First tournament!

[I like Serena]

So here's my proposed setup in the attached images.

Goals:

• Award 1: Best game report.
  
• Award 2: Earliest game turn to Power Base 200, victory not required.
  

Conditions:

1. Insecticide 1.40h.
   
2. Free selection of the 9 Arcanian Races.
   
3. No save-and-reload (on your honor).
   
4. No fortress strikes, meaning that a fortress attack is allowed only when it is the next obvious target (screenshot would be nice).
   
5. Screenshots and reports recommended.
   
6. Banned: 250 production bug involving 3 Spearmen
   

We start when Catwalk has uploaded 9 savegames next wednesday.

[Catwalk]

So if you haven't explored the entire map yet, but on the visible part there are no cities left. Can you strike the fortress then?

Nooooo, heroes form an important part of the fun.

Heroes are fine, but why do you need to summon them? :P
I'm not sure how to word the rule against fortress strikes. For this tournament, I think we should just require the player to make an educated guess as to whether there are more cities left or not. You'll probably want to explore rapidly with magic spirits anyway, so it shouldn't make much difference.

As to settings, I guess they make sense. I always go Impossible/Strong/Large for the challenge, but since we're going for a different challenge here Hard/Normal/Medium should work.

I'm still in favour of 4 colours minus Life, what does everybody else think?

[I like Serena]

For this tournament, I think we should just require the player to make an educated guess as to whether there are more cities left or not. You'll probably want to explore rapidly with magic spirits anyway, so it shouldn't make much difference.

I like clear-cut rules, meaning no discussion afterwards and it gives a player room for a bit of creativity. If someone does find a way to exploit a rule, that's fun! And in the next tournament the rule will be rephrased or the exploit will be banned (think M:tG).

Edit: And I need to summon heroes because often there are simply to few around - even with Famous! It seems that the faster I expand, the fewer heroes come by. I suspect there is a game-balancer somewhere in the code. (Can anyone confirm?)

[I like Serena]

There is one (new?) exploit that I would like to ban.
Apparently there is a 250 production bug involving 3 Spearmen as mentioned by Coldsteel in the Insecticide forum.

[luddite]

I think saying that you're really not allowed to attack the fortress until all other cities are gone is really going to far, especially since there's no easy way to tell how many cities they have left. I suggest that we just leave it up to the honor system- players can attack the fortress if it's the next logical target to attack, but they're not allowed to go out of the way to capture the fortress at the beginning of the war. If our goal is to maximize mana production, we don't really need to eliminate the AIs anyway.

(This brings up a possible balance change- can we make it so that if you recapture your lost fortress, the wizard automatically returns? Or at least reduce the cost of the spell of return?)

For the awards- how about a second award for whoever writes the best game report? We could vote on that after the game is over. I really like reading well-written game reports, which is one reason I like this site a lot.

[Catwalk]

I think saying that you're really not allowed to attack the fortress until all other cities are gone is really going to far, especially since there's no easy way to tell how many cities they have left. I suggest that we just leave it up to the honor system- players can attack the fortress if it's the next logical target to attack, but they're not allowed to go out of the way to capture the fortress at the beginning of the war. If our goal is to maximize mana production, we don't really need to eliminate the AIs anyway.

I'd much prefer to have the rule be either/or, but I'm fine with dropping it.

For the awards- how about a second award for whoever writes the best game report? We could vote on that after the game is over. I really like reading well-written game reports, which is one reason I like this site a lot.

Alright

[luddite]

I like Serena- I think those settings are fine, but what is that spearmen production bug?

[I like Serena]

I like Serena- I think those settings are fine, but what is that spearmen production bug?

See this post in the other thread.

Edit: I've updated the above post with the suggested changes.

--ILSe

[Catwalk]

Okay, we've almost reached agreement on wizard setup. I suggest the following, still subject to revision (until tomorrow!):
Sharee portrait
3x Chaos (Hell Hounds and Eldritch Weapon)
3x Death (Black Sleep and Dark Rituals)
3x Nature (Web and Earth Lore)
Conjurer
Sage Master

You may choose any arcane race, I'll be uploading 9 save files and you just need to pick out the correct one.

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: None, except no reloading (unless the game crashes) and no abuse of the production bug.

If you'd like anything revised (such as starting spells, as they will be the same for all), just post your request here and I'll tell you why I disagree :P

[I like Serena]

3x Death (Black Sleep and Dark Rituals)

I prefer Weakness over Black Sleep (cheaper and usually has the same effect).