.8
10g 85207.624.139.3%38.2%22.5%19.329.4
10d107204.821.830.9%41.8%27.3%18.127.5
10h101184.619.718.4%35.0%46.6%15.738.1
2p games
brdnavgsd1st2nd3rd4thdiffWdiffL
[hr]1vs12091169.421.5
11317174.221.439.0%61.0%23.129.8
2 713178.725.042.9%57.1%26.532.3
3 901188.823.052.7%47.3%29.525.5
4 927182.021.845.7%54.3%24.427.2
51124191.419.158.0%42.0%28.022.3
6 906185.323.953.3%46.7%29.127.4
7 343190.322.858.9%41.1%28.726.1
81027205.522.874.4%25.6%35.718.2
9 273179.524.148.0%52.0%32.031.2
10a 830173.621.134.9%65.1%20.031.4
10e 446169.426.429.4%70.6%21.132.9
10b 954191.820.661.5%38.5%27.423.8
10f 295174.522.040.3%59.7%24.432.3
10c 714191.723.157.8%42.2%30.624.3
10g 543187.221.953.6%46.4%26.826.3
10d 759188.920.248.0%52.0%26.723.5
10h 529164.122.429.5%70.5%21.735.6
Or in a nutshell:
avg pts per board per player count
win% - expected win%
