Warrior General Games

For anyone interested in the full extent of the NBSK curse:

We have an all-time record of 10-3 against teams from USA BBB 15 that have moved up to (or about to be) in USA A 8. The 3 losses were the 3 conference final games. In non-conference final games, we are 10-0 against teams that became conference champions.

Truly an amazing record of futility.

That's it? I was expecting a link with graphs, panel expert interviews and fan polls. Maybe a hypothesis or two, definitely a dissertation on karma and the way it influences binary fluctuations to alter the end result of the random number generators used in simulated programs.

I'm somewhat dissapointed.

I have to echo something DeathKnight posted from season 1, at least. We really had to lose to NBSK before we were capable of beating them. Being actually close enough in a season game to get some idea what was working and what wasn't really helped in the second game. In previous seasons nothing worked, and we were crushed in every department.
Being able to watch Miami win one game against them in the season and having that pbp to study also helped a lot, despite the results of the rematch there.

Now, admittedly, were we to play NBSK 10 times, I'd still wager they'd win 8 of them, maybe 9. But there actually was some science to the second time around gameplan too.

I also still hold that they move up this coming season, though looking over the lineups and matches, with some luck, I think both Miamis have the right possible weapons to possibly keep the curse rolling, while both of them are going to struggle against some of the other setups in the division.

I think NBSK is undoubtedly the strongest all-around team left in the East, and some of the curse has been just plain dumb luck. I wouldn't take too much away from the gameplanning and potential observations made by Manhattan, NY or NHH either though. Particularly since I can say without any uncertainty that had we not had our first game vs. them and the Miami regular season game to study, we wouldn't have won the second time around either.

One thing I've always said about this situation (that situation being: A team beating another team that they lost to in the regular season) is that I personally think the losing team has the advantage coming into this game. Provided they're not total scrubs.

For one, they lost the first game and are going to learn from their mistakes. They're more than likely not going to do the same thing they did before because they're expecting the other team to plan around that. For two, when you're in the winning teams shoes and you know the other team is smart enough to actually realize and plan around the first point I made, its tough to combat. They, theoreticaly, have the element of suprise.

Originally posted by GwennA


I also still hold that they move up this coming season, though looking over the lineups and matches, with some luck, I think both Miamis have the right possible weapons to possibly keep the curse rolling, while both of them are going to struggle against some of the other setups in the division.



I have very little hope for beating them, for some reason we just can't figure out a way to beat those guys.. the Miami clubs however I am very confident against maybe its because we have success against them.

Originally posted by Morphius
One thing I've always said about this situation (that situation being: A team beating another team that they lost to in the regular season) is that I personally think the losing team has the advantage coming into this game. Provided they're not total scrubs.

For one, they lost the first game and are going to learn from their mistakes. They're more than likely not going to do the same thing they did before because they're expecting the other team to plan around that. For two, when you're in the winning teams shoes and you know the other team is smart enough to actually realize and plan around the first point I made, its tough to combat. They, theoreticaly, have the element of suprise.

Pretty much exactly my point. You have to come close enough in the first place to have some things have worked to be able to identify weaknesses, as well as see where they /really/ crushed you as opposed to just outplaying you everywhere. We didn't have that in past seasons where everything they did worked. This season we were actually able to keep it really close the first time around.

Second, someone needs to have either beat them, or come close enough that you get some idea that something can work. Miami's win was a big motivator for me. Had they not won that game and given me an extra game to actually scout with a purpose I'm not sure I'd have had the motivation to spend nearly as many hours prepping for the game as I did - which says nothing of the effort put in by the other scouts from our team.

That first game was really key, and we changed quite a bit in our plan due to it.

Despite which, I still hold they're the superior team in talent. They're quite capable still of blowing us out, and I don't think we could ever do a lot better than we did in this last game. I think they'd beat us head to head 80, maybe 90 percent of the time.

But, with all due respect to Nike-Joe, I worked way, way too hard on that game to attribute anything to curses or comparisons between 4 way matchups of Caprica, NBSK, us and DV.

For the record - I also have to say, without the first scrimmage game Mono challenged us to, I don't think we'd have beaten the Vikings either.

Originally posted by Morphius
One thing I've always said about this situation (that situation being: A team beating another team that they lost to in the regular season) is that I personally think the losing team has the advantage coming into this game. Provided they're not total scrubs.

For one, they lost the first game and are going to learn from their mistakes. They're more than likely not going to do the same thing they did before because they're expecting the other team to plan around that. For two, when you're in the winning teams shoes and you know the other team is smart enough to actually realize and plan around the first point I made, its tough to combat. They, theoreticaly, have the element of suprise.

I'll remember this next time we meet!

We will make note of this and plan on losing to DVD, Caprica and Anchorage in the regular season!

I do think that's some valid points. We had trouble coming up with game plans in the playoffs because we'd be thinking, do we stick with what worked the first time or do we assume the teams are gonna change and then try to anticipate the change ourselves? obviously it's backfired on Rapid City as well.

Originally posted by GwennA
Originally posted by Morphius

One thing I've always said about this situation (that situation being: A team beating another team that they lost to in the regular season) is that I personally think the losing team has the advantage coming into this game. Provided they're not total scrubs.

For one, they lost the first game and are going to learn from their mistakes. They're more than likely not going to do the same thing they did before because they're expecting the other team to plan around that. For two, when you're in the winning teams shoes and you know the other team is smart enough to actually realize and plan around the first point I made, its tough to combat. They, theoreticaly, have the element of suprise.

Pretty much exactly my point. You have to come close enough in the first place to have some things have worked to be able to identify weaknesses, as well as see where they /really/ crushed you as opposed to just outplaying you everywhere. We didn't have that in past seasons where everything they did worked. This season we were actually able to keep it really close the first time around.

Second, someone needs to have either beat them, or come close enough that you get some idea that something can work. Miami's win was a big motivator for me. Had they not won that game and given me an extra game to actually scout with a purpose I'm not sure I'd have had the motivation to spend nearly as many hours prepping for the game as I did - which says nothing of the effort put in by the other scouts from our team.

That first game was really key, and we changed quite a bit in our plan due to it.

Despite which, I still hold they're the superior team in talent. They're quite capable still of blowing us out, and I don't think we could ever do a lot better than we did in this last game. I think they'd beat us head to head 80, maybe 90 percent of the time.

But, with all due respect to Nike-Joe, I worked way, way too hard on that game to attribute anything to curses or comparisons between 4 way matchups of Caprica, NBSK, us and DV.

For the record - I also have to say, without the first scrimmage game Mono challenged us to, I don't think we'd have beaten the Vikings either.

I agree with all of that, the bolded part rings especially true though. I know it helped me plan the offense. Thanks Mono, appreciate the help. Especially since you challenged us out of the blue. One can only assume it was due to Byron. I worked extra hard to make him happy as he is an integral part of our team IMO.

Nike, would you like a challenge? Ten challenges? I suspect Gwen is right as to how often we would win.

Something I posted on my boards today, "Want to know why we overachieve? I received a PM today that asked for my DE going to Fez's team. It was a AA team (in the playoffs) and the owner actually bragged, "I spend 1-2 hours on my gameplan as OC (Personal note - conceivable as the offense isn't that complicated, but I spend at least 3-4, except against cupcake teams) and I have a DC equally as active.""

Mind you, the difference in levels was balanced out by Gwen and our scouts. That was our secret.

When I mentioned it to Garioc, he quipped, "Sure he didn't mean 1-2 days?"

The latter was a reference to Gwen of course.

just wanted to tell you ( if u didnt already know ) new york strikers is now a CPU team

Originally posted by MIKECRAFT
just wanted to tell you ( if u didnt already know ) new york strikers is now a CPU team

whoa ... missed that entirely. what the heck happened now?

I don't believe that tactics played a large role in our conference final futility. For NH it probably did a little. But definitely not for the other 2. In the previous seasons we were very unpredictable, switching up our tactics a lot, knowing that we were being scouted, and it didn't work for us. This season we stuck with one thing, not caring we were being scouted, and it didn't work for us. And with all due respect to NH, who does a fantastic job, that game was a toss up. Perhaps the reason it was a toss up and not an easy win for us was NH's game planning. But, in 3 tries, we were kinda hoping we'd win one of these toss ups.

The Miami game had tactics from us totally different than the NH game by the way.

Originally posted by Nike-Joe
I don't believe that tactics played a large role in our conference final futility. For NH it probably did a little. But definitely not for the other 2. In the previous seasons we were very unpredictable, switching up our tactics a lot, knowing that we were being scouted, and it didn't work for us. This season we stuck with one thing, not caring we were being scouted, and it didn't work for us. And with all due respect to NH, who does a fantastic job, that game was a toss up. Perhaps the reason it was a toss up and not an easy win for us was NH's game planning. But, in 3 tries, we were kinda hoping we'd win one of these toss ups.

The Miami game had tactics from us totally different than the NH game by the way.



Yeah, giving us different looks at different tactics. But they were the only games close enough to draw anything from.

The NY game, I'll give you. There were some things in there that would have been impossible to predict.

Tactics are also bigger this season than previous with the AI replacing the limited computer settings.

I'll also agree that our game was a toss up to a degree. I still think you'd win more often than not. Much more often. But I do think the tactics and scouting had a big part in making it a toss up instead of a blowout like the first game.

I respect what you guys have done, I expect you guys to win it all soon, and expected, despite the scouting, that you would beat us this season.

So take it as you will, but with the amount of time put in, I'm really kind of insulted. I thought better of you.

I can understand the disappointment being a Bill's fan. I do think you owe our DC an apology. JMO.