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Week 5 Challenge
Topic Started: Apr 27 2014, 02:35 PM (690 Views)
Dreamwalker
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I'm assuming that the confirmations topic doesn't count as a game topic, since the words at the start of the confirmations topic said "we're ALMOST ready to begin the game" (without the CAPS.. I added that for emphasis).

first OFFICIAL sign-up topic Posted 2/20/2014 10:51:12 PM (CST)
first game topic Posted 3/29/2014 12:15:00 PM (CDT) (except that was the edited time, so let's look at the time of the 2nd post for an upper bound on the pre-edited time.. but Machete said "closest without going over will win" in the original challenge rules, so we actually want to use a little bit less than the time til the 2nd post)
2nd post in 1st game topic: Posted 3/29/2014 11:21:35 AM (CDT)
Mayo was the TC of the first game topic though, and he linked Epic Struggle players to that topic: Posted 3/29/2014 11:22:13 AM (CDT)

So we want to give a time a little bit less than the time between 2/20/2014 10:51:12 PM (CST) and 11:21:35 AM (CDT)

Using this calculator: http://www.timeanddate.com/date/duration.html

I first looked at if the calculator factors in DST itself: http://www.timeanddate.com/date/durationresult.html?m1=3&d1=08&y1=2014&m2=3&d2=10&y2=2014&h1=0&i1=0&s1=0&h2=0&i2=0&s2=0

It does not, since otherwise when you pass over March 9th there would only be 47 hours from March 8th to March 10th. Thus, we're going to want to manually subtract an hour from the answer the site gives us.

Their Answer: http://www.timeanddate.com/date/durationresult.html?m1=02&d1=20&y1=2014&m2=3&d2=29&y2=2014&h1=22&i1=51&s1=12&h2=11&i2=22&s2=13
"36 days, 12 hours, 31 minutes and 1 second" or "3,155,461 seconds"

Our answer is thus "36 days, 11 hours, 31 minutes and 1 second" or "3,151,861 seconds" (the seconds are probably better because they are less ambiguous than days.. honestly Machete should've told people to submit the number of seconds)

But remember we don't want to do quite that, since the second post probably wasn't the same exact moment as the first post.


Here's Mayo's history of posting Epic Struggle links to new topics.

For the 8th game topic, Mayo Posted 4/27/2014 1:50:27 PM, then the link in the old topic was Posted 4/27/2014 1:51:13 PM. That's 46 seconds.
For the 6th game topic, Mayo Posted 4/16/2014 8:51:03 PM, then the link in the old topic was Posted 4/16/2014 8:54:17 PM. That's 3 minutes 14 seconds.
For the 5th game topic, Mayo Posted 4/10/2014 12:50:49 AM, then the link in the old topic was Posted 4/10/2014 12:52:24 AM. That's 1 minute 35 seconds.
For the 2nd game topic, Mayo Posted 3/31/2014 5:34:09 PM, then the link in the old topic was Posted 3/31/2014 5:36:04 PM. That's 1 minute 55 seconds.
For B8's "Sign ups continue" topic, Mayo Posted 3/6/2014 7:38:06 PM, then the link in the old topic was Posted 3/6/2014 6:40:19 PM. Umm.. the weird hour difference is just because I didn't archive the B8 topic until after Daylight Savings Time. So that's just 2 minutes 13 seconds.

Here are the stats on these times:
Min = 46 seconds
Mean = 1 minute 56.6 seconds
Max = 3 minutes 14 seconds

I don't think Mayo would've taken that max time to post it -- and certainly not more than the max time. Plus Games-N'-Things was too active right around Confirmations for the topic to have gone 3 minutes 14 seconds without a post, in my opinion. My recommendation is that we take our upper bound time above and subtract 3 minutes 13 seconds and use that as our answer.

That would mean our guess is "36 days, 11 hours, 27 minutes and 48 seconds" or "3,151,668 seconds" (and remember sending the seconds is probably the better answer... but likely I'll send both to Machete and include my explanation of everything to make sure he doesn't screw up).

Spot any problems?

EDIT: Actually, I noticed a problem. I subtracted 3 minutes 13 seconds from the time til the 2nd post, not the time til the link was posted. The time between the second post and the link was 11:21:35 AM to 11:22:13 AM (which is 38 seconds). That means we should really add 38 seconds back to our time to get a better guess. So let's say "3,151,706 seconds" (which is "36 days, 11 hours, 28 minutes and 26 seconds" if day means 24 hours, or "36 days, 12 hours, 28 minutes and 26 seconds" if day isn't restricted to meaning 24 hours).
Edited by Dreamwalker, May 4 2014, 12:30 AM.
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Dreamwalker
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Honestly we might be able to win with an answer like -100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 seconds if the other teams don't notice the Edit time and Machete doesn't make any kind of clarification that he's considering the start time to be the edit time. Why? Because we can see in the Aquarius quicktopic that they got a PM with 2 timestamps. The first timestamp is correct, but the second timestamp is the POST-EDIT timestamp of the start of the first game topic. If Capricorn got the same PM (assuming it's from Cancer because they don't want us to win), then both Aquarius and Capricorn may guess 3,158,628 seconds (or 3,155,028 seconds if they accounted for DST). Both of these answers are over the actual answer and hence they lose the "without going over" part.

But as amusing as winning with -100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 seconds would be, I'm still inclined to be safe and submit 3,151,706 seconds. Even if somehow Mayo took a long time to post the link and the 2nd post took a long time for someone to make and thus we somehow go over, we won't go over by as much as Aquarius and Capricorn likely will.
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Choco
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Dreamwalker
May 4 2014, 12:57 AM
Because we can see in the Aquarius quicktopic that they got a PM with 2 timestamps. The first timestamp is correct, but the second timestamp is the POST-EDIT timestamp of the start of the first game topic. If Capricorn got the same PM (assuming it's from Cancer because they don't want us to win), then both Aquarius and Capricorn may guess 3,158,628 seconds (or 3,155,028 seconds if they accounted for DST). Both of these answers are over the actual answer and hence they lose the "without going over" part.
lol cancer
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ArchangelBaruch
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I would even submit 3151500. You know, having some distance.

But then it could come back and bit us in the ass if the others revise their answers down with the same idea in mind.



Also, should we send the PM to Cap? Just in case they didn't get it. I'm not sure Cancer would send the same PM to two teams since they would tie AGAIN in that case. But well, Inception isn't that bright.
Edited by ArchangelBaruch, May 4 2014, 02:17 AM.
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Dreamwalker
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I think the point of Inception sending it to 2 teams is that he thinks there will have to be another tie-breaker and he'd rather Gemini, Aquarius, AND Capricorn in that 2nd tie-breaker than just Gemini and one of the other teams in that 2nd tie-breaker.

I'd advise against giving info to Cap. :P even if it's misleading info
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ArchangelBaruch
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Well, at least when it's revealed that the info Aquarius was given is an overshot we may win them as allies by calling out Inception's incompetence.
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Dreamwalker
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For the record, I don't actually have any evidence that Inception sent them that PM.
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ArchangelBaruch
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Well, he's the most probable sender.


Else it can only come from Aries or Leo, the two teams which we don't know what are doing.

Or Apple.
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Cody11533
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Nicely done Dream, I figured this tiebreaker would be right up your alley.
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ROBANN_88
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ArchangelBaruch
May 4 2014, 06:08 AM
Well, at least when it's revealed that the info Aquarius was given is an overshot we may win them as allies by calling out Inception's incompetence.
they don't know that we know that someone sent them a PM with the wrong info. it was shown in their own QT, which we normally wouldn't have access to.
if we call it out before they do, they'll see that we have inside information.

the best approach is to just let them figure out on their own, that whoever sent it messed up
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Choco
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ArchangelBaruch
May 4 2014, 06:43 AM
Well, he's the most probable sender.


Else it can only come from Aries or Leo, the two teams which we don't know what are doing.

Or Apple.
Or Itachi.



Or Resetti.
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ArchangelBaruch
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I doubt it's Itachi, he isn't organized enough.
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Kefiroth
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I've been talking with Itachi recently. I don't think he's been in any shape to mess around with this game for at least the past week or so.
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Choco
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So if Taurus beats Cancer and we win dominance (both of which seems likely), who do we steal from?

Teams to choose from and their number of inactives according to the google doc:

Capricorn (0)
Aquarius (4)
Libra (0)
Sagittarius (3)
Taurus (0)

Taurus and Libra are out of the question.
Sagittarius is with Cancer, but we have Jet on our side. We don't want him voted out, but they have 3 inactives so the risk isn't that high.
Capricorn I don't remember anything about.
Aquarius has like 2 active members so we'd gain an enemy without actually hurting anyone. Oh, and we have access to their QT, if that's relevant.


Capricorn seems like the best choice to me.
Edited by Choco, May 4 2014, 09:32 AM.
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ArchangelBaruch
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Actually, I think it should be the other way around: BECAUSE we have access to their QT we should attack Aquarius. If we are lucky they'll get active in the anti-Gemini alliance and we'll get inside info from them.


Which completely goes against what I said 4 hours ago.
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Choco
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ArchangelBaruch
May 4 2014, 09:52 AM
Actually, I think it should be the other way around: BECAUSE we have access to their QT we should attack Aquarius.
I never stated that as a reason.

Anyway they're invincible. We would have to steal their safety 5 times for them to get hurt by us.

They could sacrifice themselves for Cancer at any time because they have as big a shield of inactives as Pisces does.

With challenges like the item-picking one, or this one, I don't want to increase the chance of borderline invincible people cockblocking us
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radman9000

new tiebreaker...

Okay, announcement... I'm going to get some hate for this but maybe some people won't hate me for it... There have been some issues with the tiebreaker question that have been brought to my attention and I no longer trust the information I have...

Therefore, I've had to come up with a new tiebreaking method. When a team finishes, they will now be moved to the center automatically, rather than being removed from the board. From there, they will try to "tag" other teams, which is to say, move onto hours with other teams. They will not be able to bump or block and are basically "ghosts" on the board, but reaching an hour with another team gets 1 "tag" and an hour with 2 teams gets 2 "tags." To prevent all "ghost" teams from making the same moves, all hours have a limit of 1 "ghost" team and if more than 1 ghost team moves onto an hour for that move, they will both/all be bumped back to the center for the turn. Ghost teams and normal teams will not affect each other either way with the exception of ghost teams getting "tags" on normal teams.

This applies as of this turn and from now on, a team anticipating a finish on the 1st or 2nd move can assume they will finish and can assume they will be in the center as a ghost on move 2, therefore making the 2nd and 3rd move under the assumption they are a ghost team in the center (the only thing preventing them from finishing and becoming a ghost team would be if they were bumped on move 1, which would mean they remain in the center indefinitely anyway. Any ties the remain beyond the main tiebreakers already listed will be settled in this way, with the ghost teams winning for most tags until all teams have finished and been placed accordingly.

Ghosts may move the way normal teams do, only they cannot block and they aim to run into/follow normal teams, while avoiding other ghost teams.

Gemini, Capricorn and Aquarius must re-submit with their ghost moves. Teams with 10 or 11 hours completed may re-submit a new 3-move set, with the 3rd move counting as a ghost move [from center to any hour] (for 10 pt. teams) and 2nd/3rd moves both counting as ghost moves for 11 pt. teams. Teams with fewer than 10 points are still submitting as normal.

Board and info doc will be shortly updated for this, and all players who have already submitted for turn 4 will be PM'd about this. I apologize for the inconvenience. I had to come up with this on the fly because of significant issues with the original tiebreaker question

EDIT: Also, the timer is being reset for this turn. You'll have 36 hours from this post (timer to be updated as well). Teams that have not finished and have submitted moves for this turn will have those submissions remain unless they decide to change them.
Edited by radman9000, May 4 2014, 05:59 PM.
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Kefiroth
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Just when you think you've finally got everything figured out...
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radman9000

one strategy for this tiebreaker is to forget about cancer and sagittarius

aries still needs 4 and will go 8, 7, 6, 5. probably unobstructed
Leo still needs 4 and will go 12, 1, 2 ,3. they could possibly get bumped
Pisces lacks 5 and needs to move across the board and go 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 or 9, 8, 7, 6, 5.
Scorpio lacks 5 but they will be going 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. could run into some trouble though.
Virgo needs two and will be going 3, 4 but...
Taurus only needs one number and it's 2. could possibly be some interaction between these 2 teams causing a bump who knows


we could follow scorpio and do 1, 2, 3. we could do 3, 2, 3. or 3, 4, 3. or 12, 1, 2. these options are more attractive than anything else and will probably we where cap and aqu start their discussion
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Dreamwalker
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What is Machete on?
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ArchangelBaruch
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Uh oh. Uncle Dream isn't happy.



It's very unfair that he changed his mind on the go because of your PM, but all things considered his ghost idea isn't that bad of a last minute replacement.
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Choco
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It might shock some of you that I'm saying this, but I think Machete is a bad host.
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Dreamwalker
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The ghost idea would've been work-able, if it was handled correctly.
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Choco
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Too bad it's only a result of Machete sucking at his own tiebreaker.
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Kirbymuncher
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Well to be honest, asking for the amount of time that passed between two events is a rather ambiguous question, even without the edit not showing timestamp. If he wanted to go with timestamps, he should have done something like "add up all the digits in both timestamps and submit that"

Not that I like seeing things get changed part way through but I think it's at least understandable
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Choco
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Kirbymuncher
May 5 2014, 05:39 AM
Well to be honest, asking for the amount of time that passed between two events is a rather ambiguous question
which also boils down to "he did something stupid"
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Dreamwalker
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Here's Shock about 2 hours ago in the Libra quicktopic:

Sorry I was out of town this weekend, didn't get a chance to look at the quicktopic (or get on Steam.) Looks like Link was able to continue my brief conversation with Dream and secure our safety for the week so everything worked out OK. gj team

Here's Shock 4 minutes after that on Steam:

you're lucky Link included this disclaimer in our quicktopic or i would be very bitchy right now: "Dream was also very adamant about making sure Shock knew about the plan"
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ArchangelBaruch
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He is... special.

I feel like the other Libras should call him "glorious leader".
Edited by ArchangelBaruch, May 5 2014, 12:39 PM.
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Choco
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I don't get wtf his problem is.

HOW DARE YOU TALK TO MY PEOPLE WHILE I'M ABSENT.
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Cody11533
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So what are we going to do for this new tiebreaker? I can't see anyway to guarantee doubling up on points. Maybe we could try something like (3,2,3), moving from Virgo to Scorpio?
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Dreamwalker
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I guess, if you want to try that. I really don't know what to do. I keep hoping to be able to spy on what Aquarius is doing, but they aren't saying anything new in their quicktopic.
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Cody11533
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I can submit it with the caveat that if someone else submits, it gets overwritten, in case we come up with somethin else before the time limit is up.
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radman9000

I like 3,2,3

May not work but its just as good as anything else
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Kirbymuncher
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We should in theory be able to talk with Scorpio and tell exactly where they're moving if it isn't obvious from their numbers already
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Cody11533
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Scorpio will be going clockwise from their current position based on the numbers.
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Dreamwalker
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Idk. Just make sure somebody submits something.

I haven't sent anything.
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Cody11533
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Sorry for the ambiguity, I did submit the move last night (although Machete still hasn't read it).
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Dreamwalker
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Ah, ok.
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Cody11533
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I posted that right before I went to bed, and I didn't check what I wrote this morning. I thought I'd put that I submitted, but I guess I forgot to mention that part.
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Choco
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Cody11533
May 6 2014, 01:40 PM
Sorry for the ambiguity
[...]
last night
...
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radman9000

So how bout this challenge??
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Choco
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Ignoring the tiebreaker bullshit, it was pretty clear from the beginning that the challenge was pretty bad design-wise.

I wonder if he even realized that everyone just going one direction and finishing at the same time was a pretty likely event.

But yeah Machete just isn't very good at designing these. If there had been something like a power that every team could only use once it might have avoided every single tie, and the challenge wouldn't have started off as "press right three times to not ensure you lose". The gameplay in this challenge was essentially empty.

I've been designing games since I was a little kid and this is just frustrating. Like...why did he not notice. The ties were so very foreseeable. If there was no social aspect to this game, I guarantee it would have ended in a 12-way tie.
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radman9000

I think 4, 5, 6 might be a solid move this time
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Dreamwalker
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Why isn't Aquarius posting in their quicktopic? :(
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Kefiroth
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They might be wise to us.

...or more likely, just woefully inactive
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Cody11533
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Woefully inactive seems more likely.
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Dreamwalker
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still no posts from Aquarius ;_;

Do you think we should just go ahead and send 4,5,6 and hope for the best?
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Kirbymuncher
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Speaking of woefully inactive, is that a good description for Scorpio as well or do they just not care much about our alliance? They seem to post very rarely in the alliance forum
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radman9000

Dreamwalker
May 8 2014, 05:54 AM
still no posts from Aquarius ;_;

Do you think we should just go ahead and send 4,5,6 and hope for the best?
not much else we can do
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Kirbymuncher
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Looks like we... both have dominance?

While I think this is a pretty neat idea, it puts us in a bit of a bad spot since two of the four targets we are essentially promised not to harm. Hopefully we can end up with an agreement, but what do you guys think we should do if they are absolutely fixated on one of the people we don't want to steal from?
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