2010 Adjacent Attacks Tournament - Winner: OliverFA

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Sorry to hear that you're leaving the tourney Catarah. I hope they implement it soon, but not holding my hopes up too high. CC is infamous for taking at least 3 years to implement anything. I can only hope that the Zombie Neutrals will have their time come up within the next year. I'm still fully expecting this to take at least another two years to implement.

[Catarah]

yeah, i might come back later when i have more coinfidence i wont f*ck other games up. but for now i'm done with it.

[OliverFA]

I can't understand how they take so much to implement anything. We have simplified the rules to the smallest expresion. However, they still spend a lot of time implementing it...

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Priorities on bigger projects, I guess. I don't know that it's that it takes a long time to implement once it finally get started, it's just that getting started thing that's the problem.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

It would be nice to try a City Mogul, No Spoils, Chained. I know a City Mogul's been done before, so not sure if it can be repeated or not, but it'd be nice to give it a shot if it can be

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

I think King's Court is a map that begs to be played as an AA map, so I'd like to give it a try.

King's Court, Chained, Flat Rate.


Any chance we could get a score update, Oliver? It doesn't look like there's been an update for more than 3 months at this point. I'm guessing it's because you've been busy on Research and Conquer for the last while, which is great to see

[OliverFA]

I think that now that the year is about to finish, would be nice to have a few games to finish that tournament with some fun

[Ace Rimmer]

Yeah sorry, I was on vacation and didn't get a game out. I'll have a few more before the year is out.

[OliverFA]

After some time, here is at last a new update

Click image to enlarge.

And also the XLS file

http://www.arrakis.es/~oliverfa/2010AATournament.xlsx

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Thanks for the update, Oliver! And congrats on the first place. As much as I'll be trying to catch up to you, I have my doubts that I'll be able to do it.

I hope there'll be tourney achievements handed out for 2nd and 3rd place, since this has been such a long tourney?

[OliverFA]

Thanks Tanarri, but I prefer not to give anything for granted until it's definitive In any case, I also hope there are achievements for 2nd and 3rd place.

On the other hand, I was wondering if we could have enough games to make the 65 slots in the score table. I did not create the table with that intention, but provided that it happened to be in that way... Maybe an epic 8 games final open to all the players still interested in the tournament. And in case there are more than 6 players interested, just distribute the games among all of them. But if that can't be possible, 58 games are also ok.

[denominator]

On the other hand, I was wondering if we could have enough games to make the 65 slots in the score table. I did not create the table with that intention, but provided that it happened to be in that way... Maybe an epic 8 games final open to all the players still interested in the tournament. And in case there are more than 6 players interested, just distribute the games among all of them. But if that can't be possible, 58 games are also ok.

I like this idea. Maybe the top 8 players pick the maps, or just 8 random maps.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Thanks Tanarri, but I prefer not to give anything for granted until it's definitive In any case, I also hope there are achievements for 2nd and 3rd place.

On the other hand, I was wondering if we could have enough games to make the 65 slots in the score table. I did not create the table with that intention, but provided that it happened to be in that way... Maybe an epic 8 games final open to all the players still interested in the tournament. And in case there are more than 6 players interested, just distribute the games among all of them. But if that can't be possible, 58 games are also ok.

It would be nice to get a few last games in as well, since it would give me a tiny chance at catching up

Any idea if there's going to be a 2011 tournament? If there is, I may see about trying to actively recruit some players.

[OliverFA]

It would be nice to get a few last games in as well, since it would give me a tiny chance at catching up

Any idea if there's going to be a 2011 tournament? If there is, I may see about trying to actively recruit some players.

If we keep the number of games small, I think we can manage to have a tournament, just like in this 2010 version. One or two games a week so the organizer(s) don't need to spend lots of time setting up games and looking for players.

Also, there could be several organizers and each week one organizer creates the games, so each organizer would need to actively involve only each 2, 3 or even 4 weeks.

The part of the scores, we have the XLS file created up to 65 games. So we can reutilize it and it would be only about assigning scores.

[Ace Rimmer]

It's mostly the same 6-10 people who are looking for games, there aren't 16 active players anymore. That's why we're stopping with a strange number of games, the interest in this has unfortunately dropped off and that's why I'm looking to finish it up. Plus I have some real life obligations so I want to get this finished.

I give full permission to anyone who wants to use anything I've done here for another AA tourney - the problem is going to be getting 16 people to fill it

[OliverFA]

The main problem we've had is that as time passes it's very difficult to recruit new players, as they start with 0 points. Even if we tried to make it appealing to new players, it's still not really appealing.

Maybe a better approach (based on experience from this one) would be 4 mini leagues, one for each quarter. And then the top players of each quarter (or the next classified is there if someone qualifies twice) could go to the final league. Each quarter new players are recruited. It remains interesting for them, and hardcore players can still get their games.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

The main problem we've had is that as time passes it's very difficult to recruit new players, as they start with 0 points. Even if we tried to make it appealing to new players, it's still not really appealing.

Maybe a better approach (based on experience from this one) would be 4 mini leagues, one for each quarter. And then the top players of each quarter (or the next classified is there if someone qualifies twice) could go to the final league. Each quarter new players are recruited. It remains interesting for them, and hardcore players can still get their games.

So we'd run something like a 10 week tournament four times and take the top players from those tournaments for a fifth and final 10-week tournament? This would make 50 weeks, which would give us a couple weeks to hopefully recruit the 16 players for the first quarter/mini-league?

I think that this could work. I could see it being more difficult to recruit more players into a league that's been going on for a while. It's also difficult to recruit more players when the thread isn't in the new tournament sign up area in the forums as well.

As far as manpower goes, once Research and Conquer gets finished, I should have some time to volunteer for either keeping the scores or for creating the games, or at least to help with one of those. For the time being, more time than I have already to spare is going into giving feedback for that map (which I might add everyone here should check out, since it will be the most kickass AA map ever... you can find it in the Graphics Workshop) and trying to help as much as I can with it.

Once that's wrapped up though, I'm sure I could help out for a couple hours a week, which I would expect would be all that's needed for regular updates to scores or for organizing 2-3 games per week..

[OliverFA]

I think I could also help with a couple of hours per week. Either creating maps or updating scores. As I said, I think we can create that mini 2011 tournament in the format proposed (4 mini tournaments plus final tournament with the best ones from the previous tournaments)

[SuicidalSnowman]

I would be interested in getting back into AA now that I am again active on CC.

As far as future tournaments, I think we need to start playing more games on fewer maps, or maybe fewer settings? I found this tournament a little hard to follow, although I did like the "play when you want approach." The only problem was that I found myself a bit confused, and when I had a round or two out, I sort of drifted away. I think a future tournament should be a classic AA map, maybe Feudal. We are divided into 4 divisions of 4, everyone plays 4 games, we total the scores, the top 4 play 4 more games for the champ. Or, round 1 is feudal for everyone, round 2 is classic for everyone, round 3 is waterloo for everyone.

I like this format for a few reasons:
1) Much easier for newer players to learn. They can play the same map as everyone else, hopefully more than once.
2) Much easier for experienced players to police/assist in rules.
3) Everyone playing similar games and at the same time keeps attention high.
4) Standardized settings would probably be easier for organizers.

-Just my thoughts. I am terrible at running tournaments, and think Jake, Oliver, Tanarri, Denominator, and anyone else I forgot have in the past, and continue to currently, do an amazing job keeping this stuff moving and fun for the rest of us.

[denominator]

As far as future tournaments, I think we need to start playing more games on fewer maps, or maybe fewer settings? I found this tournament a little hard to follow, although I did like the "play when you want approach." The only problem was that I found myself a bit confused, and when I had a round or two out, I sort of drifted away. I think a future tournament should be a classic AA map, maybe Feudal. We are divided into 4 divisions of 4, everyone plays 4 games, we total the scores, the top 4 play 4 more games for the champ. Or, round 1 is feudal for everyone, round 2 is classic for everyone, round 3 is waterloo for everyone.

What if we tiered the standings by map complexity? Just like learning the maps in the first place, learning to play them with AA has a learning curve and some are much more difficult than others. It also gives players joining the tournament midway a better chance to compete without being too far behind.

For example, for the first 3 rounds we all play X player games on maps like Classic, or similar "simple gameplay" maps [Brazil, Charleston, etc.] to seed everyone. From there on out, players are divided into tiers by points (earned similarly to this season), so the top 4 play on the most complicated maps for AA (Cricket, Stalingrad, etc.), 5-8 play on less complicated (Oasis, Arm's Race!, etc.), and so forth down the standings. This means as one moves up and down the rankings, you play different people and on different maps, while players joining midway would start on the simpler maps and are less likely to be destroyed early on.

[SuicidalSnowman]

As far as future tournaments, I think we need to start playing more games on fewer maps, or maybe fewer settings? I found this tournament a little hard to follow, although I did like the "play when you want approach." The only problem was that I found myself a bit confused, and when I had a round or two out, I sort of drifted away. I think a future tournament should be a classic AA map, maybe Feudal. We are divided into 4 divisions of 4, everyone plays 4 games, we total the scores, the top 4 play 4 more games for the champ. Or, round 1 is feudal for everyone, round 2 is classic for everyone, round 3 is waterloo for everyone.

What if we tiered the standings by map complexity? Just like learning the maps in the first place, learning to play them with AA has a learning curve and some are much more difficult than others. It also gives players joining the tournament midway a better chance to compete without being too far behind.

For example, for the first 3 rounds we all play X player games on maps like Classic, or similar "simple gameplay" maps [Brazil, Charleston, etc.] to seed everyone. From there on out, players are divided into tiers by points (earned similarly to this season), so the top 4 play on the most complicated maps for AA (Cricket, Stalingrad, etc.), 5-8 play on less complicated (Oasis, Arm's Race!, etc.), and so forth down the standings. This means as one moves up and down the rankings, you play different people and on different maps, while players joining midway would start on the simpler maps and are less likely to be destroyed early on.

A great idea. Bravo. The only caveat is to assess difficulty not just in map features, but also in how they relate to AA (Say, the Conquer4 games. The map is easy enough to understand, but is incredibly complex for AA).

[OliverFA]

I love the idea of starting another AA tournament. AA is my favourite style of play by far.

But what happens if you dislike "complicated" maps? Honestly, I prefer Feudal War to Cricket or Stalingrad any day of the week. I think we should stick with maps better suited for AA.

I think that 6 players per map is better than 4, because it gives a bit more variety in the game. For each small tournament, we could have a minimum of 18 players playing 3 mini-leagues. Then the top 2 players of each group move to the second and final phase. When it is over, we start another tournament. if AA suddenly became more popular, this format can easily be expanded to more players.

What about trying to recruit 18 players for the next tournament? The maps could be:
- Feudal War
- World 2.1
- Arms Race
- Supermax Prison Riot
- Age of Realms 1
- New World

Or similar maps.

As I said, I can help with the scores, and can also share the Excel files to anybody who wants to get/see/edit them.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

I love the idea of starting another AA tournament. AA is my favourite style of play by far.

But what happens if you dislike "complicated" maps? Honestly, I prefer Feudal War to Cricket or Stalingrad any day of the week. I think we should stick with maps better suited for AA.

I think that 6 players per map is better than 4, because it gives a bit more variety in the game. For each small tournament, we could have a minimum of 18 players playing 3 mini-leagues. Then the top 2 players of each group move to the second and final phase. When it is over, we start another tournament. if AA suddenly became more popular, this format can easily be expanded to more players.

What about trying to recruit 18 players for the next tournament? The maps could be:
- Feudal War
- World 2.1
- Arms Race
- Supermax Prison Riot
- Age of Realms 1
- New World

Or similar maps.

As I said, I can help with the scores, and can also share the Excel files to anybody who wants to get/see/edit them.

As far as maps go, I've yet to play an AA game on it, but Clandemonium strikes me as a really great map for AA. King's Court is another one that seems to make a really good, albeit lengthy, AA map.

[denominator]

I love the idea of starting another AA tournament. AA is my favourite style of play by far.

But what happens if you dislike "complicated" maps? Honestly, I prefer Feudal War to Cricket or Stalingrad any day of the week. I think we should stick with maps better suited for AA.

I think that 6 players per map is better than 4, because it gives a bit more variety in the game. For each small tournament, we could have a minimum of 18 players playing 3 mini-leagues. Then the top 2 players of each group move to the second and final phase. When it is over, we start another tournament. if AA suddenly became more popular, this format can easily be expanded to more players.

What about trying to recruit 18 players for the next tournament? The maps could be:
- Feudal War
- World 2.1
- Arms Race
- Supermax Prison Riot
- Age of Realms 1
- New World

Or similar maps.

As I said, I can help with the scores, and can also share the Excel files to anybody who wants to get/see/edit them.

That is my one worry with that type of scoring system - it favours the people that prefer the complicated maps and/or are better at them. Even if all 3 groups score the same in each game (10pts for 1st, 8pts for 2cd, etc.), it will eventually favour the player who is best on the maps in the top group. The only way I can think to combat this is to have the lower groups earn more points than the top group, but that seems unfair as well.

I also think if we're going to tier the maps, those of us die-hard AA players should get together via PM and hash out ~30 maps in 3 or 4 tiers to be played. I just used Cricket and Stalingrad as examples because they're complicated, not necessarily that they're the best AA maps (although I think Stalingrad could be great on AA).

[OliverFA]

And what about allowing each player to choose his own map and settings? If each group plays 6 games, each player will have the chance to score at the map he is best at (or likes most). And we will not be forcing anyone to play in a particular setting. One player can decide to play at Clandemonium with no spoils, another at Feudal War with no spoils, and a third player at Feudal Wat with nuclear spoils.

Anyway, wathever choice we finally make for the tournament(s) structure, I am happy that we are going to have more AA games.

If anyone thinks that the scoring system could be improved, now it's the time to change it before we begin the next tournament I personally like the idea of favouring the winner player while still giving points to the rest of the players, but if someone has a better idea now it's a good time to discuss it.