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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What about the Return of Rome DLC? Will Romes be banned if it arrives

 

What about the Return of Rome DLC? Will Romes be banned if it arrives

We have no idea yet when it will arrive and which way. Whether you even can play the DLC civs together with the older civs. But as soon as we know, we will discuss and announce a decision.
If the release is towards the end of the tournament and you can play them together with the rest it is rather likely though to not include them.

 

If I remember correctly AoE2 is officially regionally banned in South Korea. I'm not sure if they changed it but it certainly was when I last checked ~2 years ago, wondering why no South Koreans are playing this game.

What, why?!

 

What, why?!

To quote a reddit user from 3 years ago:

"As a Korean, I can explain you why. It is because Forgottenempires refused to re-register the game to the S.Korean authority due to the cost regarding the registration. Well very few play this game in my country nowadays and that means little profit for Forgottenempires is expected in the Korean market. And there is a funny law in S.Korea stating that all games support ing Korean language have to be registered....
Still you can play the game in S.Korea once you get the codes from somewhere else."

 

That's pretty crazy. I've actually wondered why more former starcraft players haven't tried their hand at aoe2 given the sizeable prize pools the last few years. That might help explain it.

 

To quote a reddit user from 3 years ago:

"As a Korean, I can explain you why. It is because Forgottenempires refused to re-register the game to the S.Korean authority due to the cost regarding the registration. Well very few play this game in my country nowadays and that means little profit for Forgottenempires is expected in the Korean market. And there is a funny law in S.Korea stating that all games support ing Korean language have to be registered....
Still you can play the game in S.Korea once you get the codes from somewhere else."

A comment from a Forgotten Empires employee right under that comment specify that: " Correcting you right here, FE is the developer, but MS is the publisher and is the one who didn't register the game to South Korean authority. "

 

A comment from a Forgotten Empires employee right under that comment specify that: " Correcting you right here, FE is the developer, but MS is the publisher and is the one who didn't register the game to South Korean authority. "

I can picture not doing it for HD since it was more of a gamble... but why in the heck wouldn't the game be registered for DE, when it was clear there was still such community support and interest?

And of all places... wouldn't Microsoft expect to make more money selling the greatest RTS of all time in Korea than many other places?

 

Maybe because they nerfed the Korean tower rush.

 

I can picture not doing it for HD since it was more of a gamble... but why in the heck wouldn't the game be registered for DE, when it was clear there was still such community support and interest?

And of all places... wouldn't Microsoft expect to make more money selling the greatest RTS of all time in Korea than many other places?

Wasn't there also maybe a tournament event coming up in Korea (I feel like I've heard something about it)? Feels odd to not have the game registered there but a tournament played there.

 

Wasn't there also maybe a tournament event coming up in Korea (I feel like I've heard something about it)? Feels odd to not have the game registered there but a tournament played there.

Maybe you mean an AoE 4 one? At least that's what I heard about around RBWL.

 

Maybe you mean an AoE 4 one? At least that's what I heard about around RBWL.

True! I didn't remember correctly. Still weird.

 

The number of registration teams in Muslim countries is very small . Similarly southern African countries

 

The number of registration teams in Muslim countries is very small . Similarly southern African countries

The number of players from Africa, Central America and Western/Central Asia who play the game ranked is just low. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Tunisia and South Africa have a few players as far as I know, but looking at the top 10k of the RM 1v1 ladder, most other counrtries from those 3 regions have 0-2 players.

We have to remember that playing computer games or even having a computer good enough to play AoE 2 DE is a luxury many people in the world can't afford money- or time-wise. Plus they might prefer other games or Steam or AoE 2 might not be available in certain countries.

On the other hand people now living in Europe or North America, but with the nationality of for example Algeria or Syria could still form a team, while they might not show up with those countries' flags on the ladder.

 

After weeks of open voting among the team captains, 70 teams have voted on the topic of Shared Exploration. Of the current top 16 seeded teams, 12 voted in the poll. Overall, a resounding 74.3% of teams were in favor of shared exploration, with 25.7% against it.

We also ran an individual survey earlier with resulting in 63 Yes and 19 No. Seeing as both polls resulted in similar outcomes, we feel confident in moving forward with enforcing shared exploration for this event. The matter is settled.

From the poll, you can see that there were 70 responses. Some teams did respond twice, so we deleted the duplicates already. Teams in favor include China, Finland A, France A, Mexico A, Norway A, Türkiye, Czech Republic, Poland A, and UK A.

 

If the teams that arguably have the best communication (Finland China), so stand to lose the most from shared exploration, are for it, that's pretty decisive.

Other question: seeing that a 16 player tournament just got a 100k USD funding, what steps would be needed for the World Cup to receive some kind of MS funding? @robo is there an official process that they would have to pass through? Looks so weird to me that such a big tourney with such a reach gets such little attention from MS?

 

If the teams that arguably have the best communication (Finland China), so stand to lose the most from shared exploration, are for it, that's pretty decisive.

Other question: seeing that a 16 player tournament just got a 100k USD funding, what steps would be needed for the World Cup to receive some kind of MS funding? @robo is there an official process that they would have to pass through? Looks so weird to me that such a big tourney with such a reach gets such little attention from MS?

You need to write an official application. And you can't really take 4 months for a tournament. Of course it is nice to have a $50k prize pool, but it's also very good to have the whole community and maybe 1000 players involved and not have to force teams into one-weekend qualifiers and 3 matches per week after that.

It definitely is not Microsoft's or robo's fault, but our idea how we want to run the tournament to give everyone a chance to participate.

 

You need to write an official application. And you can't really take 4 months for a tournament. Of course it is nice to have a $50k prize pool, but it's also very good to have the whole community and maybe 1000 players involved and not have to force teams into one-weekend qualifiers and 3 matches per week after that.

It definitely is not Microsoft's or robo's fault, but our idea how we want to run the tournament to give everyone a chance to participate.

So what you're saying is that its impossible to get funding with the current parameters of the tournament? And that they make no exceptions? Even after seeing the enthusiasm and prize pool collection from the community?

 

So what you're saying is that its impossible to get funding with the current parameters of the tournament? And that they make no exceptions? Even after seeing the enthusiasm and prize pool collection from the community?

I haven't asked. But if it would block 3-4 other S tier tournaments, I think it is unlikely. We are in times, where every month has a new S tier tournament.

 

I'm not sure the event needs backing from Microsoft, and huehue outlined a few reasons why it's very unlikely. There are also some more, budgets and planning in advance being two of the most crucial elements.

If they do have some spare cash in the budget then they can contact us and make a donation via the Matcherino prize fund https://matcherino.com/t/nc23

 

I'm not sure the event needs backing from Microsoft, and huehue outlined a few reasons why it's very unlikely. There are also some more, budgets and planning in advance being two of the most crucial elements.

If they do have some spare cash in the budget then they can contact us and make a donation via the Matcherino prize fund https://matcherino.com/t/nc23

Yea I agree that it probably doesn't need backing anymore either. I think at this point, it would only help motivate the top teams a bit more. If it had happened earlier, I think it would have helped to expose to more people faster.

 

As we have surpassed 116 registered teams (120 currently), we can now confirm that the qualifier will have 3 rounds and take 3 weeks. Most teams will likely start in round 2, but it pushes back the group stage start by one week.

A Silver League is confirmed too. More information on the format is coming soon. If we get more voluntary admins, we would like to make another division, to at least have main event, Silver League and Bronze League. Please message admins if you want to help out.

 

As we have surpassed 116 registered teams (120 currently), we can now confirm that the qualifier will have 3 rounds and take 3 weeks. Most teams will likely start in round 2, but it pushes back the group stage start by one week.

A Silver League is confirmed too. More information on the format is coming soon. If we get more voluntary admins, we would like to make another division, to at least have main event, Silver League and Bronze League. Please message admins if you want to help out.

Great to see so many people have signed up!

 

Yea I agree that it probably doesn't need backing anymore either. I think at this point, it would only help motivate the top teams a bit more. If it had happened earlier, I think it would have helped to expose to more people faster.

From a tournament organising perspective, it is still «early», as the signup deadline hasn’t passed, and we’re closing in on 120 teams signed up! This also includes almost all of the highest level players, at least a substantial part of them, and since donations will be open throughout the course of the event, it is likely that the pool will increase further, incentivicing even more pros and top level players to join before it is too late!

 

Is it the biggest tournament ever yet in number of signed up players? It has to be right?

 

Is it the biggest tournament ever yet in number of signed up players? It has to be right?

We’re pretty confident it is, yeah