The advantage of the early sacrifice.

[homerwannabee]

I have come to the conclusion that when going for the record or even a big score that requires points from sacrificing a man,it's actually advantageous to sacrifice a couple of your men early in the game.  I'm talking about doing a two men sacrifice on level 5 of Donkey Kong.

There are a few reasons for this.

1) The most important reason I see is when you sac two men on level 5 you aren't wasting your time.  I've seen too many games where the person has four men halfway through, but after a couple of deaths they feel like they are just playing out the game to play out the game.  This way, your hand is forced early on.  If you lose men later on, the game is played out.  You don't have to face the choice of playing the game out or not.

2) You are automatically ahead of pace early in the game.  Instead of feeling like you have to force a higher pace you simply play to not lose too much pace.  But I feel that just knowing you are ahead of pace gives one a mental advantage.

3) No more wondering what you need to get on your two spare men.  You know exactly what you have. It's one less computation you have to put in your head.  It makes clearer exactly what you need per level at the end of the game.

Just my two cents of course.  But I really feel sacrificing men early in the game gives the player some advantages that they normally wouldn't have.  Of course I expect push back to the idea.  People have been playing the game a certain way for a very long time.  It seems counter intuitive to sacrifice your guys so early on.

[dnickolas]

I kind of agree but would instead sac the first 16k barrel and the second. That locks in death points and the “fail fast” benefits still apply.

[f_symbols]

Level 4 barrels, on average, score higher than level 5 barrels; If you're going to Sac a man (or two), do it on 4-3   

[TheSunshineFund]

The advantages of early sacrifice date back to the ancient Mayans.....

[dnickolas]

You’re really just trying to lock in death points, and all else should be equal. L4 is only special in that it’s another chance to get a really big death.

Let’s look at some numbers. L4 only gives you 2 shots for an outlier score and L5 gives 55. Given that, you have a better chance of getting an above average score on L5. How much bigger do you need to break even and surpass L4 sacs?

Assume 14k L4 barrel average and 13k L5. They might be closer than that but we’re being hypothetical. Sacking on L4 will net on average 56k, (28 in sacs plus 28 in completions). With 13k L5 you only need 15k sacs to break even, and you have room to wait for a bigger one. Also, with 55 levels to choose from you won’t affect the average as much by stealing two big ones, where on L4 you can tank the start score with one bad level that can’t get washed awag as easily with large numbers of average rng/play.

So I stand by sacking the first 2 16k levels no matter where they are.