How random is ‘random’ and other War of the Kingdoms frivolities

The Old Gods’ system of randomly pairing kingdoms to determine the matches for War of the Kingdoms has been one of the biggest mysteries of the realm. This has motivated enterprising individuals to gather information to help shed some light on this dark crevice.

How random is ‘random’, people ask. Some of the comments The Raven Express have received include a proposals to tweak the formula that no one up to this point has figured out yet.

A Lady remarked during the first War of the Kingdoms wished a true random – an unweighted lottery – should have been used to determine pairings. Another individual we approached would like to see castles with Level IV troops factored into the equation and not just raw kingdom power. Others posited that guessing which kingdom one would go up against is a crapshoot, although a design is in place to make sure that an old kingdom with whales would not clash a young kingdom with dolphins.

This is why The Raven Express staff was delighted to get our hands upon this piece of parchment in the week leading to the most recent War of the Kingdoms:

The spreadsheet illustrates the number of alliances per kingdom that are in the world top 100. This got everyone buzzing of probable matchups for the most recent War of the Kingdoms (note: we acquired this screenshot after we have already published our fantasy matchup article).

The first few entries validated the presumption that kingdoms with equivalent strength would be made to face each other. However, a matchup immediately jumps out after seven entries when K3 was paired with K13.

So, what happened there? This shows that this screenshot does not show the entire picture.

One, it does not feature alliances with considerable BR that are outside of the the overall top 100. Second, this is not a fair estimation of kingdoms whose power is spread out among a number of alliances, even if the establishing thought is that most, if not all, kingdoms are top-heavy and dominated by supreme guilds. Finally, it does not reflect the population of a kingdom as it only provides a snapshot of two or three alliances on average.

But, let us look at the numbers. Based on the above metric, kingdoms with more alliances on the top 100 than their opponent won 14 of 17 matches; kingdoms with more combined power than their counterpart were victorious 13 of 18 times.

Put together, 12 kingdoms with advantages in both number of alliances and combined power ended up conquering the opposition. It is worth noting that K5, K3, and K30 have stronger top-level alliances but were still defeated.

Not a 100% batting average as there will always be statistical outliers, but the success rate is significant enough to be taken note that, by using common sense, the kingdom with the more powerful alliances more often than not would win their matchup.

Also, given the above information, bet on K8 and K13, and bet against K3. I am giving K5 a pass as they got a bad matchup because outside of K8 and K14, it is anybody’s ballgame.

Then, there is another one:

Having a smaller sample size, this is a weak determinant of probable matchups, but this serves a purpose. One can deduce, once pairings have been determined, on how kingdoms would fare in a whale-to-whale tussle.

But does having more whales in your team correlate to a win? Kingdoms with more world top 100 players won eight out of 11 contests; kingdoms whose most powerful Lords and Ladies have more total BR than the opposite camp came out on top 10 out of 15. Combined, eight kingdoms having number advantages in both categories won, with three losing to comparatively lesser competition.

Note that blip on the radar: a 300+-million BR whale on K49. We will be asking our finder’s fee in the event that castle owner transfers to an older kingdom.

What does everything tell us? The Old Gods employ some form of random pairing mostly based on kingdoms’ gross power. The lists above do not give the entire picture, but it presents a wide-lens shot on where things stand, helping kingdom commanders a glimpse of how to approach their matchups.

But do not take this wrongly. We are not disparaging the lists. Rather, we would like for them to be developed further. Like any statistical endeavor and scientific experimentation, more data is needed to create a bigger information database, which leads to more accurate assessments and results. In the end of it all, it would be just every one of us helping each other unlock the mysteries of Westeros.

Trends in the last War of the Kingdoms

• Older maybe wiser, but not necessarily better. Older kingdoms went 10-9 in head-to-head matchups.
• Oldest kingdom to win: K6
• Youngest kingdom to win: K38
• Youngest kingdom to lose: K36
• Number of kingdoms between K1-K10 that won: 3 (three losses were against fellow single-digit kingdoms)
• Number of kingdoms between K11-K20 that won: 8 (all two losses were against fellow teen kingdoms)
• Number of kingdoms between K21-K30 that won: 4 (three losses were against fellow 20s kingdoms)
• Number of kingdoms between K31-K38 that won: 4 (three losses were against fellow 30s kingdoms)
• Number of kingdoms that scored more than three billion points: 8
• Number of kingdoms that scored less than billion points: 5

What do you think of the past War of the Kingdoms pairings? Did you notice any other trend that we missed? Send us a raven message and share your thoughts and observations to us.

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