A statistical look at G14

[Bongle]

Originally Posted by JesseK

In all honesty, 2007 has the correct structure. Even though the game pieces could be worth more individually, there was in fact a sort of scarcity of them relative to this year.

I disagree. 2007's exponential scoring makes the 2x/3x thresholds much easier to hit. You could have one team score 6 ringers and another team score 5 ringers, and have the winning team get double the score. Scoring just 2 ringers less than your opponent's team could result in you having 1/4 of their score. 2005 and 2007 both had strategic scoring: where you put something (and where you had put things earlier) had a great deal to do with how much it was worth. 2006, 2008, and 2009 all have what I'll call 'speed' scoring: you have to do similar things as fast as you can, regardless of location. The built-in lopsidedness of 2007 scoring would make it a poor candidate as a stand-in.

2008 or 2006 would be better choices than 2007 as proxies because your score was approximately proportional to what you did in the game and how many times you did it, much like Lunacy. Lunacy will have less lopsided scoring than either because even if your alliance's robots are all horrible and can't score, your human players can still rack up some points.