30% Iron Civer Tournament

[snoopy369]

Well, I'm a big fan of Accelerated Production. In an Elim game in particular - AP means you can actually produce pretty good sized armies earlier in the game, which makes for more fun. (Well, not for MFCamillus, but that was partly my fault. ) I'd like both AP and Elim in the open, or at least for individual games to have the choice of AP - as long as all 4 players agree.

[Rommel2D]

The Iron Civer is about speed and prowess. If you're looking for fun, you might want to check out the Rollercoaster Tycoon Tournament.

[Rommel2D]

The Hourglass Empties...

Friends, PBEMers, fellow Apolytonites-
The great Bongolian KublaiTom has joined Aqualung and Alexman in the hall of Iron Civer qualifiers by vanquishing his opponents in Coliseum B. Our scribes have verified the legitamacy of his victory. He may now retire to his gladiator quarters to contemplate his choice of tribes for the final match. A Pangaea for the final conflict has been found and awaits the outcome of the Andydog V Moonbars showdown to determine who will contest the title of Iron Civer...

The Tournament priests have been sent to present Bongo with his spoils- 3 months of the finest Apolyton Plus services.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Rommel2D
The Iron Civer is about speed and prowess. If you're looking for fun, you might want to check out the Rollercoaster Tycoon Tournament.

And AP allows for more prowess, as well as speed (obviously). Elim games are limited by the fact that you don't tend to build as many cities. 2 city will be a little less constrained, but still - you can't produce the army you could in a non-elim game. AP means you can still have good sized armies relatively early on. Otherwise, it would be AD 250 or something before you had significant conflict; everyone would spend too much time on defensive structures.

At least that's my take on it. I think AP in the ICAA game was just about right, in terms of being able to build a good army early on.

[bongo]

Re: The Hourglass Empties...

Originally posted by Rommel2D ...
The Tournament priests have been sent to present Bongo with his spoils- 3 months of the finest Apolyton Plus services.

Hmm, I'm already a lifer, how about one of those 'nucelar summer' t-shirts?

[jshelr]

I'm with Rommel on the slot idea. It's a very effective way to play when it works. But it's too idealistic to apply it to an open tourney.

Sign me up officially

[McMeadows]

Re: Re: Re: The Iron Civer Open

Originally posted by Rommel2D
It has been 7 months since the start of this tournament. Three qualifiers are complete and the fourth is just nearing it's end. My goal for The Open is to complete the qualification round at somewhere around six months. Assuming we have enough participants for six games in The Open, we will likely need to shorten the current format in order to count on the extra games to finish in less time.

To my opinion, if there's to be an epic C3C game, it should be one from qualification towards the end. For me it doesn't matter it takes little over half a year or even a year per round (qualification & final). IronB still was one of my faster games. Heck, I like it that much I started to request a new tournament start.

Originally posted by Rommel2D
One-a-day slots would seem an overall improvement over the 24-hour rule for inducing fast play, but I forsee three pitfalls: Hoping to make the tournament 'open' and grow the base of interest beyond the 20 player watershed, I have seen some shy away from a 'slot' commitment and so fear this might discourage participation

I have shyed away from slot commitments as well. That was because of the TWICE a day commitment. For me it was just too difficult to find 2 slots (12 hours apart) in which I was to commit myself. I think a timeslot fits perfectly into anyone's day schedule somewhere and you're free to choose that perfect slot. If you are to commit to a steady moving game, you have to be able to play once a day anyhow. The slots are just there to have a better organisation of turn order. If the application for such a tournament format is too slow, we could always changeit. We're early enough.

Originally posted by Rommel2D
Also, some who do commit to the slot system have not accurately guaged their own ability to meet said commitment- witness the One-armed Bandits game;

Hence the pairing with a player in another tournament game in the same timeslot and a rule which is like 3 (or 4, or 5, or whatever) unannounced (if announced it would have been taken by the sub) missing of the time slot and you're out.

Originally posted by Rommel2D
Finally, as has already been alluded to, the slot structure tends to inhibit game composures that are conducive to 'rapid-fire' sessions.

I tend to disagree. What stands in the way of that?

Originally posted by Rommel2D
All of the current tournament's games have benefitted from such sessions at one point or another.

never happened in ironB

Originally posted by Rommel2D
One option for increasing the speed of games would be Accelerated Prodcution. I dislike this because it changes the fundamental mechanics of how the game is played. Much preferable to me is the elimination format which maintains the same basic gameplay, but changes the strategy one must use while applying one's forces. Double-(city-)elimination is based on the philosophy of 'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.'
The final game will be more of a 'purist' Civ game. It will not be an elimination game.

I dislike both formats. To me it's like you have to qualify for the world cup by penalty shoot out against all the opponents in the qualifications instead of playing a competition. Not that it should stop you in organizing the event, but I wouldn't join.

I just want to speak out how I think, I don't want to say what needs to be done.

[bongo]

I started to compose a long post about the organization of future touraments but realized it was an excercise in futility.

What we should be discussing is our goals rather than the means and methods.


Here's my wishes:
1 Size. I want the next tournament to include more players.

2 Time & Effort. We should seek a tournament form that doesn't add too much time and effort even if we add players.

3 'Strictness'. I also think we should keep the same basic rules in *all* rounds. We only use AP/elimin in the qualifier if we intend to use it in the final.

4 Open vs closed. Everyone who wants to should be able to join. At the same time we may want to give certain players privileges (examples: as a finalist of this year, I should automatically qualify for next years semi-final. Rommel2d as well, should he decide he's done enough organizing for now )

[snoopy369]

Re: Re: Re: Re: The Iron Civer Open

Originally posted by McMeadows

To my opinion, if there's to be an epic C3C game, it should be one from qualification towards the end. For me it doesn't matter it takes little over half a year or even a year per round (qualification & final). IronB still was one of my faster games. Heck, I like it that much I started to request a new tournament start.

However, it would limit the number of players. Two epic 4 player games take a reasonable amount of time; beyond 4 players and it takes too long. You would have to limit the field too much at this point.

I have shyed away from slot commitments as well. That was because of the TWICE a day commitment. For me it was just too difficult to find 2 slots (12 hours apart) in which I was to commit myself. I think a timeslot fits perfectly into anyone's day schedule somewhere and you're free to choose that perfect slot. If you are to commit to a steady moving game, you have to be able to play once a day anyhow. The slots are just there to have a better organisation of turn order. If the application for such a tournament format is too slow, we could always changeit. We're early enough.

Slots are appropriate to a 2 a day game; they do not provide any useful function to a 1 a day game. Not in the way we use them for, anyhow. Slots as you state them mean that each player has a several hour window to play in; but all you really need is that each player plays in order on a regular basis. (For a 2 a day game, slots were a way of ensuring that was the case; for a 1 a day game, it's pretty easy to ensure.) There's no appreciable benefit to saying "Okay, you play between 3am and 7am, you play between 7am and 11am, you from 11am to 3pm, etc." and simply "Okay, you play before you, and you play afterwards" - like a slot, but both more flexible and variable per game. You lose too much with set slots the way they were proposed earlier. (More later.)

Hence the pairing with a player in another tournament game in the same timeslot and a rule which is like 3 (or 4, or 5, or whatever) unannounced (if announced it would have been taken by the sub) missing of the time slot and you're out.

No, please. I do not like the idea of a sub like that. It's too complicated to ensure it's useful (sending the save to a player who won't normally play it; the sub might accidentally play it, thinking he/she is supposed to, when he/she isn't; too hard to communicate to the sub that he/she should play it; for that matter how exactly will the sub save time - barring long absences, if I am late coming home from work or too tired to play or whatever, the sub won't know until I've missed the slot entirely - and i'll make the next one fine.)

I tend to disagree. What stands in the way of that?

(talking about inhibiting lightening round) Slots the way they were described earlier - 6 slots in a 24 hour period, 4 hours each - mean that there are always 2 players 12 hours offset, and 2 players 16 hours offset, etc. Although Paddy is insane and plays all day practically, most players do not; the substantial offset of players pretty much ensures that someone will always be asleep or at work (or both, usually). You could get lucky, I suppose, but even The Madness! hasn't managed a single lightening round, and that's WITH Paddy. 6 players all from the US West Coast, on the other hand, will occasionally play all at the same time - and thus can play several turns in one day. That's the real weakness of slots; you can never have MORE than one turn per day, while a setup like the original IC games means you could (and often did).

never happened in ironB


I dislike both formats. To me it's like you have to qualify for the world cup by penalty shoot out against all the opponents in the qualifications instead of playing a competition. Not that it should stop you in organizing the event, but I wouldn't join.

Elimination of 2 city in size isn't that different from a normal game, actually. It's going to constrict your city building - hence why I'm in favor of AP, although it's not a big deal - but the same basic strategy elements exist. Heck, how many players in IC this year lost 2 cities and went on to win? In PBEM if you're losing cities, you're probably going to lose, unless you're playing extremely aggressively.

To me, it's like a bridge tournament - your team will play a bunch of "open" games which are shorter 3 board matches, or whatever, so you can play more people, and then the top few play longer, more focussed matches against a few teams. You use Elim to narrow the field down to a manageable amount, and then you go on with the top group in a regular game.

If you haven't played an Elim game before, McM, I strongly suggest you do (with a human, though - AI suck at it ). It's not what you're making it sound like - nothing like the hated penalty shots. That would be a scenario, if anything. Elim simply makes it a little faster, and forces you to be a little more conservative (or aggressive, ie Arnelos - but more of one).

I hope that if this is how IC goes, you give it a shot. I know I'd miss you if you didn't.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by bongo
I started to compose a long post about the organization of future touraments but realized it was an excercise in futility.

What we should be discussing is our goals rather than the means and methods.


Here's my wishes:
1 Size. I want the next tournament to include more players.

2 Time & Effort. We should seek a tournament form that doesn't add too much time and effort even if we add players.

3 'Strictness'. I also think we should keep the same basic rules in *all* rounds. We only use AP/elimin in the qualifier if we intend to use it in the final.

4 Open vs closed. Everyone who wants to should be able to join. At the same time we may want to give certain players privileges (examples: as a finalist of this year, I should automatically qualify for next years semi-final. Rommel2d as well, should he decide he's done enough organizing for now )

3: Why? As I said above, elim is useful to allow us to include more players (1) and yet in the final game is perhaps not preferable. I suppose I'm not interested in Strictness, but in openness, and Speed.

4: Open. I don't see 3 rounds being likely - not in Rommel's description anyhow - and it's not fair to qualify 4 people for a 6 player final based on the previous year. Does Agassi qualify for the semis in a tournament because he won last year? Nope. Just qualifies to enter - which if this is an open, everyone gets in. I say open.

[Rommel2D]

Re: The Iron Civer Open

Originally posted by McMeadows
To my opinion, if there's to be an epic C3C game, it should be one from qualification towards the end. For me it doesn't matter it takes little over half a year or even a year per round (qualification & final). IronB still was one of my faster games

Year-long PBEM games don't quite have the spectator appeal of a 3 hour football match. To keep the interest and excitement up enough to keep the event progressing, any preliminary round will have to be kept short. Take the first (despotic ;-) C3C PBEM Tournament for example: There were a few excellent games that produced a result, but the rest are dead in the water. In order for that second round to happen at all, non-qualifying players will likely be needed. It doesn't look to be happening soon, despite having started months before this one. If we can't keep everyone's interest up until the second round starts, the whole tournament structure is kind of pointless.

I tend to disagree. What stands in the way of that?

The slot idea is based upon finding players with complementary play times. Having discreet 'slot' times is about the least conducive approach to creating rapid fire sessions I can think of.

However, the final game will be constructed around slots. Each qualifier match will be grouped by players competing for the same slot in the final. It will be similar to the geographic groupings from last time, but more exact play schedule information will be requested.

never happened in ironB

I was thinking of the 20+ turns played by Bongo and jshelr in 10 days at the end. It was mentioned via email that they were attempting sessions...

[snoopy369]

Re: Re: The Iron Civer Open

Originally posted by Rommel2D

The slot idea is based upon finding players with complementary play times. Having discreet 'slot' times is about the least conducive approach to creating rapid fire sessions I can think of.

However, the final game will be constructed around slots. Each qualifier match will be grouped by players competing for the same slot in the final. It will be similar to the geographic groupings from last time, but more exact play schedule information will be requested.

That sounds very cool. So, if the slot is 3pm-7pm EST, then four of us who can reliably play in that slot play a game, etc.?

What about "weak" slots, and "strong" slots - ie the 7pm-11pm EST slot could probably qualify 3/4 of the folk here (even a lot of aussies), while the 3am-7am will find few players? Hopefully not "none", but fewer certainly by a lot ... or will the slots for the final game be more 'malleable' than that - ie not necessarily 4 hour slots each? (For example, you could have one slot 7pm-9pm, one slot 9pm-11pm, one slot 11pm-3am, one slot 3am-9am, 9am-2pm, 2pm-7pm? Not sure how the Oz folks or the Euros would affect the lengths here - but just an example.)

[McMeadows]

Re: Re: The Iron Civer Open

Originally posted by Rommel2D
Year-long PBEM games don't quite have the spectator appeal of a 3 hour football match. To keep the interest and excitement up enough to keep the event progressing, any preliminary round will have to be kept short../cutout/... If we can't keep everyone's interest up until the second round starts, the whole tournament structure is kind of pointless.

Originally posted by snoopy369
However, it (epic games) would limit the number of players. Two epic 4 player games take a reasonable amount of time; beyond 4 players and it takes too long. You would have to limit the field too much at this point.

The succes of the current IC tournament is clear. The very reason we are discussing at the moment is just because the epic games we have been playing gained interest from more players and we want to share the fun with anyone who's interested. The question is just merely how can we keep the format and add people without losing speed?

Originally posted by Rommel2D
The slot idea is based upon finding players with complementary play times. Having discreet 'slot' times is about the least conducive approach to creating rapid fire sessions I can think of.

Originally posted by snoopy369
Slots are appropriate to a 2 a day game; they do not provide any useful function to a 1 a day game. Not in the way we use them for, anyhow. Slots as you state them mean that each player has a several hour window to play in; but all you really need is that each player plays in order on a regular basis. (For a 2 a day game, slots were a way of ensuring that was the case; for a 1 a day game, it's pretty easy to ensure.).

I don't seem to be able to point out my idea. I suggest to increase the tournament's capacity from 16 (4*4) to 25 (5*5) or even 36 (6*6). To maintain the game pace I proposed to introduce time slots, in order to secure 5 turns a week. That's assuring 0.71 turns a day. My fastest game at the moment is 0.67 turns a day, so I would think the time slots might be usefull. It's all a matter of efficiency. The weekend turns or even sessions will be bonus.

Originally posted by snoopy369
(talking about inhibiting lightening round) Slots the way they were described earlier - 6 slots in a 24 hour period, 4 hours each - mean that there are always 2 players 12 hours offset, and 2 players 16 hours offset, etc. Although Paddy is insane and plays all day practically, most players do not; the substantial offset of players pretty much ensures that someone will always be asleep or at work (or both, usually)..../cut out/ ..That's the real weakness of slots; you can never have MORE than one turn per day, while a setup like the original IC games means you could (and often did).

I strongly encourage rapid session and understand that if you want an European, Australian and an American online at the same time you require a few Paddy's.

First of all I think rapid sessions are something for a weekend, when the time slots are not used (different life pattern in the weekend opposed to the week for many). I have suggested to leave open the "night" time slot to have all people in a game from close time zones. However to overcome impossible sessions we could also agree to make tournament games with people from 2 zones (defining 3 zones as Asia/Australia, Europe & the America's) at a time. A 9 hour time difference (between the two extreme players) is not necessarily a problem at all for a session to take place.
These zones might also help for organization of the finals as Rommel suggested.

I would like to stress upon maintaining a high long term average game speed, which in my eyes is most helped by a structural moving game.

Originally posted by Rommel2D
I was thinking of the 20+ turns played by Bongo and jshelr in 10 days at the end. It was mentioned via email that they were attempting sessions...

Organising 2 player rapid sessions can be easily arranged among any 2 players anywhere towards the end of any game. That's not what we have been discussing. Iron B didn't have a session among the 4 or 3 players.

Originally posted by snoopy369
... /Commenting on a paired sub/..... No, please. I do not like the idea of a sub like that. It's too complicated to ensure it's useful (sending the save to a player who won't normally play it; the sub might accidentally play it, thinking he/she is supposed to, when he/she isn't; too hard to communicate to the sub that he/she should play it; for that matter how exactly will the sub save time - barring long absences, if I am late coming home from work or too tired to play or whatever, the sub won't know until I've missed the slot entirely - and i'll make the next one fine.)

I would like to suggest that the paired sub is to replace the player when asked beforehand. Possibly with directions. The benefit is that it does guarantee game progress, anyone will have a quick step in for when one sees it coming one can't occassionaly make the turn. Also for longer absences there is that same sub allready available.
If you miss your slot time (which means you didn't take care of subbing) you should be warned as it will delay the game. I'd suggest a set number of "miss outs" after which one will be suspended.

Originally posted by snoopy369
If you haven't played an Elim game before, McM, I strongly suggest you do (with a human, though - AI suck at it ). It's not what you're making it sound like - nothing like the hated penalty shots. That would be a scenario, if anything. Elim simply makes it a little faster, and forces you to be a little more conservative (or aggressive, ie Arnelos - but more of one).

I hope that if this is how IC goes, you give it a shot. I know I'd miss you if you didn't.

Thanks Snoop, I might have to take a shot, one time. However, I really enjoy the epic games and would really enjoy having a tournament around the classic theme. It makes it a different game for me.

I don't want to keep on discussing. I can accept the different point of views. Rommel2D, either you cast a poll or you decide on how it's going to be. There seem to be a few proposals. Maybe each of us can write them down in short if you want to call a vote.

[snoopy369]

I simply don't understand the reason for slots in this game. Especially when you see Rommel's strategy - getting to slots in the final. You'll slow down the qualifiers, in my opinion, and even if it speeds them up, the odds of you having a slottable final are nearly nil, if you 'slot' the qualifiers.

Paired subs I don't like because I think we're capable of finding subs. Few players that I've played with have had problems with this. I don't want to be told who to sub for me; I'll find someone if I have a problem. (Though it opens up an interesting way to play: 2 games, 8 people, 4 in each game - crisscrossing between games, I play turn 1 of game 1 player 1, then turn 2 of game 2 player 1, then turn 3 of game 1 player 1, etc. ... )

[Aqualung71]

I'm not in favour of slots, since I can't guarantee that I will be available for my slot every single day. S**t happens in life....long hours at work, going out in the evening, meeting Beyonce in a bar and going home with her, etc.....but I will usually make sure I play my turns when I get home, unless I am in a state to pass out on the sofa (which is frighteningly often).

The reason Iron Civer progressed so quickly (at least, for Col. A and one or two others), is that Rommel brilliantly setup the games by geographical region. The downside of this of course, is that in a repeat tournament organised along the same lines, you may end up playing the same group. Also, it is quite likely there will be mismatches of skill doing it this way, though clearly the most important priority is successful completion of the qualifying games as quickly as possible.

I also agree with McMeadows that the format of the final should be the same as the rounds. I don't like the idea of eliminatioin, and I am strongly against using AP.

I would like to see more than 4 players though....and I think 5 is a good number if we can still stick to the "turn-a-day" rule.