First tournament!

[Catwalk]

TOURNAMENT FORMAT

Wizard
3x Chaos (Fire Bolt and Eldritch Weapon)
3x Death (Weakness and Dark Rituals)
3x Nature (War Bears and Giant Strength)
Conjurer
Sage Master
Race: Any arcane race, there are 9 save files and you just need to pick out the correct one.

Settings
Hard difficulty
Medium land mass
4 opponents
Normal node strength

Objective
Reach a power base of 200 (excluding conjunctions and moons) as soon as possible, using any means necessary!

Variant rules
- Magic Spirit may not be used for exploration!
- You must capture at least 3 cities of pop 5+ from a wizard before attacking his fortress
- Banned: Coldsteel's 250 production bug.

Instructions (IMPORTANT)
Download the save here, pick out the race you like best, rename it to save1.gam and copy it into your MoM folder. Note that we're using kyrub's patch v1.40f for this tournament AND you must enable revolting raiders + rampaging monsters! Also remember to disable strategic combat, it may be enabled by default.

[Catwalk]

I'll get the ball rolling with a few top-of-my-head ideas:
1) Custom scoring system
2) Same starting conditions, to keep things simple (was a pain to edit all that stuff last time around)
3) Random map, unless someone feels like making one
4) Possibly a few variant rules, such as disallowing fortress strikes

[I like Serena]

Perhaps the old links of Jarvinen may be useful here?
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kaarsen/jarvinen/tourney.html
Edit: or:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kaarsen/jarvinen/cups.html

I do wonder what happened to Dick Jarvinen, Greg Mowery, and Robert Clark?
They wouldn't have gotten kids or something like that, and have no time whatsoever for MoM?

[b0rsuk]

Although I'm not very likely to participate...

- I prefer random maps instead of having a random player project his bias onto a map.
4. Disallowing fortress strikes - how do you verify that ?

[luddite]

One idea to keep the scoring simple- fastest victory wins. Doesn't matter what tactics you use to achieve that (although of course ban the 11-book starts).

Another which might be more interesting- you start with just 1 book of magic, or maybe even 0 books and all retorts. The goal is to conquer nodes (powerful magic setting) until you've accumulated a full 11 books of magic. Again, fastest to do that wins. The theme would be that you're an apprentice wizard struggling to "master magic".

[Psyringe]

4. Disallowing fortress strikes - how do you verify that ?

You can't. Well, theoretically you could (e.g. require the player to record his whole game with FRAPS and sending the video in), but this is impractical for the players as well as the tournament managers. Usually such tournaments run on an honor system - you declare some rules, and then trust the participants to adhere to them. It would be pretty lame to cheat in a tournament like this, so one generally hopes that no one's so bent on winning at all cost that he betrays the others.

[Catwalk]

Although I'm not very likely to participate...

- I prefer random maps instead of having a random player project his bias onto a map.

I'd much prefer a designed map, it just takes time to create it. I don't see a problem with a player projecting his bias on the map, a designed map is likely to be more interesting.

4. Disallowing fortress strikes - how do you verify that ?

As Psyringe pointed out, people can cheat all they like if they want to. If you mean from a player perspective, it's not too difficult to do extensive exploration. But yes, it would be possible to break this rule unintentionally if you're convinced the wizard only has his fortress left. As long as people make an effort not to break it, I'm not too worried.

One idea to keep the scoring simple- fastest victory wins. Doesn't matter what tactics you use to achieve that (although of course ban the 11-book starts).

I agree with time being a big factor, but I don't like having different setups. Unfortunately, editing spells were a royal pain the ass last time I hosted a tournament like that.

Another which might be more interesting- you start with just 1 book of magic, or maybe even 0 books and all retorts. The goal is to conquer nodes (powerful magic setting) until you've accumulated a full 11 books of magic. Again, fastest to do that wins. The theme would be that you're an apprentice wizard struggling to "master magic".

I really like the node conquest objective, possibly combined with others. I think book accumulation would be a little problematic as that's way too random.

[Jtm]

You can't. Well, theoretically you could (e.g. require the player to record his whole game with FRAPS and sending the video in), but this is impractical for the players as well as the tournament managers. Usually such tournaments run on an honor system - you declare some rules, and then trust the participants to adhere to them. It would be pretty lame to cheat in a tournament like this, so one generally hopes that no one's so bent on winning at all cost that he betrays the others.

I agree. There's gotta be some degree of trust here since there is no way to quarantee this -- even FRAPS wouldn't make it 100% sure. Afterall this game is just binaries and any binary can be altered. If one decides to cheat or use exploits on purpose, shame on him/her since he/she would only cheat himself/herself and I'd feel sorry for him/her. Honor system works fine. Besides, guys and girls, take this as an opportunity to have fun and relax with challenge given

Another which might be more interesting- you start with just 1 book of magic, or maybe even 0 books and all retorts. The goal is to conquer nodes (powerful magic setting) until you've accumulated a full 11 books of magic. Again, fastest to do that wins. The theme would be that you're an apprentice wizard struggling to "master magic".

I like this idea a lot. Unfortunately there is no way to quarantee AIs dont touch the nodes that give needed books. However it could be easy to quarantee every node gives a special reward (probabilities: 74% book & 26% skill)

[luddite]

I would think that on the powerful magic setting, there should be enough powerful nodes to almost guarantee enough to get 11 books eventually, right? Some nodes can even give multiple books. And you can boost your chances of a book by hiring 6 heroes or conquering it with an army of 9 units (so that the node can't give you a hero).

I agree that it's heavily based on luck, but then, there's a lot of luck in almost everything in this game. Hopefully there's enough random elements that it just averages out over time. And if we're playing a tournament just for fun, with no prize, (which on this site is called an epic) then it doesn't matter much if one player gets bad luck and another has really good luck.

[Catwalk]

I would think that on the powerful magic setting, there should be enough powerful nodes to almost guarantee enough to get 11 books eventually, right? Some nodes can even give multiple books. And you can boost your chances of a book by hiring 6 heroes or conquering it with an army of 9 units (so that the node can't give you a hero).

I agree that it's heavily based on luck, but then, there's a lot of luck in almost everything in this game. Hopefully there's enough random elements that it just averages out over time. And if we're playing a tournament just for fun, with no prize, (which on this site is called an epic) then it doesn't matter much if one player gets bad luck and another has really good luck.

For me, luck is precious little fun. I have pretty strong feelings on that matter, and probably disagree with most people who are more relaxed about luck. Anyone is free to host a tournament to their liking, but as long as I'm hosting the tournament I'll banish luck to the best of my ability :P

How about simply having node conquest be the sole game objective? First player to conquer all nodes wins. Would provide a very unusual game experience, as you'd have to strategerize a lot for node conquest at an early point. Probably to the point of not wasting much firepower on enemy wizards, who just might grow large enough to be a threat. Large land mass to make them a little more dangerous, and maybe a somewhat handicapped wizard setup?