Legion vs. Phalanx online tournament

[Tolg]

Right, nicely done, sir. Ave! Got the polemic going there :)
So here's my

• First of all, I think we all agree that EB v 1.2 shall be used for this tournament. That is to say clean install, no additional mods.
  But I would like to bring one particular mod to your attention: Ferromancer's Barbarion Invasion mod which I find to be quite handy for the following reasons:
  
  1. It eliminates banners and the green arrows to make it all look more realistic. (but other mods can do that as well, I think)
  2. It offers earlier "phalanx" units the ability to form "shield wall" formation, which makes sense if you think about it since they actually did. This brings the Greeks up to par with some of the phalangitai units when it comes to keeping enemy infantry at bay. It also makes the Triarii more useful.
  3. Night battles FTW! With torches and everything for that added effect.
  
  
  Only disadvantage is that not everyone has Barbarian Invasion installed. So at this point I'd like a show of hands from those interested in participating if they have it or nay.
  
• Unit roster limitations.
  272 BC is too early in the game and makes it quite boring, frankly. I'd like to see the crème de la crème of each faction brought on the field.
  In the interest of historical accurateness we should probably limit Roman reforms when fighting Epeiros, Koinon Hellenon and Makedonia to Polybian and I think it's safe to say that Ptolemaioi, Seleukids, Baktrians can and should have to put up with Marian units, as some of you have already pointed out. Except maybe the Seleukids?
  
  But in all fairness, I suspect the EB system makes up for that with later "reformed" units for some of the faction. Except for Epeiros, I think most of the other Hellenic factions get some "Marian" units of their own, isn't that correct?
  
  The main limitation that I propose is on non-factional mercenary units.
  
  
  1. For Romans, this means they can use Samnite mercenaries (Samn. Heavy infantry and Samn. Spearmen). If a Roman general hires a unit of Phalangitai, he'd be automatically disqualified, I think we can all agree on that. Same if the Greeks decide to hire a unit of Samnite Heavy Infantry.
     
  2. The Koinon Hellenon are an interesting case, because they could hire a mercenary Phalangitai Deuteroi unit. Should this be allowed or not?
     
  3. And, of course, the age-old question... do we allow Elephants or not? Be they mercenary or otherwise.
  
  
• Army make-up limitations
  I think this doesn't really matter. The Greeks are renown for their love of being outnumbered when fighting a battle. Players should state beforehand what their computer limitations are. If some PC or Internet technical issues come in the way, then unit size should be limited to "Large" instead of "Huge" (though battles are a lot more fun in the latter case).
  
  The way we can easily settle this is by having a "warm-up" round where participants can battle each other or someone else they can find online and see for themselves what their PCs limitations are, after which they should inform the jury.
  
• Battle replays
  The replay file should be universally available after the battle, so everyone could get a taste of the action. It will be up to the jury to then make up an AAR of sorts (good idea, Maion) with screenies and comments added for flavour.
  
  Someone with a working FRAPS could even make a video with soundtrack and everything.
  
• Match-up
  The bracket system, though usually "basic" for most tournamets/play-offs/cups would not necessarily work in this case because at one point we would have Roman vs. Roman or Greek vs. Greek which is not necessarily the point of this tournament.
  
  Therefore, I propose a simple, roll-the-dice random distribution of adversaries, with each contestant from their respective cultural block having a number and then pairing them up by rolling the good ol' d6 (or whichever is suited for the situation).
  This works if we have the same number of participants for each culture. Not so much if we have, say, 6 Romans and 5 Greeks. In which case, what do we do with the other Roman?
  
  Now, regardless of the number of generals on each side, I think the good old fashioned one-on-one, last-man-standing, individual deathmatch works best. We pit Greek against Roman and Roman against Greek randomly until one of the cultures has been annihilated. It will be up to the jury to make sure everyone gets the same chance to demonstrate their military panache, which is to say every general should have roughly the same number of battles.
  
  And, as has been pointed out already, when you lose, you lose... a player that has been defeated will have been completely eliminated, better luck next month.
  
• Furthermore, I propose this tournament be held over a period of one or two weeks, giving players time to set up appropriate times for their battles with the last week being perhaps for runners up, special prizes, etc.

Does that seem fair enough for everybody?

EDIT: I forgot about the finance issue. Thanks, Tolg! Like I said, I'd like every unit to be sharp n' shiny out there. So is 100.000 ok for everyone? Too much? Maybe 50k? Discuss, please.

I must say, I like this rules much more then the previous ones. My opinion:

• I don't think the KH players shouldn't even want to use Phalangites, they wanted to fight with Spartans etc. otherwise they should Macedonia or Seleuceia. No Phalangites imo.
  
• This is just an idea, tell me what you think about it: We could allow the use of Elephants (at least for some factions) but only if you notify your enemy of it prior to the battle. This way he can prepare for it and we can expect some interesting battles when one players is trying to massacre the enemy's infantry while the other one is trying to pincushion his elephants before he can do so.
  
• I liked the idea of having only 14 units per army - it makes the battles less messy - but I don't mind 20 units either. (Though I think this point should be reconsidered if it turns out the way that most battles are going to be "large".)
  
• Perhaps we can use a point system rather then a knock out system? Each player has a designated number of battles e.g. one time against each member of the other team or against half of the team etc. (depending on how many participants there are and how many battles they are willing to play), and the team with the most victories wins?
  
• Having one player more in one team then in the other isn't much of a problem, I'm participating as a substitute, if the numbers are equal I will remain as a mere spectator (or as a judge if needed) if they aren't I will fight for the smaller team.
  
• I don't know about special "prices" (What did you have in mind?) but I like the idea of the tournament being one or two weeks long. Most of us have RL issues that can prevent them from playing and we probably life in different time zones, making it even more difficult to find a time when both are free.
  
• About the money: 100,000 is far to much, I have a hard time using up even the 50,000 with the Romans and (though less extreme) with the KH. 40000 seams more appropriate, even if we want to use only elite units.
  EDIT: Less money for Polybian/Camillian battles, otherwise the romans will have no way to use it up.

I got RTW gold btw.

Edit: 1) I don't think you need a rule limiting the use of cavalry, more then 5 units of them won't leave you any money for your other units (Unless it's some kind of useless light cavalry). If we allow the use 5 units of slingers the KH will win by default. Because Rhodians are better then Accensi and the rest is cannon/slinger fodder. I'm against restricting the use of archers (except perhaps cretian ones) and skirmishers, if someone can use more then 6 of them without losing due to the lack of infantry or cavalry I'd like to see it. Same goes for ballistae, they aren't worth their money anyway. The use of more then 2 units of elephants shouldn't make sense either if the enemy is warned. no clue about carriots, never faught them much.

2) Also the greeks should have to use at least 6 or 8 units of phalanx. (The romans don't have much of choice anyway.)