Hello everyone,
first of all: It will be a lot of text, so if you're only looking for a brief overview, the following paragraph should give you enough information to understand the idea I want to bring forward to you so we can have a discussion about it. I also do not own the money to provide this idea with a 1,000 $ + x prize-pool, and I do not have the experience of administrating week-long events, so I want to emphasize that I probably mainly provide the suggestion in this post, not very much more beyond that, although I'd be determined to provide as much hard work as I can if the topic would become serious one day. I encourage you to take part in the discussion, I want to get as much feedback as possible, both good and bad.
But what do I want to talk about with you? I know that we already have a plethora of high-quality tournaments coming up in the next year which will help the community grow, and which all will be amazing, but there is one new thing with the WololoKingdoms Expansions that hasn't really been utilised in events thus far imho. And that is the fact that we now have 31 different civilizations, which is very close to 32 (^^), and which is enough to at least think about putting the different civs more into the spotlight than just with (kind of foreseeable) drafts. My idea is the AoE II World Cup, an online-event involving 32 teams, with each team consisting of 2 players, and each team being either drawn or picked to a set civilization with which the team has to play troughout the tournament (e.g. Team Turks). The obvious problem I want to avoid is to fill a spot in the tournament with a wild card, so my proposal would be to have 2 teams playing Chinese, reason being that China had the largest population worldwide throughout the Middle Ages. As for the stage system, I prefer a mix between the FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Champions League settings, which means that competing civs/teams are divided into 8 groups of 4 teams (groups A to H). Teams in each group play one another in a single round-robin basis, with the top two teams of each group advancing to the knockout stage. In the knockout phase, matches will be drawn. The mechanism of the draws, and the game settings for each round is/are explained in one the paragraphs below.
I hope I made my idea pretty clear in this brief explanation. All of what you've read so far and what follows is up to discussion. Now following are some further things I've given a thought to:
Why should anyone be interested in this event? Well, obviously, I cannot speak for the players, and it is safe to assume that there are some players who would not participate if there wasn't a huge prize-pool involved. But I strongly believe that this might be one of those ideas people don't find interesting/needed at first, then, however, appreciating it once it gets going. Especially when it comes to Tier discussions, which seem to be quite popular in the community, I see a lot of potential for huge upsets and other talking points created by such an event.
How would one sign up/qualify for the tournament? That is one of those questions some other, more experienced members of this community might have a better answer for.
Who determines which Team gets which Civilization? I'd prefer to draw the teams to their civs. But we could also give the teams the opportunity to e.g. let them have a pool of 1-3 'wish civs' and then they would have a higher probability to get their wish in the drawing process; or sth completely different.
Isn't it unfair that Players X&Y have to play Goths for the entire tournament, even if they don't want to? Yeah, kind of, but, I mean, if you are not willing to lead any other than your favorite Civ to eternal glory, maybe this is just not the right event for you.
What are the game settings? The game settings vary from stage to stage. In the group stage, the teams (each consisting of 2 players) would play two separate 1v1s to make for a set of 2 games. Teams winning those sets gain 3 points, while teams drawing get 1 point each. In every single one of those sets, both teams get 1 player each to pick the maps for the games (f.e. Players X&Y are Team Persians and play against Players A&B (Team Huns). Then X chooses the map Nomad for X vs A and B chooses Arabia for Y vs B = either 1-1 or 2-0 or 0-2 as possible results). In the knockout stages, the contestants battle each other in a Bo3, including two separate 1v1s with the same settings as in the group stage, and for the decider, the 3rd game, I have 2 ideas in mind: Either a 2v2 on "Blind Random map" (e.g. Persians+Persians vs. Huns+Huns) or a 2v2 in co-op/Archon mode on "Blind Random map". I know that both of those options for a possible Game 3 are, to put it mildly, underutilised in most tournaments, but that's part of the reason why I prefer them. For the Grand Final I have no special ideas, I feel like a short Bo3 (or Bo5) with the same settings as in the prior stages would spice it up in comparison to other tournaments, which regularly introduce Bo7s or Bo9s in their finals. Conquest as victory condition, obviously.
Why Bo3? No one likes Bo3. We want more games! An event like this would make for a total of 96 games in the group stage alone; 30-45 additional games in the knockout stages. I feel like this is a pretty high amount of games already. But we can talk about it. I just feel like the event would lose a lot of its momentum if the series' would include too many games.
Map Pool? I am open for suggestions. I personally don't see any reason to not have a pool of 40 or more maps to choose from, and I don't see any reason to prohibit the players to choose what they want, but I am open for suggestions.
How would you draw the groups? I think splitting the civilizations into 4 pots, sorted by (anticipated) strength in the current meta, as it is practised in many football competitions, would be my favorite option. Please don't focus too much on which Civ would deserve a higher or lower tier from your point of view, because I just want to give the following example in order to explain in more detail what I am talking about:
e.g.
Pot 1: Aztecs, Burmese, Berbers, Indians, Malians, Mayans, Mongols, Slavs
Pot 2: Britons, Celts, Franks, Huns, Incas, Italians, Magyars, Malay
Pot 3: Byzantines, Chinese A, Chinese B, Ethiopians, Japanese, Persians, Spanish, Vikings
Pot 4: Goths, Khmer, Koreans, Portuguese, Saracens, Turks, Teutons, Vietnamese
You would then draw the groups by drawing one civilization from each pot into the group. F.e., a group stage could look like this:
Gr A: Ind, Mala, Byz, Sar
Gr B: Ber, Hun, ChiB, Tur
Gr C: Slav, Brit, ChiA, Viet
Gr D: Bur, Inc, Spa, Por
Gr E: Mon, Cel, Eth, Kor
Gr F: May, Fra, Per, Teu
Gr G: Mali, Ita, Vik, Got
Gr H: Azt, Mag, Jap, Khm
Only just looking at such a line-up would have potential for so many talking points if people would get interested in such an event.
Tiebreakers? The ranking of teams in the group stage would be determined as follows:
Since 2 out of 4 teams advance in each group, in the draw for the round of 16, the eight group winners are seeded, and the eight group runners-up are unseeded. The seeded teams are drawn against the unseeded teams, with the seeded teams hosting the possible third game. Teams from the same group cannot be drawn against each other. In the draws for the quarter-finals onwards, there are no seedings, and teams from the same group can be drawn against each other.
EDIT: How would you split the prize-pool? Although I feel I shouldn't have a say on that topic when I don't provide a majority of the prize-money, I can say that I really like the prize-pool split the ECL is introducing. I am not sure how exactly we could convert that concept to our stage system, but it could possibly encourage more players to be engaged, even with a less favorable civilization.
I am pretty sure that I have missed many important things, and there might be aspects I haven't even given a thought to, but nevertheless I wanted to share this idea with you, because I strongly believe that I want to see an event like this happening somewhen in 2019 or 2020 AND I believe it is feasible AND I believe people would like this event. There is potential to crown a Civilization as World Cup Winner which no one would have predicted beforehand, there is potential for many, many different maps, and there is a mix of game settings which both worked in the past (or in other sports) and can make for a variation from settings we know from MoA, or 1v1 Arabia.
Please respond, and take part in the discussion! Have a nice day!
first of all: It will be a lot of text, so if you're only looking for a brief overview, the following paragraph should give you enough information to understand the idea I want to bring forward to you so we can have a discussion about it. I also do not own the money to provide this idea with a 1,000 $ + x prize-pool, and I do not have the experience of administrating week-long events, so I want to emphasize that I probably mainly provide the suggestion in this post, not very much more beyond that, although I'd be determined to provide as much hard work as I can if the topic would become serious one day. I encourage you to take part in the discussion, I want to get as much feedback as possible, both good and bad.
But what do I want to talk about with you? I know that we already have a plethora of high-quality tournaments coming up in the next year which will help the community grow, and which all will be amazing, but there is one new thing with the WololoKingdoms Expansions that hasn't really been utilised in events thus far imho. And that is the fact that we now have 31 different civilizations, which is very close to 32 (^^), and which is enough to at least think about putting the different civs more into the spotlight than just with (kind of foreseeable) drafts. My idea is the AoE II World Cup, an online-event involving 32 teams, with each team consisting of 2 players, and each team being either drawn or picked to a set civilization with which the team has to play troughout the tournament (e.g. Team Turks). The obvious problem I want to avoid is to fill a spot in the tournament with a wild card, so my proposal would be to have 2 teams playing Chinese, reason being that China had the largest population worldwide throughout the Middle Ages. As for the stage system, I prefer a mix between the FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Champions League settings, which means that competing civs/teams are divided into 8 groups of 4 teams (groups A to H). Teams in each group play one another in a single round-robin basis, with the top two teams of each group advancing to the knockout stage. In the knockout phase, matches will be drawn. The mechanism of the draws, and the game settings for each round is/are explained in one the paragraphs below.
I hope I made my idea pretty clear in this brief explanation. All of what you've read so far and what follows is up to discussion. Now following are some further things I've given a thought to:
Why should anyone be interested in this event? Well, obviously, I cannot speak for the players, and it is safe to assume that there are some players who would not participate if there wasn't a huge prize-pool involved. But I strongly believe that this might be one of those ideas people don't find interesting/needed at first, then, however, appreciating it once it gets going. Especially when it comes to Tier discussions, which seem to be quite popular in the community, I see a lot of potential for huge upsets and other talking points created by such an event.
How would one sign up/qualify for the tournament? That is one of those questions some other, more experienced members of this community might have a better answer for.
Who determines which Team gets which Civilization? I'd prefer to draw the teams to their civs. But we could also give the teams the opportunity to e.g. let them have a pool of 1-3 'wish civs' and then they would have a higher probability to get their wish in the drawing process; or sth completely different.
Isn't it unfair that Players X&Y have to play Goths for the entire tournament, even if they don't want to? Yeah, kind of, but, I mean, if you are not willing to lead any other than your favorite Civ to eternal glory, maybe this is just not the right event for you.
What are the game settings? The game settings vary from stage to stage. In the group stage, the teams (each consisting of 2 players) would play two separate 1v1s to make for a set of 2 games. Teams winning those sets gain 3 points, while teams drawing get 1 point each. In every single one of those sets, both teams get 1 player each to pick the maps for the games (f.e. Players X&Y are Team Persians and play against Players A&B (Team Huns). Then X chooses the map Nomad for X vs A and B chooses Arabia for Y vs B = either 1-1 or 2-0 or 0-2 as possible results). In the knockout stages, the contestants battle each other in a Bo3, including two separate 1v1s with the same settings as in the group stage, and for the decider, the 3rd game, I have 2 ideas in mind: Either a 2v2 on "Blind Random map" (e.g. Persians+Persians vs. Huns+Huns) or a 2v2 in co-op/Archon mode on "Blind Random map". I know that both of those options for a possible Game 3 are, to put it mildly, underutilised in most tournaments, but that's part of the reason why I prefer them. For the Grand Final I have no special ideas, I feel like a short Bo3 (or Bo5) with the same settings as in the prior stages would spice it up in comparison to other tournaments, which regularly introduce Bo7s or Bo9s in their finals. Conquest as victory condition, obviously.
Why Bo3? No one likes Bo3. We want more games! An event like this would make for a total of 96 games in the group stage alone; 30-45 additional games in the knockout stages. I feel like this is a pretty high amount of games already. But we can talk about it. I just feel like the event would lose a lot of its momentum if the series' would include too many games.
Map Pool? I am open for suggestions. I personally don't see any reason to not have a pool of 40 or more maps to choose from, and I don't see any reason to prohibit the players to choose what they want, but I am open for suggestions.
How would you draw the groups? I think splitting the civilizations into 4 pots, sorted by (anticipated) strength in the current meta, as it is practised in many football competitions, would be my favorite option. Please don't focus too much on which Civ would deserve a higher or lower tier from your point of view, because I just want to give the following example in order to explain in more detail what I am talking about:
e.g.
Pot 1: Aztecs, Burmese, Berbers, Indians, Malians, Mayans, Mongols, Slavs
Pot 2: Britons, Celts, Franks, Huns, Incas, Italians, Magyars, Malay
Pot 3: Byzantines, Chinese A, Chinese B, Ethiopians, Japanese, Persians, Spanish, Vikings
Pot 4: Goths, Khmer, Koreans, Portuguese, Saracens, Turks, Teutons, Vietnamese
You would then draw the groups by drawing one civilization from each pot into the group. F.e., a group stage could look like this:
Gr A: Ind, Mala, Byz, Sar
Gr B: Ber, Hun, ChiB, Tur
Gr C: Slav, Brit, ChiA, Viet
Gr D: Bur, Inc, Spa, Por
Gr E: Mon, Cel, Eth, Kor
Gr F: May, Fra, Per, Teu
Gr G: Mali, Ita, Vik, Got
Gr H: Azt, Mag, Jap, Khm
Only just looking at such a line-up would have potential for so many talking points if people would get interested in such an event.
Tiebreakers? The ranking of teams in the group stage would be determined as follows:
- Points obtained in all group matches;
- Points obtained in the matches played between the teams in question;
- Score difference in the matches played between the teams in question; OR Game Time difference between the teams in question (meaning that a team gets benefited for beating its opponents in a shorter time - possible negative consequence could be that losing players would draw out their inevitable defeats)
Since 2 out of 4 teams advance in each group, in the draw for the round of 16, the eight group winners are seeded, and the eight group runners-up are unseeded. The seeded teams are drawn against the unseeded teams, with the seeded teams hosting the possible third game. Teams from the same group cannot be drawn against each other. In the draws for the quarter-finals onwards, there are no seedings, and teams from the same group can be drawn against each other.
EDIT: How would you split the prize-pool? Although I feel I shouldn't have a say on that topic when I don't provide a majority of the prize-money, I can say that I really like the prize-pool split the ECL is introducing. I am not sure how exactly we could convert that concept to our stage system, but it could possibly encourage more players to be engaged, even with a less favorable civilization.
I am pretty sure that I have missed many important things, and there might be aspects I haven't even given a thought to, but nevertheless I wanted to share this idea with you, because I strongly believe that I want to see an event like this happening somewhen in 2019 or 2020 AND I believe it is feasible AND I believe people would like this event. There is potential to crown a Civilization as World Cup Winner which no one would have predicted beforehand, there is potential for many, many different maps, and there is a mix of game settings which both worked in the past (or in other sports) and can make for a variation from settings we know from MoA, or 1v1 Arabia.
Please respond, and take part in the discussion! Have a nice day!
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