Optimal seatings: the return of the vengeance

I kind of agree with Vincent here.

But maybe using weight to rules instead of absolute priority could lead to arguably better seatings.

Maybe there is an actual seating with 3 players playing only 4-players tables but whith only 6 "opponent twice" (instead of the 13 in the archon seating).

For now, if I would have to choose only between the 2 proposed seatings, I would rather play in the archon one.

So I've been executing another run using new settings:
- Every rule has absolute priority over following ones
- "Equitability" on VPs and initial transfers is assessed with standard deviation

Here are the results .
They propose an improvement over all Archon 3R+F tables < players,
except for 4, 8, 14, 16 and most cases above 48 players, where they are equivalent
and 6, 7, 11 players where they propose a 3-rounds played seating.

Above 31 players, all new seatings are a very small improvement on the starting transfers repartition.

Proposition
Since the "same seat" rule #7 is only violated once for 5 players tournaments,
I suggest we remove rule #5 about seating in fifth seat (anyway what's so hot about fifth seat?)

Ankha wrote:

I suggest we remove rule #5 about seating in fifth seat (anyway what's so hot about fifth seat?)

I suspect this has something to do with being the predator of the player with 1 transfer.

Being the fifth seat is awful.  You don't have a transfer advantage over your predator like seats 2-4 do.  So, you're running at the same speed as your predator the whole game.  You need this rule because you want to ensure someone doesn't get stuck her more than once, not because seat 5 is an advantage, but because it's a disadvantage.

Karl's answer makes more sense to me.

Compared to 4th, 5th player has a prey with 1 transfer (and 1 discard) edge (getting 4 transfers next turn), so it's worse than 4th seat (whose predator starts with 1 less transfer, and the prey at 0 transfer, 0 discard).

Still, keeping this rule only for 5 players tournament ?

Ankha wrote:
"[6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 14, 16, 17] have 12" => this means all those players never get to play on the only table with 5 players, which is a bad thing VP-wise and fun-wise.

Playing with the same on a 5-players table and a 4-player table is unfortunate, but not as bad (especially with different relative positions)./ qoutation end

Exactly this is an interesting question. I would rather meet more different people, although playing a five player game is great too. But if it is the price for playing with new chaps I did not meet before I would pass a 5-table.