[logfromblammo]

One time, while playing Risk, two defending armies killed off 18 invading armies, while losing only one, and caused my opponent to immediately ragequit. That general must have been incredible.

The probability of accomplishing such a feat by pure chance is .00004 . But then the campaign was over, and that general never fought another battle, with a total WAR (according to the article) of 0.99996 .

Do you see my problem with the article? It rewards generals that fight unnecessary battles, completely discounts the decisiveness of the victory, and assigns a nearly arbitrary value for average replacement general. It is clear to me that the metric is measuring belligerence and battle prowess, rather than overall efficacy. The article even says it discounts strategy.

If, for instance, the general lured the rival's army away from the capital, while suffering a decisive defeat, but married his son to the widow empress during the battle, so the son could order the execution of the rival, the battle tactics were completely irrelevant in the face of the instantly-winning strategy.