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>> Grand Tour Season 2 Standings <<
Event 1 out of the way! A special thank you to @Kaiserklein for once again proving that @Mitoe is, indeed, a top player, and a congratulations to the first event leader of the Grand Tour Season 2! Unfortunately there are no new badges to give out as Mitoe is already a weekend tournament winner, but regardless, yesterday's event was a lot of fun. Given the tournament format, we got to see a lot of rare matchups and uncommon gameplay (I mean, how often do you see Ottoman Jan/Culv ousting a Portuguese artillery mass?) 14 hours of raw AoE3 content spread across two channels culminating in a duel between the top 4 seeds of the tournament, all of whom will be competing in the upcoming LAN in July. We also racked up $265 in donations, of which 50% will be directed to our favorite characters' coffers. A great show, and indicative of more great stuff to come!

It's wise to take a step back and look at ways we can improve the competition. A few questions, for players and viewers alike:
- What did you think of the map pool - and particularly the no vetoes aspect?
- What did you think of the Underused format? Would you like to see more limited formats (another example being the Mono-Civ Cup, basically formats where some aspect of the gameplay is restricted)? Thoughts on a further limited, Rarely Used format that bans the most-used/best-performing civilizations of the UU event? (hint: it was actually China)
- Preference on when to start the event. Should we roll the tournaments back to start at 14:00 GMT, or is 15:00 GMT sufficient?
- There are certainly more aspects to consider, but I'll leave it here for now. All feedback is greatly appreciated!

Finally, a thank you to the folks that allow us to continue putting on these events.
Our unflagging casters: @chrisie, @loloekie10, @deleted_user4, @bwinner, an honorable @Vinyanyérë, @Interjection, @TheZeroEmpires, and a pinch @Kaiserklein
Our beneficent donors: @Warno, @Vafurx, Mr. myPRis50, @Interjection once again, and @Kawapasaka
Our fastidious event coordinators: @BrookG, @Hamu3l, & @robo

How about a UU mono cup?

Very well done event, things seem to flow smoothly. Thanks to everyone who organized/played in it.

I would love to see a one day tournament like this every month, they don't have to be this long. Maybe cut out the first couple of rounds and shorten it to BO3 if the players think it is too much for one day.

Some Ideas for tournament:
1) Unknown map Tournament - With Some minor script fixes to Unknown map, this map is used throughout. This map could actually lead to some interesting game plays for reasons I won't mention.
2) From start to final, finalists will play maximum of 14 matches with 14th being the last match, and no civilization can be repeated throughout the entire tournament regardless of win/loss.
--- For ex. Bo 1 Bo 1 Bo1 , Bo 3, Bo3, Bo5, Minimum civilizations and matches played by winner - 10, maximum 14
3) Fixed Civ Cup - Players will select 2 Euro, 1 Twc, 1 Tad. in any order of their choice and will continue to play the civilizations in the same order regardless of win/loss throughout the tournament.
4) No natural resource cup - Basically settler massacre but with more decent map, treasures, ban on hunt/tree shipments.
5) No shipment cup - No shipments can be sent throughout the tournament.

All of it was so much fun. I loved the rules, it was tiring to see France vs France vs France vs Brits.

The two streams was perfect and there was basically no downtime whatsoever. Both streams were great, too. Overall this was so much fun yesterday. Map pool was great. How many viewers did we hit total, peak?

So much fun. Thanks all

King of the Hill tourney anyone?

Cav-only tournament

Thank you to everyone who donated, organized and played!

- map pool seemed fine, liked the no veto rule
- was nice seeing some rare civs and MUs
- starting a little earlier seems good to me, dunno if it is doable for our friends across the pond

I would like to see a tourny with a water map heavy map pool (maybe ban ports for this?)
I also like @princeofcarthage idea of limiting the number of times, you can use a civ during the entire tourny (rather gimmicky and not super competetive but should make for interesting matches when Top4 players have to save their best civs for the semis and go into uncomfortable MUs in the RO16 for instance)

Maybe start a bit earlier and have BO3s come in earlier?

Lukas_L99 wrote:Maybe start a bit earlier and have BO3s come in earlier?

tbh I already felt like it was quite long already, I was tired after the tourney. Maybe that's because I have started to cocast right after I stopped playing, but I guess that's even worst for the player who play longer. Playing several tourney games with presure in a row is a big effort for the brain.

Casht

while we're at ideas, we could shamelessly copy the AoE2 Hidden Cup, seems like a fun setting

bwinner1 wrote:

Lukas_L99 wrote:Maybe start a bit earlier and have BO3s come in earlier?

tbh I already felt like it was quite long already, I was tired after the tourney. Maybe that's because I have started to cocast right after I stopped playing, but I guess that's even worst for the player who play longer. Playing several tourney games with presure in a row is a big effort for the brain.

Yeah, I had to play my last 3 matches back to back with no break, basically 4.5 hours of non stop playing. BO3 earlier would be nice because it makes it easier for the better players to advance, but it just complicates the timetable too much IMO

pecelot wrote:while we're at ideas, we could shamelessly copy the AoE2 Hidden Cup, seems like a fun setting

It is a lot of work to organise.

robo wrote:

pecelot wrote:while we're at ideas, we could shamelessly copy the AoE2 Hidden Cup, seems like a fun setting

It is a lot of work to organise.

It would be, however one thing that aoe3 players have as an advantage is everyone has a smurf, most have multiple that other players don't know of. If you keep the cup small, say top 16 players, I think it'd be possible.

It's actually way more problematic in AoE3, for example because of having to create a ton of decks on a throwaway account.

What about using GR, that's far easier? It obviously wouldn't work as a weekend tournament, but as a month long tourney or something i can see it working well. I'd more than happy to donate a nice amount to the prize pool too.

Where are the statistics of civs, maps, MUs etc??

chu chu

Starting earlier would be nice for those in Asia like myself, but perhaps not so nice for the Americas.

I don't think limiting civ picks to once per tournament works out well in practice. They did this in one of the major AoE2 tournaments a few months back, unfortunately I don't recall which one.
The problem was that players with an easier bracket could save better civs for later, giving those players a significant advantage in the later stage over others who came through a tougher bracket. This gets worse if you're doing BO3 (or more), since winning 2-0 against an easier opponent saves you an extra civ compared to another player who goes 2-1 against stronger opposition.

pecelot wrote:while we're at ideas, we could shamelessly copy the AoE2 Hidden Cup, seems like a fun setting

Wait, did aoe2 steal my smurf tourney idea

Riotcoke wrote:What about using GR, that's far easier? It obviously wouldn't work as a weekend tournament, but as a month long tourney or something i can see it working well. I'd more than happy to donate a nice amount to the prize pool too.

If players knew how to use GR this would be a good idea... haha

Thrar wrote:Starting earlier would be nice for those in Asia like myself, but perhaps not so nice for the Americas.

I don't think limiting civ picks to once per tournament works out well in practice. They did this in one of the major AoE2 tournaments a few months back, unfortunately I don't recall which one.
The problem was that players with an easier bracket could save better civs for later, giving those players a significant advantage in the later stage over others who came through a tougher bracket. This gets worse if you're doing BO3 (or more), since winning 2-0 against an easier opponent saves you an extra civ compared to another player who goes 2-1 against stronger opposition.

That was the early stages of King of the Desert 2.

The way it should be done imho, is only the first 2 civs used in a Bo3 (3 in Bo5, 4 in Bo7 etc) are removed from your available pool of civs. so that there is no (dis)advantage in what the scoreline is for each match.