Some Crazy Tournament Ideas

[greatscythe11]

How about finding the toughest no hope kinda matchups and play them ? Extra points for winning vs the stronger civ in the mu? First one to hit a number wins?

[HUMMAN]

Tourney in nomad age

[edeholland]

Tourney in nomad age

I'm pretty sure everyone would just build their town center at their starting point.

[edeholland]

I tried to compile a list of all different tournament format suggestions. This is not something that we are planning to do or a promise from the staff, but a list that can serve as a point of discussion or inspiration, for viewers, players and casters alike.

I have included every tournament format which isn't "standard". Standard means the format we use in seasonal tournaments, where we have 1v1 series on various maps, with civ restrictions and no special rules other than that.

Keep in mind that "tournament" doesn't mean it's a 120-player big-ass tournament. It could be a weekend tour where we try a certain format for 2 days or it could be used in a weekly smackdown for a month.

Other

• Smurf tournament: players don't know who they are battling, and neither do the viewers. Could even include a betting system where you have to bet on who is playing, based on their playstyle. Downside: hard to manage. Check the thread made by @deleted_user4.
• Coaching tournament: two average, but equally skilled players battle in a 1v1, where two top players coach them in a voice call. If you give the coaches full LOS of the map, it becomes less of a coaching session, but more of test of communication where the coach has to tell the player exactly where to go and what to do. Hilarity ensues?
• Earthquake tournament: all the map files have been damaged, resulting in some very interesting maps. A tournament with maps with all the gold in the center or a map without hunts. Also check We should get crazy with maps from @Goodspeed.
• Casters heaven tournament aka no more crying about maps tournament: this one is played on fixed maps. Totally fixed. The resources spawn in the same exact location every game with 0 variation. You can optimise your strategy around the map and the resource placement.
  
  Tournaments with certain rules
• Colonial 2 only. (You start in discovery age, but you can't age to fortress)
• Blind civ picks (both players choose their civ to play with without knowing what the other player chooses)
• Map is chosen after civ is chosen
• Expansion based tournament: you can only play European civs, Warchiefs civs or Asian Dynasties civs.
• Only 1 civ for the whole tournament (mono civ cup)
• Mirror-only tournament (with or without a randomly picked map)
  
  Tournaments with weird settings
• Fast speed tournament (makes for more fast-paces and interesting games where apm becomes more important)
• Tournament with full LOS (spies)
• Tournament where you start in colonial age.
• Start with an extra town center/covered wagon.
  
  Exclusive tournaments
• ESOC ELO ladder tournament: the top 8 players on the ladder battle it out (aka the "no-way-@EAGLEMUT-is-truly-a-top-player-tournament")
  
  Scenario tournaments
  Players battle it out in scenario's. It could either be an entire tournament for 1 scenario, or a larger battle where multiple different mini-games are played.
• Time-to-micro
• Settler massacre
• Cannibal escape
• Risk, like @Cocaine hosted before
• Tower defender
• Cards, like @Interjection and @_H2O hosted before
  
  Game modes
• NR10/NR20 tournament (we pretty much already have NR10 series now, but the difference would be that you can't attack your opponents' hero)
• King of the hill tournament
• 2v2 tournament
• 2v2 tournament but one of the players on each team is 10-20 PR higher than the other player

[EAGLEMUT]

Tourney in nomad age

I'm pretty sure everyone would just build their town center at their starting point.

I'm not sure actually, could make an all in rush with forward TC more effective? Remember you also get to play with where you put your starting area restricted building radius.

[edeholland]

Tourney in nomad age

I'm pretty sure everyone would just build their town center at their starting point.

I'm not sure actually, could make an all in rush with forward TC more effective? Remember you also get to play with where you put your starting area restricted building radius.

Perhaps, I believe if the building radius of multiple town centers overlap, neither player can build in that area. It would perhaps be possible to deny the enemy from making buildings in front or to the side of his town center (by having a "long" map like Pampas Sierras or Klondike it helps contain the enemy), but in general you are always able to build behind your town center, because your town center radius can't reach behind the opponents town center radius.

It could definitely be fun to try out, but I think it would never be the optimal play, which is what a tournament aims to find.

[aligator92]

I think we should really try this smurf tournament happen. Seems like everyone is interested in it. Invite 8 or 16 top players, give them accounts named after famous generals or mythical figures (or if you only do 8 players, just give them color names) and also make forum accounts for them so they can schedule. Let the fun begin. Given the extra work, 8 players is probably more realistic

Fast speed tourny also sounds fun by the way. Lag becomes more problematic though :/

[Sargsyan]

Smurf tournament sounds fun, fast speed tournament sounds like a horrible idea

[SoldieR]

Smurfs tourney sounds cool, just curious about the potential of multiple people using those accounts..

[deleted_user0]

1 game in smurf tourney and I'm identified

[deleted_user0]

coaching can be fun tbh, but not with full LOS. coach should see what the player sees. so basically they play through the player.

[rsy]

1 game in smurf tourney and I'm identified

So a new Smurf every game then?

[Interjection]

An obs map where the coach can only see what their player sees is possible. Aizamk had a working version of this when he was starting out in the OBS UI. I remember it well

[edeholland]

An obs map where the coach can only see what their player sees is possible. Aizamk had a working version of this when he was starting out in the OBS UI. I remember it well

Isn't that just as simple of playing 2v2 where only 2 guys spawn a Town Center?

[EAGLEMUT]

An obs map where the coach can only see what their player sees is possible. Aizamk had a working version of this when he was starting out in the OBS UI. I remember it well

Afaik @Aizamk tried it and removed it due to causing OOS.

[Interjection]

There was an even older version where the obs spawned in with a military drummer on the same team as there ally.

The version that went out of sync was the one that let you switch player los at will

[91]

Some of these are crazy and maybe difficult technically, but here we go, (I try not to repeat things, I like some of the ideas mentioned already):

• Rich home city: Like nomad, but with many more building wagons (factory, outpost, 3 TC wagons, fort, arsenal, saloon, barracks, stable, art foundry). Remember: some of these can't be built until age 2/3/4 so you need to defend them.
• No mapmakers: Areas turn completely black when you have no direct LOS (even if you scouted previously) forcing you to remember more about the map yourself.
• co-op 1: 1vs1, but each civ is controlled by 2 players
• co-op 2: 2vs2 but let team member's control each others units/buildings
• Politics: Boost *all* politicians like crazy (24 xbows to age2, 15 cav + 4 cannons to age 3 etc)
• The king: Let the explorer (or another unit) be the king. If it dies, you lose.
• Aggressive explorers: Nomad, but you can't build TC until 5 minute mark. Start with a small army squad. Gather treasures, careful not to lose the TC wagon.
• no vils: Start with vils, but make them untrainable in TC.
• disagreement: Start with TCs right next to your enemy (yes, you need to build your colony outside its range)
• Silly home cities: All shipments arrive in the center of the map, same spot for both players
• king of the hill: why not?
• siege: One player attacks, one defends - then switch (needs some work for good balance or it ends up 1-1 all the time)
• individualism: villagers slowly lose hp and dies if they stand close to each other. Forcing you to spread them out over the map.
• China style: First to 200/200 population wins

That's all for now, I might come back later with more

[P i k i l i c]

Very creative ideas!! I especially like Rich home City, Agressive explorers, Disagreement, Silly home city, Koth, and China style

[aligator92]

about china style: palatine settlements + saloon gg no re

[musketeer925]

There's a map in WoL that implements no mapmakers.

Could be particularly fun with a map that has more randomness to it than most.

[SoldieR]

Tourney focused on water play. All maps have at least some water, the least being like baja or manchuria, maybe Hudson bay, but mostly Alaska, indo, jebel, Malaysia, wadmala, summer great lake.

It would give the deepest look into water balance and strategy development that we've seen.

[Amsel_]

@edeholland Is the Mono Civ Cup a tournament where everyone plays the same civ, or does everyone lock in their civ of choice at the start?

[Cometk]

@edeholland Is the Mono Civ Cup a tournament where everyone plays the same civ, or does everyone lock in their civ of choice at the start?

yeah, everyone locks in their civilization before the tournament begins and plays only that civilization throughout their entire tournament run. the way it worked in the original iteration was that players PM'd the admins (myself and @princeofcarthage) their civilization before we posted the brackets and that was their champion pick for the tournament. anyone who failed message us had a random civ assigned to them chosen from their top-3 most played civs according to JP Elo

here are some links for reference tournament information / bracket / civilization picks / FINALS match between Mitoe and SomppuKunkku casted by _H2O and Interjection

[Amsel_]

@edeholland Is the Mono Civ Cup a tournament where everyone plays the same civ, or does everyone lock in their civ of choice at the start?

yeah, everyone locks in their civilization before the tournament begins and plays only that civilization throughout their entire tournament run. the way it worked in the original iteration was that players PM'd the admins (myself and @princeofcarthage) their civilization before we posted the brackets and that was their champion pick for the tournament. anyone who failed message us had a random civ assigned to them chosen from their top-3 most played civs according to JP Elo

here are some links for reference tournament information / bracket / civilization picks / FINALS match between Mitoe and SomppuKunkku casted by _H2O and Interjection

Oh that's cool. The debate between choosing your best civ and choosing a versatile civ must be a tough one.
I didn't realize you guys already hosted one of these though. Looks like I have something to do over the weekend.

[aligator92]

Tourney focused on water play. All maps have at least some water, the least being like baja or manchuria, maybe Hudson bay, but mostly Alaska, indo, jebel, Malaysia, wadmala, summer great lake.

It would give the deepest look into water balance and strategy development that we've seen.

Excellent idea, this would probably shed a lot of needed light on the whole balance discussion.
We would need a good version of summer great lakes as it spawns with missing hunts and mines all the time. But the dynamic with the central water + island is quite unique