The Dustbin

[Ray552]

Great, thanks!

[Geffalrus]

My rating for this season has a slight mistake. I had 5 A wins and 2 A draws, plus 6 B wins, for a total of 132. Divided by 18 that's 7.33, which I believe is the same rating I had last season. I strive for consistency.

[hidde]

My rating for this season has a slight mistake. I had 5 A wins and 2 A draws, plus 6 B wins, for a total of 132. Divided by 18 that's 7.33, which I believe is the same rating I had last season. I strive for consistency.

Sorry. The six B wins were counted as A wins.
Perhaps it's a good thing if all players can check their numbers...usually a mistake or two creeps in

[Geffalrus]

Sorry. The six B wins were counted as A wins.
Perhaps it's a good thing if all players can check their numbers...usually a mistake or two creeps in

I mean, I was using the Tuareg Meme Army, so they certainly - felt - like challenging A wins.

[stockwellpete]

Ratings now corrected.

[oscarius]

Well done. Yep my performance in Medieval A was a bit of a shocker.. Still grasping the meta of that time period.

[stockwellpete]

Thanks very much everyone for your kind words. I have enjoyed the season again immensely. I have got all the statistics done now and the archive just needs the latest Medals Table to go in. Anders will be working on that in due course. I am going to take a few weeks break now and then I'll start firming up things for Season 12. There are the Silk Road and Themed Event to sort out and I need to put something in place to start pushing back against slow play a bit more. Cheers everyone.

[stockwellpete]

I have just put something together based on Stew101's suggestion for "Sicily" as a theme. I think it looks quite promising as a possible choice for us in Season 12 . . .

Edited.

1) 2nd Sicilian War 410-404BC
Syracusan 412-281BC v Carthaginian 410-341BC

2) Peloponnesian War 431-404BC
Syracusan 412-281BC v Greek 460-281BC

3) Pyrrhic 280-275BC with Syracusan 280-211BC allies v Carthaginian 280-263BC

4) War between Sextus Pompey and the Second Triumvirate 42-36BC
Roman 105-25BC v Roman 105-25BC

5) Germanic period 469-535AD
Vandal 442-499AD v Germanic Horse Tribes 260-492AD

6) Gothic War 535-554AD
Byzantine 493-550AD v Ostrogoth 493-561AD

7) Muslim Conquest of Sicily 827-902AD
Byzantine 740-903AD v Arab Abbasid 836-873AD

I only need 5 pairings so numbers 1) and 5) look the weakest ones to me. The Vandals do not have much of an army selection.

[kronenblatt]

I agree with removing (4).

However, I'd replace (1) with Pyrrhus campaign in Sicily 278-275 BC (so you wouldn't get Syracusan 412-281BC twice). And then switch the order of (1) and (2).

[stockwellpete]

So I can add Pyrrhic 280-275BC with Syracusan 280-211BC allies v Carthaginian 280-263BC to the list. Thanks.

[LindsayCole]

Bravo Pete! A blast forsure, thank you for all your hard work.

[Giacofa93]

What about a Roman vs Syracuse during the Punic wars? Or was it only a siege?

[stockwellpete]

Season 12 of the FOG2DL will open on Friday 1st October and close on Sunday 12th December. Invitations will go out on Saturday 18th September.

There will be 6 sections as usual, with 60 places available in each of Classical Antiquity, Late Antiquity, Early Middle Ages and High Middle Ages; 36 places (using mirror matches) in the Silk Road Mod section, which will replace Biblical for just one season; and 12 places initially in the Themed Event, with a strong preference for me to increase this to 24 places, if recruitment is sufficient. There will be a poll in early September to choose the historical theme for this last section.

There will also be a modification to the tournament monitoring system to combat the gradual increase in slow play and the number of unfinished matches each season. The details will be provided shortly in a separate post.

If you have never entered the FOG2DL before and wish to join, please post your name in this thread and I will automatically add you to the invitation list. Please note that this is not an automated tournament and you will need to own the appropriate DLC's for the sections that you enter. It is also expected that players will complete all the matches that they sign up for. Failure to do so can seriously affect future entry rights.

[Aetius39]

The Sicily theme looks nice, I think it's a great idea!

[stockwellpete]

I have mentioned before that I am getting more concerned about slow play and the increasing number of matches being decided by adjudication at the end of the season. The situation has been deteriorating gradually since Season 10 and I think that last season was the worst one so far. So I feel we need to do so something to address the problem and Anders (hidde) and Ian (ianiow) have agreed.

At the moment, we do not really do very much about players who play consistently slowly throughout the season. Provided they do enough to pass the two Time Control checks (after 3 weeks and 5 weeks) then we have mainly concentrated on players who go absent (AWOL) during a season, or who leave unfinished matches at the end. Players who do this are usually given a “yellow card” and banned for one season, unless they have a genuine reason for non-completion (e.g. family illness, work-related issues and so on). A repeat performance usually leads to a “red card” and a permanent exclusion from the tournament. But players who are very slow, and who manage, more or less, to finish their matches in a mad rush at the end of the season, have generally escaped from any sanction up until now.

From next season this will no longer be the case. Players who have been slow in the previous season will now be sent a modified invitation prior to the start of the season which will address the particular issues that we have. It might just be a general concern about slow play and we will just ask the player to speed up a bit and their entry rights will be unaffected. Or it could be that we think that the issue is more serious and persistent and we feel that it is necessary to restrict the number of sections that the player can enter in their next season.

Whatever the issue may be, a player who does not improve their performance in the next season would then get a “yellow card” and not be allowed to enter the next season. This will stop players getting away with persistent slow play over a number of seasons.

This new procedure will be added to the Rules of Competition and Players' Guide and will be posted on the forum so that players know that it is in operation. The actual details of who is receiving this new cautionary PM will, of course, remain confidential.

To give you all an idea of the size of the problem now, last season 98 players entered the tournament (one dropped out just after the start). Of these, 4 have been given "yellow cards" for non-completion of matches and will not be invited again until Season 13; a further 9 players will face restrictions on the number of sections that they can enter in Season 12 (all of them will still be able to enter 2 sections, but they will not get the 3 or 4 sections that they normally do); and 86 players will have no restrictions at all. So, roughly speaking, we are talking about 10% of last season's players falling short (often not by very much) of what we would like to see.

The important thing about this is that slow play spoils the tournament for those players on the receiving end of it. You cannot really enjoy a match if it goes on for over a month and it is very frustrating if your challenge is just ignored and weeks pass by. As an organiser, I know that I cannot eradicate this problem completely, but I can do my best to reduce it to more acceptable levels than we are starting to experience now.

[stockwellpete]

What about a Roman vs Syracuse during the Punic wars? Or was it only a siege?

Yes, I think there was some fighting between Rome and Carthage on Sicily at the start of the Punic Wars, but I think we have enough options for this particular theme already. I only need 5 match-ups. I will be doing a poll from about 10/9 to choose which theme we will have for Season 12.

[Lynx57]

Hello , if there s a slot for me , i m interrested by late antiquity section

[stockwellpete]

Hello , if there s a slot for me , i m interrested by late antiquity section

I will send you an invitation on 18/9.

[Triarii]

Apologies only read page 1 - so out of date.

[Lynx57]

Thx!

Cheers