Tournament lessons learned

[Erik2]

Here's my take on the tournament.
It suffered from several issues.

1) There are no official multiplayer scenario suitable for tournaments. You need a limited number of turns, suitable primary objectives and clear secondary objectives for tie-breaks. I think a tournament scenario needs to be created with terrain/faction variants for the various rounds. No pre-deployed units, players should purchase all units. Maybe a special version of the Fork scenario could work.

2) A number of players that entered the tournament did not know how to install a custom scenario. This caused delays. Next time step-by-step instructions need to be posted by the administration (that would be me in the current case )

3) A suprisingly high number of players never picked up the challenges and never responded to play their turns. This caused administrative problems and more delays.

4) A few players left the tournament for various reasons, This of course caused the tournament to suffer as well.

So another tournament needs to solve 1), but players also need to commit to the play once they have entered the contest. My humble opinion.
BTW, I have reported the results to Slitherine. I expect some official announcement from the powers upstairs.

[a432]

The biggest problem for me was your point number 1.

Sounds like you have a lot of work ahead of you. We NEED MAPS! We need at least 5 tournament quality maps, really we need 10 or more especially if we get bigger turnout.

The only maps currently that I think are close to the requirements are The fork and Dunbo Fields. Peninsula is ok but is too small.

Pre-deployed is OK, but only if you can also make small additions. Look at the panzer corp tournament this year. It uses all historical maps which are asymmetrical and come with pre-deployed forces. Depending on the map The player only gets to choose 2-4 units to add to his predetermined forces. This is prefect. I am enjoying the tournament very much.

[Shards]

Given that tournaments generally use paired games, it's no bad thing for maps to be asymmetrical, as it means that the Turn count is a natural secondary win condition.

In that regard, I think that Dubno fields, whilst an excellent map, actually needs some alterations to be good for tournaments. I've mainly won that map in mp games through the opponent realizing they're done and resigning (which isn't good for tournament play!)

I reckon that you could make a good tournament map out of Bataan and Mlawa (smaller maps from the campaign, with a reasonably focussed path, but multiple attack vectors).

Also Buq Buq from Sandstorm or Viipuri from Winter War?

I originally created Two Bridges to be as balanced a map as possible, but built in the points system to try to ensure there was a natural end to the game. I liked Erik's version of my Penninsula better for the tournament as it was faster and rewarded very aggressive attacking play (the original is designed to be a test of interior defence lines vs attacking mobility).

[13obo]

Agree on all points and that indeed 1) was the primary issue. And agree that there shouldn't be a terrible focus on balancing/symmetry of maps, as the tournament games are paired, so hopefully this should mean maps will be easier to produce/test. I definitely liked the first map the most due to its objective points counter that rewards both aggressive and defensive styles. I did not like at all the naval/air-only maps- the game is focus on combined arms fights and that's what tourney maps should be.

It seems lessons indeed have been learned, so I am optimistic and would ofc participate again!

Thank you Erik and Shards for organising once more. Specially Erik, who isn't paid for this (I think), but still endures our complaints!

[Herode_2]

Hi gentlemen !

I only played the 1st round of the Tournament, hence my advice is definitely not a very experienced one here, but as 3rd tier players are still potentiel recruits on tournaments, here it is anyway.

First thing : big thanks to Erik2 who managed the stuff !! It's a real challenge to keep those things moving on & his involvement is appreciated

Second point : rulzzzzzzzz !!!! Stick to rules, be a rules-fascist if needed, especially those about time and delays. The more delays you allow on initial schedule, the more players will delay. First tournaments are also useful to select a group of reliable players and to spot unreliable ones, which should be kept aside from further tournaments (except for reserve divisions). I'm not surprised you had many failing players, you'll have another whole bunch on the 2nd tournament. Things should be closing a more stable configuration after 3rd tournament, I guess.

Third point and a very subjective matter here : I don't like symetric maps at all. Symetry is boring out the field of maths. And as many other players said : games are paired, thus asymetric maps and even unbalanced maps are not a big deal. And they are faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar more interesting to challenge IMHO.

Fourth point : slow players leading to unfinished games should be penalized. On the FoG II Tournaments, the Swiss system is used to compute this aspect and I find it very efficient (basically : the more a turn stays in your mailbox waiting for you to play it, the more you are penalized). I'm not sure OoB allows this system right now but it's definitely something to keep in mind for devs and tournaments managers.

And again, thanks to the tournament managers and looking forward next tournament on OoB