Hi guys, as you all may know if we wait until the end of everygame to the tournament to go on, it would probably go on to end of 2013. So the games will have to be force finished at the announced dates.

This is the formula Fizzer uses in the seasonal ladders: Income(x2)+Number of total armies.

I will use this same formula but with a twist.

Every time a player doesnt make a play in each 24 HOURS he can be issued a warning. It can be given each day, and for every away player. (If two players are away in the 7v7 you can issue 2 warnings in the first day, and have 4 warnings by the end of second day).
Is every teams duty to issue warnings in the public Chat of the game.

Each warning will have a 3% impact in total score, counting for your opponent.
(Income(x2) + Number of total armies)*(1 + Warnings(*0,03))

This way if the players choose to go slow pace way, they can almost double their opponents score and therefore make winning almost impossible.

Hope you guys like it and understand, and as usual feel free to ask any thing that remained unclear.

And by the way, as of tomorrow (SUNDAY july 15th) games in the 1st round will also be open to be issued warnings on slow pacers.

Does it have to apply at the weekends? ... have a heart dunga :)

it wont matter to your team to have a few warnings once and a while, and it wont matter at all if the game finishes. Adding this kind of exception is impossible to control.
The deal is we can know every 24 hours period because the game shows it in the bottom right.
I need to rush in way, this tournament will remain scheduled, so far this is the idea that i got and i think will work it. Feel free to give us idea of how to make the game finish in time, if its a better idea we change it.

when does July 15 start; germany and western us are hours apart and it is Sunday in germany earlier. Also, can the first warning be at 00:00:01 on Sunday or only at 00:00:01 Monday (24 hours after this started). Suggest you use GMT as the baseline.

How about an exception for picks and the first turn? Give people a bit of a chance to notice the game has started and coordinate the start.

I also don't feel so well about the whole thing (I think this system will be seriously gamed rather than game played as normally), but I understand that people will also game the lack of a system if there is none.

In the end, I suggest that we at least wait until Monday 0:00:01 GMT with first warnings. After all, when people don't know about the warning system yet, it's not really fair for them to come home and have knocked their team out of Nations Cup inadvertently when they submitted their previous orders on time and had a schedule that'd fit in well before boot next turn.

We need to know exactly when warnings start as soon as possible, though, since I think a number of games will be decided because of when this time limit is.

Very good points Yeon, for the picks and game start I understand leaving it out.

And how will be this system gamed if by gaming it you should be getting closer to reaching the end game, giving your oponents every time more turns to work?
Slow playing for points can't be done in a game your team is loosing even if by 1%. And the map has too little gap points and too many places to walk for, i think it will still be decided ingame. This first rounds will certainly let us take a look how it will work.

Monday 0:00:01 GMT is fine for the warnings to start.

Well, we have 7v7, 3v3 and 1v1, are the penalties for all of the games? It seems the longest games are the 7v7 and significant time is needed for strategy on those games.

Perhaps a better system would be to use the "Speed" feature and check everyone's average turn length (it shows last 10 turns) and average it to come up with a multiplier?

thats not a bad idea
the teams should be accounted for the slower player than?

the warning system also add a visual boost, players will feel rush, making the pace naturally become faster.

Or some player will play for other Dunga ;) You know what i mean...

Yes, as Niko hints to, this rule probably means we should share passwords within the team. I'm not sure if that's legal within the Warlight rules, but it would be a huge advantage.

Also, I would prefer not to say how to win games using this system since perhaps not everyone will realise how to be lame about it and the less of it we see, the better.

what should we do than?

Remember that after this round groups all games will have to end at 1 month period.

And, cant people already share their password or guide play or have fake accounts despite this rule?

with warning system, can't teams make deals with each other to not give each other warnings

I've seen this happen already

How, praytell, have you seen this when you aren't involved in the tournament?

http://WarLight.net/MultiPlayer.aspx?GameID=2861812

Perhaps a better system would be to use the "Speed" feature and check everyone's average turn length (it shows last 10 turns) and average it to come up with a multiplier?

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thats not a bad idea
the teams should be accounted for the slower player than?

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How about the following:

• Copy each players "Playing speed" list
  
• For each number subtract 24 hours (if it becomes negative, consider it zero; we only want to give a mild penalty to players going over 24 hours, not give a bonus for playing really fast, right?)
  
• Do something sensible to create a "fair" average
  
• Use that average (maybe after some scaling) in the same way you wanted to use the 3% penalties.
  

Let me know if you need help on the formulas. Just tell me how it should work (current assumption: spending 1 minute or 24 hours is "the same"; do you want to mostly penalize going a little bit over 24 hours all the time, or do you want to mostly penalize going far over the 24 hours a single time?) and I'll whip something up.


I like this system a lot more:

• It's less work (less bookkeeping)
  
• If teams decide to make an effort to finish a game, they will benefit (since only the last ten turns count)
  
• I'd feel guilty about issuing a warning like originally proposed; this system puts everyone in control of their own "scoring modifier"
  

Yes, I'm aware really nasty opponents can still game the system a bit (I won't go into details, for the same reason as Yeon), but it only applies to Round 1 (and in later rounds when a team sets themselves up for it) so I think it's not too much of an issue.

with warning system, can't teams make deals with each other to not give each other warnings

Is that a problem then? If each team plays "fast enough" there won't be warnings either. When we reach the deadline, the games can still be ended "by formula", there just won't be any "+3%" penalties that have to be taken into account. If teams agree on this, why not let them?

in my view this is a bad idea

orinocoflows, there's a lot of ideas in this thread; which one do you consider a bad idea? Secondly, could you explain why you think it's a bad idea? Just saying it's bad is not very helpful and not very convincing either... Lastly, do you have a better suggestion?

I second RvW's idea - the original idea of issuing repeated "warnings" seemed unnecessarily antagonistic and I think the spirit of friendly competition would have been ruined by it. RvW, please go ahead and propose a concrete formula so we have something to decide on.

RvW: For your idea, perhaps we don't need an average at all? Perhaps just take the slowest player's record and use that.

I do think that system is more gameable than the initial one, but it's much nicer to
1) Just focus on the last ten turns
and
2) Avoid the antagonistic warnings

So I think it's better.

I'd like to propose a variation on RvW's idea, though. If we're willing to do a little work, then perhaps use a formula like this:


For each of the 10 last turns:
Take the number of hours the slowest player (P) used that turn = X
Take the number of hours the slowest player who isn't on Ps team used = Y

If X is less than 24 then X becomes 24
If Y is less than 24 then Y becomes 24

Z=X-Y

Then Z is the number of hours beyond 24h the slowest team delayed the game. Add this for each team, and allow a mimimal grace (say, 12 or 24 hours total for the last 10 turns). Hours beyond this are added with multiplier to the opponent's score (0.5% per hour?).

Pros:
* It's less gameable (as far as I can see): Delay caused = points lost
* We avoid the warnings
* There is no work to be done underway

Cons:
* It does mean a bit of administrative work when game ends.

Thoughts?