Hello!
After the first matches of Battle for Africa that happened last week, I thought it would be interesting to start crunching numbers and making statistics about the games that were played to see if we can find interesting patterns that could give us insights about the meta and the game. Keep in mind that:
Of course, spoilers for the tournament will follow. If you don’t want to be spoiled I would recommend not reading any further!
Summary of the round
SY vs Vietnam Legend
Lasting 4 hours, 3 minutes and 55 seconds, the first series of the tournament was also the longest. It featured five games that all went to the Imperial Age.
The fastest Feudal age time was pulled by SY on the fifth game, played on Steppe – a map which offers a blazing fast start to players – at 07:45 game time. SY was on average faster to reach Feudal age than VNA (10:08 to 10:53 average Feudal age time) but ultimately failed short, losing in the decisive fifth game. The same pattern repeats on Castle age and Imperial age times, with SY being, on average, faster than VNA.
On the Vietnamese side, the “damage dealers” were BacT and ACCM, both credited twice with the in-game MVP award. On the Chinese side, Vivi was the MVP of the series followed closely by Yo (3 to 2).
aM’ vs ChinaA
At 2:15:54 game time, this was the shortest series of the first round with a lot of one-sided games. After losing convincingly in the first game, aM’ pulled three consecutive wins in the same dominant fashion to take a 3-1 victory.
Out of the four games that were played, only one featured two teams in the Imperial Age, the losing team failing to reach the last age of the game on three occasions. ChinaA was faster than aM’ to the Feudal age on average, posting a 09:34 average time to aM’ 10:00. However, aM’ was consistently faster to the Castle age.
Both Hearttt and Liereyy were twice MVP of the aM’ team, with Liereyy’s awards all coming for aM’ wins. CL was the MVP on the Chinese side, taking the award three times.
Suomi vs NaBs
The second longest series at 3:49:56, Suomi vs NaBs also featured both the shortest (at 0:19:02) and the longest (at 1:00:21) games of the first round. It was the second series where a team down 0-2 in score eventually took a 3-2 win.
Both teams were consistent to reach the Feudal age and the Castle age at similar times. The Finns were slightly faster to the Imperial age, with a 0:37:22 average time to NaBs’ 0:39:28 average. On average, this series also featured longer Castle age fights than the other three, with slightly later Imperial age times.
Spaden’s performance was dominant during the series and he took the MVP award four times in five games – including the three NaBs defeats. Villese and Zuppi both took two MVP awards on the Finnish side with all Finnish victories featuring a different MVP.
LoS vs TyRanT
Even though it was the only series to finish in three games, TyRanT needed 2:22:02 game time to beat the Brazilians, seven more minutes than the aM’ vs ChinaA match.
All three games featured faster than average Castle age and Imperial age times. TyRanT was the faster team in average, and also the fastest of the first round, in average, to reach the Feudal age and the Castle age (helped by playing Steppe, the fastest map in the pool). On the opposing side, dogao signed the fastest individual Castle age and Imperial age time during the bold slinging strategy attempted by LoS in game 1.
He was the MVP of LoS in all three games. On TyRanT side, the ageless master _DauT_ was twice awarded the badge with TheViper taking it for the third game.
Civilizations statistics
Burmese was the most banned civilization, being banned twice. Aztecs and Koreans were the other two civilizations that were banned. Interestingly, Burmese, Aztecs and Koreans played two games each and failed to win any single one.
The most successful civilization was Britons, featured in every series and winning every game they took part in. Portuguese and Saracens also won all their games, but only played two each.
Indians and Slavs were the powerhouse civilizations of the first round. Both playing in four games, they were on the winning side three times (75% winrate). Indians were the MVP civilization in every single game they played while Slavs got it three times – only losing it to Mongols once.
Dominant forces of the AOC meta, Mongols and Chinese continued to shine with 75% winrate and MVP badges half of the time.
“Supporting” civilizations with a good winning rate but no MVP badges were Malay, Spanish and Vietnamese.
Teutons was the least successful civilization with 3 defeats in 3 matches and zero MVP badge. Goths, Khmer, Byzantines and the three banned civilizations were also winless.
Some civilizations shine in defeat, such as Byzantines and Koreans (twice played, twice defeated, but twice MVP) and Mayans (one victory out of four games, but three times MVP).
Slinging statistics
There were concerns expressed that slinging would once again become the dominant strategy in team games. The reality of the first round, however, does not fully support this fear.
Half of the games featured “some kind of sling” but in three occasions it was imperial sling where civilizations who fall short of other powerhouses sling their team mates to make their power units such as paladins more affordable. Full sling since Feudal age happened in 5 games out of 17. One of these featured slinging from both sides.
Out of the four remaining slinging games, the slinging team prevailed on three occasions. Imperial slings did not seem to have effect on the result of the games, winning once and losing twice.
More statistics will come for the next rounds !
After the first matches of Battle for Africa that happened last week, I thought it would be interesting to start crunching numbers and making statistics about the games that were played to see if we can find interesting patterns that could give us insights about the meta and the game. Keep in mind that:
- The number of games played (17) is still extremely small
- Statistics are calculated from the match pages on the Voobly website, there is no rec parsing or analysis or anything fancy like that – yet
Of course, spoilers for the tournament will follow. If you don’t want to be spoiled I would recommend not reading any further!
Summary of the round
SY vs Vietnam Legend
Lasting 4 hours, 3 minutes and 55 seconds, the first series of the tournament was also the longest. It featured five games that all went to the Imperial Age.
The fastest Feudal age time was pulled by SY on the fifth game, played on Steppe – a map which offers a blazing fast start to players – at 07:45 game time. SY was on average faster to reach Feudal age than VNA (10:08 to 10:53 average Feudal age time) but ultimately failed short, losing in the decisive fifth game. The same pattern repeats on Castle age and Imperial age times, with SY being, on average, faster than VNA.
On the Vietnamese side, the “damage dealers” were BacT and ACCM, both credited twice with the in-game MVP award. On the Chinese side, Vivi was the MVP of the series followed closely by Yo (3 to 2).
aM’ vs ChinaA
At 2:15:54 game time, this was the shortest series of the first round with a lot of one-sided games. After losing convincingly in the first game, aM’ pulled three consecutive wins in the same dominant fashion to take a 3-1 victory.
Out of the four games that were played, only one featured two teams in the Imperial Age, the losing team failing to reach the last age of the game on three occasions. ChinaA was faster than aM’ to the Feudal age on average, posting a 09:34 average time to aM’ 10:00. However, aM’ was consistently faster to the Castle age.
Both Hearttt and Liereyy were twice MVP of the aM’ team, with Liereyy’s awards all coming for aM’ wins. CL was the MVP on the Chinese side, taking the award three times.
Suomi vs NaBs
The second longest series at 3:49:56, Suomi vs NaBs also featured both the shortest (at 0:19:02) and the longest (at 1:00:21) games of the first round. It was the second series where a team down 0-2 in score eventually took a 3-2 win.
Both teams were consistent to reach the Feudal age and the Castle age at similar times. The Finns were slightly faster to the Imperial age, with a 0:37:22 average time to NaBs’ 0:39:28 average. On average, this series also featured longer Castle age fights than the other three, with slightly later Imperial age times.
Spaden’s performance was dominant during the series and he took the MVP award four times in five games – including the three NaBs defeats. Villese and Zuppi both took two MVP awards on the Finnish side with all Finnish victories featuring a different MVP.
LoS vs TyRanT
Even though it was the only series to finish in three games, TyRanT needed 2:22:02 game time to beat the Brazilians, seven more minutes than the aM’ vs ChinaA match.
All three games featured faster than average Castle age and Imperial age times. TyRanT was the faster team in average, and also the fastest of the first round, in average, to reach the Feudal age and the Castle age (helped by playing Steppe, the fastest map in the pool). On the opposing side, dogao signed the fastest individual Castle age and Imperial age time during the bold slinging strategy attempted by LoS in game 1.
He was the MVP of LoS in all three games. On TyRanT side, the ageless master _DauT_ was twice awarded the badge with TheViper taking it for the third game.
Civilizations statistics
Burmese was the most banned civilization, being banned twice. Aztecs and Koreans were the other two civilizations that were banned. Interestingly, Burmese, Aztecs and Koreans played two games each and failed to win any single one.
The most successful civilization was Britons, featured in every series and winning every game they took part in. Portuguese and Saracens also won all their games, but only played two each.
Indians and Slavs were the powerhouse civilizations of the first round. Both playing in four games, they were on the winning side three times (75% winrate). Indians were the MVP civilization in every single game they played while Slavs got it three times – only losing it to Mongols once.
Dominant forces of the AOC meta, Mongols and Chinese continued to shine with 75% winrate and MVP badges half of the time.
“Supporting” civilizations with a good winning rate but no MVP badges were Malay, Spanish and Vietnamese.
Teutons was the least successful civilization with 3 defeats in 3 matches and zero MVP badge. Goths, Khmer, Byzantines and the three banned civilizations were also winless.
Some civilizations shine in defeat, such as Byzantines and Koreans (twice played, twice defeated, but twice MVP) and Mayans (one victory out of four games, but three times MVP).
Slinging statistics
There were concerns expressed that slinging would once again become the dominant strategy in team games. The reality of the first round, however, does not fully support this fear.
Half of the games featured “some kind of sling” but in three occasions it was imperial sling where civilizations who fall short of other powerhouses sling their team mates to make their power units such as paladins more affordable. Full sling since Feudal age happened in 5 games out of 17. One of these featured slinging from both sides.
Out of the four remaining slinging games, the slinging team prevailed on three occasions. Imperial slings did not seem to have effect on the result of the games, winning once and losing twice.
More statistics will come for the next rounds !