EB Online Tournament 2014: A Call to Arms

[BroskiDerpman]

Ok some rules suggestions:

No making use of redline border to benefit your forces.

Both players are designated attackers, they must do something to attack within a reasonable timeframe with at least one unit. (reasonable ala not sitting there forever)

Max 8 phalanx (or 6) units:

To prevent hardcore pike box. Can be dealt with but extremely annoying and time consuming. EB battles already have units fight to the last man in slow motion, no need to make it even more agonizing to watch. Plus in any regular army who brings more then 8 pikes? Heck even 6 is good enough.

Also we must reinforce heavily no pulling through enemy units, it's nonsense when you send a cavalry unit to pin an other cav unit and it just pulls through your unit. Happened to me lots of time before and I hope people do not pull off such cheap moves in the tournament.

There also should be a more stricter map pool with mostly flat maps.

[Kranos]

so we can only choose 1 faction throughout?

[vartan]

Ok some rules suggestions:

No making use of redline border to benefit your forces.

Both players are designated attackers, they must do something to attack within a reasonable timeframe with at least one unit. (reasonable ala not sitting there forever)

Max 8 phalanx (or 6) units:

To prevent hardcore pike box. Can be dealt with but extremely annoying and time consuming. EB battles already have units fight to the last man in slow motion, no need to make it even more agonizing to watch. Plus in any regular army who brings more then 8 pikes? Heck even 6 is good enough.

Also we must reinforce heavily no pulling through enemy units, it's nonsense when you send a cavalry unit to pin an other cav unit and it just pulls through your unit. Happened to me lots of time before and I hope people do not pull off such cheap moves in the tournament.

There also should be a more stricter map pool with mostly flat maps.

These are all great concerns to keep in mind and I'd like to hear what the players involved think about this. I also wonder what any vets think. I'm looking at you Storm and TCV. Obviously I want to steer as clear from my own input as possible.

so we can only choose 1 faction throughout?

No. This isn't a monthly tourney like we used to have. This is an elimination tournament. Say player A faces player B in the first round. It's best of 3. In game 1 we might see Rome vs Sele, game 2 might be Pahlava vs Casse, and game 3 might be Sauromatae vs Carthage. Knock your socks off.

EDIT: Got some newcomers from the TWC. Please, if you're reading this, sign up here if you haven't.

[Kranos]

I dont have anyhting against those rules being enforced
but Broski should pay attention to the existing rules before concerning about new players adhere to additional ones. He knows what Im talking about

[vartan]

I dont have anyhting against those rules being enforced
but Broski should pay attention to the existing rules before concerning about new players adhere to additional ones. He knows what Im talking about

I'm sorry but I asked him (and everyone willing) to contribute their suggestions. We're not talking about new rules. We're talking about legitimate concerns with the rules I have laid out for you in the site I personally fund each year. I'm not only trying to avoid strictly enforcing what we have, but I'm also trying to get some opinions (albeit short notice) of what some top issues might be of concern to us for this tournament. What Broski has described sound to me like vanilla RTW multiplayer phenomena. That, any vets here will know, is not how EB players play. We don't make silly boxes or follow an imaginary red line. So if you're new to the scene, please consider the fact that EB is not vanilla. We respect that to some extent in the way we play our MP battles. EB is a learning experience, after all.

[BroskiDerpman]

@Agathodaimon.

Don't even get me started on that, I do not play EB online very often. I haven't memorized clearly what is factional unit or not and many times such classification can be blurred. Sure I may have broken the rules twice (the first time you didn't say anything as you won) but when you have lost then you started to care. I have only realized such rule breaking when I checked the spreadsheet and rechecked the rules after I had to leave the network.

Here's the screw ups: I memorized the Roman mercenary limit and forgot regular limit was 6 so I literally took 10 foreign (Rome is 8 but I thought chariots were native) units. That is my bad. But... There is no need to go any further when I have recognized the screw up and plus, it's a friendly game, not competitive. Next time I will read more carefully in the spreadsheet to check if I broke rules or not. There is still a margin for error as again, I am still not too familiar with EB whether it be the campaign or battles.

There is no need to point out that I screwed up, I did but that does not mean I can not make rules recommendations to prevent abuse of game mechanics to benefit the players in the tournament with more enjoyable battles.

[tishtar]

Truth be told, I think that hoplite boxes should be banned.
I always feel that they limit the faction pool, after all , none but the most veteran dare to tackle hardcore hoplite boxes with pahlava, per se.
also, what do you mean by "elimination matches"? So if a player loses he is out of the game?
in general, I thank you for organizing this event and I will join asap, and I will bring a friend too.

[vartan]

Hi tishtar,

I admit, I haven't posted anything in the rules page about phalanx/pike-box formations, but I suppose it's been an unwritten rule. I would definitely let a vet second me on this before I assure you, but it's what I feel has been part of the assumption all along (if you watch previous tournament matches).

A single elimination tournament means if you lose your match, you are out of the tournament. So you might win several best-of-3 matches, then reach semifinals, and lose 2 battles to your opponent. You're out of the tournament because you have been eliminated. Double-elimination would mean all losers get to play in a losers bracket and the winner of that bracket has a chance to come back into the finals. The trouble is we don't have enough time to arrange so many matches.

V