Slitherine

Have you always dreamt to follow the deeds of Alexander The Great? Or have you ever wandered if would have done better than him?

Now you have the chance to see this with your own eyes, as the great Alexander Tournament for Field of Glory II is open.

96 fierce warriors are requested for this great adventure, will you be one of them? Join here!

The Tournament is composed of 3 rounds (using the rules from the previous FoG II tournaments - Swiss system, paired games in each round etc.):

Macedonians (365-329 BC) v Greeks – Mediterranean hilly terrain
Macedonians (365-329 BC) v Persians – Mediterranean agricultural terrain
Macedonians (328-321 BC) v Indians – Tropical terrain

The first round is set to start on Monday 12th!

Most of the armies are from Immortal Fire, but you do not need Immortal Fire to play so everyone is invited to join and participate

The Greeks are going to want that hilly terrain against the Macedonians.

Also this is a great opportunity for those that haven’t picked up Immortal Fire to try a few games with some of the DLC army lists.

I already joined the last two tournaments and I'm looking forward to the "Alexander"- Tournament. Thanks for setting it up.
I still have some questions regarding it:
Will the swiss system be used?
Are there paired matches in a particular round?
Which macedonian army wil be used? Is it Macedonian 355-329 BC ?

Thanks again the new tournament
Gorrick

Hello Gorrick
- Yes the Swiss system will be used
- The matches are paired games
- The Macedonian army is 355-329 BC for the first two games and 328-321 BC for the last

regards
Ben Wilkins

This will be my first tournament, really looking forward to play

i missed it!
if a slot opens last minute toss me in pete!
klay the tardy

klayeckles wrote:i missed it!
if a slot opens last minute toss me in pete!
klay the tardy

It's nothing to do with Pete, it is automated. If a space becomes available in the next 3 hours, you will see it on the tournament page. Once the tournament has started, players cannot be replaced.

Hi

How do you score points in the tournament?

posse72 wrote:Hi

How do you score points in the tournament?

Good point. The scoring system was not posted. Sorry about that.

Here it is:

The scoring system is as follows:
· If a game runs to the turn limit, each side scores points equal to the enemy % routed at the turn limit. If the game times out, adjustments may be made, depending on how far the game has progressed and who took longer over their turns – see below.
· If one army breaks, the victorious player scores 60 points plus the difference between the enemy % routed and his own % routed. The loser scores points equal to the winner's % routed.

Examples:
1) If Ben defeats Tamas's army, and has inflicted 45% routed on Tamas, and Tamas has inflicted 15% on Ben, Ben will score 60 + (45 – 15) = 90, Tamas will score 15.
2) However, if Ben defeated Tamas’s army by inflicting 62% routed on Tamas, and Tamas had inflicted 56% routed on Ben, Ben would get 60 + (62 – 56) = 66 points, and Tamas would get 56.
3) If the game is unfinished (or it reached the turn limit) with Ben inflicting 20% routed on Tamas, and Tamas inflicting 10% routed on Ben, Ben would score 20, and Tamas would score 10. (Provided that between them they have played at least 24 turns in all – see below).
Note that this system rewards aggressive play over desultory skirmishing. If you rout an enemy unit then hide for the rest of the game, both players will get extremely low scores - lower than if they played hard and lost.

Byes:
If an odd number of players sign up for the tournament, one player will get a bye in each round. In the first round this is random. In subsequent rounds it will be the player with the lowest score. The score for a BYE is 75 points for each game.

Round times and timing out:
Each round will last 10 days.
Any battles that are not completed by the end of the round will be timed out. The player who has had the game in his “My Turns” box the longest overall will be the one who is deemed to be timed out. This will not normally incur any penalties, unless insufficient turns have been played: If the timed-out player has played less than 12 turns, his score will be reduced proportionately, and his opponent will be granted the BYE score if it exceeds his current score. If the timed-out player has played less than 6 turns, he will not be included in the draw for the next round. This is to prevent someone else’s enjoyment being spoiled by being drawn against someone who has apparently dropped out of the tournament.

@StephanSwain Thanks for some fun battles in the first round and best of luck in the second!

Isn't 75 points for a bye sort of high?
Going by the last tournament, if someone were to get byes in all 5 rounds, they would have a total score of 750 which would tie them for 7th place out of 128 !!
Shouldn't a bye score be closer to an average score?
I just wondered how that score was determined.

TheSkirmishLord wrote:Isn't 75 points for a bye sort of high?
Going by the last tournament, if someone were to get byes in all 5 rounds, they would have a total score of 750 which would tie them for 7th place out of 128 !!
Shouldn't a bye score be closer to an average score?
I just wondered how that score was determined.

The idea is that a player should not be disadvantaged for getting a bye. Nobody is going to get a bye in every round, so if their skill does not match the score they have because of the bye, they will have a hard time against the player they are drawn against in the next round.

We are actually under pressure to increase the bye score to 85. I will leave the advocates of that to reply here if they wish.

I agree it shouldn't disadvantage a player but it shouldn't give them an advantage either, which it presently does.
Looking at the last tournament, there were 128 players. If you eliminate the 21 players that didn't complete a game, then it's down to 107.
The score of the 54th person would then be the average score which was 548 or an average of 54.8 per game.
As you can see, 75 is significantly higher than the average score < 54.8 > of the last tournament.
Putting it another way, if the person who came in 54th would have played someone who didn't complete the tournament, #54 would have gotten a bye for both games which would raise his tournament standing from 54th to 18th.
That's a significant advantage.

TheSkirmishLord wrote:I agree it shouldn't disadvantage a player but it shouldn't give them an advantage either, which it presently does.
Looking at the last tournament, there were 128 players. If you eliminate the 21 players that didn't complete a game, then it's down to 107.
The score of the 54th person would then be the average score which was 548 or an average of 54.8 per game.
As you can see, 75 is significantly higher than the average score < 54.8 > of the last tournament.
Putting it another way, if the person who came in 54th would have played someone who didn't complete the tournament, #54 would have gotten a bye for both games which would raise his tournament standing from 54th to 18th.
That's a significant advantage.

You are correct.

The alternative viewpoint seems to be based on the (disputable) premise that only the positions of the top few players matter. We have been asked to increase the bye score to 85 so that those in contention for podium places won't be disadvantaged if their opponent does not play.

Both viewpoints have merit, but are irreconcilable, hence the compromise on 75.

First of all, thank you to Slitherine for putting on the tournament. I really enjoyed the matches! I made it a point to buy some additional products as I enjoyed the tournament so much. I hope another tournament will begin soon.

A suggestion on the tournament scoring, if an opponent resigns a game or stops playing (before or after the 12 turn cut off), then perhaps the player should get the option to finish the game against the computer (set on diety difficulty level) in a specified (24 hour?) time period before the next round begins. Note, that in Alexander Tournament I had an opponent intentionally resign when the score was 38-3 as he was about to lose by a significant margin over 40 in the next turn. The same opponent then timed out the other match when down 36-9, luckily within the 12 turns as I still got 75 points, but it should have been much more had the opponent played out the game. However, in a later round my opponent was severely disadvantaged in both games 28-2 and 9-0 and then slowed the pace of play to nill. Of course, he could get a few more points by playing it out to the bitter end, but its not very much fun to play out losing games, and furthermore as I look at the game I think its unlikely the player will get many more points at all. I then find myself weighing whether I should intentionally make a bad move to give him the opportunity to score some points and keep sending in turns. Seems like at this point the computer should step in to finish out a disadvantaged game as in my experience the diety level computer can finish it out very well.

Thank you Slitherine!

bbogensc

I, too, want to thank Slitherene & all involved for running & participating in this tournament. It was fun thanks to a great game & game designer. Extended kudos to SnuggleBunnies who thoroughly kicked my butt in the last round. I need to remember ( for future engagements ) that archers make poor melee units.

I really can't understand why anyone would enter a tournament or league and then not play in it, unless there is a personal reason or a problem with their hardware or internet surely they should be made to sit out the next tournament. It really doesn't take very long to play a turn and if you are unable to do so for any reason then you could at least private message your opponent to let them know.

Sadly there are many people who are willing to mess about with others if it means some small detriment to them, even if they are clearly losing. Half of our tournament work is handling 'poor losers'

Cheers

Pip

@rbodleyscott
Wow!!!
I was expecting that the points were determined by some algorithm that had something to do with the first FOG or with the Tabletop game and not the lobbying efforts of a small clique of players.

Perhaps a better way would be to make the bye value the same as the player's average for the tournament.
That way, if your scores were 160,180, bye, 160, 180 you would get a bye value of 170 which would please the better players.
If, however, your scores are 120, 140, bye, 140, 120, you would get a bye value of 130 which wouldn't give an advantage.

Bottom line is that no solution is perfect and there will always be someone who wants it a different way.
My main concern was HOW the 75 points was arrived at so thank you for the answer.

TheSkirmishLord wrote:@rbodleyscott
Wow!!!
I was expecting that the points were determined by some algorithm that had something to do with the first FOG or with the Tabletop game and not the lobbying efforts of a small clique of players.

Perhaps a better way would be to make the bye value the same as the player's average for the tournament.
That way, if your scores were 160,180, bye, 160, 180 you would get a bye value of 170 which would please the better players.
If, however, your scores are 120, 140, bye, 140, 120, you would get a bye value of 130 which wouldn't give an advantage.

Agreed, but this would need to be done at the end of the tournament. A temporary bye score would need to be used during the tournament, otherwise a player who got a bye on the first round, would get to play someone with a score of 0 in the next round, thus potentially getting an easy victory.

It is something we could suggest to Slitherine - we (Byzantine Games) have no direct control over how the tournament system works, and it needs to work for all the various games using it.