2023 AoE 2 Nations Cup [$15,808 Prize Pool Currently]

Dear AoE 2 community, this topic (Nations Cup Waiting Room) has hurt me a lot. In summer 2020, I already tried to give the community something similar with the 2020 AOElympics while waiting. Many of us believed the follow-up of the great 2017 Nations Cup would come soon, in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022... But it never came.

Therefore, I am offering you my approach. I will organise the 2023 4v4 Nations Cup, starting in around 5 weeks. Registration will be open until Saturday, January 28, 20 GMT. The qualification stage will begin in the following week.
This will be a tournament for fun and prestige. However, if anyone wants to contribute to a prize pool, you can do so via the tournament's Matcherino page: https://matcherino.com/t/nc23 where you also can see the current donation sum at all times.

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The exact rules and settings will follow soon, but some important key points are:

• The main event will consist of a group stage (8x4 teams) and a double-elimination knockout stage.
• Max. 4 teams from one nation can enter the main event.
• Teams consist of 4-10 players, substition and addition of backup players will be possible at certain stages of the tournament.
• When a team registers, they have to give list of up to 5 maps which they want to have in the tournament. The maps with the most points will be added to the map pool. So you decide a part of the map pool!
• How exactly the qualifying phase works will depend on the number of registered teams; more about that later.
• A Silver League for teams that don't qualify for the 32-team group stage will happen, if we have enough interested teams.

Staff currently are @Huehuecoyotl22, @enmipho, @paradox303, @welcometorapture and @Akkal.

Any questions and discussion, as well as the registration can start on the 2023 Nations Cup Discord now: https://discord.gg/5fBkzfqHhb

Everybody is welcome!

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@Adico is now part of the extended team. As of now he has no admin duties during the tournament, but he helps with the planning and is as paradox posted responsible for suggesting Matcherino to make the donation and budget status more transparent.

 

I vote for just 15 different arabias, so more maps works for me. (dry arabia, green arabia, arabia, KOTD arabia, HC arabia, runestones, etc.)

 

@Huehuecoyotl22 does the max. 4 Team per Nation also apply to the qualifier? Or just in the very unprobably case more than 4 Teams would actually qualify?

 

Also having people voting on maps, should rather lead to more common maps and not "crazy maps"

Some people dodge runestones and cenotes because they're such crazy maps, so God forbid something as wacky and and outlandish as acropolis or medi gets in

That being said I think 15ish maybe 20 maps is perfectly sufficient to give a wide range of options covering most or all bases, having 40 just seems to hurt preparation

 

@Huehuecoyotl22 does the max. 4 Team per Nation also apply to the qualifier? Or just in the very unprobably case more than 4 Teams would actually qualify?

The qualifier will be unlimited, just the 32-team group stage will have a limitation.
All other teams from one nation will then also be allowed to play in the Silver League, which will happen if enough teams want to play there.

 

Some people dodge runestones and cenotes because they're such crazy maps, so God forbid something as wacky and and outlandish as acropolis or medi gets in

That being said I think 15ish maybe 20 maps is perfectly sufficient to give a wide range of options covering most or all bases, having 40 just seems to hurt preparation

We are not done yet with the discussion, but currently we are leaning towards having a few fewer maps in the qualifier, which will be decided earlier (e. g. 11 maps) and then add a few more starting from the group stage (to have any number between 13 and 17 in total).

 

Ready to come back and practice hard

 

Ready to come back and practice hard

Come back and show us some big plays again

 

everyone pls include frontline in the maps, that is all

 

Where atoll

 

Every piece of feedback you have gotten on maps has *begged* you to not have dozens of crazy maps, and yet you just ignore all of it.

Warlords had 21 maps, did you consider that a crazy map pool?

 

A bigger Mappool is good for a long tournament and it also gives more chances for the lower rated teams, so please keep that!

Dont forget that these tournaments also develope the playstyle because teams start to think about maps and strategies

 

Warlords had 21 maps, did you consider that a crazy map pool?

Migration(7) and arena(6) were picked the most, Baltic and Chaos pit were never picked/played. There were 9 maps which were picked once. <<Migration-Arena-Nomad-Socotra-Fourlakes were all picked more than arabia>>
Overall, I would say the tournament used most of its maps.
This is from a total of 56 picks (one BO5 + Six BO7 + One BO9).


Now for TGs, I thought BO9 would be way too long. But looking at Battle of africa and warlords, both finals came out to be roughly the same(4 hrs for BOA 9 games, while 4 hrs for Warlords 7 games)

So I stand corrected. I felt/thought that TGs would be much longer, too many maps dilute the experience, and most non standard maps would be skipped.

Now I feel that 15-20 maps is fine if we have BO7s for quarters and semis.
If we go more than 20 maps, I would suggest Ban the most picked map from the previous round.

 

Now for TGs, I thought BO9 would be way too long. But looking at Battle of africa and warlords, both finals came out to be roughly the same(4 hrs for BOA 9 games, while 4 hrs for Warlords 7 games)

Team games are extremely variable in length, especially with a range of maps
You can get clapped in 15 mins because they spammed archers slightly better than you spammed archers or it can be a 3 hour BF slogfest

 

Sling should be allowed ( idk if it is )

 

Team games are extremely variable in length, especially with a range of maps
You can get clapped in 15 mins because they spammed archers slightly better than you spammed archers or it can be a 3 hour BF slogfest

Yeah, at a pro level they know when it's over. I was just surprised that 3 hour slogfest don't overpower the quick matches significantly.

 

Sling should be allowed ( idk if it is )

It will be, but with restrictions. The player who is slinging has to be one age above the player they are slinging to. This will be mentioned in the handbook when it comes out.

 

I wasn’t ever around when true sling was allowed in TG tournies so take this with a grain of salt.. but could it ever work to allow unrestricted sling in X number of games in a set?

So keep the standard sling rules (slinger must be one age above slingee) for the set but for 1 game (bo3), 2 games (bo7), 3 games (bo9) a team could go full unrestricted sling. So teams could strategically pick which maps and games to use sling on to try to get an upset or exaggerate an advantage on a certain map and the other team would have to recognize and respond in real time.

Could be a dumb idea but I think I’ve heard some pros say they miss the creativity that full sling allowed and this would be some sort of compromise so you didn’t just see full wall and sling every map but still allowed teams to think of unique strats.

 

with everything argentina!!

 

I wasn’t ever around when true sling was allowed in TG tournies so take this with a grain of salt.. but could it ever work to allow unrestricted sling in X number of games in a set?

So keep the standard sling rules (slinger must be one age above slingee) for the set but for 1 game (bo3), 2 games (bo7), 3 games (bo9) a team could go full unrestricted sling. So teams could strategically pick which maps and games to use sling on to try to get an upset or exaggerate an advantage on a certain map and the other team would have to recognize and respond in real time.

Could be a dumb idea but I think I’ve heard some pros say they mix the creativity that full sling allowed and this would be some sort of compromise so you didn’t just see full wall and sling every map but still allowed teams to think of unique strats.

I’ll certainly note this for future events of my own. I’m torn on the whole sling idea, as especially on the closed maps it is hard (impossible?) to scout it until it is already in effect, and if it catches you by surprise, it is really hard to beat. Heck, even if you know it is coming, it can still be tough.

But then there’s me as a caster, seeing creative approaches like a Malay fast feudal pocket slinging a Cumans flank into an absolutely. ridiculous deathball. And it is fun to see it play out, especially if it is from the underdogs.

For Nations cup, I think your suggestion won’t come into play, but I like the idea.

 

It will be, but with restrictions. The player who is slinging has to be one age above the player they are slinging to. This will be mentioned in the handbook when it comes out.

Meh, I don't like this, it's not a real sling.. just move coinage to castle age and remove banking, let weaker teams have any chance against the favorites...

That rule you mentioned only would work with FC vs fastfeudal of slinger and a one time donation.... I don't like that

 

coinage to castle age and remove banking

FYI Coinage is in Castle Age and Banking in Imperial Age by default now in DE.

 

In line with the feedback we’ve received, we will be using a 9-map map pool for the Qualifiers portion of the tournament, these are:
1. Arabia
2. Arena
3. Black Forest
4. Chaos Pit
5. Golden Lakes
6. Nomad
7. Team Acropolis
8. Team Islands
9. Two Rivers

Registering teams are still required to submit their own list of maps for consideration for the group stage of the event, which will occur a few weeks after the Qualifiers.

The final number of maps in the main event remains undetermined, once again it is worth highlighting that previous editions of the Nations Cup had 30+ maps in competition. That said, we are still listening to your feedback and will adjust accordingly.

Maps that will be added will depend on the most votes, but also what we deem to add to the map pool, e. g. one additional map is likely to be the most-voted water map (Baltic, Mediterranean, Atoll, etc.), one could be the most-voted Nomad-start map (Land Nomad, Bedouins, Steppe, etc.), or the most voted closed/walled map (Fortress, Hideout, etc.). Maps will go through two rounds of voting, first to establish a shortlist, and then another round of voting will conclude what maps will be added.

Map pack availability TBC

We are up to $2160 prize pool, if feeling generous please donate here - https://matcherino.com/t/nc23

 

Through matcherino you can also add to the prizepool by liking the pages of sponsors (you can unlike/unfollow later), who then make a small donation to the prizepool of the event. The amounts contributed this way may seem borderline insignificant (20, 30, maybe 50 cents per like), but they do add up, and by merely clicking a few times viewers/players from "poorer" countries, who might otherwise not entertain the possibility of donating, can end up contributing a couple bucks to the tournament entirely for free.

 

FYI Coinage is in Castle Age and Banking in Imperial Age by default now in DE.

Oh ****, Im still stuck in kkab slinging era XD