Summary/Feedback

[enmipho]

Return of the Clans has come to a close. First and foremost, congratulations to tournament champions Aftermath for their strong performance against GL in the finals! aM played exciting, aggressive AoE throughout the tournament, and while a couple of teams put up a strong fight against them, ultimately no one could take a series from them. The second-place finisher GamerLegion also deserve congrats for their performance in an extremely competitive tournament, as do semi-finalists White Wolf Palace and Deceptive Baguettes.

I'd also like to congratulate Combi Team and Annotoph, winners of the Surprise Team and Rising Star awards, respectively.

Credit where it's due

I think RotC was an overwhelming success in terms of number and quality of signups, viewership numbers, and, most importantly, entertaining games. There are many people who contributed to the tournament's success, and I would like to take a moment to thank some of them.

First off, the tournament could never have achieved what it did without Huehuecoyotl22. When I first talked to Huehuecoyotl22 in mid-December of last year asking for advice about hosting a tournament, all I brought to him was an idea to have a 3v3 tournament with some rough plans for a map pool and civ/map draft. He took this vague idea and turned it into the hugely successful tournament that it was. We are lucky to have him in our community, and I am grateful for all the work he did for this tourney.

Our other admin, Nova, also deserves a ton of credit. In addition to his work as an admin he has been prolific in casting the tournament, not to mention the fact that he is responsible for the tournament's great graphics, such as the tournament logo, banner, map animations, etc.

RotC featured a diverse group of maps, and I am grateful for the map scripters who created them. Particular thanks goes to TheMadCADer and Huehuecoyotl22, who were there to iron out the kinks in the maps and address any bugs unexpected features as we discovered them.

This tournament was covered in a variety of different languages by a group of casters too large to thank individually. These streamers provided a venue for people to spectate the event and drew attention to the tournament. You can have a tournament with all the exciting matches you want, but if no one watches it it's hard to call it a success. My gratitude goes out especially to those who casted the earlier stages of the tournament as well, laying the groundwork and building hype for the later stages, but ultimately I'm thankful for everyone who covered any part of the tourney.

When Hue first suggested a format allowing for up to 64 teams signing up, I thought that we would need at most 32 slots for a tournament with, by the scene's current standards, a relatively unimpressive prize pool. Hue turned out to be right, as he was so many times in running this tournament, when we ultimately saw 58 teams sign up. This highlights the next group I'd like to recognize; the players. Throughout the tournament the level of play was consistently high, and we saw some teams that clearly put a lot of work into strategizing for the maps and settings, leading to entertaining games and, in some cases, some substantial upsets.

And finally, I'd like to thank the viewers. Simply put, the viewers are the lifeblood of the community, without whom there could be no substantial competitive AoE scene.

Feedback

The other reason for making this post is to ask for feedback on how the tournament went. I'm interested in hearing from anyone who was involved; players, casters, viewers, etc.

If you would like to provide feedback somewhere less public than this thread, feel free to DM me here or on Discord at enmipho#7011

Below I will bring up a few aspects of the tournament in detail and talk about what I learned from them. This is mostly for people interested in the tournament - you don't need to read it to give feedback! If you do read it and your thoughts differ from my conclusions though, please do let me know. Also I see because I was a bit late with posting this thread there's been a lot of feedback in the Announcement thread, I'll be sure to check that out.


Takeaways

Map Pool:

Spoiler

One of the ideas of the tournament was to remove Arabia completely. I've thought that in many of the past few tournaments Arabia is often seen as a "neutral" map, a game 1 map that should be roughly equally familiar to both teams. The map settings in RotC were consciously made to move away from this idea. The intent of the map settings was that different teams have different strengths, and should be given an opportunity to play to those strengths. The map pool was made up of roughly one third open maps, one third closed maps, and one third mixed/hybrid maps. The ban-heavy draft was done with the intent of letting game 1 be played on as close to a "neutral" map as possible, a map that either team had every opportunity to pick or ban, but decided not to. Overall, I was fairly happy with the map pool and settings. One thing that can be improved on is making the lobby settings as homogenous as possible across different maps. E.g. if at all possible, if BF is in a map pack and should be played with shared exploration, make shared exploration a part of the map script so teams don't have to remember to adjust lobby settings between games. Same with team positions (though I'm not sure if that's possible) etc.

Boars/Laming:

Spoiler

One experimental setting this tournament had was making laming boars or other boar-like animals (elephants, etc.) illegal. Though this lead to a couple of unfortunate situations where players forgot or didn't know this rule, overall I was happy with it. I do think that it doesn't make sense for every map in the pool, BF being an example of a map where the rule isn't a great fit.

Prizepool:

Spoiler

Realistically, the $5k USD prizepool for this event was small relative to other TG tournaments with so many big names playing. We did not reach out to Microsoft for funding, as we judged that our odds of being accepted were remote, due both to how quickly the tournament was thrown together (planning started ~3 weeks before the announcement) and other factors regarding the format I won't get into here. On the one hand it would of course have been much better for the tournament to have been planned further ahead, as this would have heightened our chances of securing funding, and certainly if I'm involved in future tournies I will try to plan them further ahead. On the other hand, though, had we pushed the tourney start date further back it would likely have conflicted with BoA and undermined its purpose of giving teams some competitive stakes to play for together to de-rust before bigger TG tournaments later this year.

 

[Springoftheking]

Great tournament overall. I agree as a viewer that removing Arabia from map pool was good thing. In team games archers&cavalry meta is very dominant and when Arabia is always the first of the set it makes viewers experience a bit dull. In this tournament map pool was diverse, but there weren't too gimmicky maps, so results was interesting games, where we saw different strategies played.

 

[TheMadCADer]

This was a very satisfying tournament, and in terms of map-making incredibly efficient. Maps were like 90+% done before the tournament even started. Some of my thoughts.

Arena	No strong opinions, we changed nothing.
Atoll	Nice map, combination of land and water makes interesting strategies.
Bedouins	I would've preferred this without fixed positions. Even though it helps teams strategize and makes things more streamlined, it kind of takes away from the original intention of the map imo.
Black Forest	Normal BF with better pond positions. Nice to see the Rage Forest map using the same strategy.
Chaos Pit	Was banned pretty often, but games here were great. Always different, and most of the time games reach a mature stage while being exciting throughout the whole game.
Colosseum	Not much strategy involved, mostly just execution. Exciting to see at the highest level, but anything less than that is very snowball-y and not very entertaining.
Crop Circles	The only map that was re-made for the tournament. Not much different from oasis, paths didn't come into play mostly. Maybe sometimes in the late game, but that's it.
Crescent	Lots of ways to play the map. Lots of things to think about. Middle water, outside water, how much to focus on land, whether to try and transport.
Enemy Archipelago	Was banned pretty often. When played, there wasn't much team coordination, mostly just independent 1v1s.
Fortress	We used and old version of fortress that seemed to bring unnecessary problems. Pretty standard otherwise.
Heartland	This felt like it got better as the tournament went on. Water is important, but the openness leaves you very vulnerable on land.
Huacachina	Very snowball-y. Games here never reached a mature stage where the gold in the middle ever came into play. Maybe in the future add cliffs/increase the wood in the desert to help walling, or add nomad resources to give more options in the start and allow 2 defensive towers.
Nomad	Hard to have your cake and eat it too. If you try to tie players to a specific location, you can mitigate TC fighting, but is it still nomad at that point? I think we reached a happy medium here.

 

[SuperskinnyBLS]

I am still surprised that none of the teams went full monks on Atoll. Long ago in 3v3 clash of the hippo I believe Fedex's team monk rushed aM completely blocking the middle and won the game with such strategy.

CotH3 | QF | KaiKaiLarry vs Team edie | G1

w/ Mattheus/Melkor

m.youtube.com

Yes, different settings with feudal start but I still think FC is doable.

 

[Tendo]

Great Tournament, I honestly never had the feeling of "missing" Arabia and I rly loved how we directly started into the series with a non-set map, like we had 6 different starting maps in the Playoffs.

Only thing I disliked were the repeating Matchups in the Group Stage (VNA vs WPAS and Dec Bag vs KGB), maybe some changes here to avoid those would be nice.

Smth I'm not sure about is whether we would see way more mirror match-ups if the Tournament get's bigger (Prizepool-wise), this time it was a great variety of strategies and different Civs but with teams preparing/tryharding more this could be an issue since there's not that much of a Civ-Draft.

 

[oozkan]

My only feedback: Next time you should chase MS funding, you proved that you can bring quality entertainment.

 

[Huehuecoyotl22]

I can mostly just repeat what enmipho says:

We found a good team and many people participated to have a great result.
Thank you everybody once more. Especially enmipho, because AoE 2 needs people like you to start projects like this.

Maybe some of you saw Nova's teaser, more is coming from us and teams are now a bit more prepared for BoA 3 and can hopefully carry over the motivation to repeat or improve their RotC results.

 

[T90Official]

One small thing that comes to mind - I really liked the idea of the map that's not banned or picked being Game 1, however it created a problem when showing information/drafts on screen. If there's a way to have that be a bit more clear on the draft itself with similar results it would be awesome for everyone following the tournament, as most don't make it to G1 in a series. (That or maybe there's a way us streamers can somehow add the G1 map on there somewhere, I just suck with technology lol)

 

[TheCapybara]

Some thoughts as both a player and an eager viewer:

1) Really great to have such a wide spread of teams. Meant my team got a very competitive R1 set before an opportunity to play one of the 'big boys' (WWP this time), which is great, especially with a map pool where preparation mattered and was rewarded. It felt like there were opportunities to be competitive against any team by having a good plan.

2) Tying into that point, the map pool overall was excellent for making civ choices and strategies matter, with some variety options available on a few of the maps (e.g. the land plays on atoll, balance of land and water on heartland and Huacachina, aggressive and passive options being seen on Bedouins). Was very satisfying to see a well-prepared team do so well and show innovation which other teams felt forced to learn from. Also very much favour this map selection format. No more set maps in tournaments, please! Same for civ ban settings. Meant we got a healthy balance of mirror and mismatched civs.

3) Think it would have been fine to cull two maps from the pool. Hard not to look past the constant bugs and problems with fortress - this was very frustrating both as a player and as a viewer, making strategising harder and generally killing the enjoyment of what is a classic map, plus we maybe had one closed map too many anyway. Crop circles also felt a little slow to start and also made Britons too much of a must-pick. Enemy archipelago kind of became a bystander this tournament and would probably be my second vote (alongside fortress) for exclusion from this tournament.

4) Teams have to get better at drafting and starting promptly. There were too many sets, especially in the early stages, where teams which had clearly not prepared spent 10-15 minutes (sometimes possibly longer) between games planning civs and strategies, which ruins live broadcasts. Plus a few too many sets with players turning up 20+ minutes late. Preparation is to be done beforehand. Fail to prepare? Tough luck.

5) Brilliant job from Nova to cast with energy and enthusiasm throughout. I hope his fanclub has grown from this tournament. Also good stuff from Huehue in organising what's been a thoroughly enjoyable and exciting event. Whilst there were a few kinks here and there, he was open to feedback and responsive, clearly looking to keep people happy as far as possible.

 

[slixgotcha]

Honestly, I thought this was one of the most enjoyable tournaments to watch in a really long time. Not even sure there's much I'd change. It was great.

 

[Mollask]

Great tournament as a viewer. I also found the mirror match-ups a little bit underwhelming, but I have no idea how to avoid them without a full civ draft (which would be a bit too much).

 

[The Bloodless]

Personally I didn't even play bedouins but I think it's a bad map compared to African clearing. More scripted, less exciting, ponds and fish/trees exact same way everywhere. Maybe a bit too much attention was given there to fairness and not enough to Randomness, as in Random Map.

Aside from that, I really enjoyed the tournament as a player. Have to echo the comments about Arabia being left out being a very good thing, from viewing and playing perspective. Not a bad map but it's been seen too often in tournaments if you ask me.

 

[TheCapybara]

Personally I didn't even play bedouins but I think it's a bad map compared to African clearing. More scripted, less exciting, ponds and fish/trees exact same way everywhere. Maybe a bit too much attention was given there to fairness and not enough to Randomness, as in Random Map.

My preference is very strongly for Bedouins over African clearing, though I would favour the fish being toned down so that Indians are weaker and there's more need to expand to boar/sheep/deer/berries earlier. Some additional randomness in pond/tree spawn seems a sensible suggestion. However I really like the team positions, I think it's opened up some interesting strategic options (e.g. balance of fast Feudal vs FC, UU vs archer play, team walls vs individual walls).

 

[YoungPanda95]

My preference is very strongly for Bedouins over African clearing, though I would favour the fish being toned down so that Indians are weaker and there's more need to expand to boar/sheep/deer/berries earlier. Some additional randomness in pond/tree spawn seems a sensible suggestion. However I really like the team positions, I think it's opened up some interesting strategic options (e.g. balance of fast Feudal vs FC, UU vs archer play, team walls vs individual walls).

If we have team positions for Bedouins (or any nomad start maps for that matter) we might as well just start with a Town Center already constructed imo. It stops being the chaotic maps we've come to love or hate (definitely me 11) and just another range unit from the flanks and cavalry from the pocket map.

I agree with you and Bloodless that the map feels "too scripted" with ponds almost being in a grid all over the map, just take a look at RotC Bedouins vs ECL Bedouins (the last time it was played in a major tournament to my knowledge).

Spoiler: RotC Bedouins

Spoiler: ECL Bedouins

 

[Huehuecoyotl22]

If we have team positions for Bedouins (or any nomad start maps for that matter) we might as well just start with a Town Center already constructed imo. It stops being the chaotic maps we've come to love or hate (definitely me 11) and just another range unit from the flanks and cavalry from the pocket map.

I agree with you and Bloodless that the map feels "too scripted" with ponds almost being in a grid all over the map, just take a look at RotC Bedouins vs ECL Bedouins (the last time it was played in a major tournament to my knowledge).

Spoiler: RotC Bedouins

View attachment 198979

Spoiler: ECL Bedouins

View attachment 198977

For a next tournament we could make a survey which way is preferred, but we intentionally used the "fair" Bedouins version, which originated in the nC Zone and was already used in the 2020 AoElympics, because of the suggestion to have it fairer.
Team together or not is probably a question with around equal amount of people saying yes and no, because it always was like that on Bedouins, but never on Nomad. I think on Land Nomad it was also the case.

 

[ltm]

Didn't get to watch that much (and unfortunately saw a final spoiler as well) but what i was able to catch was great.

Especially liked the idea to not have Arabia as g1, was interesting to also see unusual maps to open the match.

 

[Ovenka]

This tournament was perfect, as mentioned, the first game was not Arabia, that´s just huge. I donť like that map (especially in 3v3), because it is same all the time, Colosseum was kinda similar but I didn´t mind. I also loved Arena and BF were involved, aswell as RF. Most of the teams played perfectly, close series, rising stars. Just a perfect tournament I enjoyed really a lot. Shame it could have only 5k USD, it would deserve 50k imo. I hope RotC 2 is coming soon

 

[salvadope]

great job!!

 

[NachoAoE]

Lovely tournament. Congratulations <3
Thank you very much for you guys, great quality settings and games!