New Tournament Idea

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Volksgrenadier

Guest
While I was reading through the threads about the different tournaments, because after next week I will be able to participate, too, a completely new tournament mode came to my mind.

This mode removes any balance problems and allows to play even the most unbalanced games one can think about.
Sounds impossible, I know. I couldn't believe it myself first. :D

The mechanism is extremely simple:

Instead of a 1 vs 1 knockout, the best 50% of EACH SIDE survive, the others are out.
How are the best ones determined? By the points.

Example:
player Axis_A vs Alliies_A: Axis total victory 75 vs 11 points
player Axis_B vs Alliies_B: Axis minor victory 56 vs 39 points

Winners in next round:
Axis_A because he achieved 75 points (more than the 56 points of player Axis_B)
Alliies_B because 39 points compared to the 11 points of Alliies_A

So many tricks are needed to achieve balance (meeting engagements, symmetrical maps, blue vs blue). With that mechanism that would only be necessary for the final battle.

Game masters even could create battles and maps without playtesting. Because the best scoring players of each side survive, no matter how unbalanced the game was.

Finally all kinds of battles become possible also in a tournament, without being unfair for one side.
 
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Your basically talking "League" play. WEBOB and OstfrontWG do this now. Only thing is that they usually play several rounds without a knockout happening. Best scores from each Allied and Axis league after those rounds are the winners. After the first round the higher scores are seeded against each other and lower scores play each other. It is adjusted like this each round. Everyone stays on the same side with all having the same disadvantages or advantages of the current battle.

Your knockout idea could work but results might still be skewered if higher skilled players get seeded with lowered skilled players all the time by using a random draw. If you are trying to come up with something to balance everything out you would have to do something similar as they do.
 
@Ritchig took a World Cup approach to LMS IX where we had "pool play" to start. This had us all playing several games before the winners advanced to a single elimination tournament. I have enjoyed it.

I would think expanding pool play into a "season" and turning the tournament into playoffs, a la American football, could be a fun way to keep interest. You could even have a FGM West League (using BN/FI) and FGM East (using RT) to keep interest broad.
 
Lt. Smash said:
@Ritchig took a World Cup approach to LMS IX where we had "pool play" to start. This had us all playing several games before the winners advanced to a single elimination tournament. I have enjoyed it.
Click to expand...

Sadly I can't take the credit @Lt. Smash as the format was inherited from Rico, but thank you anyway, and glad you enjoyed it...
 
This idea improved further:

If the game master would determine the passwords for both players by himself and create the first two password-exchange turns by himself, he could even enforce double blind play on both players (another positive side-effect: and if a player drops out, he could easily replace the player with another one, because he has the passwords).

Since with this method double blind can be enforced on the players something very exciting becomes possible:
For example, to test if a player uses realistic tactics:
Make a briefing like any other briefing - attack battle, victory locations. But like in reality intel could be WRONG. The attacker faces a waaay to strong force to succeed. A gamey rusher would be annihilated, while the players with realistic tactics would recognize the impossible mission and achieve more points.

Endless possibilities.
 
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@Volksgrenadier I like the idea, but I do wonder if like me you have assumed all gamers on here are the same.

I find more and more we have people with quite different game knowledge and game etiquette (for want of a better expression).

We have casual gamers, serious gamers, and people who are trying to simulate ww2 combat- each I think has there own inner set of game rules. And I think the first or most helpful thing in any tournament is to have like minded players - and umpire - naturally.

Just to stress this isn't a criticism of playing styles, it is simple a comment. My attitude is we all paid or dime, so how we play is up to us. BUT.

Imagine you are a lets call them a serious gamer, you walk the terrain, you plan suppressive fire, you phase units with bounding overwatch, and you have mastered timings and pathing.

Then your opponent drives all his troops in trucks straight at you through the objective - hopefully gets obliterated but then surrenders on the following turn - trust me there can't be any game satisfaction in that...
 
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@Volksgrenadier
I always liked when tourney's start with the GM sending out the first turn. It eliminates any questions on taking a sneak peak at the scenario setup before playing. Also, keeping the same group of players playing the same side is the only way to even the field. Yeah, by luck of the draw a stronger player may receive a weaker opponent in the first round but subsequent rounds after that should be balanced by matching up the higher scoring players.

Game setups are tough. If you play meeting engagements you will have players who advance cautiously and those that advance at Blitzkrieg pace to occupy the OZ's first. How to stop that from happening, I am not sure. Unless all games are Attack vs. Defend. Switching it around every round.
 
A similar tournament mode was held by @Facman some years ago.. and was very interesting.. but before ending of turn 2 it was aborted because some players leaved their side and final result would be unfair for reserve players..
 
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