Two Player Challenge!

[mhsmith0]

Only 5 games created so far, people seem not to have caught on super-quickly.

Actually, I can see 16, so interest is picking up!

All of them are me
(Ok nit really but kinda feels like it )

[super_dipsy]

I could always pitch in on designing the actual matchups list, but it can be fairly time-consuming to monitor evrything, see results, make sure players are in correct powers, etc etc etc. I tried doing all that in gunboat tournament last year and it was EXHAUSTING, probably why I burned out before the end of it.

Actually, I was thinking about a Challenge tourney. A lot of issues with running tourneys are greatly simplified in this format. There are no surrenders (game ends with the remaining power the winner), no draws or stalemates, no 6-way draws to get to the final table, and as long as it was simple (eg A v F) the set up is fairly straightforward. Instead of having to try to get everyone playing each of 7 countries, you just ask pairs to play two games, one each way. In fact, I would just let them set them up themselves and report back the game numbers with the results!

In fact, I was thinking pure knockout. pair up, winners go through, repeat.

[mhsmith0]

I could always pitch in on designing the actual matchups list, but it can be fairly time-consuming to monitor evrything, see results, make sure players are in correct powers, etc etc etc. I tried doing all that in gunboat tournament last year and it was EXHAUSTING, probably why I burned out before the end of it.

Actually, I was thinking about a Challenge tourney. A lot of issues with running tourneys are greatly simplified in this format. There are no surrenders (game ends with the remaining power the winner), no draws or stalemates, no 6-way draws to get to the final table, and as long as it was simple (eg A v F) the set up is fairly straightforward. Instead of having to try to get everyone playing each of 7 countries, you just ask pairs to play two games, one each way. In fact, I would just let them set them up themselves and report back the game numbers with the results!

In fact, I was thinking pure knockout. pair up, winners go through, repeat.

I’d probably structure it like the webdip one: two matches, each player picks up one power, then a tiebreaker match if they split. I think that’s fairer mainly since from what I can tell austria has it MUCH easier than France here. Also since I’d guess splitting the first pair is common, you’d need some kind of tiebreaker process. Maaaybe you do something like whoever won their game in an earlier year as a tiebreaker instead, with supply center count as the second tiebreaker, and if it’s still tied they play another two?

[mhsmith0]

But yeah a tourney would be a lot of fun I think

[TTBen]

Sounds like good reasoning to have year won as the first tiebreak and total centers as 2nd tiebreak, would it make sense though to cap center count from winning at 18? As pointed out Austria seems to have more room to roam and I’m not sure you should reward hitting 19 or 20 but I’d be interested to hear thoughts.

[Captainmeme]

It's awesome to see this variant over here now!

I'm not sure there are many countries this is balanced for, though. If you pick Russia, you beat everything as both attacker and defender due to the extra starting unit. If you pick England, you lose to absolutely everything. Most of the other matchups are heavily biased one way or another - there are only 3 I've seen played with (relative) balance:

FvA (Austria attacking)
AvG (I don't actually know which nation I'd set as attacking in that matchup, but in any case it's usually decided well before '12)
GvI (Germany attacking. In order for this variant to be balanced, Italy needs to open S01: Ven-Tyo, Nap-Ion, Rom-Apu F01: Ven-Tri (if bounced), Ion C Apu-Gre B01: Build A Ven, A Nap S02: Ion C Nap-Gre. It becomes a far better variant if Italy knows that opening)

[Captainmeme]

With regard to a tournament - I'm a pretty regular tournament director over on webDiplomacy, and the 2018 FvA Showdown (Open-to-all, Double Elimination) is actually planned to begin there very shortly. I'd be up for running one here in parallel with that for players who prefer the PlayDip interface. However, I've never run a tournament here before, so I'm both unsure of how I would go about applying to run one and how the TD tools work here. Is there anyone here who is willing to run me through that?

[mhsmith0]

Currently game description auto overrides to show who’s attacking who. Is it possible to ALSO have whatever manual game description people wrote out to display?

[super_dipsy]

It's awesome to see this variant over here now!

I'm not sure there are many countries this is balanced for, though. If you pick Russia, you beat everything as both attacker and defender due to the extra starting unit. If you pick England, you lose to absolutely everything. Most of the other matchups are heavily biased one way or another - there are only 3 I've seen played with (relative) balance:

FvA (Austria attacking)
AvG (I don't actually know which nation I'd set as attacking in that matchup, but in any case it's usually decided well before '12)
GvI (Germany attacking. In order for this variant to be balanced, Italy needs to open S01: Ven-Tyo, Nap-Ion, Rom-Apu F01: Ven-Tri (if bounced), Ion C Apu-Gre B01: Build A Ven, A Nap S02: Ion C Nap-Gre. It becomes a far better variant if Italy knows that opening)

Thanks for your advice in setting it up Cap.

I bow to your experience with this format, but I suspect that there are one or two wrinkles that could be added to change the balances. For example, I think playing on the 1900 map changes things quite a bit, or perhaps the AM one. Also, I am unsure whether choosing options such as FoW, a different choice of starting units or starting with just one unit change the picture. Personally I am intrigued by the differences the 1900 map would deliver, although the AM one feels like it may be more balanced since everyone is sort of in a circle . FoW would seem to give the attacker an extra advantage though, although I'm not sure.

[Captainmeme]

I hadn't really considered variants... 1900 I can't say much about, given that I've never actually played the variant, but Ancient Med should be relatively balanced regardless of which nations you pick, just due to the relative symmetry of the variant.

I don't think Fog of War works too well in 1v1 because it massively advantages the country that doesn't need to play reactively (usually the attacker, certainly Austria in FvA).