Genius or Idiot? (in General)

This has, I think, been brought up before - How do you gauge the effectiveness of a strat?
Score is (partially) dependent upon how much you fight, so looking around your score to see how much PR everyone else has is not quite right (Or vice versa). The same argument holds for Score/PR ratio.
I generally like to look at PRs 25% greater than mine, and if I can beat half of them then I'm pretty content - but is that the best way?
How do the rest of you superheroes track your progress?

If I can find 10 or more clan members that are worth farming, and I still get good rewards: so far, I haven't hit that with any of my strats

If someone with 25% more PR than you still manages at that time to have less score than your PR then your method is a waste of time due to rubbsh rewards.
The other problem with your method is that everyone around that area could just all be using a strat that is weak against yours.
An effective strategy is one which can keep you winning a constant percentage of your battles no matter how far through the ranks you go while also fighting at least at your level obviously (fighting too low just wouldn't give a true and fair view).
There is no definite numerical answer to this as using Score, PR, MPR or Score/PR ratio all have problems as they are interlinked in the game.

I'm content with having a score twice my PR and three times my MPR, but I look to get it three times PR and 4 times MPR.

I've pushed it a bit higher than that on occasion but it doesn't last. Between twice and three times PR is sustainable, even when I'm getting farmed.

The other things I look for is the PR/MPR of the teams I'm beating. If more than half my fightlist are bigger than me then I'm happy. And if I switch to standard opponents to search out new additions to my fightlist I'm very happy if I can beat most of the people at the same score. If I draw more often than not I know if I'm pushing the limits of how high I'm fighting.

And if I'm losing lots then I know I've work to do.


But...having said all of that....if a strat is really bad then you won't really climb over about 100k score. The rest, good or average, climb fast then start to slow down around the million score. Really good strats tend not to slow down as much at that point. And then you start to find out how good your strat really is, because you don't really know until you hit the sticking points, those places where lots of active teams are stuck, all trying that slow climb to the top area. For me the top area is the first page on the score standings in Gondor, covers about 75 chars. You don't really know how good you are until you're in there, not really. Those are the best teams in the game I think, not just in character strategy, but in playing strategy.

And in those areas the score/pr/mpr ratio I described is very very difficult to keep at a level I'm happy with!

But having said that score is pretty meaningless in a lot of ways because it is so fluid, so affected by being in a clan for instance. No matter how good a strat is there will almost always be somebody who can beat you. And chances are that person will be lower in score than you, lowering your score. But meanwhile you can still beat the same people you can beat, who may have already been higher than you in score and now are even higher.

In the end the main thing to watch is how your char is growing, and whether or not your fightlist is improving. I know I'm growing at a faster rate than some of my opponents for instance because on Tuesday they were beating me. By Friday they were on my fightlist.

Some strats can feel like wading in treacle. Some feel like they are flying. It might seem strange to judge on 'feel' in a game so ruled by numbers, but how does your strat feel? Is it a fast car or has somebody stolen the wheels?

Well lets just say mine feels like driving with a wheel clamp attached :P
Then again I still think it is effective as I can still win a lot of fights (after my experimenting with who I can beat each day) and keep my score a reasonable amount above my PR and MPR. It may not seem a large amount but it still shows it as being effective in its own way, my strat was never going to be one to stay with a score 3x my PR even if I wasn't in a clan but it is effective for what it is.
So I suppose I am saying that it also depends on your strat and what you consider how you want to measure its 'effectiveness'
Although my Information Management Systems lecturer gave us some sound advice amongst the non-understandable Egyptian accent, 'Effectiveness is an ability to get the job done, efficiency is doing that job with the minimum of resources'.
There are so many ways to go about the job here that you can quite easily be effective but to know you are doing it efficiently is very difficult :)

I look at my 24hr battle summary and check the people that are beating me.

1st thing I look at is the MPR. If it's lower than me I huff and then take a look at the NW. If that's a lot higher than mine then I resign myself to the fact that I'm unlikely to be able to beat that person and move to the next on the list of people beating me.

If there's too many (depends on my mood) people beating me with a lower MPR and a similar NW then I try and figure out what I have to do to get competitive with that individual without compromising myself against people I normally beat.

Only after stalling at that point will I start chatting with a circle of friends whose opinion I value with a view to making a few small tweaks here and there...

I never bother myself with score or any other specific stat other than on those of people who beat me. If the only people who beat you are folks with a higher MPR or NW then you know that your strat is good. If you're getting gazumpped by every n00b in the game then you know you have a problem.
Of course this method may not be the best if you're in the "dead zone" where you're not getting attacked that often, but if you're consistent then you will soon climb the ladder and venture into the "hot zone" where you're a target - especially if you are in a clan with bonus...

Oh yeah, you can also make a post with "Is my strat a good one" as a title and you won't be short of folks with input as to how good/sucky it really is. That is until either GL or Johnny start getting into the detail which will ultimately fry your brain if you try to understand... ;)

You think it fries your brain? You should see the inside of my head....

Well I initially thought that inkblot was a representation of your brain but perhaps that tells you more about my personality characteristics and emotional functioning than it does about yours Johnny... ;)

That's an inkblot?

That isn't a x-ray of a pelvis?

Well, in my fightlist, i have 25 people and not a single one of them is under 320k PR and the highest is almost at 700k PR and mine is a little less than 250,000. But i also have a NW of 170.5 million so i don't know if it is solely my NW or if it is my strat that allows me to fight people with PR's so much higher than mine.

When i search for people to add, however, i search by score not by strat or PR.

--TF--

G_Beee, cheers, I'll try that - although I always look on MPR as just another number - PR is the whole 'value' of the Strat (exp and NW) because Tanks rely on decent weapons etc. as a Tank without NW is just an 'innocent bystander'
Or is that too simplistic?
And since my fightlist changes daily, I'm going to assume that's a good thing
Thanks for everyones contributions
VC