Field of Glory II Tournament Suggestions

[Igorputski]

No more than 3 rounds so you can have more tournaments. This is a very good game for a change but I don't want to spend 5 rounds on each tournament. 3 is quite fine

[Igorputski]

As previously suggested only allow once active tournament per userID. Allows more people to play and will cut down on number of unfinished games, since if a single user is unable to play he will default on games in multiple tournaments.

Mike

Agree with this also; if in another tournament move to bottom and only fill if the tournament isn't full. Everyone wants to play and everyone can't sit in front of their computers 24/7 to jump into a tournament. Make it open to all and give all a chance to play.

[Hendricus]

A Punic Tournament. Carthaginians facing Romans. Players choose for one side. Line up the Romans versus the Carthaginians. After the first round the best of each team meet in the next round. The best Roman meeting the worst Carthaginian. The number of participants and the number that go to the next round makes how many rounds this tournament lasts. Their should be two winners in this tournament. The best Roman and the best Carthaginian player. Counting the win loss ratio there can also be declared a side as winner, a tournament with more than half the participants as winners, reason for a great afterparty.

[Hendricus]

Would it be possible to build an automated knock out tournament capable of coping with 64 players minimum? It would also have to be able to cope with an awkward number of entries, say 77, which would involve 13 first round matches and 51 byes giving 64 qualifiers for the second round. Possibly you could run such a KO tournament twice a year and it would add to the variety of formats that could be offered.

Knock Out keeps the winners interested while the losers don't have to be motivated to play. As they are obliviated and out of the tournament.

[stockwellpete]

Knock Out keeps the winners interested while the losers don't have to be motivated to play. As they are obliviated and out of the tournament.

Yes, half the players are obliviated each round. Life can be cruel sometimes.

[rbodleyscott]

Knock Out keeps the winners interested while the losers don't have to be motivated to play. As they are obliviated and out of the tournament.

Yes, half the players are obliviated each round. Life can be cruel sometimes.

It isn't as simple as that.

In a conventional knockout tournament the winner of each battle goes through. But this brings us back to the bad old days of winning a game by one or two points, which encourages desultory skirmishing and corner sitting.

It would probably be better to do the knockout by score, with the top half of the scoring table going through to the next round, and the bottom half being obliviated. (Report to the disintegration chamber!)

[stockwellpete]

It isn't as simple as that.

In a conventional knockout tournament the winner of each battle goes through. But this brings us back to the bad old days of winning a game by one or two points, which encourages desultory skirmishing and corner sitting.

It would probably be better to do the knockout by score, with the top half of the scoring table going through to the next round, and the bottom half being obliviated. (Report to the disintegration chamber!)

Personally, I would prefer to stick with the conventional knock-out format even though you are right to say there might be a few cagey battles during such a tournament. Otherwise players winning a match by 40-0 could end up being obliviated by players who have drawn 62-62. Our experience with the FOG1 KO tournaments was that negative play didn't happen very often. Most drawn matches can be dealt with quite simply with the percentage losses system now. I don't know whether the automated system can include a "toss of the coin" procedure to decide which player would progress if scores were exactly the same. You would probably also need some form of tiebreaker if two or more players had the same points total in your idea for the tournament. I think the likelihood of negative play could also be reduced by the type of army match-ups and terrain chosen for each round.

[rbodleyscott]

Otherwise players winning a match by 40-0 could end up being obliviated by players who have drawn 62-62.

How do you figure that? The score in the first game would be 100-0.

[stockwellpete]

Otherwise players winning a match by 40-0 could end up being obliviated by players who have drawn 62-62.

How do you figure that? The score in the first game would be 100-0.

Oh I see, you are going to use the same system with the +60 points for the win. Sorry, I misunderstood.

[stockwellpete]

Otherwise players winning a match by 40-0 could end up being obliviated by players who have drawn 62-62.

How do you figure that? The score in the first game would be 100-0.

Oh I see, you are going to use the same system with the +60 points for the win. Sorry, I misunderstood.

The only anomaly that I can see with your idea is that very occasionally a player that lost their match would advance at the expense of players who had drawn theirs. For example, in a first round of 32 matches, you might have 30 decisive wins with all winners getting 70+ points; in match 31 a player wins 60-59 so that is sored 61-59; in match 32 it is drawn with the score at 58-34. So both players from match 31 would go through. It is a bit hard on the player who was clearly winning match 32 (particularly if his opponent was trying to avoid combat throughout) but this sort of thing would be extremely rare. Similarly if match 32 was drawn 58-58 then both players would be eliminated as well.

[rbodleyscott]

The only anomaly that I can see with your idea is that very occasionally a player that lost their match would advance at the expense of players who had drawn theirs. For example, in a first round of 32 matches, you might have 30 decisive wins with all winners getting 70+ points; in match 31 a player wins 60-59 so that is sored 61-59; in match 32 it is drawn with the score at 58-34. So both players from match 31 would go through. It is a bit hard on the player who was clearly winning match 32 (particularly if his opponent was trying to avoid combat throughout) but this sort of thing would be extremely rare. Similarly if match 32 was drawn 58-58 then both players would be eliminated as well.

Them's the breaks, and it isn't a very likely scenario. When it does occur, it isn't nearly as unfair as someone getting through the the second round by routing one enemy unit with skirmishers while the rest of his army hides on top of a steep hill.

I certainly won't enter any standard knockout tournaments because I know from years of tabletop tournament play that they suck big time. They sucked so bad that they have been obsolete in tabletop Ancient wargaming for about 30 years!

[devoncop]

Is there any mechanism by which players can choose their favourite Army to compete in a tournament with as is common in tabletop? If two players chose the same that wouldn't be an issue given banner colour differentiation.....
To keep things fair maybe neither player should be aware of the map until the match starts...?

[stockwellpete]

I certainly won't enter any standard knockout tournaments because I know from years of tabletop tournament play that they suck big time. They sucked so bad that they have been obsolete in tabletop Ancient wargaming for about 30 years!

The KO tournament that we ran using FOG1 was used as a curtain-raiser for the next season of the FOGDL. It certainly wasn't intended as a standalone tournament. I think it was quite popular because players knocked out in the first or second rounds didn't have very long to wait before the league tournament began.

[stockwellpete]

Is there any mechanism by which players can choose their favourite Army to compete in a tournament with as is common in tabletop? If two players chose the same that wouldn't be an issue given banner colour differentiation.....
To keep things fair maybe neither player should be aware of the map until the match starts...?

We hope to provide something along those lines in the FOG2DL which starts February 1st, 2018.

[devoncop]

Great stuff Pete.
I think it generates even more attachment to your units if you see certain ones perform well over several battles/campaigns. Would be great to be able to make individual units but even the unit types generate some sort of attachment.
The ones that routinely under perform also generate strong (though very different) feelings

[MikeC_81]

I certainly won't enter any standard knockout tournaments because I know from years of tabletop tournament play that they suck big time. They sucked so bad that they have been obsolete in tabletop Ancient wargaming for about 30 years!

Some sort of modified Swiss is the standard for almost all types of hobbyist competitions these days for exactly that reason. Your current mirror game system is really good and I would keep almost all of it except for several things.

-More of a general game request than anything else but please have the ability for people to watch replays of games and publish replays of tournament games, even if they are a select few (say the top 3 finisher's final rounds). It is exceedingly difficult for a new player like me to learn what top players are doing in competitive environments without seeing it directly. Even after going over some of my crap performances this tournament is difficult becuase I can't rewind and see mistakes and plot potentially better moves.

-Make sure we have enough rounds for swiss to actually work out winners. Seeing people win on tie breaks is kind of sketchy. That or if its going to be 3 rounds for 64 players, move to a cut to top 4/top 8 system like in Magic the Gathering for single elimination playoffs. That combined with published replays would be awesome for learning, and for spectacle.

-Provide a way for people to drop from tournaments easily after each round. We have one guy on a thread where he was kind of 50/50 about continuing but didn't want to punish his opponent for dropping but at the same time didn't want to feed easy points to an opponent. If a player does crappy the first two rounds he/she might not be motivated to play and give a subpar competitive experience to someone who might be invested in the experience regardless of standings.

-You have touched on this before but having a true mirror where both players play both factions on the same map would cut down on some variance in tournaments. Please consider this if it is at all technically feasible.

-More tournaments! Missed the 2nd one, glitched out of the 3rd one, don't have another one to play in

[rbodleyscott]

-You have touched on this before but having a true mirror where both players play both factions on the same map would cut down on some variance in tournaments. Please consider this if it is at all technically feasible.

Unfortunately it isn't, except by using preset scenarios.

[Cablenexus]

I don't know where to put it, but it's not a suggestion, more a bad taste after my third round of tournament.
Probably I played against a player in a different time zone, we played both a turn per day. We met each other after 4/5 turns and did some damage (it was 6/6 and 6/9 for my opponent).
But the last 48 hours my opponent didn't played any turn so I end up with 5 points and my opponent 60 + 60 = 120 points.
It just don't feel right.

[rbodleyscott]

I don't know where to put it, but it's not a suggestion, more a bad taste after my third round of tournament.
Probably I played against a player in a different time zone, we played both a turn per day. We met each other after 4/5 turns and did some damage (it was 6/6 and 6/9 for my opponent).
But the last 48 hours my opponent didn't played any turn so I end up with 5 points and my opponent 60 + 60 = 120 points.
It just don't feel right.

It is annoying, and in retrospect 7 days is too short for a round, especially when the opponents are on opposite sides of the world.

However, the fact that you counted as timed out means that both games spent more time in your in-tray overall than they did in his, because that is what determines who counts as timed out.

I guess this could happen with you both playing a turn a day if he did his turn soon after you did yours, and then it was most of a day before you did yours. Even though he did nothing for the last 48 hours, the games must somehow still have clocked up more time in your in-tray overall.

[klayeckles]

THE old fog 1 digital league style was great! it eliminated all the issues of waiting and timing. the big problem with these tournies is the time issue...if you have to wait for the winner of a round before you can fight another battle, then you are stuck...and those that are more available can bang out games quickly while others can only flip a turn or two a day.

in FOG 1 we simply had 4 levels of players, and we'd allow 12 or so players in each level...each player would play every other player AT THEIR OWN PACE, AND WITH AS MANY SIMALTANEOUS GAMES AS DESIRED.

so my suggestion:
let a bunch of folks sign up. maybe create two barrels:advanced and beginner. break em up into as many groups of 10 as needed and let each group go at it. if you want, at the end you could have group winners face off...
the beauty of this system is that everyone can play. we can get it done quickly. we can play multiple battles simal, and in the end we can rank ALL players based on their barrel and their score.

don't know about the programing or coordination effort here, i know the old digital league required a bit of effort to manage for pete. but it allowed everyone to get in on the fun.