Following Khazrakh's lead, this is a look behind the scenes of the Federal Database challenge, my thoughts about the results and what may happen next.
In case you came in late, the Federal Database Challenge was the third major community contest for the Hive-based trading card game EXODE (currently in alpha). If you want to learn more about the awesomeness that is EXODE, check out the short (five minute) introductory video and the wiki. I am also continuing my special offer of "Double your money back if you try eXode and don't like it." See the details at the bottom of this post.
The gist of the contest was that each match pitted two players against each other - a "keeper" who had a Federal Database and had to keep it long enough to decrypt and access its Secret Datacore and a "grabber" who had to simply take the Federal Datbase away from the keeper before the Secret Datacore was accessed Every keeper was pitted against every grabber and a winner (or co-winners) declared for each category based upon their records.
There were three posts describing the challenge (Federal Database Challenge; EXODE: A Helpful Hint for Winning The Federal Database Challenge; Exode Federal Database Challenge: Official Rules, Rubrics and Additional Info). I was then glad to see 11 posts detailing the 15 entries (apshamilton's Federal Database Challenge - Keeper Entry; balticbadger's Ft. Knoxode/ Operation Badger Blast (2 entries); blockmonster's Federal Database Challenge Entry (3 entries); my EXODE Federal Database - Grabber: Just Keep Them Moving & EXODE Federal DB Challenge - Keeper: Don't Just Sit There . . .; proto26's Federal Database Challenge - On the Defensive; raudell's A Study in Subterfuge; slabakbg's Federal Database Challenge Entry: Grabber 1 from SlabakBG & Federal Database Challenge Entry: Keeper 1 from SlabakBG and hooiyewlim's My Federal Database Challenge deck build (2 entries) & Exode Federal Database Challenge elected leader as keeper).
Since there were initially 8 "keeper" entries and 5 "grabber" entries, I opted to do one keeper result per day containing their matches against each grabber (apshamilton, balticbadger, blockmonster's Stealth Multibase & Hack Attack, me (digtal-wisdom), proto26, raudell and slabakbg). Hooiyewlim's three entries were entered on time but I missed them initially (due to overlooking his comment pointing at them and the fact that they weren't in EXODE Pilots) so his results were posted last. A table of all results is at the bottom of this post.
Each of the result posts took a surprisingly long time to write as I was having to work through the battles as I wrote them, in order to determine the results. Fortunately, I already had developed rubrics covering virtually every card-vs-card match-up (with the notable exception of Alana Vos vs. a Kilbot). Unfortunately, I found myself having to spend a lot of time (and frequently walking away to let my subconscious take over) to figure out the best tactics for each strategy when they encountered unexpected opponent strategies (so, hopefully, everyone is happy with the results of that). The other good news for me was that, as the posts went on, I could copy more and more text from previous match-up results.
Having play-tested a number of match-ups, I realized that the keepers had a severe advantage over the grabbers. Indeed, I couldn't design grabber build to overcome one of my keeper builds even knowing exactly what it was going to face and being able to optimize solely for that. As a result, as posted at the top of every results post, I attempted to "give every advantage to the grabber wherever possible (particularly where capabilities are unclear or under-specified)."
I was gratified that the keepers "only" ended up with a 52% to 43% advantage over the grabbers (the missing 5% due to penalties). Obviously, I would have preferred even closer to 50-50. As it was, however, I did receive complaints from a keeper about over-powered Velvet Storms (admittedly generously considered to be comparable to A-10 Warthogs) and the fact that AA/AT turrets couldn't stop all incoming missile attacks. On the other hand, all cards were available to both sides and it was my test keeper with all of Velvet Storms, AA/AT Turrets, Vanguards, a Defensive Bunker and Kilbots that successfully defended against every grabber that I could come up with. The complaining keeper, of course, didn't have Velvet Storms and also objected to a Drachian Mantis being a coordinated and effective part of the attack
By far, the most important factor was cargo with ship's running second place both because they affected the amount of cargo (and personnel) but also because they could be actively used in some strategies. The entrant with no cargo was unable to beat anyone other than his own cargoless entries. The winningest strategies were, with one exception, those that started with the most cargo (using either a Drachian Mantis or a Kormen Cargo ship. The exception was a keeper who used a Rhino Attack Frigate to destroy all the grabber's transportation abilities before he ran far, far away to access the Secret Datacore.
As previously stated, the most critical cargo was Velvet Storms, AA/AT Turrets, Vanguards, and Defensive Bunkers. Underground Construction was very popular, either for hiding stealth bases or protecting the Database team (often hiding beneath a Defensive Bunker). Hiding beneath the Defensive Bunker was a great idea. On the other hand, the entered stealth strategies lost games that they would otherwise have won (when their main base couldn't be defeated but the stealth base was found) and did not win any games that would otherwise have been lost since they were always uncovered once the main base was captured. Similarly, Orbital Shields were selected by several keepers but were always a bad choice since they were only starting to charge (and thus could be taken down by armed ships) and could also be hacked by Syndicate Hackers, Sh4rken, or the Mysterious AI (since the necessary zero-day exploits are well-known to the Syndicate).
Unfortunately, for the most part, match-up results came down to who had the most of the above four and, to a lesser extent, Kilbots (the one major exception again being the Rhino keeper who wasn't playing by anyone else's rules) -- although, hopefully, everyone enjoyed the stories that went with them. Apshamilton pointed out the lack of naval ships in EXODE -- who could have stood off and shelled his base (maybe prompting him to choose Velvet Storms for their missiles and thus upgrading him to a Kobayashi Maru keeper). Another thing that is missing is man-portable anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons. If I were to do another contest of this type, I don't know whether I'd be more tempted to ban a few cards or add a few of my own (or convince Elindos to add them as beta teasers).
Balticbadgers offensive strategy of a Programmed Transactor suicide bomber in sheep's clothing was a welcome change from the otherwise ubiquitous strategy of "try to anticipate everything and just pound the snot out of them". Unfortunately, such a Trojan Horse strategy really would never work against the bundles of paranoia of keepers who just want to be left alone for a few days (and who would have screamed bloody murder if I had allowed it to work). Fortunately, the Transactor was able to blow holes in the sides of some Defensive Bunkers, so it wasn't a total waste. One thing that I had hoped for, but didn't see, was for the ships to be a more integral part of some offensive strategies. The missiles from an Archeon Frigate or a Myrmidon Assault Transport or an Akhen Cannon could have added a lot of damage to that which was done to turtle defenses by Velvet Storms and Vanguards.
There also weren't as many different keeper strategies as I had been hoping for. The "turtle" and stealth strategies were a little too obvious (and while none of the stealth strategies really succeeded, I did have a stealth strategy in my test gauntlet that worked against the majority of my gauntlet of grabbers and, at a glance, should have worked against all of the grabbers entered in the contest except maybe one that kept a ship in orbit). There were some strategies that counter-attacked with ground forces but, again, except for the Rhino entry, there was no use of the ships as part of an integral strategy. Fortunately for me; however, no one came up with the nightmare strategy that I was aware of that would have made writing and results resolution absolutely miserable since there were so many combinations of possibilities that I simply couldn't have pre-written rubrics to handle them (and NO! I certainly am not giving anyone any further idea of what that may be).
apshamilton - for co-winning the keeper contest - chose a Black Lotus over an Ayumi
slabakbg - for a total score of 80% - Octohome, Security Drone (who wants to be a Velvet Storm when she grows up) & Tom Little Buddy (who wants to be a Vanguard when he grows up)
balticbadger - for a total score of 70% - Federal Database & Programmed Transactor (you can guess why)
raudell, proto26 & hooiyewlim - a booster pack participation prize
In case you came in late, the Federal Database Challenge was the third major community contest for the Hive-based trading card game EXODE (currently in alpha). If you want to learn more about the awesomeness that is EXODE, check out the short (five minute) introductory video and the wiki. I am also continuing my special offer of "Double your money back if you try eXode and don't like it." See the details at the bottom of this post.
The gist of the contest was that each match pitted two players against each other - a "keeper" who had a Federal Database and had to keep it long enough to decrypt and access its Secret Datacore and a "grabber" who had to simply take the Federal Datbase away from the keeper before the Secret Datacore was accessed Every keeper was pitted against every grabber and a winner (or co-winners) declared for each category based upon their records.
There were three posts describing the challenge (Federal Database Challenge; EXODE: A Helpful Hint for Winning The Federal Database Challenge; Exode Federal Database Challenge: Official Rules, Rubrics and Additional Info). I was then glad to see 11 posts detailing the 15 entries (apshamilton's Federal Database Challenge - Keeper Entry; balticbadger's Ft. Knoxode/ Operation Badger Blast (2 entries); blockmonster's Federal Database Challenge Entry (3 entries); my EXODE Federal Database - Grabber: Just Keep Them Moving & EXODE Federal DB Challenge - Keeper: Don't Just Sit There . . .; proto26's Federal Database Challenge - On the Defensive; raudell's A Study in Subterfuge; slabakbg's Federal Database Challenge Entry: Grabber 1 from SlabakBG & Federal Database Challenge Entry: Keeper 1 from SlabakBG and hooiyewlim's My Federal Database Challenge deck build (2 entries) & Exode Federal Database Challenge elected leader as keeper).
Since there were initially 8 "keeper" entries and 5 "grabber" entries, I opted to do one keeper result per day containing their matches against each grabber (apshamilton, balticbadger, blockmonster's Stealth Multibase & Hack Attack, me (digtal-wisdom), proto26, raudell and slabakbg). Hooiyewlim's three entries were entered on time but I missed them initially (due to overlooking his comment pointing at them and the fact that they weren't in EXODE Pilots) so his results were posted last. A table of all results is at the bottom of this post.
Each of the result posts took a surprisingly long time to write as I was having to work through the battles as I wrote them, in order to determine the results. Fortunately, I already had developed rubrics covering virtually every card-vs-card match-up (with the notable exception of Alana Vos vs. a Kilbot). Unfortunately, I found myself having to spend a lot of time (and frequently walking away to let my subconscious take over) to figure out the best tactics for each strategy when they encountered unexpected opponent strategies (so, hopefully, everyone is happy with the results of that). The other good news for me was that, as the posts went on, I could copy more and more text from previous match-up results.
 |  |  |
I was gratified that the keepers "only" ended up with a 52% to 43% advantage over the grabbers (the missing 5% due to penalties). Obviously, I would have preferred even closer to 50-50. As it was, however, I did receive complaints from a keeper about over-powered Velvet Storms (admittedly generously considered to be comparable to A-10 Warthogs) and the fact that AA/AT turrets couldn't stop all incoming missile attacks. On the other hand, all cards were available to both sides and it was my test keeper with all of Velvet Storms, AA/AT Turrets, Vanguards, a Defensive Bunker and Kilbots that successfully defended against every grabber that I could come up with. The complaining keeper, of course, didn't have Velvet Storms and also objected to a Drachian Mantis being a coordinated and effective part of the attack
By far, the most important factor was cargo with ship's running second place both because they affected the amount of cargo (and personnel) but also because they could be actively used in some strategies. The entrant with no cargo was unable to beat anyone other than his own cargoless entries. The winningest strategies were, with one exception, those that started with the most cargo (using either a Drachian Mantis or a Kormen Cargo ship. The exception was a keeper who used a Rhino Attack Frigate to destroy all the grabber's transportation abilities before he ran far, far away to access the Secret Datacore.
 |  |  |
As previously stated, the most critical cargo was Velvet Storms, AA/AT Turrets, Vanguards, and Defensive Bunkers. Underground Construction was very popular, either for hiding stealth bases or protecting the Database team (often hiding beneath a Defensive Bunker). Hiding beneath the Defensive Bunker was a great idea. On the other hand, the entered stealth strategies lost games that they would otherwise have won (when their main base couldn't be defeated but the stealth base was found) and did not win any games that would otherwise have been lost since they were always uncovered once the main base was captured. Similarly, Orbital Shields were selected by several keepers but were always a bad choice since they were only starting to charge (and thus could be taken down by armed ships) and could also be hacked by Syndicate Hackers, Sh4rken, or the Mysterious AI (since the necessary zero-day exploits are well-known to the Syndicate).
 |  |  |  |
Unfortunately, for the most part, match-up results came down to who had the most of the above four and, to a lesser extent, Kilbots (the one major exception again being the Rhino keeper who wasn't playing by anyone else's rules) -- although, hopefully, everyone enjoyed the stories that went with them. Apshamilton pointed out the lack of naval ships in EXODE -- who could have stood off and shelled his base (maybe prompting him to choose Velvet Storms for their missiles and thus upgrading him to a Kobayashi Maru keeper). Another thing that is missing is man-portable anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons. If I were to do another contest of this type, I don't know whether I'd be more tempted to ban a few cards or add a few of my own (or convince Elindos to add them as beta teasers).
Balticbadgers offensive strategy of a Programmed Transactor suicide bomber in sheep's clothing was a welcome change from the otherwise ubiquitous strategy of "try to anticipate everything and just pound the snot out of them". Unfortunately, such a Trojan Horse strategy really would never work against the bundles of paranoia of keepers who just want to be left alone for a few days (and who would have screamed bloody murder if I had allowed it to work). Fortunately, the Transactor was able to blow holes in the sides of some Defensive Bunkers, so it wasn't a total waste. One thing that I had hoped for, but didn't see, was for the ships to be a more integral part of some offensive strategies. The missiles from an Archeon Frigate or a Myrmidon Assault Transport or an Akhen Cannon could have added a lot of damage to that which was done to turtle defenses by Velvet Storms and Vanguards.
 |  |  |  |
There also weren't as many different keeper strategies as I had been hoping for. The "turtle" and stealth strategies were a little too obvious (and while none of the stealth strategies really succeeded, I did have a stealth strategy in my test gauntlet that worked against the majority of my gauntlet of grabbers and, at a glance, should have worked against all of the grabbers entered in the contest except maybe one that kept a ship in orbit). There were some strategies that counter-attacked with ground forces but, again, except for the Rhino entry, there was no use of the ships as part of an integral strategy. Fortunately for me; however, no one came up with the nightmare strategy that I was aware of that would have made writing and results resolution absolutely miserable since there were so many combinations of possibilities that I simply couldn't have pre-written rubrics to handle them (and NO! I certainly am not giving anyone any further idea of what that may be).
The Future
I will certainly be running more contests in the future (though hopefully not ones that eat up as much of my time). If you have any ideas about contests that you'd like to see, please let me know in the comments below. I know that at least one entrant was concerned about the player-vs-player (PvP) nature of this contest, so it would be interesting if people weighed in with their opinions on that as well (just for contests, not EXODE itself which is already designed to discourage newbie-crushing PvP play -- though I do believe that it definitely would be interesting and fun if EXODE had optional PvP side-tournaments).Prizes:
blockmonster - for winning the grabber contest and co-winning the keeper contest - Ayumi & Black Lotusapshamilton - for co-winning the keeper contest - chose a Black Lotus over an Ayumi
slabakbg - for a total score of 80% - Octohome, Security Drone (who wants to be a Velvet Storm when she grows up) & Tom Little Buddy (who wants to be a Vanguard when he grows up)
balticbadger - for a total score of 70% - Federal Database & Programmed Transactor (you can guess why)
raudell, proto26 & hooiyewlim - a booster pack participation prize