Terra Nova - Announcement and Updates

What?
Terra Nova is a new 1vs1 tournament to seal the year with some variety! After two and a half years of streaming, I'm finally in a position to host my very own pro-oriented event. Similar to my low and mid-elo Open Elo Cups tournament series, this one will feature a continent thematic similar to what we saw during ECL but in a much denser, faster format and with a few changes.

The events will have a prizepool for the top 8 spots, currently sitting at $1000 total + 75% of donations to my channel throughout the event. The prize pool distribution is detailed in the prize pool section below.

For whom?
There are no elo caps for this tournament, so anyone is free to sign up. However, the main event will feature only 16 players. A maximum of 52 sign-ups will be accepted, with the top 4 players* getting a bye to the main event, and the remaining 48 players players will have to play qualifiers to determine who the other 12 players will be.

*according to aoe-elo.com

When?
This tournament will take place during November/December. Players will have to schedule their own matches, except for the semi finals and the grand final which will be played live on the dates specified below. If you'd like to sign up make sure you will have the time to play your matches. The group stage will require players to play 12 series in 4 weeks.

Sign-ups:
2nd to 7th November

Qualifiers:
Ro48 9th to 12th November
Ro24 13th to 15th November

Main Event's Group Stage:
Week 1: 16th - 22nd November
Week 2: 23rd - 29th November
Week 3: 30th November - 6th December
Week 4: 7th - 13th December

Knockout Stage:
Quarterfinals: 14th-18th December
Semifinals: 19th December 15GMT
Grand Final: 20th December 15GMT

Semis and GF might be adjusted if participating players agree in case it conflicts with other events.

How?
Sign-ups are open now! Go to this thread and use the following format:

- Playername: example
- Main account's AoE2.net profile link: https://aoe2.net/#profile-yadayada
- All time high elo: example elo
- Preferred method of contact: AoEZone/Discord
- Discord user (if available): example#1234

REGISTRATION DEADLINE: November 7th - 23:59GMT

Prizepool
We have a total prizepool of $1000 for the top 16 spots, but I expect this to be higher by the end of the event.

The prize distribution will be as follows:
1st - 40%
2nd - 16%
3rd - 7%
3rd - 7%
5th - 3.5%
5th - 3.5%
5th - 3.5%
5th - 3.5%
9th to 16th - 2%


Streaming Policy:
The tournament will offer open casting, as long as you provide proper credit to the host. Please make sure you comply with the following requirements:

- Display tournament banner during your stream before, after and in between matches. More formats will be provided soon for you to choose whatever fits your layout the best.
- Mention during your stream/video who hosts the event, and include it in the stream/video title and description. Something like "Hosted by NovaAoE" works.
- Set up an easily accessible link to a page with the tournament information. A custom command with a link to this page works.
- You're welcome to remind people that the prize pool will increase with donations.

Rules and Settings

A more extensive thread with full settings for the main stage and the system for how this civ-pool building works is available here.

- Qualifiers: Ro48 and Ro24 will be Best of 3.

Drafting is done directly in-game. Player A = higher seed, Player B = lower seed.


1. Player A bans a civ.
2. Player B bans a civ.

3. Player A picks home-map.
4. Player B picks home-map.

5. Player A picks a civ.
6. Player B picks two civs.
7. Player A picks two civs.
8. Player B picks a civ.

Game 1 will be played on Arabia with standard settings.
Game 2 will be played on the home map of whoever lost game 1.
Game 3 will be played on the home map of the other player.

Map Pool for qualifiers:
Crater Lake, Bogland, Budapest, Fortress, Arena.
These are all included inside the game.

Players must make sure the settings are correct before the game starts.
No restarts. Laming is allowed.

- Group Stage:
There will be 4 groups of 4 players each, and this stage will consist of 4 one-week-long rounds. Every week, a new round will begin featuring different continent-based map and civilisation pools, covering America, Europe, Asia and Africa. These will be revealed 1 week in advance before each round, with the first batch of civilisations and maps being unveiled the 9th. Players will be able to build their knockout stage civilisation pool during the group stage.

Sign-up thread. Sign up deadline Nov 7th 23:59GMT

All feedback is welcome.

 

I agree with some of the observations about the drawbacks of this system. Is there a way to filter, or visualise a custom ladder, by picking only "latest X tournaments" or "people with >9 tournaments"? I think aoe-elo is a great platform and I'd love to use it if we can overcome these issues. These could also be used in the future for other tournaments, too.

If not possible, I think it could be good to use an average between aoe2.net's ladder and aoe-elo's ladder only for the top 16, and then purely aoe2.net for the rest of the players. What do you guys think about this?

As suggested before, I think this approach is fine.

My suggestion to make it even less dependent on who signs up: Don't fix the number of players to be seeded but rather the rating level to be considered.
Something like: Average of tournament elo (50%) and RM 1v1 rating (current: 33%, highest: 17% [50% * 66%/33% respectively]), where everyone who has no tournament elo or a tournament elo of below 2000 gets rated with 2000.

Basically this means that the tournament elo would only influence the seeding if it is above 2k (roughly top 40).

Current elo 66
Highest elo 33

Thank you!

 

Something like: Average of tournament elo (50%) and RM 1v1 rating (current: 33%, highest: 17% [50% * 66%/33% respectively]), where everyone who has no tournament elo or a tournament elo of below 2000 gets rated with 2000.

This seems like a very suitable approach. I like it quite a bit. I'll keep an eye on more feedback but I think this makes a lot of sense.

 

Best of luck with the tournament Nova!! Great to see you hosting an expert tourney!

 

Nice. Can’t wait for this tournament.thanks for host.

 

Tournament elo is a cool stat, but I don't think it's very reliable for seeding purposes: it takes into account weird mods (king of the realms), mono map tournaments, old tournaments, stuff like ECL or aoelympics in which some players couldn't play every mini tournament, regional tournaments, invitational tournaments, sometimes the elo starts counting only from a specific round for no reason at all, empire wars, nerd ragequit arabia, hd/voobly tournaments with no new civs...
Also every tournament is counted as being the same, when we all know that winning stuff like KotD3 counts more than 100 random showmatches

 

Thanks to everyone for your feedback. I'm happy with the seeding we got, but feel free to provide your constructive criticism for future events!

Match-ups for the qualifiers are ready. Please head over here to see who you're up against, and schedule your matches. The deadline for the first round is Thursday 12th, and for the second round Sunday 15th. Once you confirm your set times, make a post in that very thread or PM me the date and the time so I can add it to the tournament schedule.

The following players, as the top 4, get byes and will start in the main event, thus skipping qualifiers.
@ACCM
@VIK_Vinchester
@_DauT_
@tia

Also, the first batch of maps is ready! These will be the four maps played in the European round of the group stage.

- Nordic Pass (original)
- Budapest
- Fortress
- Clearing

There will be a Map Pack is available now as a Mod for everybody to download here. I'll update the pack each week with the maps for the next round as promised. Feel free to test them out and provide feedback before the group stage begins.

More information about civilisations for the European round will be provided this week.

Special thanks to @Michaerbse and @TheMadCADer for their help with seeding and map creation/tweaking

Good luck, have fun!

 

I want to inform everyone that @Lord_patito /Lord patito#1970
will be joining the tournament as an admin. Our timezone differences will make it easier for people to have someone available at most times. Please, send recs and scores over to him after games are played. Thanks!

 

Hi everyone! I'm in GMT + 1 Timezone, so I hope that will be useful. Any doubt or question, I'm 100% available. Thanks to all

 

Due to intense tournament activity in the past few days, scheduling has been hard for some players. We will try to get all the missing games played as soon as possible, however for players who are already in the main event feel free to start scheduling. The spreadsheet contains now a Group Stage page where matchups can be seen, and scheduling will be added as players confirm the times for their series.

 

Due to intense tournament activity in the past few days, scheduling has been hard for some players. We will try to get all the missing games played as soon as possible, however for players who are already in the main event feel free to start scheduling. The spreadsheet contains now a Group Stage page where matchups can be seen, and scheduling will be added as players confirm the times for their series.

We can start scheduling with anyone on our group?

Edit: Checking again the table, it seems we will have to schedule with the 4 player every week in order to play the week's settings right?

So, I have 3 BO3 each week vs each of the players of my group if i'm not mistaken. Is that accurate?

Also, where the proccess of choosing the civs will take place?

@NOVAinc

 

We can start scheduling with anyone on our group?

Edit: Checking again the table, it seems we will have to schedule with the 4 player every week in order to play the week's settings right?

So, I have 3 BO3 each week vs each of the players of my group if i'm not mistaken. Is that accurate?

Also, where the proccess of choosing the civs will take place?

@NOVAinc

Yes, you csn start scheduling and playing your week 1 games. You have 3 bo3 per week, and you can use only the civ related to thst continent (i. E. First week is European civs, the one that are listed on the group table)

Group Stage - Best of 3
Player B: Bans a map
Player A: Picks Home map
Player B: Picks Home map
Player A: Picks one civilisation
Player B: Picks one civilisation
Player B: Picks one civilisation
Player A: Picks one civilisation
Player A: Picks one civilisation
Player B: Picks one civilisation
Player B: Picks one civilisation (for Europe and Asia)
Player A: Picks one civilisation (for Europe and Asia

 

We can start scheduling with anyone on our group?

Also, where the proccess of choosing the civs will take place?
@NOVAinc

That is correct! You can start scheduling away. Sundays are the suggested deadlines to play each week's series, but if you have difficulties you can play a week's remaining series during the next week. What's important is to get all 12 series played at the end of the fourth week so we can move on to the knockout stage.

Civilization drafting for the knockout stage will take place after all the series of the group for the week are completed, and will be done on a special thread

 

The rest of the tournament will be played using the previous patch. Instructions on how to switch back to the previous version are here

 

I made this post some days ago, but it seems aoezone lost some information during the downtime. I'll make it again:

Due to issues with the spectating features used for this tournament and the October patch, we will be using the November patch for the rest of the tournament instead. If you have already played games using the October patch don't worry about it, but let us know which ones you did so we're prepared. Use the new version for your next sets. Sorry for the about face, but these issues came up overnight. With this being the case, you don't need to do anything special. Just play using the current version.

I also would like to remind everyone that we won't have a hard Sunday deadline each week for you to play your series, but it is important that by December 13th you finish playing all of your group stage series. It is a total of 12 series per player during a month. This will allow us to move to the knockout stage without going through hoops.

Also remember to either send the games, as well as drafting information, to Lord_Patito or to post them yourselves in the Recorded Games forum here.

As a suggestion, just use your existing scheduling threads for all 4 rounds. If you prefer to use Discord to contact your opponents, you can find Discord IDs for the players who provided one in the "Seeding" page of the tournament Spreadsheet here. Just remember to inform us of your confirmed times once you have them either by posting in your scheduling thread or PMing Lord_patito or me.

Group A @ACCM @PROject_Belgium @Running @_Hallis
Group B @VIK_Vinchester @repard @VODKA_L_ @brunin
Group C @_DauT_ @29_ @Scotty__ @classicpro
Group D @tia @L_Clan_Capoch @VNS_BadBoy91 @100Dragonstar

 

Thanks Nova! BTW, if you have any doubt about anything, please do not doubt in contacte through Discord
Lord patito#1970

I'm usually available and I'm glad to help in anything I can

 

To all the players, there was an update to the map Tenochtitlan in the Map Pack that prevents a bug from the November update to do damage to buildings on their own.

Also, please send your recs to @Lord_patito from now on, and we'll take care of formatting them and posting them in the Recorded Games channel to prevent spoilers and take the load off the players. Remember that with 3 series per week it's important to try and keep up with the sets so they don't overwhelm you in the final weeks. If you are having issues with scheduling please contact us and we'll try to help mediate. It'd be ideal that everyone completes their first round series by Friday. Considering the AoEzone downtime it's understandable, and then you'd have the weekend to play the second round if you still haven't done so. Cheers!

 

Yes! Please send all the recs directly to me. that way i can control pretty much every series add dummies rec if necessary, etc. I'm usually available do contact me if needed

 

Maps for both Africa and Asia have been added to the map pack. The pack should update on its own. Each map has a prefix for the location it belongs to. TN_EU, TN_AM, TN_AF, TN_AS for European, American, African and Asian maps respectively. Hopefully this makes it easy for players to tell which ones they should play each round.

Due to how difficult scheduling has been for some players, we'll ditch the weekly scheduling system for a "play as many rounds as you can" one. This means that if you find a time that works for you and your opponent, you can just play all of your series in one go if so you wish. You can still spread your series out if you prefer not to cram, but remember to try and finish them all by December 13th so we can move on to the knockout stage.

In a bit of a sad news, Scotty will not be participating in the event anymore due to work travel making it impossible for him to continue. I have tried to get a suitable substitute from the sing-ups but it didn't turn out. Given the group he was in, this is not very likely to affect results significantly, but we will continue as normal for the other players so we don't fall behind.

I have also made Captains Mode presets for all 4 continents, in case you prefer to use this drafting system. If you use this please also include the link together with your matches when sending them over to @Lord_patito

Go to any of the presets below and click "Create new draft from this preset". You'll get a link to share with the guest player and spectators.

European round preset
American round preset
African round preset
Asian round preset

I will conduct the civilisation drafting for the knockout stage with players later as each player finishes all their series so we don't have to do it four times.

 

Maps for both Africa and Asia have been added to the map pack. The pack should update on its own. Each map has a prefix for the location it belongs to. TN_EU, TN_AM, TN_AF, TN_AS for European, American, African and Asian maps respectively. Hopefully this makes it easy for players to tell which ones they should play each round.

Due to how difficult scheduling has been for some players, we'll ditch the weekly scheduling system for a "play as many rounds as you can" one. This means that if you find a time that works for you and your opponent, you can just play all of your series in one go if so you wish. You can still spread your series out if you prefer not to cram, but remember to try and finish them all by December 13th so we can move on to the knockout stage.

In a bit of a sad news, Scotty will not be participating in the event anymore due to work travel making it impossible for him to continue. I have tried to get a suitable substitute from the sing-ups but it didn't turn out. Given the group he was in, this is not very likely to affect results significantly, but we will continue as normal for the other players so we don't fall behind.

I have also made Captains Mode presets for all 4 continents, in case you prefer to use this drafting system. If you use this please also include the link together with your matches when sending them over to @Lord_patito

European round preset
American round preset
African round preset
Asian round preset

I will conduct the civilisation drafting for the knockout stage with players later as each player finishes all their series so we don't have to do it four times.

Subiste mal Europa revisa el link hermano

 

Subiste mal Europa revisa el link hermano

Works well for me. I have updated the post above to clarify that players need to click "Create new draft from this preset". What issue are you finding?

 

The map pack has been updated with the correct version of Savanna. Sorry for the issues.

 

The group stage deadline has been extended until this upcoming weekend. We'll move on to the knockout stage after that.