With various people asking me if/when there would be another Masters of Arabia 2v2, and with some useful thoughts being offered during Talk of the Empire last night, I thought I'd do an early announcement of the timeframe and let people know what my plans are for the next edition of the tournament, with the opportunity for community discussion.
Calendar slot:
Format:
Week 1: Qualifying - single elimination
Week 2: Round of 32 bo3 (top 16 seeds start here) - single elimination
Week 3: Round of 16 bo5 - single elimination
Weeks 4-6: Last 8 - round robin in two groups of 4, 3 matches total with all 4 games played
Week 7: 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th placement matches vs the other group. Placement matches for 1st and 3rd will be bo7. Placement matches for 5th and 7th will be bo5.
This will get the tournament done in less than 2 months.
Arabia map:
After seeing so many Arabia 2v2 maps over the last few months, it's become clear to me that the standard Arabia map can be pretty buggy in 2v2 where wood lines are concerned, far more often than in 1v1 or 3v3/4v4. The amount of times that someone's closest wood was 2 screens away was a bit worrying. I also think there are some other changes that can be made to the map to improve its playability without changing what makes it Arabia. I am already testing a custom Arabia which includes some of the following changes. Note that when I talk about desert Arabia and green Arabia, I mean the two possible types of map that standard Arabia generates.
Other maps:
I'd like to strike a balance between around half the tournament being played on Arabia and half the tournament being played on a limited number of other maps. The concept that I have in my head at the moment (which is just a guiding theme rather than a name for the tournament) is 'open conflict', meaning open maps which encourage aggression. With this in mind I would have a small home map pool of well-known and mostly standard maps, with some alterations made to make them more playable and more open. The home map pool would be where players would have the opportunity to choose maps with different gameplay to standard Arabia, so that players would know what they were going into. Finally, a small map pack (used fairly sparingly in the settings) would feature Arabia-style maps, so that there wouldn't be any nasty surprises, just some good variety.
Example home maps:
Example map pack maps:
General map tuning:
For several tournaments now I have tuned resource placements for fairness and playability. As Masters of Arabia 2v2 used the standard Arabia map, this was not possible, but as already mentioned, I will use custom maps for this tournament, and therefore every map will benefit from some minor tuning. Some examples:
Civ settings:
During elimination bo3, bo5 and bo7, the following civ rules will be in effect:
On Arabia:
On home maps:
On map pack:
In the round robin stage, where all 4 games are played in each match, there will be different civ rules. Aztecs, Huns and Mayans will be banned. Teams will then have free pick in each of the 4 games, but they cannot repeat any civ, meaning that they must play 8 different civs in each match.
Restarts:
With the addition of home maps and the map pack, one restart will be added for each series.
Slinging:
The Masters of Arabia 2v2 Mod will return (base tax increased to 50%, Coinage and Banking both moved to the Imperial Age).
Calendar slot:
- If Nations Cup or another big tournament happens this summer: October, after Nations Cup is over.
- If there is no big summer tournament, it can happen earlier, at a suitable time in a few months when there aren't too many other tournaments happening.
Format:
Week 1: Qualifying - single elimination
Week 2: Round of 32 bo3 (top 16 seeds start here) - single elimination
Week 3: Round of 16 bo5 - single elimination
Weeks 4-6: Last 8 - round robin in two groups of 4, 3 matches total with all 4 games played
Week 7: 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th placement matches vs the other group. Placement matches for 1st and 3rd will be bo7. Placement matches for 5th and 7th will be bo5.
This will get the tournament done in less than 2 months.
Arabia map:
After seeing so many Arabia 2v2 maps over the last few months, it's become clear to me that the standard Arabia map can be pretty buggy in 2v2 where wood lines are concerned, far more often than in 1v1 or 3v3/4v4. The amount of times that someone's closest wood was 2 screens away was a bit worrying. I also think there are some other changes that can be made to the map to improve its playability without changing what makes it Arabia. I am already testing a custom Arabia which includes some of the following changes. Note that when I talk about desert Arabia and green Arabia, I mean the two possible types of map that standard Arabia generates.
- Oasis (pond) size reduced on desert Arabia, without completely eliminating them and turning it into Dry Arabia.
- On standard Arabia, 12% of the map is forest, which is then randomly distributed into a number of 'clumps'. By slightly increasing the number of clumps, you can reduce the instances where it is a massive distance from a player's TC to the closest wood. This also makes the average forest a tiny bit smaller (compensated for on desert Arabia by the ponds which remove forest also being smaller), making the area around a player's base a tiny bit more open on average whilst at the same time improving the fairness of wood line distribution.
- On green Arabia, the number of clumps is marginally increased again, to further reduce average forest size and reduce instances of players getting a 'Black Forest' map on green Arabia. In general, green Arabia would be a more open map.
Other maps:
I'd like to strike a balance between around half the tournament being played on Arabia and half the tournament being played on a limited number of other maps. The concept that I have in my head at the moment (which is just a guiding theme rather than a name for the tournament) is 'open conflict', meaning open maps which encourage aggression. With this in mind I would have a small home map pool of well-known and mostly standard maps, with some alterations made to make them more playable and more open. The home map pool would be where players would have the opportunity to choose maps with different gameplay to standard Arabia, so that players would know what they were going into. Finally, a small map pack (used fairly sparingly in the settings) would feature Arabia-style maps, so that there wouldn't be any nasty surprises, just some good variety.
Example home maps:
- Cross - it's Arabia, but you can fishboom in the corners. Forests, cliffs etc. tuned to make the map more open.
- Gold Rush - tuned to make the gold in the middle more fair, a lot of forest removed from the outside to make the map open at the edges instead of players having closed bases, players get a full main gold and main stone to increase strategic possibilities.
Example map pack maps:
- Duopoly - one of the most aggressive open land maps
- Sonora - an aggressive Arabia-like map used during Call to Arms
General map tuning:
For several tournaments now I have tuned resource placements for fairness and playability. As Masters of Arabia 2v2 used the standard Arabia map, this was not possible, but as already mentioned, I will use custom maps for this tournament, and therefore every map will benefit from some minor tuning. Some examples:
- Maximum distance from TC of close sheep reduced by 1 tile.
- Maximum distance from TC of far sheep reduced by around 10%.
- Deer distance from TC slightly normalised so that they are either 'moderately close' or 'moderately far', but never 'super close' or 'super far'.
- Maximum distance from TC of 3rd gold reduced slightly.
Civ settings:
During elimination bo3, bo5 and bo7, the following civ rules will be in effect:
On Arabia:
- Team Random
- Set civ wars
- Free pick
On home maps:
- Free pick
On map pack:
- Team Random
In the round robin stage, where all 4 games are played in each match, there will be different civ rules. Aztecs, Huns and Mayans will be banned. Teams will then have free pick in each of the 4 games, but they cannot repeat any civ, meaning that they must play 8 different civs in each match.
Restarts:
With the addition of home maps and the map pack, one restart will be added for each series.
Slinging:
The Masters of Arabia 2v2 Mod will return (base tax increased to 50%, Coinage and Banking both moved to the Imperial Age).