Tournament Rules and Settings

[PL_Dziamdziak]

Master Tacticians League


:arrow: DATES
Sign-ups open Friday November 25th 2011 and close Friday December 9th 2011 (2 weeks).
Master Tacticians League itself starts on December 12th, 2011 and will last around 20 weeks.

:arrow: SPOTS
32/64/128 open spots for Qualification Stage + 16 invited teams. Qualification Stage will only take place if more than 32 teams sign up and its length will depend on the number of teams.

:arrow: INVITED TEAMS
Will be determined after sign-ups

:arrow: BRACKETS
[pre]- Qualification Stage ........ : BRACKETS
- Second Stage ................ : BRACKETS

Pro Division:
- Final Stage Phase 1 ................. : BRACKETS
- Final Stage Phase 2 ................. : BRACKETS
- Final Stage Phase 3 ................. : BRACKETS

Fun Division:
- Final Stage Phase 1 ................. : BRACKETS
- Final Stage Phase 2 ................. : BRACKETS
- Final Stage Phase 3 ................. : BRACKETS


FORMAT and DEADLINES

MTL will have 3 stages, following this order:

**** to be added ***


MAPS and SETTINGS

[pre]Game .............. : Random Map
Map Style .......... : Standard / Custom
Location ........... : (read further)
Size ................ : (according to number of players)
Difficulty .......... : Standard
Resources ......... : Standard
Population ......... : 200
Game Speed ...... : Normal
Reveal Map ....... : Normal
Starting Age ...... : Standard
Victory Condition . : Conquest

Team Together ... : [X] Yes
All techs ........... : [ ] No
Allow Cheats ...... : [ ] No
Lock Teams ....... : [X] Yes
Lock Speed ........ : [X] Yes
Record Game ..... : [X] Yes[/pre]

Other Settings .... : Default / Normal

*** more to be added ***

Home map list - If a map is a set map in that round, it cannot be chosen as a home map:

• Arabia
• Archipelago
• Arena
• Baltic
• Black Forest (Time Limit: 1,500 years (2:00 hrs), Reveal Map: Explored)
• Coastal
• Continental
• Crater Lake
• Ghost Lake
• Gold Rush
• Highland
• Islands
• Land Fortress Regicide (BCC3@Fortress) (download) (Game: Regicide)
• Land Nomad (fixed) WCL7 (download)
• Mediterranean
• MegaRandom (WCL 7) (download)
• Migration
• Mongolia
• Nomad
• Oasis
• Scandinavia
• Team Islands
• UltraRandom_v4 (download)
• UltraRandom_v5 (download)
• Yucatan

In each map, repeated civs are not allowed in the same team.
In other words - players in the same team MUST USE DIFFERENT CIVS while playing a map.

In the Final Stage phase 1, each map won will give one point. After all rounds have been played, if two teams have the same amount of points, the result of their direct match (the set of games between the 2 teams in the dispute) will decide the winner.

:arrow: GAMES ARRANGEMENT
In case people don't find a scheduling agreement, there are admin times to be followed.
For more info, see MASTER TACTICIANS LEAGUE OFFICIAL RULES below (#01).

Each round lasts one week and deadline to post recorded games or request an Admin Win (because of another team not showing up) is Sunday 23.59 GMT. Extra days will be given only in VERY special cases.

MASTER TACTICIANS COUNCIL

MTL Council is created to help in different disputes and situations that may need special attention.
The council is formed by:

*** to be added ***

PRIZES

*** to be added ***

MASTER TACTICIANS LEAGUE OFFICIAL RULES

#01. To try and be as fair as possible to all nations, admin time will no longer be a set time but admins will decide a time based on what the local time is for the majority of the main players in a team.

Scheduled times should be within the following limits for each team's local timezone. When scheduling, teams are not obliged to make concessions in order to reach an agreement if the time in question is outside these limits:
18:00 - 22:00 Fridays
10:00 - 22:00 Saturdays
11:00 - 21:00 Sundays

As an example, if a European team is playing a Japanese team, the time difference is 10 hours more or less, if a European team starts to play at 10am Saturday morning, the Japanese team would start playing at 8pm Saturday evening, both local times are inside the range. Whereas if a Brazilian team were to play a Japanese team the time difference is 15 hours, if the Brazilian team started to play at 8pm Friday night, the Japanese team would start playing at 11am Saturday morning. Both times fall inside the acceptable hours, this makes the scheduled times fair on all people as in previous tournaments some teams (especially Asian) had to begin playing at 1-2am to satisfy European/American team and would not finish until sometimes 7-8am.

#02. When signing up, Team Leaders must provide a team local timezone, this is the timezone that other teams and Admins will take into consideration when scheduling. For example if a team is from Brazil their standard timezone is GMT-3, the team would pick GMT-3 as their team local timezone. But if this team has a European player, they would probably still choose to make the team local timezone GMT-3. If a team has a mixture of European (GMT+1/+2) and American/Latin American (GMT-3/-4) players, they might choose a team local timezone of GMT-1 which is half way between more or less.

The significance of this team local timezone is in accordance with Rule #01, when 2 teams are scheduling they must pick a time which is inside the allowed local times for both teams. If they cannot reach an agreed time by 23.59 GMT Thursday, admins should be notified and will decide a time.

When providing timezones, please take into consideration Daylight Savings Time (DST) and adjust your timezones accordingly if your country uses it. For example, Ireland is GMT from October to March, but in March it changes to DST and Ireland becomes GMT+1.

#03. Each clan playing in MTL can have up to 2 teams. Each team must have a minimum of 4 players and a maximum of 10 players.

#04. a) Players can only play in one single MTL team. If a player is caught playing for 2 or more teams, then such player will be banned from MTL, future tournaments and AoCZone Forums and the team in question (the one he smurfed for) will be disqualified. All of their games played already and games they have yet to play will be set to an Admin Loss (AL).
#04. b) Each person can play in the tournament using only ONE nickname. If a player is caught using more than 1 nickname in the tournament, their team will be disqualified.

#05. Only players listed in the MTL Teams Roster are allowed to compete in MTL. If a player is not listed in the team roster and plays for that team, such team will be disqualified.

#06. There are no roster updates available once MTL has begun.

#07. All games must be played on Voobly in the Tournament lobby. If any member of either team needs NAT in order to play then NAT must be used. The game must be started so that restoring the NAT game is possible. Read more HERE. If a NAT game drops and circumstances from rule #19 to restore arise, the game must be restored using the new NAT-game restore function at Voobly. More information will be posted soon.

#08. Patch 1.0c must be used in all matches (download). Note that it may say version VLY (instead of 1.0c) when playing on Voobly, it is fine.


#09. Before posting the MTL recorded games here in our forum, the files must be renamed in the following format: MTL Stage Round# TeamA (POV) vs TeamB Game# Map.mgx (or MTL Stage Round# TeamA vs TeamB (POV) Game# Map.mgx, depending whose point of view the recorded game is from), and packed inside one ZIP file named MTL Stage Round# TeamA (POV) vs TeamB.zip (or MTL Stage Round# TeamA vs TeamB (POV).zip). If games aren`t renamed correctly (or not packed), result won`t be accepted till the games are renamed/packed according to the given format.

Game naming examples:
MTL Qualification R1 StorM (POV) vs PiA G1 Arabia.mgx
MTL Qualification R1 StorM (POV) vs PiA G2 Continental.mgx
MTL Qualification R1 StorM (POV) vs PiA G3 Arena.mgx
MTL Second Stage R1 StorM (POV) vs PiA G1 Arabia.mgx
MTL Final Pro Division R1 StorM (POV) vs PiA G1 Arabia.mgx
MTL Final Fun Division R1 StorM (POV) vs PiA G1 Arabia.mgx

Pack naming examples:
MTL Qualification R1 StorM (POV) vs PiA.zip
MTL Second Stage R1 StorM (POV) vs PiA.zip
MTL Final Pro Division R1 StorM (POV) vs PiA.zip
MTL Final Fun Division R1 StorM (POV) vs PiA.zip

(All of the above are from a StorM player's point of view)

#10. All the game settings provided in this post MUST be followed. Not following them may result in a Penalty Point (PP) and the games that were played with the wrong settings will be replayed.

#11. During all stages, each team is required to use at least 4 different players per match (please note that in all Stages, a team is required to use 4 players for first map. Teams are therefore not required to use 4 different players for the rest of the maps that follow.

#11b If a team does not have the required number of players for 4v4 maps in Qualification Stage, Second Stage, or in the Final Stage, such team will receive an admin loss for the map where the 4th player would have been used. If a team fails to provide the required number of players two or more times, they will also receive an admin loss for their home map regardless of whether it has been played already or which team won. If one of the teams receives an AL for 4v4 Arabia and home maps have not been played yet, Arabia can be chosen as a home map.

Possible examples of Rule #11b:

1)

Team A vs Team B - Team A has only 3 players, they ask to change map order, Team B agrees.
Team A 2:1 Team B - Team A still has only 3 players, they receive an admin loss for 4v4 Arabia, the match continues. Score: Team A 2:2 Team B

2)

Team A vs Team B - Team A has only 3 players, they ask to change map order, Team B agrees.
Team A 2:1 Team B - Team A still has only 3 players, the same thing happened to them the previous week. They receive an admin loss for 4v4 Arabia, and an admin loss for their home map, which they won. The match continues. Score: Team A 1:3 Team B

3)

Team A vs Team B - Team A has only 3 players, the same thing happened to them the previous week.
They ask to change map order, Team B refuses. Team A receives an admin loss for 4v4 Arabia, and an admin loss for their home map. The match continues. Score: Team A 0:2 Team B

#12. Every participant must respect their opponent. Bad behavior (determined by staff who use common sense) may result in a Penalty Point or even an immediate disqualification of the respective team from the Tournament. This is a tournament of great skills, cunningness, competition but also good will. The community is small and we should respect each and everyone in it. Any kind of racism, flaming or bad sportsmanship will be considered bad behavior. Laming and mind games in game are allowed, it`s part of the game.

#13. If Land Nomad or Nomad is chosen as the map to be played or if it comes up in MegaRandom:

NO fighting is allowed until the 1st Town Center (TC) of both players involved in fighting is up - this includes using vils and/or other units to attack.
Walling is NOT allowed until the 1st Town Center of both fighters is up.
In Land Nomad, Lumber camp MUST always be the first building of all players.
Sheep killing or stealing is NOT allowed until 1st Town Center of both players is up - If a player crosses paths with enemy's sheep while walking to their Town Center / Lumber Camp spot, they can take these sheep; if the sheep are beside enemy's Town Center / Lumber Camp, you must leave them alone and allow your enemy to reclaim. If you are unsure where the sheep are in proximity to your enemy's Town Center / Lumber Camp, leave them alone.
Town Center fighting is NOT allowed at all.
If one of these conditions is broken, the game MUST be restarted. If such conditions are broken 2 times in a row by the same player, that player`s team receives an Admin Loss (AL) for that map.

#14. In all the Land Nomad, Nomad and MegaRandom games, if a player starts with a stuck villager (can't be moved or used to drop wood in first lumbercamp), and they want to restart, they must say so within first 5 minutes of the game, and the game MUST be restarted. If a player lies about a stuck villager, their team may receive a Penalty Point.

#15. Extra weeks can ONLY be given upon Admin decision.

#16. All the games must be scheduled and confirmed by both teams in the MTL Scheduling forums, informing the other team of the exact date and time of the arranged games.

#17. If there is no agreement about the playing time by Thursday 23.59 GMT, Admins will set a time which may not be desirable to one of the teams but falls within the acceptable range of times outlined above (see Rule #01).

#18. Cheating is NOT allowed at all in the event. Players doing ANY kind of cheating will be disqualified from MTL and banned from future AoCZone events and from AoCZone forums. The team whose player is caught cheating will be disqualified from the Tournament as well.

#19. In case of disconnections, if the game dropped before the 10th minute of the game, it must be replayed (restarted), otherwise it must be restored right after the drop and the recorded game (even if it`s not complete) provided along with a screenshot proving the team`s victory. If restoring is not possible, the recorded game should be posted in the MTL Recorded Games forums, and MTL Admins should be informed about the case immediately. Subsequently, facts will be analyzed and a final decision made.
If there is a reason to believe that the disconnection was made on purpose, the Tournament Admins need to be informed and a final decision will be taken after all the facts have been checked/cleared by the tournament Admins. Remember to make sure that you have "Multi" folder in your "Save Game" folder and that your restore function is working as specified in rule #26.

#20. Once two teams arranged and confirmed a time to play, the maximum waiting time is 30 minutes. More than that, the team that came and is waiting must take a screenshot showing http://www.worldtimeserver.com/current_time_in_UTC.aspx (so the current time is clearly visible) and Tournament lobby Game Room, and post the screenshot in Admin Win Requests topic, with a link to the post in the Scheduling forums where the game time was arranged and confirmed. The screenshot must show enough waiting teams players to start the scheduled game. This way, MTL Admins will know how long the team waited and upon Admins decision, the team that did not come gets an Admin Loss (AL) for the games. Do NOT try to edit time arrangement posts in an attempt to get free wins, because our forum registers the exact date and hour of each edited post, and such actions are considered cheating, getting the team punished according to the Rules.

#21. The nicknames listed in the MTL Teams Rosters list MUST be EXACTLY the same as the ones used in the agreed game lobby and in-game, so the Voobly accounts which are signed up must not have its nicknames changed for the duration of MT"L.

#22. Prizes will be sent via PayPal. If the recipients do not use/have PayPal the prizes will be sent by other means. However, certain fees may be deducted from the amount.

#23. MTL Admins are (czech) The_Prophet, Cysion, DreaIVIS and PL_Dziamdziak . Other AoCZone staff can help, but they are not Admins. If something isn't clear enough, please ask your questions in the MTL Rules, Settings and General Discussion forum and MTL Admins will answer back as soon as possible! Constructive suggestions are always welcome to be discussed.

#24. If a map is played and it's clearly bugged (except Nomad/Land Nomad, which already has specific rules in case of bugs), the game should be saved and posted, requesting it to be analyzed by MTL Admins, so a decision can be taken on it.
Bugs for maps are restricted to, gold/stone/berry/sheep/deer/boar/scout/vils trapped in trees. Also in some cases sheep are trapped on a small isle slightly off the coast, the game can be restarted within 5 minutes of start for bugs, after this it's up to the opposing team to agree to restart due to a bug which was not noticed within 5 minutes or was not scouted in time.

#25. New rules can be added and current rules can be changed, but Admins MUST inform the teams about such changes at the MTL Rules, Settings and General Discussion forum. All the latest additions in Rules / Settings will be in red.

#26. Before MTL begins, all players who will participate need to test their restore game function. If they cannot restore games, they must re-install AoK/AoC and make sure their restore function is working before MTL begins.

#27. When signing up for MTL, Team leaders must provide the following for each of their players in a PM to one of MTL Admins ( (czech) The_Prophet, Cysion, DreaIVIS or PL_Dziamdziak)

1) A username + Profile link, which will not change throughout MTL
2) An exact location - Area, Town/City, Province/State and Country
3) Their IP Address - Obtained individually by checking http://www.whatismyip.com/

The entire list of players with the above info for each Team can be PMed to any of the 4 admins, however, it is not to be posted in public.

#28. In accordance with Rule #27 above, if any player is playing at a different location than specified by their Team Leader at sign ups, the Team Leader or Operator must announce this in the scheduling thread and also PM one of the 4 Admins to notify them by no later than Thursday 23.59 GMT of the week they will play these games. In the PM the new location must be provided and if possible, IP Address. If admins check IPs or IP logs at the time of MTL games and some IPs are found to be different or location is different and the above rule was not adhered to, that team/player wil be punished in accordance with Rule #04.
Admins realise that some people have dynamic IPs where parts of the IP can change, this will be taken into consideration.

#29. If a game is not recorded, it must be replayed (this doesn't apply to dropped games, where the recorded game isn't available after the game restore).

#30. Cooping is not allowed. Only tournament staff can coop in a tournament game. Breaking this rule may result in a Penalty Point or even disqualification.

#31. Restart Rule - If a player wishes to restart the game before 5th minute of the game, it can be restarted. In Qualification Stage, a restart can be requested only one time during a match by each team. In Second Stage and Final Stage a restart can be requested two times during a match by each team. The same civilizations must be used in the restarted game. A restart cannot be requested in Full Random, Blind Random, MegaRandom (WCL 7), UltraRandom_v4 and Ultrarandom_v5. Morevoer, this rule doesn't apply to games with a clearly bugged map (trapped gold/villagers), such games are to be restarted as stated in Rule #24.

#32. Each team MUST have 1 Team Leader who is fluent in English. Each Team`s Leader is responsible for scheduling, possible disputes and everything else regarding their team. If a Team Leader is not fluent in English, a team can have an external operator who assumes this role as specified in Rule #33.

#33. In case none of the members in a team are fluent in English, each team is allowed to have an external operator for scheduling and communication with the Tournament Staff and other teams. The operator may schedule games for multiple teams but is not allowed to play for them. He may, however, play for a team which he is a member of (like everyone else, he may be a member of one team only).
If a team has an external operator, they must state their nickname and MSN when signing up.

#34. If a team is out of MTL (no matter if they got disqualified or left on their own), all of their games played already and games they have yet to play will be set to an Admin Loss (AL).

#35. Receiving 3 Penalty Points (PP) will result in Team`s disqualification.

#36. By signing-up for the tournament, you automatically agree with all the Tournament Rules, Settings, Prizes and Conditions.

#37. Each week a member of the AoCZone staff will PM each team operator with the IPs of the players in the team they are scheduling to play for that round. These IP's are for the eyes of the team operator only and for the sole purpose of having the chance to catch smurfs playing for the opposing team that week.

These IPs are under no circumstances to be shared with anyone else, which includes team leaders and other team members.

If clear evidence arises which shows a team operator sharing these IPs with anyone else that team will receive a Penalty Point. If IP's are shared a second time 2 P.P. will be awarded making the total 3. Once a 3rd Penalty Point has been awarded a team is disqualified (in accordance with Rule # 35.).

Penalty Points can be awarded for a number of reasons listed in the rules above.




need to be added
links to rules and settings, sign ups, etc forums.
and i didn't know how to make a list in rule #13 as it was in WCL7 rules and setts, sry i am noob :$

 

[PL_Dziamdziak]

any1 else except prophet and me doing it? :$

 

[DreaIVIS]

I just discussed with Mohammed and they have been busy with Nefertiti, but they are still 100% supporting this event and more coming events. We have to wait at least until they have a meeting with Tyrant's team and discuss about past WCL7 settings and future settings.

I am not sure yet if I am going to take part in this or not. I haven't seen Tom online either. Cysion is extremely busy with his project, but he's supposed to be part of this. I think we need to recruit more staff when we look at the past WCL7 tournament. The experiences show that running with only few men is not good although only few key persons should make the decisions, others are there to help.

 

[Bublifuk]

besides our recent problems i admire your work what you did in WCL7 and would be really happy, if you´ll be part of this tournament.

Tom is busy in real life but i used to meet him on skype

edit: Fixed typo

 

[The_Prophet]

Yeah, I've been busy but I think I pretty much prepared everything I could back in November. The lay-out, maps, settings, 20-week-plan, civs, rules, name, banner (by Cysion).. recruiting new ppl on the team (by Dreams mostly)... pretty much all that needs to be done is a bit of formatting, putting all the prepared stuff together and the tournament's good to go

 

[TOAO_Nai]

I offer my services of course.

~Nainai

 

[Cysion]

Yes true, I'm a bit occupied with another project. :$

However, I'm still up to help out on a good bunch of fields if needed. I'm almost constantly online from Monday till Thursday during "healthy GMT hours". If an admin needs to be present or around for some nasty decisions or confusion on rules, I'll probably be on if required. Or you can call me if stuff needs to happen or be decided. (I like to decide quick, I know I can't satisfy everyone anyways).

It's just that my focus is totally on my own project so when it comes to taking initiative, I'll shoot blanks.

 

[Cysion]

Am I right that at this point, all we need is a strong (wo)man to put his/her shoulders under this and fire up the whole thing or are others things missing?