The 2003 Tournament will use a different tournament format, but the other procedures from these previous tournaments will be retained.

Internet Empire Deluxe PBEM Championships

TOURNAMENT GUIDELINES

new procedures and rules in green

Tournament Format
Scenario Parameters
Procedure
Victory Conditions
Scoring
Rules and Regulations

Quick Overview

• The two different series were conceived in order to give those who have less time a chance to take part in these Championships. The knockout series requires only 1 match per round.

• We use a variety of scenarios in these championships - random, mirrored, and quadrant ones.  Thus, the champion will be someone who can master different types of scenarios.  The symmetrical scenarios (mirrored and quadrants) are designed so that the starting positions of the contestants will be equal.

• The scoring system has been developed to encourage reliable turnaround rates and to emphasise wins rather than draws. Generally, optimal performance is reflected by quick victories and by stalemates which go the full distance of the given time period, reflecting evenly-matched opponents, rather than stalemates that are due to unreliable turnaround.

Tournament Format

• The round robin series assigns players to groups of 4 or 6 players per round. Each contestant will play everyone else in the group simultaneously. Each player in the 4-player groups will play 3 matches per round, whereas those in the 6-player groups will play 5 matches per round. 3 or 5 different scenarios will be assigned to each group, and the matches arranged such that everyone will play each scenario only once. The championship round will be a 6-player group.

• Group champions will qualify for the next stage, and depending on the no. of players and groups, the runner-ups and lower positions may also qualify for susequent stages. The runner-ups from the 6-player groups will be selected first, followed by the runner-ups from the 4-player groups, then the 3rd placed players from the 6-player groups and so on.

• The knockout series follows a single-eliminaton format. The final surviving player wins the championship.

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Scenario Parameters

• The scenarios in the tournament will be set up as follows:
  • Player #1 = GC player
  • Player #2 = AI player
  • Player #3 = Real player 1
  • Player #4 = Real player 2

• All players except Player #2 will begin with 1 starting city.

• Player 1 will be resigned after the real players have set their passwords, effectively turning a 4-player PBM game into a 3-player PBM game with 2 humans and 1 AI.

• Player 2 will begin with the ownership of 2 single-city sized islands. These will be placed in unobtrusive locations.  Player 2 will be set to Computer - Easy, and with production and combat handicaps of Extreme.  With these parameters, the AI player should be irrelevant for the entire match.  The two human players are prohibited from capturing any of the AI cities.

• The scenario setup procedures described above are necessary to overcome several flaws in Empire Deluxe PBM that allow dishonest activity under certain conditions.

• The scenario for all matches in the championships will be a randomly generated 80 x 60 or 60 x 80 map with wrap enabled and using advanced rules.  The terrain can be hidden or open.  These games have been pre-generated and set-up by the GCs.  For the symmetrical maps, we use a utility that renders the map into symmetrical halves or quadrants.  This means that the north/south or east/west halves, or the NE, NW, SE, and SW quadrants of the map will be mirror images (including city efficiencies and specialities) and players will have starting cities in the same location on one of the halves or quadrants.  No one except the cartographer of the scenarios will know exactly which scenario is random, a mirror, or a quadrant.

• The production capacity for both players will be set at Advantage 2 for the round-robin series, and Advantage 3 for the knockout series.   Combat capability will be set to Advantage 3 for both series.

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Procedure

• The GC will begin the game and play out Player 1's first session. The file will then be forwarded to the first-named player of the match.

• Once you receive the game files from your GC, load the file in Empire Deluxe and enter your tournament name and password when the program asks for Player 3's name.

• If you are the first-named player of the match, you are considered the "home" player and will wear your 1st choice colour. If you are the "away" team and your 1st choice colour is the same as the home player's, you will wear your 2nd choice colour. The GCs will set up the unit colours.

• Check that your production efficiency has been set to the appropriate advantages.  Call up the status report and your efficiency should read 200% (for Advantage 2) and 400% (for Advantage 3) during turn 1 (there is no guarantee it will remain so high after several turns! :-)).  Check that your combat efficiency is at 400%.  If any of these settings are in error, contact your group's GC.

• After saving your game (you might want to rename it using your opponent's and your initials and with the turn number), you will be prompted to send the game to Player 4.  Send it to your opponent for that match. Remember that it is only the two of you, despite the player numbers! :->

• If you are the second-named player of the match, you will be prompted to return the savefile to your GC after your first session. The GC will resign Player 1 at this stage and will take no further part in the file exchanges.

• After this initial round, the players' tournament names will appear on the prompt, so there should be no further confusion. It is also recommended that you rename the savefile into a mutually recognisable format so that you will know which match it belongs to.

• Remember that you are not allowed to capture any of the AI player's (Player 2) cities. These will be set in a colour that is different from you and your opponent's. Anyone caught violating this will forfeit the particular match!

• When a result is achieved, both players should email me and your GC the outcome, the turn number of victory, and the no. of cities owned by each player.

• For those of you who care to record wins/losses of the tourney games in your edplyr.hst file, please take note of a situation that arises when one player resigns in ED and passes the file onto the winning player for ED to thrust honour upon him and all that.

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Victory Conditions

• Victory will go to the player that captures 67% of the cities in the assigned scenario (see the victory conditions table in the series' match schedules). The victory condition (VC) is deemed to be achieved on any turn that the required no. of cities is held by one player, even if the other player has played one turn less. So the first-named player has a tiny advantage (consider it a home ground advantage :)).

• A player who captures the city that gives him the required no. will immediately bypass all remaining units' turns and send the turn back to his opponent while declaring victory.

• Victory will also go to the player who manages to completely eradicate his opponent before reaching the VC.

• There is no minimum turn required to obtain victory but the maximum no. of turns to get a result is 150. No victory can be claimed after this turn (this only applies to the round-robin series - for the knockout series, play can continue till victory is achieved or the deadline is reached). This is to recognise the gallantry of players who have kept each other at bay for such a long time without meeting any VC. As games progress longer, the stalemate will ultimately be broken, and this will unduly penalise the losing player.

• A player who deems his situation hopeless can also award victory to his opponent by resigning.

• If none of the VCs are achieved when the time is up for that stage of the tourney, such unresolved matches will be declared as drawn.

• For the knockout series, games which do not reach the VC will be resolved according to the first criterion that manages the separate the two players in the following order:

1. Whoever has more cities.
   
2. The Aedan formula: whoever has a better total armament weighted by his killed/lost ratio.
   
   Aedan's rationale for separating two players tied on cities is to distinguish between two significant factors:
   1) What is my ability to produce troops? (total armament)
   2) How effective am I at employing them? (kill/loss ratio)
   
   The precise equation will be:
   sum(no. of surviving units * unit hit points) * (sum[no. killed * unit hit points] / sum[no. lost * unit hit points])
   
3. A coin toss.

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Scoring

• For the round-robin series, points and a secondary turn score count will be awarded for wins, draws, and losses as follows:

where
t = turn game completed (either VC obtained, opponent resigned, max turn reached, or turn at deadline).
VC = No. of cities required for victory
n = No. of cities obtained
N = Total no. of cities in the scenario

• Higher points reflect better performance, while a lower turn score relfects better performance. The system thus rewards a quick win over a drawn-out win.

• However, for games ending in a draw, the 100[(151-t)/150] component rewards players who go the distance (all the way to turn 150), rather than dragging their feet. The closer t is to 150, the lower the turn score will be. 151 is used instead of 150 so as to ensure the count won't be zeroed when a drawn match ends at turn 150. The 100[(VC-n)/N] component computes the percentage of cities left to obtain VC for drawn games. This will separate players in drawn games based on the no. of cities occupied.  If t = 150, then it is assumed that 100[(151-t)/150] = 1.  Conceptually, the turn score for drawn games will be how far one is from victory (the percentage of cities remaining before VC) weighted by how far the match is from the maximum turn.
  
• By weighting the loss turn count by a factor of 3, we ensure that losses are not rewarded with low turn counts. The exception is when the loss occurs very close to 150, in which case, the player should be rewarded with a low turn score for fighting to the bitter end :), although he losses 3 points in the main scoring system.

• The following format will be used for the league tables:

where
P = no. of games played
W = no. of games won
D = no. of games drawn
L = no. of games lost
Turn = turn score
Pts = total no. of points

• In the above example, A beats everyone at turn 100. B beats D at turn 50, C beats D at turn 100, B and C tie at turn 100 in a 100 city scenario with a city count of 50-50.
  • For A, the turn score is 100 + 100 + 100 = 300
  • B = 50 + 100[(151-100)/150]*100([67-50]/100) + 3(150-100) = 778
  • C = 100 + 100[(151-100)/150]*100([67-50]/100) + 3(150-100) = 828
  • D = 3(150-100) + 3(150-50) + 3(150-100) = 600

• League positions are first decided on the basis of the no. of points earned. So from the above table, A is the best by virtue of Pts, B and C are tied on Pts, but B is better because of a lower turn score (since he beat D quicker than C did). One can also see that, because of the multiplicative factors, draws are not optimal results for either player unless achieved at close to 150 turns.

• If the overall turn score does not separate two players, the result of the match between those two players will determine the placing. If this match is a draw, the city count will determine the placing. If this cannot separate players, then a coin toss will be the final arbitration:-}.

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Rules and Regulations

• Players must be using at least v 3.10 of Empire Deluxe. The latest version is 3.12 (comes with Empire Deluxe Masters Edition CD). The latest patches are to update to v 3.11 for both DOS and Windows versions. They can be found at Matthias Rauhut's Patches Scrolls site. For the championships, it does not matter if you have the DOS or Windows version. Players must also own an original copy of Empire Deluxe. I will not entertain requests for cracks and that kind of nonsense.

• Because PBEM is slow to say the least, players should observe the following:

1. A one day turnaround time is very much desired. If everyone can get to play at least 5 turns a week, we should be able to complete each stage within 4-5 months. This does not necessarily mean that you have to play everyday, so long as you can keep the average turnaround at once per day (perhaps by arranging with your opponent to exchange 5 turns every Friday or whatever). The minimum turnaround rate should be 4 turns per week.
2. If your world remains normal, you are unlikely to disappear from the Internet completely for long stretches.

• If for some reason you can't get Internet access for more than a week, inform your opponents and try to arrange for makeups. We do not seek to deprive people from their vacations or business trips, but you ought to have the courtesy of informing your opponents if you are going to be away. This is even more important as the deadline approaches, when you should give fairly advanced warning so that your opponents will not feel cheated if you suddenly leave them a few turns short of victory with several days left to play before the deadline.

• If a player feels that his opponent is not meeting the required turnaround without prior notification, he should officially inform the GC and cc a copy to the errant opponent. The GC will then monitor the exchanges between these 2 players for 7 days, unless a satisfactory explanation is received. Whenever a turn is sent out, a message titled "game XX turn xx sent to name" (without the savefile attached) must also be sent to the GC and cc to the opponent. If the evidence collected in 7 days shows that the player under investigation is not meeting the minimum turnaround, then the errant player will be shown the Yellow Card (tantamount to a first warning).

• To prevent players from selectively meeting the turnaround rate only during the monitoring period and then falling off after that, a Red Card will be issued immediately upon receipt of a 3rd request for monitoring. It is then up to the offender to show cause why his match should not be forfeited. To prevent players from making 3 consecutive monitoring requests to get their opponent's match forfeited, there should be at least 7 days after the end of the previous monitoring period before the next request is made.

• A yellow card offence comes with the following consequences:

1. If the match does not reach turn 150 at the end of the particular tourney stage, the offender will be penalised by the no. of turns short of 150 added to his turn score. In turn, his opponent will have the same no. of turns deducted from his turn score.
2. If the match reaches turn 150, no action will be taken and scores and points will be awarded normally.
3. Anytime a victory condition is achieved, the above will cease to apply.

• If there is further misbehaviour after the first yellow card is shown, a player can make a second official complaint and the GC will repeat the monitoring process. If found guilty, the errant player will be shown the red card, which will mean immediate forfeiture of that particular match and the current turn applied to the turn score.

• Note the following properties of yellow and red cards:

1. A red card cannot be issued to a player who receives a yellow card for a different match. He must first be issued a yellow card in that particular match.
2. A player who collects 2 red cards or 3 yellow cards will be immediately disqualified from the entire tourney and all his matches will be nullified. 1 red card and 2 yellow cards = 3 yellow cards because you must have collected a yellow before getting the red.

• Matches which do not result in yellow or red cards being flashed but which also do not reach turn 100, are deemed to be acceptable to both players and will be scored normally.

• If a player has to withdraw from the entire tourney for some reason, all his match results will be nullified. The group standings will then be decided by the results of all other eligible games.

• Kindly do not engage in dishonest activities such as repeating turns until you obtain a desired result. Gamesmanship tactics such as delaying and slowing down to get a draw are also frowned upon. If you win the tournament in this fashion, you only cheat yourself as you will know in your heart that you did not win fair and square!

• Sometimes, players may get into a situation where the game gets corrupted and ED becomes prone to crashes and GPFs.  A telltale sign is when you run the combat report and unit colours start to change.  Most of the time, this is caused by the long name bug, where a city/unit with a long name is being attacked.  Shortening the name usually solves the problem.  Should this situation arise, what players have done in the past is to agree that the defender will not molest the attacker's units who would have tried to take the city in the previous turn while the defender changes the city name. Other circumstance will have to be negotiated between the players in a sportsmanlike way.

• The Group GC will be the arbitrators for any dispute which cannot be resolved by players and their GC. If  not available, the Group GC can appoint other groups' GCs in our place.

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