Heads Up, 1 vs 1, mano a mano, who's got what it takes to come out on top? 

While the Indian Ocean team tournament is under way, and I’m sure doc will run more team tournaments once that’s complete, I would like to start running some heads up tournaments.  If these are popular, I’ll keep organizing them.  Also as these require you to only play 1 game at a time, it should be easy enough to run along side of the team tournaments and your regular games.

I’m going to start with an Indian Ocean tournament, and would like to do Standard World and Hex as well after this one.  Game Admin has announced new map(s) on the way, no idea what that timeframe is, but hopefully after getting through the current maps we’ll have something new to run. :)  The only map I won’t run a HU tournament on is land war Africa, because between 2 good players placement is critical on that map which brings it more to chance on who gets which territories to start.

How it will work:

All games will be on the Indian Ocean map, with the following settings which I will explain my reasoning for:

1) Scattered territories

I have played HU games on the IO map and both won and lost from either starting position with scattered territories… I am confident it is not an advantage to start as either brown or grey.

2) No starting forces

For those who haven’t tried games like this, it provides a pure strategic element… instead of starting with units all over the map, you have to decide how to best allocate your income to build your military… it forces you to give consideration to the value of various units in conjunction with your game plan, etc.

3) No preset factories, Automatically add a factory at each players capital

4) Players must retake their lost capital next turn

5) Early Victory Conditions:  Own 2 capitals, or Income 175

2 capitals is standard… the reason for adding an EVC of income 175 is to speed the end of some games.  There is a total of 209 in territory value on the IO map, once the income ratio passes 175-34, the game is essentially over.  After having played several games like this, I added the EVC of income to avoid having to play out a bunch of turns that consist of little more than the losing player turtling in their capital and the winning player throwing tanks at them.  There’s no need to drag the game on through this once a player has surpassed an income of 175.  

6) 24 hours/turn

I actually like faster turns in HU games, but this gives every player in every time zone a chance to take their turn at the time they’re normally awake and on the computer.

Tournament Format:

-This will be a double elimination tournament, similar to the currently running team tournament… you will play your opponent in 1 game and 1 game only, the winner advancing in the winners bracket, and the loser advancing to the losers bracket.  For those not familiar with double elimination tournaments, after losing for the first time you continue on in the losers bracket… eventually there will be 1 remaining from the winners bracket, and 1 remaining from the losers bracket, and they will play for the championship.  If the winners bracket player wins, tournament over.  If the losers bracket player wins, they play a 2nd game, both having 1 tournament loss and 2 total losses being required for elimination.  So yes, it’s possible to lose 1 game and still win this tournament.  Every player will have to lose twice to be fully eliminated.  

-Seeding will be random.  Unlike the team tournament where we seeded by leaderboard ranking, I would like to run this one with random seeds.  I hope this will encourage newer players and players of all skill levels to give the tournament a try, since their pairing will be random and not necessarily the top of the leaderboard paired with the lower ranked players to start.  I also hope this will create some interesting 1st round matchups and brackets.  For the random seed determination, I will take everyone’s name in the order in which they are listed here, and determine their “seed” via random.org’s random number generator.  

-This tournament can be run with 8, 16, 32, or 64 players.  I would be ecstatic if we could get to 32, but expect to hopefully get at least 16.  If we fall somewhere in the middle, like say we get 25, rather than shut out people, I will set the tournament up as a 32 player with 1st round byes, determined as follows:  I will add the byes to the players list as bye26, bye27, etc to round out the field to 32, then seed the byes right along with regular players via the random.org drawing.  If 2 byes get paired, I will shift all players beneath them up 1 position, until all 1st round games have at least 1 player, in order to ensure that a second round bye isn't automatically created by the random pairing of 2 first round byes. 

Some rules for this tournament:

Once the seeds have been determined, I will send out instructions via PM to one of the participants for each game, asking them to create the private game according to the parameters I’ve specified above, and PM their opponent with the game ID and password for registration.  The opponent will have 72 hours to register, OR to PM their opponent and the Tournament Director (that’s me) if they can not with in that time frame with what the delay will be.  The TD will make a determination on what, if any, extension to the registration period will be granted.  This rule is in place because we’ve had problems in other tournaments with players failing to register and holding up the tournament for days or weeks on end.  If a person forfeits in this manner, an alternate will be allowed to enter in round 1 (should we have one), otherwise the active player will advance.  If it occurs later in the tournament, the active player will advance, there will be no player substitutions or alternates entering in the middle of the tournament.  

Deadbeating players will not be an issue… in a HU game a deadbeating player can’t win, so they will lose.  If it’s their first loss, they will advance to the losers bracket, where they will have another chance to play.  If they fail to register with in the 72 hours of the game being set up, they will forfeit and be eliminated.  If anyone’s opponent deadbeats in game, please contact me via PM with a heads up, so I can try and reach out to them before their next match.

Any other rules I’m forgetting or think of later, I will add here.  Any questions please ask. 

I don’t have a start date yet, let’s see how fast this fills up.  Once we’re there, a start date will be set that’s several days out, maybe a week (but no longer), in order to allow players some time to free up a slot for their first game and prepare.  PLEASE ADVERTISE THIS TOURNAMENT IN YOUR CURRENT GAMES!   Let’s get a big field for our first heads up tournament. :)

Signed up:

InGeneral
kdoggiedog
docbrown
drkillitz69
minoleg
clemsafe
fatshoe
Hex
Aqiel
Burg
holbrook81
Barka
Bandit13
Tigerpiper
Tashen
ingoodguys
peavybob
SPHINX
hvlong
Nothlit
murphonthemike
donaldduck
kos