Tournaments should no longer have civilization rules

[Cometk]

i do agree that there would be less civ diversity overall than NWC rules (unlike what Mitoe suggests) - however, i think civ diversity would still be to an acceptable degree with a no civ restriction ruleset

To be fair NWC rules were overkill. Too long series and too much diversity. At least maps were the same for the whole thing.

On the one hand, diversity is good for viewers, and to some degree good for the game as it gives us additional knowledge as to how some niche scenarios play out. I do see your point however; when it's a somewhat forced diversity, that means that a matchup is seeing play not because it's the best competitively-minded choice but rather, simply, because it was forced. And that's not what the competition should be about.

[[Armag] diarouga]

It seems that counterpicking is too strong. You can have a civ that's good in 90% of matchups but one bad matchup and you can't choose it as your main civ in tourneys. Brit is always voted as a top civ but in nearly every tourney game I watch it loses to Russia.

Instead of no counterpicking I believe a more feasible route is to allow each player to "re-counter" once per match.

Example: player 1 chooses Brit, player 2 chooses Russia, player 1 re-counters with Germany. Final mu is russ vs ger.

The mere threat of getting recountered would prevent player 2 from choosing the hardest counter civ sometimes.

Ye except it would be player 1 chooses Brit, player 2 chooses Russia, player 1 re-couters with Germany, player 2 picks Japan, player 1 re-picks Brit and so on. This circle can last forever, and in the end, the more reasonable of the two players will either accept a MU he didn't want to play, or counterpick with another civ. Being a dick is rewarded with this system.

[[Armag] diarouga]

1) Should probably have to stick to the alternate pick or give a max amount of selectable civs (e.g. 3) so that it reduces the amount of counterpicking.

So you're not for no civ rules at all, right ?

2) The current meta/player level is so far off from that it's not even a problem. If it happens that one civ is clearly the best then ESOC patch will have a purpose (not just civ tweaks but also trying new maps and stuff).

It will get fixed in the end for sure, but it will ruin one tournament for both players and viewers.

I'd like to point out that in the monociv cup there was ton of civ diversity among the top players.

And I explained why, that's because it wasn't a major even, and at least half of the top players picked a fun civ. For instance, I knew that I would have done better with France or Brit, but decided to pick Aztec because I enjoyed it more, same with Hazza and Spain etc.

[Astaroth]

I still don't see the problem with hidden pick, no repeat. It means you have to plan your civs for the matches and there is civ diversity.

Sure it could lead to unfair matchups, but even in the current system with clear counter picks the "countered" player often wins and many games are close.

In aoe2, this system is standard for a reason. Sure aoe3 has more civ diversity and the counters may be stronger, but even in aoe2 there are counters and favorites (eg some halb/siege civs just beat some other civs in lategame).

Also, you can adjust your civs to account for counter-picking. Eg on some maps a few civs are just the best so if the opponent uses a "counter", he might still use a civ unfavorable for the map, making the match somewhat even.

Finally, even if you get countered once, it means your opponent used the civ and you can plan in the following matches accordingly.

[Goodspeed]

He means you agree on a mu, and if you can't it's blind pick. Apparently it worked in the first esoc tourney. If it does work, it's obviously superior to counterpicking rules.

Define "work". This is how pre-EP tournaments worked too, and sure people can agree on a MU just fine but it was mirror city. Preventing that was one of the reasons we started using these rules, and it made the quality and variety of games so much better.

Tournament rules shape the meta, and back then there was a noticeable change in what people were playing in regular games as well. Before counterpicking rules we were in a "mirror meta", meaning most games outside of tournaments were also mirrors. That made sense, because you expected the tournament games to be mostly mirrors so why would you practice anything else? If you wanted to mirror your opponent in a tournament, there was no way for them to prevent that because a mirror is always "fair". They would pick a civ, you would mirror, they would pick a different civ, you would mirror, and eventually all parties realized there was no way around it.

So with many players practicing mostly mirrors, it made not only the tournaments boring to watch but also made the meta outside of tournaments stale and strategically shallow.

Counterpicking rules were imo one of the best changes we made to competitive AoE and it would be a shame if that was undone.

[Aizamk]

Tournaments not having civ rules would at least remove the inherent bias in recent years' tournament data. If you look at the trends you might reach the conclusion that the game is more balanced than before because we see more civ diversity in tournaments. When in actual fact that's not the case because not all civs have pikemen yet.

[Mitoe]

He means you agree on a mu, and if you can't it's blind pick. Apparently it worked in the first esoc tourney. If it does work, it's obviously superior to counterpicking rules.

Define "work". This is how pre-EP tournaments worked too, and sure people can agree on a MU just fine but it was mirror city. Preventing that was one of the reasons we started using these rules, and it made the quality and variety of games so much better.

Tournament rules shape the meta, and back then there was a noticeable change in what people were playing in regular games as well. Before counterpicking rules we were in a "mirror meta", meaning most games outside of tournaments were also mirrors. That made sense, because you expected the tournament games to be mostly mirrors so why would you practice anything else? If you wanted to mirror your opponent in a tournament, there was almost no way for them to prevent that because a mirror is always "fair". They would pick a civ, you would mirror, they would pick a different civ, you would mirror, and eventually all parties realized there was no way around it.

So a lot of players practiced only mirrors. This made not only the tournaments boring to watch, it also made the meta outside of tournaments stale and strategically uninteresting.

Too lazy to do a legitimate reply to this at 4am, but I will say that mirrors are significantly less static nowadays than they were back then. I don't think any of the mirrors I saw in tournaments recently had 2 players doing the same thing.

[BrookG]

I'm fine with no restrictions. Maybe something to spice up things would be to sign up with a main civ, you'd have to play at least once in each round. This would make players focus on their BO more and preparing less MUs. That ofc assuming that multiple cives will appear, and not only Otto and Japan for example.

[Goodspeed]

He means you agree on a mu, and if you can't it's blind pick. Apparently it worked in the first esoc tourney. If it does work, it's obviously superior to counterpicking rules.

Define "work". This is how pre-EP tournaments worked too, and sure people can agree on a MU just fine but it was mirror city. Preventing that was one of the reasons we started using these rules, and it made the quality and variety of games so much better.

Tournament rules shape the meta, and back then there was a noticeable change in what people were playing in regular games as well. Before counterpicking rules we were in a "mirror meta", meaning most games outside of tournaments were also mirrors. That made sense, because you expected the tournament games to be mostly mirrors so why would you practice anything else? If you wanted to mirror your opponent in a tournament, there was almost no way for them to prevent that because a mirror is always "fair". They would pick a civ, you would mirror, they would pick a different civ, you would mirror, and eventually all parties realized there was no way around it.

So a lot of players practiced only mirrors. This made not only the tournaments boring to watch, it also made the meta outside of tournaments stale and strategically uninteresting.

Too lazy to do a legitimate reply to this at 4am, but I will say that mirrors are significantly less static nowadays than they were back then. I don't think any of the mirrors I saw in tournaments recently had 2 players doing the same thing.

Maybe true now, but I think if you switch back to a mirror meta that would change. Top players would make more of an effort to figure out the best way to play the relevant mirrors and everyone else would copy them.

[Mitoe]

I don't think mirrors--or any matchup in AoE3 really--is that simple. There are so many different ways to play now that the map doesn't insta-kill you at 7 minutes every single game. The only time, even in a mirror, that something is 100% the only thing you can do is when it's already imbalanced or broken, like ceasefire was with India.

I actually don't understand why people hate watching them so much. How is it really any different from any other matchup?

[Goodspeed]

I don't think people hate watching mirrors as much as they hate the lack of MU diversity in a mirror meta.

How is it really any different from any other matchup?

In so many ways, but probably most strikingly the fact that mirrors are typically wars of attrition whereas non-mirrors mostly come down to timings where one side tries to exploit a military advantage and the other tries to exploit an advantage in scaling.

[edeholland]

I actually don't understand why people hate watching them so much. How is it really any different from any other matchup?

For me it's because every civ in AoE3 is very, very different. The differences lead to interesting games, for me.

I love seeing Japan vs China because I know Japan has a good active shrine boom while China has a passive boom. Japan has powerful units, but China has the famous 'death ball' of units in age3. Japan loves turtling, but it's important to damage China early on. These dynamics are really entertaining.

Or take Brits vs French, one of the most classic matchups (and often a balanced one). You know Brits has a great eco but trouble getting to age 3, while French can reliably do a semi-ff. Putting the civs' strengths against each other is super fun.

Now look at a Brits mirror, where both players are probably not able to go to the third age and are stuck in second age making musks and maybe lb and huss, half the time the game is decided before it gets to that point. Yes, both have a great eco and longbowmen in age 2, but because both players have the same advantage, it's basically nullified. There is just no diversity in civ dynamics.

[Goodspeed]

Shame I can't link to the staff thread about this from 2015. Believe it or not counterpicking rules were actually rather unpopular then. And then we tried it once, and so many people changed their minds because it just worked. We justifiably never looked back. I think maybe some have forgotten how much better our tournaments became after the rule change.

[inyourpc]

But its sad to see build bots win always. (play standard you know ).

[Mr_Bramboy]

Shame I can't link to the staff thread about this from 2015. Believe it or not counterpicking rules were actually rather unpopular then. And then we tried it once, and so many people changed their minds because it just worked. We justifiably never looked back. I think maybe some are forgetting how much better our tournaments became after the rule change.

I have to agree with this. Spring 2015 didn't have the best civilization rules and it showed. From relatively 'boring' mirrors - from the perspective of the viewer - to the hours of civ dancing and eventual blind picking. There's a reason we landed on these rules. In my opinion, NWC civilization rules are optimal for competitive play.

In the end, it's always going to be impossible to balance this game with fourteen civilizations. Starcraft has its balance issues with only three civilizations - how do we expect an amateur EP team to balance fourteen civilizations, bearing in mind the huge diversity in the maps?

There are two main reasons why I believe we have civ rules and why these civ rules are desirable. First of all, we have to acknowledge the perspective of the casual viewer. Each and every stream I notice viewers and names I've never seen before. A large but silent part of our viewers, especially on youtube, are people who don't necessarily play the game but who do watch our tournaments. They are not interested in stale mirror matchups, even if there is a slight deviation in builds. They are interested in seeing many different types of matchups and maps. This target audience goes unnoticed because they are largely absent on the forums. Secondly, in my opinion being able to play multiple civilizations at a high level is the true test to see who the best player is. Starcraft's competitive scene has evolved to a given where professional players only play one civilization for the simple reason that it's not beneficial to divide up your time between multiple races. This phenomenon has 'leaked' to the non-professional competitive players as well. AoE3's scene was never professional so we didn't see this phenomenom - after all, players played for fun and switching things up by playing another civilization (generally) leads to greater enjoyment of the game. There are unicorn players who specialize in one civilization and one civilization only. Irishfaithful comes to mind. However, almost all top players are comfortable playing multiple civilizations.

I don't currently see any reason to change the civilization rules, but at the same time, I hadn't considered it before. So I'll be glad to hear and read more discussions.

[Hazza54321]

i dont really see the problem with the civ rules we have now. Sure it allows the loser to have more of a chance to win games but the better player should mostly if not always win

[Kaiserklein]

There are two main reasons why I believe we have civ rules and why these civ rules are desirable. First of all, we have to acknowledge the perspective of the casual viewer. Each and every stream I notice viewers and names I've never seen before. A large but silent part of our viewers, especially on youtube, are people who don't necessarily play the game but who do watch our tournaments. They are not interested in stale mirror matchups, even if there is a slight deviation in builds. They are interested in seeing many different types of matchups and maps. This target audience goes unnoticed because they are largely absent on the forums. Secondly, in my opinion being able to play multiple civilizations at a high level is the true test to see who the best player is. Starcraft's competitive scene has evolved to a given where professional players only play one civilization for the simple reason that it's not beneficial to divide up your time between multiple races. This phenomenon has 'leaked' to the non-professional competitive players as well. AoE3's scene was never professional so we didn't see this phenomenom - after all, players played for fun and switching things up by playing another civilization (generally) leads to greater enjoyment of the game. There are unicorn players who specialize in one civilization and one civilization only. Irishfaithful comes to mind. However, almost all top players are comfortable playing multiple civilizations.

I don't think this audience goes unnoticed, at least not to the admins. These people are the reason why we get to play on less competitive maps with less competitive rules. Not blaming them or anything, they're casual viewers, and I think they don't care (nor understand) much about competitiveness in this game. You guys take their opinion into account a lot because, well, they're actually the vast majority of Youtube viewers (and you get more views on Youtube than on Twitch anyway).

So of course what they like should matter. However there should be ways to please everyone at the same time. I can't speak for sure about having no counterpicks, Mitoe says it worked fine, some others says it failed, so idk. I feel like if you give no civ reset, and people have to agree on match ups, it won't just be mirrors. Most people play several civs, but not the same, so I fail to see that happening.
Also please let's not have one map pool for the entire tourney anymore, it's really boring. Like that's something that really confused me, considering we want to have diversity etc. It was so much more entertaining with one map pool per round. Same when no TP maps we removed, it made no sense.
We don't necessarily need super funky rules (or unplayable maps like Yalu river) to have diversity, that's my point.


About your second point, yeah I agree civ diversity should be rewarded. Would even remove the civ reset like I mentioned, at least until BO7 or something.

[Kaiserklein]

i dont really see the problem with the civ rules we have now. Sure it allows the loser to have more of a chance to win games but the better player should mostly if not always win

Well the problem is that yeah, it means you get to lose some games because the match up is just really shit. It's not very interesting for anyone, be it viewers, casters or players, to watch a one sided game because the match up is garbage.

Besides, it basically removes some civs from the pool. Typically, I think I'd play a fair amount of dutch in tourney if I could agree on a match up with them, because after all dutch has a lot of close match ups. But with the current rules, dutch basically counters nothing so you don't want to counterpick with them, and they get countered by a couple civs so you don't want to pick them first either. Conclusion: dutch is one of my best civs atm on the ladder, yet I never play them in tourney (and basically no one else does either). Same can be said about some other civs, like ports for example.

[[Armag] diarouga]

There are two main reasons why I believe we have civ rules and why these civ rules are desirable. First of all, we have to acknowledge the perspective of the casual viewer. Each and every stream I notice viewers and names I've never seen before. A large but silent part of our viewers, especially on youtube, are people who don't necessarily play the game but who do watch our tournaments. They are not interested in stale mirror matchups, even if there is a slight deviation in builds. They are interested in seeing many different types of matchups and maps. This target audience goes unnoticed because they are largely absent on the forums. Secondly, in my opinion being able to play multiple civilizations at a high level is the true test to see who the best player is. Starcraft's competitive scene has evolved to a given where professional players only play one civilization for the simple reason that it's not beneficial to divide up your time between multiple races. This phenomenon has 'leaked' to the non-professional competitive players as well. AoE3's scene was never professional so we didn't see this phenomenom - after all, players played for fun and switching things up by playing another civilization (generally) leads to greater enjoyment of the game. There are unicorn players who specialize in one civilization and one civilization only. Irishfaithful comes to mind. However, almost all top players are comfortable playing multiple civilizations.

I don't think this audience goes unnoticed, at least not to the admins. These people are the reason why we get to play on less competitive maps with less competitive rules. Not blaming them or anything, they're casual viewers, and I think they don't care (nor understand) much about competitiveness in this game. You guys take their opinion into account a lot because, well, they're actually the vast majority of Youtube viewers (and you get more views on Youtube than on Twitch anyway).

So of course what they like should matter. However there should be ways to please everyone at the same time. I can't speak for sure about having no counterpicks, Mitoe says it worked fine, some others says it failed, so idk. I feel like if you give no civ reset, and people have to agree on match ups, it won't just be mirrors. Most people play several civs, but not the same, so I fail to see that happening.
Also please let's not have one map pool for the entire tourney anymore, it's really boring. Like that's something that really confused me, considering we want to have diversity etc. It was so much more entertaining with one map pool per round. Same when no TP maps we removed, it made no sense.
We don't necessarily need super funky rules (or unplayable maps like Yalu river) to have diversity, that's my point.


About your second point, yeah I agree civ diversity should be rewarded. Would even remove the civ reset like I mentioned, at least until BO7 or something.

I guess we'd need a poll to see what's the general opinion, but from what I've read, free pick (like in the 2015 tournaments) wouldn't be unpopular, and I guess we could try it (although it will suck for the admins who will have to deal with a lot of drama).
No civ rules at all however would be unpopular I think. As you said, civ diversity should be rewarded, and I think that the NWC rules with no civ reset was very nice for that. Civ reset in bo3 and bo5 doesn't make a lot of sense imo.

[Cometk]

Also please let's not have one map pool for the entire tourney anymore, it's really boring. Like that's something that really confused me, considering we want to have diversity etc. It was so much more entertaining with one map pool per round. Same when no TP maps we removed, it made no sense.
We don't necessarily need super funky rules (or unplayable maps like Yalu river) to have diversity, that's my point.

Copy-pasting a post I wrote a year ago on the topic.

To summarize, I think it's better to have some consistency in the pools between rounds so that understanding the metagame of the tournament actually matters and it isn't completely thrown out the window every round.

No TP maps were removed because there was literally a 50% likelihood that the matchup would be Russia vs India. If that's not your definition of "uncompetitive" then shoot me in the foot.

in my experience of hosting tournaments over the past year there has been a lot of experimentation with tournament map pool implementations. i believe that at present i have the key to success in this matter. i won't explain in exhaustive detail because i am very sure that i am 100% right

here is autumn 2017's map pool. frankly, it's horrible. a map pool with over half the existing esoc maps, wildly skewed across the stages with no consistency. as a player, you have limited reason to practice for a map as the experience will become wholly irrelevant in the next round anyway as every map is entirely different. i understand the reason for such a map pool; showcasing the great diversity of esoc maps and giving viewers a suite of interesting terrain palettes to look at - "map diversity". a vastly overrated concept, but not without some merit.

fast forward to autumn 2018. a complete 180. fully static, with a map pool just large enough to fit its best-of-9 finals with no vetoes. your strategy on each map will carry over into every series you play, with even some counter-builds and metagaming enabled as your previous strats are made public knowledge for your future opponents. now, this did end up being a bit too extreme - the early maps in the pool become very stale to watch, and i never want to include tibet in a tournament map pool again. skip forward a bit more to

the new year's classic. again featuring a map pool just large enough to fit its finale best-of-7 series', but this time implementing map rotation. the only unfortunate thing in this case was that it was rotating the wrong way - subtracting one map from the front of the pool instead of adding one every round. with a small, rotating map pool, you get all the benefits of practice actually mattering, while promoting map diversity in series' across the tournament. the map vetoes in the early stages of the tournament promoted map diversity as well, while no vetoes in the later stages encouraged achieving mastery in all 7 maps. sans the improper rotation order, we've gotten as close to god as yet to be discovered.

and now the map pool for the underused cup. now, it's a bit different considering this is a weekend tour and not a seasonal major, but imo the map pool philosophy is perfectly suited to the format. small pool, and rotating to add 1 map per round (only really relevant for the ro8+, but that's fine.) no vetoes makes sense as it removes decision fatigue for a physically demanding event while adding consistency - players can actually plan ahead and anticipate without having any unknowns trumping their practice. i wouldn't preclude a seasonal major from having vetoes, but as far as map pool realization, i think this event proves the direction forward.

[Kaiserklein]

Yeah except that doesn't happen. Every round being played on the same maps doesn't develop jack shit, it just makes the tourney boring really, and we see the same civs over and over on these maps. It would actually work if people took it seriously and tried hard to prepare for the maps, but honestly what we saw is just people clicking in as otto and going tower ff anyway, yeah that's definitely pinnacle of meta there.....

About no TP, for one thing that was a balance issue, which we're trying to fix. For another, I fail to see how watching russia and india games on no TP maps is more boring than watching otto every game on dhaka. I didn't say we should have a ton of no TP maps in the pool, but we should have some. It's one style of map like any other, and having none of them in tourney is quite simply bad. And btw civs like brits, japs, dutch or aztecs do totally fine on no TP, the only problem is if you go for these civs you can get counterpicked, which brings us back to the real issue...

Btw I think it's funny it seems to be absolutely accepted that you can win a game on so many of these new maps (wabakimi, dhaka, yalu...) just because your civ can ship a frigate, age up with a vel, drop a tc next to a pond, or even just get lucky with warship RNG... In short, abuse broken water mechanics (but yeah let's pretend warships are balanced). Meanwhile playing on a map that doesn't have trading posts isn't acceptable?

[Cometk]

@Kaiserklein What do you think of this map pool? This was the one used for Empire Cup 2.



In total, there are 8 maps. 5 of them are standard maps, 1 of them (Baja California) is semi-standard I guess, and 2 of them are new maps.

The Ro128 through Ro32 are all on standard maps (I would call Fraser a standard map because a lot of civs are good/fine on it and it's a land map).

From the Round of 16 onwards, every G1 is on the same "competitive" standard map to lead the series with.

In the Round of 16, you get another standard map in G2 and then, if the series goes to G3, you play on a crazy new map.

In the Round of 8, you play on Baja California, which is a reasonably good map in terms of civ viability so I'd hazard it fine to call it a "standard" map, even if I think the layout and some elements of it are "unstandard". In any case it's a reasonable map. G3 is Guatemala, another new map, a bit crazy, obviously with its own metagame yet to develop.

In the Semi-finals you get three standard maps in a row, then Baja California (semi-standard), then Yalu, the crazy new map.

In the Finals you get three standard maps in a row, a standard map in Game 5, and a standard map in Game 7. Games 4 and 6 are played on the new maps.

[Le Hussard sur le toit]

No TP maps were removed because there was literally a 50% likelihood that the matchup would be Russia vs India.

This was only true on low ressource no TP maps, pampa sierra for example had OK diversity during the NWC.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Yeah except that doesn't happen. Every round being played on the same maps doesn't develop jack shit, it just makes the tourney boring really, and we see the same civs over and over on these maps. It would actually work if people took it seriously and tried hard to prepare for the maps, but honestly what we saw is just people clicking in as otto and going tower ff anyway, yeah that's definitely pinnacle of meta there.....

About no TP, for one thing that was a balance issue, which we're trying to fix. For another, I fail to see how watching russia and india games on no TP maps is more boring than watching otto every game on dhaka. I didn't say we should have a ton of no TP maps in the pool, but we should have some. It's one style of map like any other, and having none of them in tourney is quite simply bad. And btw civs like brits, japs, dutch or aztecs do totally fine on no TP, the only problem is if you go for these civs you can get counterpicked, which brings us back to the real issue...

Btw I think it's funny it seems to be absolutely accepted that you can win a game on so many of these new maps (wabakimi, dhaka, yalu...) just because your civ can ship a frigate, age up with a vel, drop a tc next to a pond, or even just get lucky with warship RNG... In short, abuse broken water mechanics (but yeah let's pretend warships are balanced). Meanwhile playing on a map that doesn't have trading posts isn't acceptable?

1) Maybe the issue is the otto ff then ?

2) We're trying to fix it, but it won't be enough let's be honest. And it's not just a matter of getting counterpicked, Russia counters every civ on no TP maps so even without civ rules it would be Russia all the time.

3) That's because many civs can fight for the sea, while Russie dominates the no TP maps, so there is some diversity on water maps at least. Furthermore, playing the pond war is actually not simple from a strategical point of view, you need to hit a timing on the sea, sometimes go for a tower, or add culvs. There are many decisions you need to make. With Russia you just rush.

[knusch]

the one thing i might add is that having Yalu River, Guatemala or new maps in general as 3rd map in a bo3 is kinda awkward, since if u win g1 u get counterpicked in g2 and play matchpoint on a map that u havn't played yet xD