ROS - Record of Scenarios

ROS - RECORD of SCENARIOS

The ultimate Squad Leader statistics

The ROS ia a collection of played Squad Leader games and their statistic evaluation.

Once upon a time, Dan Leader started a simple list in which he entered all played Squad Leader games people sent to him. The list's format was developed to archive ASL games and is available today in an automated version on the ROAR mainpage - the ASL game statistics.

The small, but still very active Squad Leader community relies on solid, well-tried manual labor today which works for many years now. Of course, one of the reasons is that the amount of archived games can't match the number of played ASL games. The information collected consists of the scenario's name and which side won the game. Over the course of time, this resulted in a rather impressive collection. It's statistic relevance grew with the increasing number of entered records. In July 1994 Kevin Pietersen volunteered for administrating the ROS, Alain Chabot took over his job in 1995. He quit in 2003 and since then Alan Evenson is the ROS administrator.

Administrating the ROS is a honorary job and done as a service for the Squad Leader community. The ROS is integrated into the Squad Leader Mailing list (info here:http://hermes.nyx.net/mailman/listinfo/sl). Interested players and members of the mailing list receive a monthly report about the current game statistics. The only prerequisite required to send in your own game reports is to subscribe to the mailing list - there are no other obligations (for example a membership in the ladder or the obligation to send in game reports on a regular basis). It is even possible to enter games which were played with foreign people who are not part of the mailing list or the SL community or which were played many years ago. Each game report is welcome because it improves the statistic value of the ROS.

How do I report a game?

Reporting a game result is quite simple: You send an email to the ROS administator with a clear title (for example "add to ROS", "ROS entry" etc.) in which you report the scenario's name, the names of the participating players and the game result. You then get a confirmation email. Besides this information, commentaries or even after action reports are welcome (but not obligatory; the scenario and result will suffice). If you send in more information, keep in mind that the game result should be entered first. The ROS admin's address is known to all members of the SL Mailing list. Precise information on how to report a game can be found at the beginning of the monthly report.

Results from all gamettes (Squad Leader, Cross of Iron, Crescendo of Doom, GI) will be evaluated, as well as all additional scenarios provided by Avalon Hill (for example in The General). Results from third party scenarios are welcome as long as these scenarios have been published somewhere (for example Alan Yngves Tactical Training Scenarios, which are often used as introductory scenarios when teaching newbies or the Squad Leader Academy scenarios), scenarios from "On all Fronts", "Blood and Sand" scenarios etc.). Solitaire games will not be evaluated, but any other game type is welcome - Play by Email or online with VSQL, or Face-to-Face - as long as you played against a human opponent.

How does ROS look like?

ROS is published monthly, consisting of 5 long emails (or, sometimes, one even longer email, including all 5 emails).

The first email consists of general remarks of the ROS admin and an overview over the entered games (e.g. "in May 2004 it were 24, thus increasing the total amount of games to 3004"). This is followed by a list of people who entered a game this month, including the played scenario, the opponent's name and who played which side. This list only contains the names, not the email addresses of the contributors in order to avoid spam. This is followed by a list of all people who entered a game over the last 5 years.

The rest of the mail contains the summary statistics - how often which nationality won. Here we get to know that the Russians won 999 games while losing 941, the Americans won 272 and lost 298 games, the Germans won 1364 and lost 1360 games (May 2004). This list even distinguishes between different Axis and Allied Minors.

Then the mail includes a ranking of the most popular scenarios. In May 2004 e.g., Alan Yngves "Alpha 0"-Trainings scenario was number 1 with 171 games, followed by the classic "Guards Counterattack" with 164 games.

Next comes a list of the most-balanced scenarios - both factions win with a 50-55% probability. This is followed by the well-balanced scenarios (55-60% chance for winning) and the least-balanced scenarios (80% chance of winning for one side). This balance statistics is quite interesting if you made the experience of always losing a specific scenario - you can check if your defeat is based on a bad balance or on human failure ;)

The other 4 mails of this monthly report include a detailed overview about each Squad Leader scenario - the Complete Record of Victories. Here you learn that the Germans won in "Guards Counterattack" 75 times, while the Russians won 89 times (May 2004).

ROS isn't only available in the mailing list but it is also published as a text file by the mailing list admin Eric Pass here on his own website - thus guaranteeing free access to the statistics for all interested Squad Leader players. Nevertheless, only members of the mailing list can report their games. Besides this, it's quite useful to subscribe to the Squad Leader mailing list anyway, because it is lively and full of interesting topics. The Squad Leader community still is very active (despite the growing number of ASL players), and the entire global SL community meets on this mailing list.