Hotseat Tournament

[TinCow]

ATPG's 'Open Challenge' thread got me thinking that it might be fun to run a Hotseat Tournament in here. All games would be 1 v 1. The person whose faction is eliminated first (either by AI or the other player) loses the match and the other person moves on to the next round. Essentially, all that matters is making sure the other guy is eliminated, no matter how it is accomplished.

Mod/map selection would be done by mutual consensus. If both players agree on a particular mod/map, they can play on anything they like. If they cannot agree, the vanilla campaign map is used. Once the mod/map is chosen, I will flip a coin to determine who gets to pick their faction first. Any faction in the mod/map may be chosen, unless it is disabled from the start. The tournament would proceed as a single-game elimination bracket, until only one player is left.

Would there be any interest in this?

Potential players: (14.5)
Askthepizzaguy
Monk
Ramses II CP
Elite Ferret
Ichigo
rossahh
Ignoramus
cassu (Cannot play during summer)
Ibn-Khaldun
Byblos
00jebus
The Lemongate
TriforceV
turcoman
AndyNgFL

[FactionHeir]

This might take over a year to finish.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Darn tootin' I'd be interested. I'm glad that my idea has sparked so much attention.

Count me in on the tournament.

[TinCow]

This might take over a year to finish.

It could, but I'm patient. Some games might also go quickly, depending on the factions chosen. On a vanilla map, France vs HRE would be over much faster than England vs. Turks.

[Monk]

I'm in.

[Ramses II CP]

Yeah, I'd be in as well. Hopefully people will be cooperative about picking relatively nearby factions and such.

[Ferret]

In

[Csargo]

I've got time. In

[rossahh]

I'll do it.



As Ramses said, there should be a few limits to what factions the players can choose. Perhaps having a single AI faction in between the players would be best - for example England v HRE (AI France in between) or ERE vs KoJ (BC, with Armenia in between) - as both players will have a little bit of time to build up some military forces but the games won't go for too long. Can you imagine how long a game would take if it was something like Egypt v Scotland? However, it would probably be too short if the players were direct neighbors from the off - eg. Spain v Portugal.

What do the others think?

[TinCow]

I have no experience in hotseat game and would just be organizing the tournament, not playing it, so I will defer to the opinion of those who know what they are talking about. However, as I see it, the situation could balance itself out with careful choices of factions. The first player to pick will have an advantage because they can choose any faction they want, allowing them to claim a very powerful faction (e.g. France) or an easily defensible spot (e.g. England). However, the first player won't know which faction the second player will take. While the second player will have fewer options, he will be able to react to the first player however he wants. He can choose to take a faction right next to the first player, or far away. He can pick a faction which can easily Crusade/Jihad against the first player as a 'rush' tactic. He can pick a rich faction which can spam assassins early on, seeking to win via elimination of the family members. He can pick a faction that starts as a powerhouse, or a smaller one that can easily expand into rebel or AI held provinces. Thus the first player has to keep all these options in mind while picking his faction and the very selection of factions itself becomes a major part of the strategy.

Also, we need at least 8 players for this, preferrably 16.

[rossahh]

Not if you turned it into a league sort of thing, rather than rely on rounds.

[Ferret]

I'd prefer a league, that way I wouldn't be knocked out in the first round

[Ignoramus]

I'm in, but I hope I don't get paired with ATPG.

[Monk]

I'm in, but I hope I don't get paired with ATPG.

Who does? That guy is ruthless!

[TinCow]

The league idea is interesting. Let's see how many players we get first, though.

[Galain_Ironhide]

No time to do it myself unfortunately (insert comment about work, whinging wife blah,blah,blah..) But an excellent idea.

If a league was to be implemented, You would need to impose a time limit for each game, otherwise a lot of players could be waiting a very long time between rounds because of other gamers taking too long in their conquest. (ie, two turtlers going at it.)

[Askthepizzaguy]

No time to do it myself unfortunately (insert comment about work, whinging wife blah,blah,blah..) But an excellent idea.

If a league was to be implemented, You would need to impose a time limit for each game, otherwise a lot of players could be waiting a very long time between rounds because of other gamers taking too long in their conquest. (ie, two turtlers going at it.)

Thats a very good suggestion, Galain... very wise. I hadn't considered two turtles gumming up the works...

I'm in, but I hope I don't get paired with ATPG.

You're already paired with me in an exhibition match...

Who does? That guy is ruthless!

Not too ruthless to be fun to play against, I hope. Truthfully I could have invaded a few turns back, but I wanted to give you more time.

Uh... time's up?

[Askthepizzaguy]

Pardon the double post (last three replies were merged into one post)

I've been thinking that there should be certain rules for each faction, agreed to by the majority of players.

Examples:

Scotland players should never have to face an England player, because it's entirely possible to just zip north and annihilate them.

English players should not face Denmark, because it is entirely possible to zip east and annihilate them in a single shot. England versus France games should be discouraged.

No France versus Portugal games
No France versus Spain games
No France versus Milan games.... etc. Basically, no faction versus neighbor games, as someone else suggested.

Games between factions across the map from one another should agree not to turtle beyond a certain turn number (say, turn 15), then they must go after one another somewhat blitz style.

It's just a bad idea to turtle too much in a duel environment anyway because of lost initiative. An attempt to take a settlement needs to be made.

There should be 5 (?) turns before either player calls a jihad or crusade, for competition purposes. This is because all Islamic factions can jihad from turn one, and only Italian factions can call a crusade from turn one.

I believe Turks versus Egypt should be allowed, because they have too many rebels between them to be afraid of a rush.

Games versus Orthodox factions should not use the Crusade/Jihad function, as thats an unfair advantage against ERE or Russia.

Player controlled battles needs to be enabled so that factions with Horse Archers won't simply die because auto-resolve cheats them so horribly.

No merchant forts, agent stomps, no reloads.

EDIT: New idea:

Maximum turn number: (to keep the game moving) Turn 75.

Reasons: Discourages unneccessary turtling past the first 15 turns, for competitions this means games will have a firm end date, because players will also be expected to complete their turns within... well, maybe not 48 hours, but 100 hours should do it. That way it won't be so necessary to have substitute players. Subs should still be allowed, but no more than one or two turns. Players should also be encouraged to complete their turns in 48 hours or give a good reason why they need the full 100. (4 days and a final 4 hour warning)

If at the end of turn 75 both players remain, then there should be some overall score which ranks them. I believe there is even an overall ranking score already in-game which should be impartial enough to settle this.

If players want a longer game, they should agree to get their turns done quickly.

[TinCow]

Again, I'm just offering to be the umpire, so I'll go along with whatever you want, but I don't understand the point of the faction-specific rules. If the first player picks Scotland as their faction, then they should rightly expect to get stomped when the second player picks England. Lesson? In a competative tournament, don't pick a weak faction if you're choosing first. If the first player picks England and the second player picks Scotland, the second player has no one but himself to blame if he loses. The faction choice at the beginning of the game is equivalent to the selection of your starting lineup in a sporting match. If you use all of your worst players, you shouldn't expect to win.

The same for adjacent factions. I can imagine many very interesting games arising from adjacent factions, such as France/HRE, England/France, Venice/Milan, Poland/Hungary, etc. Banning faction selection removes a lot of the strategy from the start of the game.

The bug exploit and turn number rules I like, though.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Makes sense. It would just be a shame to see a player eliminated easily because of a faction selection choice.

If I wanted to be Scotland, I'd never win the game. The English player could simply mass all thier forces north, sink all navies, and force the Scottish player to defend their capital and do nothing else. Then, a few spies or a ballista later, it's all over.

I believe as a general guideline at the very least, Rossahh's suggestion of no adjacent empires is a valid one. But if we dont want to make it a rule, thats also fine.

[Monk]

Not too ruthless to be fun to play against, I hope. Truthfully I could have invaded a few turns back, but I wanted to give you more time.

Uh... time's up?

Consider it a compliment

I had (and am having) a lot of fun in the 1v1 Georgia vs Ayyubid, i knew i'd likely lose you just took be by surprise how effectively you blitzed my defenses. Next time i'll be prepared for that kinda speed!

[Askthepizzaguy]

I probably shouldn't do this, but:

Here's my advice:

Watch your shorelines, be sure to have spies in all your cities ASAP, forts if possible, and don't leave your family members so exposed, even if they are hiding, unless you want to take a big risk. Spies can easily locate any forces hiding in wait. I've already located your King again.

I could have picked off your King a few times, but I didn't have the forces to finish you off and I didn't want you to be able to recover your forces while weakening mine.

You can mount a defense of your territory with spies, forts, forces prepared to move. Also, all your eggs in one basket should be avoided; huge stacks under AI control can be wiped out. Spread them out, so that on your turn you can re-organize them and assault me.

If you put forces in several forts, seperately, with spies in them, I'd have to seige and defeat 2-4 spy-defended forts. That's not simple. It would take INSANE forces to attack that and expect to survive.

Did everyone hear that? Good. When you guys repel my invasion, be sure to thank me.

[Monk]

I probably shouldn't do this, but:

Here's my advice:

Watch your shorelines, be sure to have spies in all your cities ASAP, forts if possible, and don't leave your family members so exposed, even if they are hiding, unless you want to take a big risk. Spies can easily locate any forces hiding in wait. I've already located your King again.

I could have picked off your King a few times, but I didn't have the forces to finish you off and I didn't want you to be able to recover your forces while weakening mine.

You can mount a defense of your territory with spies, forts, forces prepared to move. Also, all your eggs in one basket should be avoided; huge stacks under AI control can be wiped out. Spread them out, so that on your turn you can re-organize them and assault me.

If you put forces in several forts, seperately, with spies in them, I'd have to seige and defeat 2-4 spy-defended forts. That's not simple. It would take INSANE forces to attack that and expect to survive.

Did everyone hear that? Good. When you guys repel my invasion, be sure to thank me.

You can't build forts if you're in the red! But I see, makes sense now why you kept your forces divided and bottled up in forts, I could never pin you down and fight you. If nothing else the game showed me turtling is a completely worthless tactic for hotseat games. It just won't do when your opponent is hellbent on your destruction.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Slow turtling, perhaps...

However, I think a moderate expansionist could easily deflect the horde, if they prepare thier defenses from turn one. Remember, I'm attempting to kill you and only you....

(well... in MY case I'm attempting to kill others too, because I am Askthepizzaguy the Most Merciless)

...from turn one. Makes sense that I'm the only one on the board that you should be worried about that you prepare defenses against an assault by me from the beginning of the game.

There needs to be at least an immediate blitz to give your empire some more space, and some sacking florins. Then if you want you can focus on quality instead of quantity. I believe Elite Ferret and his minions in Khwarezm have used the opening blitz to secure an area larger than my own already, which means he should be able to prepare good defenses.

It will be no easy challenge to take anyone down now that pandora's box has been opened and most of my tactics have been revealed. Now you can prepare.

[Askthepizzaguy]

We are going to need more players, so I posted in the Hotseat General Recruitment thread.

I'm going to do some friendly, Andres-style advertising using my signature line and through various posts in other forums that are on-topic in order to spread the word.

I also envision creating a Jousting Guild for those interested in Duels, Just-for-fun, Exhibition-style (competitive), League (Official Record for Tournament), and the official Tournaments themselves.

Would the moderator be interested in creating such a sub-forum, if we get enough interest?

The Throne room is great for AARs and for hosting most hotseats, but since duels are going to be more numerous and more personal (one versus one is a great spectator sport, but having dozens of them on the front page of the Throne room will make it harder to find what you want) I recommend having it's own sub-forum within the Throne Room, just like KoTR/LoTR.

I'm open to hearing ideas from others about the proposed Jousting Guild. Some of the stickied threads there might include:

1. Basic Training (non-competitive, friendly play where the results don't matter and the rules are agreed on by the players)

2. Duelists' Guild (exhibition-style matches, where rules are more strict, games are more competitive, and records are kept of wins and losses)

3. Jousting League (Where seasons are held before the main tournament. Players will qualify for the tournament so long as their Jousting League record qualifies them in the top 8, 16, or 32 players, depending on how many join the Jousting League)
All Matches here must be moderated by neutral party, with passwords.

4. The Courtyard (Arena where the official League tournaments are held)
All Matches here must be moderated by neutral party, with passwords.

---------------

The non-stickied threads could be AARs for the duels in progress or story threads for the duel games. That way Duelist AAR's and story threads can have their own seperate forum. Also, this would be a great place to host on-topic threads specifically revolving around duels. Debates, hints, tips, FAQ's, strategies... etc.


The Winner of the Tournament should be granted some kind of Org badge to signify their victory. There should be no more than one tournament at a time.

I'll come up with more ideas... what does everyone think?

[Ferret]

Sounds great, you should PM this post to Tosa to see if he is interested in creating it. "The moderator" as you call him has been absent for a very long time now and I don't think TinCow has the power to create subforums.

As for the different ides though, they sound good and I would love to participate

[Askthepizzaguy]

I already spoke to TC, but we need more interest. I'd pm everyone that you know who might be interested and see if they would like to join now or in the future.

I hope to get at least 50 participants. I'm head-hunting as we speak.

[Monk]

You can add my name to the list of those who think that's a good idea, it's already a bit crowded in the Throne room, and a tournament would just further complicate the space in here so A sub-forum might be just what the doctor ordered in regards to keeping things nice and tidy. However the interest has to be there first.

Also, TinCow is on the ball around here. If there's enough interest he can arrange for a new sub-forum to be made in the TR.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to leave before ATPG finds out i'm here but not playing my turn.

I'll get it done soon

[cassu]

you could put me on the list but when the summer comes (that would be in 2 weeks) ill be traveling and not able to play but if that is not a problem i could join

[Askthepizzaguy]

not a problem! We have no tournament going atm, so time is no object.