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H2H Speed Tournament - manual land zone selection **RESULTS THREAD**
I am editing the OP to include the rules and bracket link, the original post is designated as such at the end.
Here is a link to the bracket:
http://www.bracketmaker.com/tmenu.cfm?tid=420130
Rules:
When a match is announced, I will PM the higher seeded player asking them to contact their opponent and discuss scheduling a time to meet online and play. It's fine for either player to initiate the contact, but in order to make sure the ball is rolling I'm making it officially the higher seeds responsbility. *Do not set the game up until it is actually game time*
Two things that are very important: 1) If for some reason you have PM's disabled, you need to re-enable them so you can get messages from opponents or from the tournament director (that's me). I don't think anyone should have PM's shut off, but just in case. 2) if you happen to have a match with an opponent on your block list, you will need to remove them if you have the responsibility to set up the match and they must join it. You can block them again later if you wish.
You will have 2 weeks from the time a matchup is announced to set up and and play your match. As always this is not an inflexible rule where I'm going to DQ players at 2 weeks and 1 minute. It's simply to give us a reasonable timeframe to work with. If someome PM's me and says hey, we have set this date and time but it's almost 3 weeks, that's not going to be a problem. Please try and get them done as quickly as possible obviously, tournaments are more fun when moving along. :) If we have people unreachable or not responding to PM's, they will be disqualified and we will move along. The TD's rulings in this regard will be final. I am very flexible in this regard, but please let's not go there people. :)
Once you have agreed to a date and time to meet, you should get in touch at that time to make sure you're both online. I recommend you allow 2 hours to complete the match. In the 4 or 5 times I've done this I've never had one go that long (avg was about an hour), but with a tough group I can see it happening. Feel free to share skype/Yahoo IM/MSN Messenger details if you wish to ease communication, although it's not required. You can verify you're both online at the agreed upon time with a PM exchange.
It will be the higher seeds responsibility to set up the game and PM the join instructions to their opponent. **Do not do this until the agreed upon meeting time and after having confirmed they are there, ready to go** You can set the game up early if you want, to speed the start along, but do not send them the Game ID and Pin until it's time, in order to avoid someone joining a game early and winning (which they will quicky after you deadbeat in 20 minutes game time).
Here are the step by step game set up instructions:
-Create a game
-Create a Multiplayer game
-Select Standard World, No Teams
-Proceed to Step 2
-Select:
---Human Players 2 (Computers: 0)
---Private Game, only people that I provide a password to will be able to join
---One starting Troop per land zone only, checks in the check-boxes for No Pre-set Factories & Automatically add a factory to each player's capital
---Loss of Capital to another player results in instant elimination from game.
-Proceed to Step 3
-Set Early Victory Conditions to 2 capitals, 70 Land Zones, 170 Income
-Proceed to Step 4
-Select Nation Picking Type: Manaual, Turn Speed: Speed (10 Minutes/turn)
-Max game turns = 100, max game duration = 100 days
-Create New Game (note your game ID and password to PM to your opponent)
If there are any questions, please post here. When a game is complete, it is the winners responsibility to post the result in this thread.
Good Luck All!!!!!
Original Post:
Hi all,
So I would like your feedback, and if you would be interested in something like this for my next tournament.
One of the biggest issues has been unbalanced drops for starting territories/forces in the head to head games. I was thinking a great way around this would be manual land zone selection, but of course that takes time to complete land zone selection normally which would make such an event untenable. I got to thinking however, it could be done if the game was set up as a speed game (10 minute turns).
Basically this would require both players to arrange a mutually workable time to be online, and simply play the game out to it's conclusion. I have played a few speed H2H games before that I just created as public games, with both players inputting in real time the games in practice go for less than 2 hours time, often only 1 hour. I know this would put a crunch on those of you who like to do in depth analysis before each input, but consider it a challenge, you are all smart cookies so I'm sure you could adjust fine. :)
My general thought about how to set this up is to allow the match partners 2 weeks (with some flexibility when necessary) to get their match scheduled and played. This should be enough time for people to find an agreeable time to be online together. And in terms of time frame for advancing the tournament along, this is also similar to how games advance in the standard 24 hour/turn format.
I would probably like to do this as another 1I per territory... I haven't decided on the map but I think the map is largely irrelevant as the big concern across all maps was the drop issue, and with manual land zone picking you have only yourself to blame for a bad drop. ;)
What do you all think? If you would try something like this, please post here. :)
this sounds great to me :) i dont really play h2h games but would love to join this if it goes ahead.
This sounds good to me, too, although if there were a vote, mine would be for full forces...thinking about the rush I used to get from blitz chess. :-] I think full forces would make for a better, more intense game, but would still be doable with 10-minute turns. Either way, though, I'd like to be in on this one.
Interesting. I never played in such a hurry, but as u put it, new challenge! That is what I'm looking for right now.
Ok, so we have 4 (including me) who are interested in trying this. I also have some private messages from others who like the idea a lot but are concerned they will not be able to make the time constraint to meet an opponent (perhaps from a distant time zone) and play a speed game in real time.
If we get at least 8 committing to this I'll run it, even with a small field it will be good for a trial run. :)
Ill give it a try
I'll give er a go. More comfortable with full forces, but will be good fun. Thanks for another tourney opportunity, IG!
War is the art of politics by other means.
deadhead PM'd me his interest, he's in. That will give us 7, one more and we'll give her a try. :)
>More comfortable with full forces
Will go with 1 infantry I think, with full forces no one knows who gets the naval units and that impacts the territory selection obviously, so at least for this first time with manual selection I want to use the KISS method.
come guys just one more needed to start this bad boy up :) must be someone out there who wants to play!
1. InGeneral
2. bode
3. JojoWilhelm
4. clemsafe
5. Amabon
6. McCarthaigh
7. deadhead
8. ???
Well, since I saw time zones mentioned, I should make it clear that I live in Beijing. For opponents living in the US, especially nearer west coast, the potential game times may be limited. IG, I guess we'll have to have a think about whether or not I should be in this...
Well I think everyone that signed up did so with some measure of flexibility in when they could be available. I don't know what time zones everyone is in, nor what their availability is. When is yours? I'm in the US/Central time zone so you're 14 hours ahead of me, it might mean if we meet we have to coordinate over a weekend depending on how our schedules work. I know clemsafe is in France, not sure where the others are. But this is a trial run to see how well it works or doesn't work, so unless you will be very limited on the slots 7 days a week I'd say let's give it a shot.
I should generally be available Saturday mornings or afternooons (until it gets warmer and ultimate practice kicks in) or evenings/nights. Sundays for me are actually pretty full at this point, although maybe I could do Sunday morning at like 9am or something. Those are the times that I think would work best for a "normal" work/life schedule in the US or Europe.
Bump! C'mon guys, there must be one more brave soul who thinks they can swing giving this a try! :)
hello there anyone up for this? just one more and we can get started :) maybe the people already in could message players they are in games with to try and find the last person? ill ask around anyways and hopefully get this going :)
Thanks bode, I considered just firing this up with 7 and giving someone a bye, but now that they are awarding MEDALS! (http://www.battleforces.com/node/1426) for tournament play we'll wait for that 8th person so we can be eligible for this. :D
If you still need an 8th, I'm in.
1. InGeneral
2. bode
3. JojoWilhelm
4. clemsafe
5. Amabon
6. McCarthaigh
7. deadhead
8. kwisselink
Yay! We're full. I will put together the details shortly.
Ok guys I just sent out the following message to everyone via PM, we are going to vote on the map. Here is the message:
1. InGeneral 13779
2. McCarthaigh 13769
3. JojoWilhelm 12549
4. kwisselink 12296
5. clemsafe 12245
6. bode 12013
7. Amabon 11691
8. deadhead 11514
Alright guys this is going out to everyone... we are going to do a 1 infantry/territory starting, double elim bracket, and seeded by ranking as they stand today (above). This is a very tough group with everyone ranked 11500+, so there will be no easy matches anywhere which should make for a great tournament. :) I thought for the map I would put this to a vote. Please PM me with your rank of the maps in order of your preference... your top vote will get 3 points, next 2 points, and your 3rd vote 1 point (and #4 zero obviously). The choices will be:
1. Indian Ocean
2. Standard World
3. World War II
4. Hex Armada
Hey guys, Mc thankfully thought to get this issue out to the public: http://www.battleforces.com/node/1427. It just occurred to me, though, if the clock problem applies to 10-minute-turn games, too, that could really put a damper on the fun of this tournament. Maybe someone should run some test games or something? We may not need all 10 minutes or even five minutes for each turn, but not knowing the exact error limit sort of turns it into a different game/tournament, even more based on speed/luck than we may have bargained for...
I haven't experienced any problem with it, I think we should be ok but if we do experience problems on the order of 3 minute skips, maybe we'll have adjust.
It's been a long time since I played a speed game (and have only played maybe 4 or 5), but in my experience you do not need the full 10 minutes to input your turn (this is also why we are not doing full forces... the ones I played were no starting forces but I know most don't fancy that set up, the 1I per however should be no problem). That being said, I know this is a good group and several of the players like to do in depth analysis etc... the whole idea of speed games is that your time will be limited, so choose your analysis wisely. Being aware that the closer you come to 10 minutes the more at risk you are for a glitch, should encourage you to act as quickly as possible. BTW I think you will all be surprised and how well you can do in this format, and that it's really kind of fun. :)
All votes are in, it was really close which surprised me a bit. The winner is Standard World:
Map - Points
Standard World - 16
Indian Ocean - 15
WW II - 13
Hex Armada - 4
4 out of 8 of us (including myself) placed Indian Ocean first. However, those that did not fancy the IO map, really did not. While only 2 voted for Standard World first, SW also got 4 2nd place votes and 2 3rds (it was the only map that made the top 3 in everyone's list), and that was just enough to put it over the edge. Hex Armada got no 1st place votes, and was left off 5 of the 8 lists in total. I kind of like the Hex Armada map personally but even I didn't give it a vote... as I was telling one of the players in PM who really didn't want this map, not really to worry as I don't think it's very popular and don't expect it to win... and yeah, it wasn't even close.
Maybe I'll run a Hex Armada tournament sometime for the Hex junkies, I know it's peavybob's favorite map so maybe that will bring him back into action. lol
I am going to edit the OP in this thread with bracket and rules info, and we will go ahead and use this thread for matchup announcements and results reporting.
The OP is edited to include the rules and a link to the bracket.
Opening Matches:
InGeneral vs. deadhead
kwisselink vs clemsafe
JojoWilhelm vs Bode
McCarthaigh vs Amabon
Please read the rules in the opening post thoroughly. Good Luck gentlemen!!!
Any idea how much time it takes to complete a game ? I guess it takes 20 to 30 turns to normally get a clear picture, so 3-4 hours is about right?
I'll be surprised of any games take much more than 2 hours. It shouldn't require the full 10 minutes for players to input each turn, and I'm not sure we had any game go 30 turns in the H2H SW 1I tourney, I think most were decided by 15 turns, some in as little as 8. This is a tough group, so maybe 2.5 hours?
JojoWilhelm beat bode in a hard-fought battle.
(We didn't have any problems with the clock, although none of our turn clocks went much under four minutes. The game lasted almost three hours.)
well played jojo you pretty much had the game won with in the 1st or 2nd move and i was chasing the game from the start :) liked the set up of this game as i'v never played a speed game before and found no problems with time zones so id say this is a good way to play :) good luck to you all and watch out for jojo he will eat you up and spit you out before you even know whats happen!!
Ok, thanks for the feedback guys, good to know.
bode just to be sure you're clear, this is a double elimination tournament, meaning you must lose twice to be out of the tourney.... you will move to the 1-loss bracket and have another match. :)
deadhead and I are scheduled to play on Monday night.
oh ok sorry i must have missed that :)
My game with Kwiss is scheduled on Sunday 26th. Difficult to find a convenient time on weekdays in different time zone.
Mc defeats Amabon, despite a devilish cap selection.
the best player certainly won. Did get a good laugh at my capital selection and took some notes for next game. 1 hour to pick countries and lasted a little over another hour of game play.
PS--Watch out for the time clock bug! Dont let the clock get under 2 minutes, (especially if a 10 minute turn game starts w/ 12:00 min on the clock....
Anybody else having trouble accessing the bracket link?
Oops, bracket link was bad... try again.
New Matchups:
McCarthaigh vs. JojoWilhelm
bode vs. Amabon
Jojo & I just tried playing, but after the 1st turn went thru fine, when I submitted thereafter, it just acted like I'd missed my turns, 4-5 in a row. JJ & I had to abandon the game & it gave him the game. I didn't need that extra 211 points anyways....
The 12 minute time clock bug was in effect too.
On a positive note, the manual picking offered a whole new strategic dimension which is pretty awesome. Gotta say, IG put together a great scenario!
Now if I can just get my game to work....
Mac defeats Jojo in a fortunate and very interesting game.
It's good to be Irish when yer playing jj. :)
Mac (formerly known as Mc ;-] ...I guess I missed the memo) pulled out a great, dominant win from a tough starting setup. I'll be licking my wounds until my next matchup...and looking forward to it! GG Mac!
Great job Mac-Attack! Haha, can I coin your new catch phrase? ;P
Bracket is updated, you guys will be waiting a bit for the rest of us to catch up now.
InGeneral defeats deadhead in a fun and interesting game! It had to be interesting, after it looked like I had pulled out in front I lost my internet connection and missed a turn, which cost me a lot of tanks, but I was still in good enough shape that it didn't swing things back, 2-3 turns earlier though and it would have been devistating.
The game took 3 hours in all, over an hour for land zone picking alone. When I played manual selection a few times, I think I did it on the Hex map, so it was quicker, there are 82 land zones on Standard World.
With the exception of the unpleasant adrenaline rush that accompanied losing my internet connection, this was really a fun game, I like the manual selection feature and the twist it being a speed game brings. Don't think I could do it with full forces though, not enough time. It was taking me 6-7 minutes to get input for the first 10 turns or so.
vgg deadhead, very enjoyable!