Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

Last night, my Babe Adams (and then Bill Lee) gave up 8 runs in the top of the 6th inning -- all 13 rolls were on the hitters' cards. Check it out: https://365.strat-o-matic.com/game/play ... 450125/475

So, what exactly are the odds of 13 rolls on the hitters' cards? Nary one landed on my pitchers' cards. And it hurt.

Since Babe was at F4 or lower for 9 straight batters that inning, I would guarantee some of those rolls were reversed from the pitcher's card to the hitter's card. Though SOM doesn't share the functional relationship, it does share that the "black box" POW algorithm progressively adds higher chances for rolls to be reversed as pitcher fatigue increases.

As for Lee, that was not a factor obviously, so those were the only rolls that were against a straight-up 50-50 comparison.

Whoah, rolls reversed on fatigue issues! I don't understand that SOM logic. Fatigue issues happen on the pitcher cards only, right? What do we know about the black box POW issue you mention?

The PCF system has always replaced the @ symbol results. I thought it used to be documented in the Wiki regarding a chance that the hitter's card would be used for a lookup depending on the pitcher's fatigue level.

This is reliable empirical phenomenon if you look at the results for fatigued pitchers. What I don't recall is if it was part of the pitch count fatigue system overall or a Max Rules setting option from the CDROM engine.

And oh yeah--there are instances where rolls are forced otherwise...doesn't come up often but it happens.

Thank you very much -- but what?? "The PCF system has always replaced the @ symbol results."

What the heck is this? What does this following sentence mean in everyday English: "hitter's card would be used for a lookup depending on the pitcher's fatigue level." What is a lookup? Really confusing, can we explain more clearly? And what do we know about "instances where rolls are forced otherwise...doesn't come up often but it happens." What??

For instance, just a quick look at the wiki--though can no longer find the caveat that says it does the reversal but I am 99% sure that was coded into the online version of PCF implementation. As I said--you can infer this by looking at the results of fatigued pitchers. A "lookup" as I referred to it is the equivalent of any lookup table you would be pointed to for determining a result. The computer game "dice rolls" are not always pure chance--some outcomes are altered based on the settings.

PCF in the computer version:
Pitcher's Condition (F0 - F9)
The pitcher's Condition can be from F0 to F9. F9 means that he is operating on all cylinders, whereas F0 indicates that he has nothing left in the tank. Normally pitchers start their appearance as F9 and maintain that level until they approach or exceed their Suggested Pitch Count.

If a pitcher's Condition drops to F0 he will continue to fatigue the longer he stays in the game. His Condition rating will remain displayed as F0, but he will start to give up hits and walks at a higher rate if you leave him in the game.

The situations wherein a pitcher can reach his Point of Weakness (POW) as per the Super-Advanced POW rules do still apply, but in these cases he is not to be considered suddenly "tired", nor do all "@" readings automatically turn into SINGLE**. But this DOES significantly speed up the pitcher's Pitch Count Fatigue deterioration.

Otherwise, in general, if the pitcher hasn't reached his POW per the Super-Advanced POW rules, he will gradually start losing points in his Condition (e.g. F8 -> F7) as he throws more pitches, once he has exceeded his Suggested Pitch Count for the game. However, if he has been pitching particularly well in his most recent innings, this rate of deterioration will be slower.

How Condition Affects Gameplay
Similar to POW, PCF affects readings on pitcher cards preceded by an "@", but it doesn't automatically turn them all into SINGLE**. Instead, it is a more gradual effect, and the variety of the resulting penalties is greater. Basically, once a pitcher's Condition falls below F9 (full strength), the chance of an "@" reading turning into a hit or a walk increases incrementally with each point descending towards F0. The hits can be singles, doubles, triples, or homeruns.
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From the CD-ROM game help section Edit
The following is re-printed from the CD-ROM game's help section, edited for relevancy.

One of the beautiful things about the Strat-O-Matic computer game is that you as a gamer have the ability to view the game engine. This is because the computer game is the same game as the board game. Unlike other computer games, you get to see not only the final results of a play, but also how those results were derived.

That being said, we at Strat-O-Matic have not held back the progress of our computer games because of their board game heritage. In order to allow the computer baseball game to move ahead while at the same time supporting a strict port of the board game we developed the "Maximum Rules" as optional extensions to the game.

For the long time Strat-O-Matic board game player the tradeoff is getting an improved game at the cost of a slight loss of game engine visibility.

So, just how is the game engine altered? Well, this depends upon the mix of Maximum Rules that are in play, but the game engine changes fall into one or more of the following categories:

DICE ADJUSTMENTS - Random numbers are used with a series of complex calculations to determine whether or not to override certain play results. If this determination is made another dice roll is made internally and the final play result is displayed on the screen. The on screen dice do not animate until the final play result has been determined.

SPLIT ADJUSTMENTS - Random numbers are used, again with a variety of calculations, to determine whether or not split card readings are to be overriden. The split result is not animated until a final determination is made of the play.

CARD ADJUSTMENTS - Certain portions of card results are overriden. For example, say you turn on the "More baserunning decisions" Maximum Rule. If you get a Single* result the "*" (which means that all baserunners advance just one base) is ignored and a more complex and realistic baserunning system is used.

COMPUTER ONLY RULES - Certain rules only appear in the computer version of the game -- no board game counterpart exists.

SOME EXAMPLES - While it is not possible to describe all adjustments in detail we will provide a couple of simple examples so that you may understand more clearly.

Say that the "Home field advantage" Maximum Rule is turned on. This rule, in general, creates a statistical advantage of approximately 10 points (.010) on the batting average for the home team. This is the traditional major league difference between batting averages at home and on the road. In this case certain play results that would have been outs turn into hits and vice-a-versa. These changes occur "behind the scenes" as random numbers are rolled and compared to statistical probabilities, only "kicking in" in a relatively few instances.

As another example, if you turn on the "Bunt for a basehit" Maximum Rule you are adding a rule where you cannot see what generates the result. We studied real-life baseball to determine how often bunts for basehits are successful (given a number of variables) and we programmed that information into the computer game.

OTHER INFORMATION - Note that all adjustments are made strictly with random numbers and are equally applied to all players in all situations. There is a great deal of computer code dedicated to insure that the desired effects are obtained, and to statistically balance the changes that have been made. While it takes extensive code to implement these rules, only about 5% of plays will be affected even if all Maximum Rules have been turned on.

By the way, the red text in the preceding post would be what I refer to as the "black box" aspect.
I apologize for the loose jargon--I assumed all of this was common knowledge as it has been an open secret, so to speak, for a long time.

Maybe someone with knowledge of the game engine can poke in about the card lookups gradually switching to the hitter card as pitchers get to F0 because I can no longer find it. I don't think I dreamed it, but...

Had a newer player encounter this last year and he had all R1 relievers on most of his teams and was wondering why all his pitchers' split rates of hitter cards was so high--well his relievers were always coming in at F0. Once he fixed that by adding an R3, they no longer came in tired and his card splits corrected.

The way it worked--to my understanding--was this way:
Since PCF results were not just limited to SINGLE**, in the case of a fatigue-inspired hit from the @, the engine first determined what the result was. (Black box--lookup table not available anywhere)
Using that result, it would find the corresponding value (ie walk, single, double etc) on the hitter card and code the play by play outcome that way.
The point is--we don't know what that PCF function looks like.

Well, if it were 50% chance per toss it would be (1/2)n or 1 in 8,192 or 00012207%

Excellent, Frankie and freeman, I appreciate the detail and explanations. Thanks!