Organized Tournament Play Discussion

[DoManMacgee]

@barnee Alright. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I think the ideal system actually would be something like the following:
NOTE: This is ludicrously ambitious
0.) 1v1 format. Team-based formats artificially lower the player count in a series that is already extremely niche and struggles to find enough players to host live tournaments.

1.) Create a list of “tournament legal” A&A games
my preliminary list would be, in no particular order:
AAC 2nd Edition (i.e. the Milton Bradley Gamemaster version without the extra rules added in the PC game).

AAR - LHTR
AA50 - 41 scenario
42SE - LHTR
G40 (Possibly. Mostly need an odd number of games)

2.) Create tournament rules for each of those games that are more sane than what is currently available, as the On-The-Board VCs are limited by the fact that they’re historically relevant locations rather than strategically relevant ones.

• Classic has no VCs to begin with so either VCs would be need to be added or there would need to be some other way of determining a winner once time has expired in such a way that can assist with tiebreakers in a Swiss tournament (more on that below).

• OOB VCs in Revised are terrible, which has led F2F tournaments to implement custom VCs

• IMO the VCs in AA50/42SE are not particularly great, but that’s heavily negotiable.

• G40 has a lot of VCs so that game may possibly be salvageable. Not sure as I have never been particularly good at G40.

3.) Have Renegade work with a combination of online events, local conventions (like the ones specifically mentioned by djensen in his OP) and board game conventions they attend across either the planet (or just the US/Canada if money is an issue), and set up regional-level tournaments where 1st place gets a free trip to worlds (which can be at Gen Con or some other location) and 2nd-4th get an invite to worlds (but they have to pay their own way). Alternatively, rather than having players qualify for a world finals, league points can simply be assigned to strong finishers as per djensen’s idea in the OP.

4.) Have the World Championship have actual cash or merch prizing for top X finishers (and not just free copies of games everyone already owns as was done at Gen Con last year. I would like the merch to be special like the custom trophies than Greg makes for the Gen con winners, to give just one example.).

5.) Tournament structure would be as follows:
A. Enough Swiss rounds to be relevant to the number of entrants to actually determine a Top 4/8 (depending on number of entrants). If you don’t know what a Swiss tournament is, just ask and I will elaborate
B. Cut to said top 4/8, who then have a basic playoff for the championship.

6.) Match procedure would be as follows:
A. Die roll. Winner of the die roll gets to determine one of the following:
i. First game to strike/second bid offer in-game.
ii. First bid offer in-game/second game to strike.

B. Players are allowed to gentleman’s agreement a version to play if so desired. If no agreement is reached, “Striking” begins:
i. Player A chooses a game from the list of “tournament legal” games (see Step #1) to NOT play.
ii. Player B does the same from the remaining games.
iii. Player A and B do this one more time. At this point only one game is left to play.
iv. Begin bidding on the specific game version selected after striking.

C. Bid rules are same as you’d normally expect.

D. Implement some sort of time limit for players’ turns to prevent intentional slow play. This would be something concrete like a chess clock or a hard-timer for specific parts of players’ turns (purchase, combat move, NCM, placement) with the goal of stopping players from artificially slowing the game when they are in an advantageous position with the intent of winning when time is called.

Okay rant 1 of 2 over.

I put this nightmare of a system together because I attended Renegade’s world championship at Gen Con last year and, while there is potential there for a grandiose, officially sponsored tournament, I had issues with a few aspects of the event:

1.) It was an open tournament, so really only people in and around the Indiana, USA area could attend. I tried asking several people I know in the community to be my teammate (since it was a 2v2 format) and all of them said no for the extremely obvious reasons that the drive was too far and they did not like the version being played (42SE).

2.) The version for the event was 42SE. Even with the LHTR adjustments 42SE is not considered a top-notch game by most peoples’ standards in the community (unless opinions have drastically changed since I was last super-active). Furthermore, I think giving the ambitious title of “world champion” based on who’s the best at just one version of the game is absurd. My favorite version is Revised (another unpopular edition) and I consider myself quite good at it, but I know for a fact that I am far from the best at Classic and G40 in particular. Other people have different tastes, and a system where multiple editions of the game are “legal” would create an environment where a “Champion” would have to prove their skill across multiple game editions instead of just one.

Again, this is extremely ambitious and I doubt the idea would take off but it’s worth a shot. Sorry for clogging the thread lol.

EDIT: Added some details I forgot in the first run. Copy/Paste was not my friend here.

[barnee]

@DoManMacgee

Awewsome ! That wasn’t that long of a read :) Well done !

I agree with your point about teams. A team can be one player, although two is encouraged.

Actually, Revised is quite popular on triplea and they have several tournaments a year. Think one is being formed now )

No apologies necessary :)

[gamerman01]

@DoManMacgee

(PM sent)

I think your (detailed and ambitious) ideas should be in their own event thread.
My lone opinion is that Dave’s ideas for a Cup 2024 should be developed on the foundation he laid out…

[hawkeye999]

@DoManMacgee this sounds great

[Slip Capone]

Great thought put into this mate.

Regardless of version there really needs to be better than the OOB VCs like you stated.

I am sure the Victory Terriory system from WBC could be replicated/transferable (even if not exact locations) to something like Anniversary.

Especially since it is being released.

Revised is also my favourite but for some reason is a hard sell to players and I think it is purely age.