laughingcavalier wrote:Hold it: I have changed my mind. Mr Changsha is no longer a genius.
I would like to see some revision to ranks, not dissimilar to Mr C's original suggestion. But I do have reservations.
What is the purpose of the CC rankings? To ape somebody's military? (Whose military anyway?) No, it exists purportedly to offer players a rough and ready guide to their opponents' strength. And more surely to offer us an opiate, a palliative, a reward for our long hours spent climbing the CC tree.
Where does your 5% figure come from Mr Changsha? It seems the US has followed morie enlightened regimes in cutting their officer/enlisted ratio in recent years, but this is driven by realpolitik: copying the flat structure prevalent in the corporate world; saving on the wage bill; replacing talented generalists with well-trained specialists ... In approximate figures, the US officer corps represented 10% of the military in WW2, 14% in 1989 and 16% in 1999: considerably above the 5% Mr C proposes for CC today.
The "5% may be officers" rule does not much help with understanding a player's skill, and probably militates against players' self-satisfaction. Raising the officer bar is probably a good idea. As more players achieve higher scores, better to give them a harder test and a greater sense of achievement in passing it. But the bar would be better set at, say "10% of players are officers", or "1800 for lieutenant". More likely to give greater joy to more people that way.
On Mr Benn's rankings: a fine idea attractively visualised, concisely expressed. But far too many ranks. It would be confusing for the humble player such as myself searching for opponents: how on earth would I remember the significance of so many symbols so similar in nature? And Mr Benn's system might actually serve to undermine ambition. Too many promotions to aim for, with too little distinction between them, and we might lose the joy currently experienced by so many players when they reach the magic number that bumps them up. Let's keep the ranks within the numbers I can count on my fingers and toes. And ditch all those gradations at the top of the tree. Those guys can go congratulate each other in one of blitz's threads, we really don't need to see it all spread out in technicolour across the scoreboard. I do however love the conchy rank. Genius.
Some greater gradation in the 1000-1600 range? Quite probably a good idea. Though for myself I don't really remember even really noticing rank until I got to somewhere round 1500.
A question: how are the proportions of players in different rankings changing over time? We have Mr Benn's breakdown of ranks from July '08. What does the same breakdown look like now? A higher percentage of players in the higher ranks? And how might it look in another 12 or 24 months?
Mr Changsha, thanks for the idea, though you are no longer a genius, I am glad somebody is working on it for you.
Laughingcavalier in 'Mr C is no longer a genius shocker!!!'
I have to say your first mistake was assuming I thought about this topic for more than about fifteen seconds before I began writing. Your second was in assuming I researched it.
Hah! I laugh in the face of research! I spit in the very eye of knowledge and I wave my (unusually pert) arse in front of experience!
Laughingcavalier in 'I thought Mr C was a genuis shocker!!' would have been more appropriate...
However, I still think we have too many officers.
Maybe it is because I visualise Risk in an 18th/19th century setting?
