2023 Nations Cup Group Stage

[welcometorapture]

2023 Nations Cup Group Stage

China A vs. Vietnam A

Play All 3
Tuesday, 16:00 GMT


Please observe the following, as is listed in the handbook as well, about casting requirements:
Streaming Materials can be found in #logo-materials on the Discord server.

If streaming you must use the materials from the above mentioned channel, and add the following command to your channel in your stream title:
!donate - Nations Cup 2023 is a crowd funded event, we have an event goal of $20k, if you can donate please do so here https://matcherino.com/t/nc23
!nc23 - Nations Cup 2023 is an Age of Empires II team tournament organized by Huehuecoyotl22, paradox303, enmipho, welcometorapture and Akkal. https://liquipedia.net/ageofempires/Nations_Cup/2023

 

[ManchildTV]

Game 1, VN calls for restore, everyone resigns, songsong_AOE looks and analyzes enemy map for ~30 seconds.
Is this behavior allowed by the rulebook?

 

[GM_Septic]

Ban this team. Bunch of cheaters and hooligans.

 

[otw_Da]

songsong seems to be an akward dude. miss the days were gentlemen like bact dominated vietnam

 

[Huehuecoyotl22]

We have already been discussing and will post a decision in the next few days.

Regarding SongSong today: What he did surely was not fair play, but it is something that has happened many times too, just usually it is/was not streamed, so there is no evidence. SongSong just seems to be good at making it easy to punish him for rule violations, while other players are more clever.

 

[FolderOfDoom]

We have already been discussing and will post a decision in the next few days.

Regarding SongSong today: What he did surely was not fair play, but it is something that has happened many times too, just usually it is/was not streamed, so there is no evidence. SongSong just seems to be good at making it easy to punish him for rule violations, while other players are more clever.

Thats the biggest bs i ever heared LuL

This basically says, cause he is to dumb to hide his rule violations he shouldnt be punished ....

He should actually get double the punishment for that.

 

[Michaerbse]

We have already been discussing and will post a decision in the next few days.

Regarding SongSong today: What he did surely was not fair play, but it is something that has happened many times too, just usually it is/was not streamed, so there is no evidence. SongSong just seems to be good at making it easy to punish him for rule violations, while other players are more clever.

Honestly, that's a horrible take. First of all, while it has surely happened before, I highly doubt that many top players do this. Second of all, "others do it as well" is never an excuse. Otherwise you might just remove any rules altogether cause there's surely someone else in this world who does the same bad thing.

Over the course of his career, SongSong has now committed the following:

• Coaching fraud
• Communicating with multiple viewers + other players during tournament games on a regular basis
• Rating/seeding manipulation
• Abuse of save & restore to spec cheat

Iirc all of this has been proven and more or less openly admitted. Points 2 to 4 were affecting tournaments, not some random ladder trolling whatsoever. The "explanation" has always been something along the line of "I didn't know/understand", "it's normal for us"...
The consequences for him so far

• Ban from RBWL
• Ban from TGM

...both of which were consequences of the seeding manipulation for the RBWL Qualifier.

To my understanding the Vietnam teams are basically participating on probation, as there were specific requirements for them to participate. Such a case pretty much confirms that the concerns raised were valid. Downplaying it like this seems very inappropriate.

 

[Leonidas91]

once a cheater always a cheater, idk why this kind of people are still allowed to play tournaments, same for the mexicans and other

 

[Liamsmalley7]

once a cheater always a cheater, idk why this kind of people are still allowed to play tournaments, same for the mexicans and other

"the mexicans"? What did they do?

 

[Leonidas91]

"the mexicans"? What did they do?

of course not all of them, but they are famous for spec cheating

 

[Akkal]

Thats the biggest bs i ever heared LuL

This basically says, cause he is to dumb to hide his rule violations he shouldnt be punished ....

He should actually get double the punishment for that.

I don't know where you got "he shouldn't be punished from". The admin team has been discussing this ever since this clip was shared here, and there are other concerns around the same match that will have to be considered before an official statement is made.

I don't think it is a stretch to say that we don't approve of what Songsong did here, Huehuecoyotl has already said that. We are working on it. What I can guarantee is that some form of action will be taken against player(s) involved in this match.

 

[FolderOfDoom]

I don't know where you got "he shouldn't be punished from". The admin team has been discussing this ever since this clip was shared here, and there are other concerns around the same match that will have to be considered before an official statement is made.

I don't think it is a stretch to say that we don't approve of what Songsong did here, Huehuecoyotl has already said that. We are working on it. What I can guarantee is that some form of action will be taken against player(s) involved in this match.

Its the way he obviously down plays the problem at hand.

Saying something is bad BUT happens all the time is classic rehtoric for makeing something look less bad/impactfull.

There is a good reason for the saying "everything mentioned before a BUT is worthless"

The comparisson of SongSongs just unusually ez to spot behaviour (that got and gets ignored by many still as its not that impactfull usually ^^) vs those all day cheaters that are just unseen, again down plays the situation.

The only reason to down play stuff is to make it look less bad ofc, which in cases like this involving an admin decision seems like a way to justify less/no punishment.
It is ofc an assumption or rather exaggeration on my end to read 100% no punishment out of those lines.
Tho it was used to make the point clear ^^
If you want a more sofisticated post i would refer you to @Michaerbse just below my original one ^^

 

[kalpit00]

Honestly not surprised. This kind of stuff probably has happened all the time, its the nature of the game (everything being visible once everyone resigns). There's just no proof for all the thousands of games that have been restored/restarted which were unstreamed. If the games are not streamed, nobody can tell if either of the players checked the opponent's map. Only thing is in this case, SongSong was stupid enough to be caught doing it while on camera.

And on top of that, being a recurring offender in such cheating accusations, he really is not helping himself.

Punishments will happen, he is probably going to be banned.

The bigger issue here at hand though, is Should we enforce the Devs to change this system? Why don't the Devs just enable a setting where when the game ends, players are limited to their own vision/forced to exit immediately? It doesn't seem to hard to implement. Seriously this would take care of this problem which has been such a grey area ever since release.

 

[doville]

I just want to say: Vietnam A not just cheat in game 1, game 3 also very obviously.

 

[paraproduct]

In game 3, similar things also happened. Lyx (Goth) killed one boar and stole 5 sheeps of Badboy. Then he made maa+tower push. When Lyx's 5 villagers + 3 maas arrived at Badboy's basis, Badboy just started building the archer range (that means Badboy's economy was also very bad because Lyx up to Fedual with 23 pop and also got housed in dark age).

Then Lyx built the first tower. At this time badboy hasn't built his tower so he should have lost more vills.

It was also at this time point that Viet A called pause and said badboy's game crashed. How did this occur so coincidentally?
When returning to the game, Songsong's scouts and badboy's archers came together and badboy then deleted his barrack and house to kill all of Lyx's 5 vills and 3 maas within less than 45 seconds. Also, songsong started to build stone wall to defend Lyx's pushing forward. Why building stone wall only after the "game crash"?

There was a big change of Viet A's strategy after returning to the game. Lyx's pushing forward was suddenly stopped and then he lost 5 vills. This made China A's situation so bad.
Vietnam A also had a second pause at 30:27, which was the moment when Yo started to push a castle forward. After that Yo's vills were caught.
At least two "coincidences". Why didn't their games crash when they were in good situation?

 

[ManchildTV]

I can see Huehue's point. It's likely true that others spec-cheated, stream-sniped, etc.; what makes Songsong "special" is that he's dumb enough to get caught repeatedly. It would be ideal if devs can create a game mode for tournament play that precludes the possibility of gaining such unfair advantages.

But as long as the tournaments are relying on self-enforcement and good-faith, then it's the responsibility of admins to harshly punish those that violate the community's good-faith.

If someone is oblivious enough to cheat on stream, and considering the other offenses on his record; clearly the previous punishments and warnings haven't worked on him. IMO, Songsong has done everything to justify a permanent exclusion from competitive play (though IDK if that's enforceable given the AOE2 tournaments are decentralized).

 

[SylvesterLuo]

I would secretively conjecture that there has to be a reason why Accm/BacT did not join the team..

 

[USC_kiky]

Honestly, there are so many ways to cheat if a player wants to do that in a decentralized AoE tournament, but there are only two types of players who won't cheat: those who just want to play a fair game (most of the players) and those were afraid of the punishment, if they get caught. By downplaying such cheating behavior, we are essentially encouraging the 2nd type of players to commit wrongdoings.

I don't think the admins will downplay it because I am sure they know what the right action they should take for this community.

 

[GM_Septic]

We have already been discussing and will post a decision in the next few days.

Regarding SongSong today: What he did surely was not fair play, but it is something that has happened many times too, just usually it is/was not streamed, so there is no evidence. SongSong just seems to be good at making it easy to punish him for rule violations, while other players are more clever.

I am appaled by this statement. To say that cheating is forgiven if person doing is dumb is abhorrent.

What standards are we setting for AoE 2 DE - Nations Cup? That of unfair play? Winning via cheating is okay? I am sorry but please rethink your statements.

And thanks for hosting Nations Cup.

 

[Wviieennna]

The administrator Huehue did not say anthing about that cheating is acceptable. IMO he just drew the attention to the truth that this kind of cheating is especially hard to be caught in current game system.

The best way is just that developers add the tournament setting, e.g. after resign the map in this mode should not be revealed to the players. In addition the ban-pick system could be integrated in this setting. It also helps the players because there are a few examples that they unintentionally chose the wrong Civ in the matches. But since I not a programmer, I have no clue whether it is hard to realize.

 

[29_]

In game 3, similar things also happened. Lyx (Goth) killed one boar and stole 5 sheeps of Badboy. Then he made maa+tower push. When Lyx's 5 villagers + 3 maas arrived at Badboy's basis, Badboy just started building the archer range (that means Badboy's economy was also very bad because Lyx up to Fedual with 23 pop and also got housed in dark age).
View attachment 204760

Then Lyx built the first tower. At this time badboy hasn't built his tower so he should have lost more vills.View attachment 204761It was also at this time point that Viet A called pause and said badboy's game crashed. How did this occur so coincidentally?
When returning to the game, Songsong's scouts and badboy's archers came together and badboy then deleted his barrack and house to kill all of Lyx's 5 vills and 3 maas within less than 45 seconds. Also, songsong started to build stone wall to defend Lyx's pushing forward. Why building stone wall only after the "game crash"?
View attachment 204762
View attachment 204763
There was a big change of Viet A's strategy after returning to the game. Lyx's pushing forward was suddenly stopped and then he lost 5 vills. This made China A's situation so bad.
Vietnam A also had a second pause at 30:27, which was the moment when Yo started to push a castle forward. After that Yo's vills were caught.
At least two "coincidences". Why didn't their games crash when they were in good situation?

As a longtime player I would like to talk about this
#1: We don't intentionally save games or crash games
Currently in Vietnam there are 5 international cable routes and all 5 of these cables are broken and in the process of being repaired, so lag or game crashes often occur during this time during peak hours, we have Try to arrange time with team china at 23:00 to avoid lag or game crash because at this time the number of visitors will be less than during peak hours.
#2: we planned each match before the match started
What about game 3?
It can be said that BBoy has outlined his strategy when he often watches stream mach team china vs (goth and burmese), he told us when china A picks goth and burmese (since draft civils)
What about after restoring the game?
we knew bumese was in the middle of going to fast castle so couldn't support lyx at the time and we needed clear that fast
#3: ssong problem I have nothing to say
because he's really stupid doing it on his own stream

 

[Semisky]

#2: we planned each match before the match started
What about game 3?
It can be said that BBoy has outlined his strategy when he often watches stream mach team china vs (goth and burmese), he told us when china A picks goth and burmese (since draft civils)
What about after restoring the game?
we knew bumese was in the middle of going to fast castle so couldn't support lyx at the time and we needed clear that fast

When you are saying “he told us”, does it mean he told his audience on twitch, or that he had communication with others during matches? I assume you are not one of Saymyname, Badboy or TieuQuy.

 

[MaSmOrRa]

I assume you are not one of Saymyname, Badboy or TieuQuy.

He's saymyname

 

[29_]

When you are saying “he told us”, does it mean he told his audience on twitch, or that he had communication with others during matches? I assume you are not one of Saymyname, Badboy or TieuQuy.

he told with team in discord chat voice (since draft civils when china A picked goth and burmese)
iam saymyname main acc in aoezone

 

[Huehuecoyotl22]

Thats the biggest bs i ever heared LuL

This basically says, cause he is to dumb to hide his rule violations he shouldnt be punished ....

He should actually get double the punishment for that.

I did never say he will not be punished.