1st Annual Cellar Gaming TripleA Octathalon
Welcome to the sign-up thread for the 1st Annual Cellar Gaming TripleA Octathalon (hereafter referred to as the “Octathalon”). The purpose of this tournament is to help promote some of the great games supported in TripleA. The eight games for this tournament are as follows:
1. World At War (a global World War II conflict)
2. New World Order (World War II, European Theatre)
3. The Rising Sun (World War II, Pacific Theatre)
4. Great War (a global World War I conflict)
5. 270BC (a battle between Rome and Carthage)
6. Total Ancient War (270BC on steroids)
7. Red Sun Over China (Japanese invasion of China prior to World War II)
8. Napoleonic Empires (the upstart French Republic versus its squabbling adversaries)
Players can sign up for one bracket all the way up to all eight challenges! Each bracket is double-elimination, with a maximum of one game at a time against an opponent in each bracket. Due to byes and time spent waiting on other games, I would doubt that participants will have more than five games to play at once for extended periods even if playing in all eight brackets.
Example blank brackets can be found here:
http://cellargaming.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=160
As you can see, up to 64 participants per game are allowed, so the more the merrier! The numbers in the brackets will be used to randomly seed all participants (for the next tournament, the top four players in each bracket will be seeded 1 through 4 and the remaining participants will be drawn at random for positions).
Points towards the Octathalon championship will be awarded as follows in each bracket:
1st place: 5 points
2nd place: 3 points
3rd place: 2 points
4th place: 1 point
All brackets count equally, so the less players there are in a bracket the greater your chance of scoring overall points!
General Tournament Guidelines:
1. The side for each player will be assigned at random throughout each event. A forum roll by the Tournament Director will determine each side, with the top player of the bracket being assigned Allies/Roman Alliance with an even roll and Axis/Anti-Roman Alliance/Central Powers with an odd roll. Once these sides are assigned and posted to the bracket itself, you are free to start your game!
2. In the event that players are playing for the second time (this time in the loser’s bracket), #1 is not used – each player will take the opposite side of the one that he had in the first meeting.
3. For the championship game of each bracket, instead of the loser’s bracket winner having to win two games, only one game will be played. The winner’s bracket winner will choose sides (#1 and #2 will not be used) as the reward for not losing a game going into the championship.
4. All games will be played using real dice. A fixed set of options will also be used for each bracket so that there is consistency between games. These options will be listed in the individual game bracket threads.
5. This tournament is to be played under rules similar to league, but with the understanding that most of us may be new to these games (including myself). Therefore, rulings by the Tournament Director will be based on a “Common Sense” approach, and not be very strict. In the event of unresolved dispute, however, a turn is considered posted once dice are thrown. Also, the 72-hour bump rule can be used, but there will be no automatic disqualification based on the number of bumps. However, the number of bumps may come into play in the event of determining who should move on in a game should a round be taking too long (it is hoped that all brackets will finish by the end of November, 2016, and the tournament will be monitored to keep such a pace). All of this will be on a case by case basis. The point is to be respectful to your opponents, and to let them know if you will be gone for a certain period of time (we all have “life” to attend to sometimes).
6. Games will be played in the A&A forum. This is so we can provide entertainment to the masses/groupies that follow our games. Please have “Octathalon” followed by the name of the game (or game abbreviation) in the forum title so that we know the game is part of the tournament. Of course, player and side is also a good addition.
7. When posting game results, please post to the tournament thread the game information, link to the game, and the winner. I will take this information along with the game save and post it to the Cellar Gaming archives which each of you can access.
8. Prizes? This is to be determined. Maybe plaques, or perhaps a donation to TripleA on behalf of the tournament is in order?
9. The current Tournament Director is DizzKneeLand33.
Brackets will start daily from 12/15/15 through 12/22/15. Because this is the holiday season, some people will need a break for a bit through the end of the year and that is perfectly acceptable (just let your opponent know). Others of us like to have a project this time of year to avoid certain family members. This is why we are posting the brackets prior to the holidays – to save you! But in any event, hopefully everyone will be in the swing of things by the first week of January.
Happy gaming, and remember that the point of this tournament is to HAVE FUN!!
[Note: The Cellar Gaming website is something very small that I have in order to facilitate being able to post tournament results and game saves as a permanent archive. You do not need to register there to play – you will only want to register if you want to post to any of the threads (including game balance discussions, strategies, and so forth). In the event you want to register, there is a two-stage process to confirm that you are human (including email verification) so if you have any issues with getting through this process PM me and I will take care of that. It is preferred that you use the same name there that you have here on the A&A boards.]
The main thread for the tournament and archives at Cellar Gaming is the following:
To enter, reply to this thread and tell me that you are in, along with listing the game(s) that you want to play, or “all” to enter all eight brackets. Thanks!
Current players entered:
I’ll play…just haven’t decided which games yet.
Count me in for all.
Some feedback on map selection (just my thoughts take it as you will):
Some feedback on map selection (just my thoughts take it as you will):
- Like #1, #2, #3, #5, #8 and they are all relatively common/known maps. Rules are pretty straightforward.
- Not a big fan of #4 as its sort of an ugly/outdated map and has way too many cutouts.
- #6 is not a very common map and not sure how balanced it is. Still in development category. Also very similar to 270BC.
- #7 is an interesting/cool map though very complex. I’d be interested to try it but might be difficult to get lots of players due to level of complexity.
Welcome to the tournament redrum and great feedback! I’m hoping that once people get used to the feel of the new maps that they will like them better. Of course if we find that people don’t like a game or two we can update the list for the next tournament (this will be held annually).
#6 just looks fun. I’m not sure of the exact balance, but I’m hoping we will know a lot more by the end of the tourney. As for #7, I have always liked the look and feel of the map itself – although I must admit I’m still trying to consider the many possibilities of using the trains strategically… ;) Lots of new elements there.
hi all ,
finally im here to participate , 1-4 for sure and if needed all , so enemys please ask me playin LL before but dice is the houserule - all good so far .
greetings Day
what about throwing in the Lord of the Rings middle earth one? I’d be okay with removing the 270 BC. I mean, total ancient war kinda covers that. Haven’t played either.
I’ll sign up for World at War, Red Sun, and Napoleanic at the moment.
what about throwing in the Lord of the Rings middle earth one? I’d be okay with removing the 270 BC. I mean, total ancient war kinda covers that. Haven’t played either.
I was seriously considering the LOTR game! But this time I figured we’d go with the more “traditional” warfare. There’s always a chance that in future years a few games get rotated in and out – depending on what tourney participants thinks about them after this year.
The Total Ancient War looks fun, btw! You should consider it. Haven’t played a “real” game with it, but it looks great.
About dice: at least 2 maps are made for ll and hard to do otherwise: NWO and W@W. There are openings that are a must and if they fail the game is lost. I dont think dice is good in those cases.
Similar about Napoleonic Empires. The chances of the game ending in round 1 or 2 are extremly high.
Concerning balancing on some maps: instead of letting the dice decide, what about bidding?
Best regards
Pug
Hi Pug! Well, I can’t speak for NWO, but I can tell you that some of the most amazing games I have played in TripleA are World at War with dice, and the game seems quite balanced. We have had a double round robin tournament going since May, the current results and game saves can be found here:
http://cellargaming.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=159
I would contend that maybe because the map is so diverse, real dice actually gives many more opening possibilities? But you may have lots more experience with the game, so I’m just posing the question, not actually answering it…. :-D
As far as bidding is concerned, after being involved with tournaments with bidding for 15 years, I have noticed in our A&A community that people sometimes only play one side of the game. This is to encourage otherwise. Now, if it appears that the game with dice isn’t quite balanced, we can balance it for next year’s tournament (I would still flip for sides). You could help us with that balancing process by entering if you like! :)
One of the best tournaments I ever held with the old game (3rd edition, CD play) was when I made the bid 18 fixed, and then sides were flipped. In fact, for that one it was a swiss system where “white” would be Allies and “Black” would be Axis, so that players had an even amount games with each side. I think it helps diversify the game.
Is there a consensus as to what is needed to balance out the maps above, or are they pretty close to balanced do you think?
I’ll play W@W, NWO, RS and Napoleonic Empires…haven’t decided on the others yet.
I’m not if favor of LL…I think it takes all the fun out of the game when you know how many guaranteed hits you and your opponent will get before the battle starts. And, I don’t feel it’s necessary in any of the games I’ve selected…you can still achieve most of your opening moves… it’s just a little riskier.
DizzKneeLand wrote:
4. All games will be played using real dice.
I like what you’re trying to do here. I’m also familiar with many of the maps you’re using in this tournament. Each map with which I’m familiar is a good map.
However, the above is a deal breaker for me. I’ve played about 100 games of New World Order. Every single one of those games has been with low luck. (The default option for that map, and the one option for which it was designed.) Low luck is just as important for Rising Sun as it is for NWO. Even for a casual game I’d be unwilling to play NWO with dice. That reluctance is at least doubled for a tournament game. The outcome of a tournament should be decided by skill, not by luck. Because I’ve always played New World Order with low luck, I’ve never had the outcome of any NWO game decided by anything other than skill. Back in the old days (when I used to play Classic and Revised with dice) there were a number of games in which luck, not skill, was the deciding factor.
Well, I know that WaW is great with dice. I don’t have your experience on the maps, and without making this a discussion of LL versus dice, I want to make one small point.
Most of the games are decided by the small battles. Those small battles in LL involve dice. You can still get diced in LL. And in those circumstances, the dicing is less but also less is the chance for recovery. I can definitely attest to being diced in LL personally, in the many cases I am thinking of they involved LL on the Classic maps (I haven’t played NWO with LL).
I hope you decide to join anyway! After all, this is for the fun of the game, and you would be helping some new players learn the ropes for these maps as well as playing some of the old timers. :)
Most of the games are decided by the small battles.
That may apply to the smaller boards, but not to the big maps. On maps like NWO the income and the possibilities are too big for those small battles to have a big impact.
Best regards
Pug
How about this. If there is enough interest in this tournament, we will have this one annually starting in December. I will also start a Low Luck tournament with a similar format in May (opposite sides of the year) and have that one annually as well.
So, then we can compare how each game plays from both a dice and a low luck perspective. But you have to play in both to get the true comparison.
Deal? :wink: :mrgreen:
I will play. not sure how to play them all yet but I will try them all
I do not like low luck sam I am.
but I will give it a go
Hi. Thanks for organising this tournament.
I’ll sign up for these:
New World Order
Red Sun Over China
Great War
Napoleonic Empires
I’m intrigued but unsure, I’d be new to all of the games, would the brackets all be started at the same time (so I’d get 8 new games with 8 sets of rules I have to learn)?
