Join the first official tournament

[ledrobi]

The first official tournament for Strategic Command WWII: World at War is about to begin. Take on other players and play both sides to see who will come out on top in three maps. Every map will cover one round, each lasting six weeks.


[*]1939 - World at War: Challenge your opponent from the very beginning of the greatest war the world has ever seen. [*]1942 - Axis High Tide: Germany prepares to advance on Stalingrad while Japan pushes for Midway. [*]1943 - Allies Turn the Tide: Play for ultimate victory as the Allies close in on defending Axis forces.

If you’re not familiar with Slitherine’s PBEM system, here’s how it works: the system will pair you with opponents and create your PBEM games for you automatically. You will be notified by mail of when the tournament is starting and when it is time to play your turns. The tournament follows the Swiss Tournament rules.

Sign up for the Race to Victory to test your skills and climb the leaderboard! All you need to do is own the game and opt in here.

Have fun!

[Marcinos1985]

That 'Tournament Mode' is great news, very much needed for a game like this. Could some of the beta participants write, how does it perform, especially how tight are time limits? You have got some time pool, or given hours for your turn?

On the other hand, I am very concerned about lack of house rules. For 1939 scenario players that do know about 1940 USSR invasion, will probably win 90%+ games as Axis. Maybe I am out of the loop, but it seems this strategy hasn't been adressed fully. What is more, 1942 seems to be heavily skewed in Axis favour, just check unit counts and tech levels, especially for USSR.

[Epekepe]

Yes, house rules needed.

[manickennel]

Each round consists of two mirrored games, so the problems that you face as the Axis in one game will be faced by your opponent in the other. It's not purely about winning or losing, but how you win or lose.

[Epekepe]

ORIGINAL: manickennel

Each round consists of two mirrored games, so the problems that you face as the Axis in one game will be faced by your opponent in the other. It's not purely about winning or losing, but how you win or lose.

Yes, that is true. I still like to play more balanced games, where both sides have as much as possible equal chance to win. I believe most of us do, and i will use gentleman rule for 1939 scenario to not attack against USSR before 1941. 1942 scenario i have played only 1 time, so have to check that out.

[The Land]

ORIGINAL: manickennel

Each round consists of two mirrored games, so the problems that you face as the Axis in one game will be faced by your opponent in the other. It's not purely about winning or losing, but how you win or lose.

I'd be interested to know how long the rounds will be?

[manickennel]

ORIGINAL: The Land


I'd be interested to know how long the rounds will be?

Six weeks per round, three rounds total.

[calcwerc]

I dont see how that is an argument? Without house rules the game is unbalanced.

[BillRunacre]

ORIGINAL: Marcinos1985
On the other hand, I am very concerned about lack of house rules. For 1939 scenario players that do know about 1940 USSR invasion, will probably win 90%+ games as Axis. Maybe I am out of the loop, but it seems this strategy hasn't been adressed fully.

Hi

These are the changes that were included in v1.08.00 – November 24, 2020 patch to help address the issue of an early Axis invasion of the USSR:

- Added alternative deployment locations to the USSR's Baltic Fleet and Baltic Front units, while removing the latter’s link to the Baltic States Decision Event to ensure that they can deploy even if the USSR is invaded prior to June 1940 (pjg100).
- Mobilization_1 scripts for An Axis Declaration of War on Latvia or Estonia now swing the USSR 25-40% towards the Allies for each, whereas it was previously 25-35 and 15-20% respectively (smckechnie).
- Mobilization_4 scripts triggering DE 1010 and DE 1011 added for an Axis Declaration of War on Latvia or Estonia respectively. Each will trigger the mobilization of a half strength Soviet Corps in Leningrad.
- Mobilization_4 script triggering DE 1005 will now lead to the deployment of a full strength Soviet Army with full research at Leningrad and another at Moscow if Bulgaria is neutral when the Axis declare war on the USSR.

Additionally some other changes were made in previous patches to also assist the USSR in resisting an early invasion:

- Bulgaria’s starting mobilization reduced from 70% to 50%. It should still join the Axis in 1941 (HamburgerMeat).
- First potential date for the Winter events in the USSR brought forward from 1st December 1941 to 1st December 1939.
- If Germany occupies Lithuania via DE 629 then the USSR will now move 20-25% towards the Allies, whereas previously it was 10-15% (ThunderLizard2).

I do not recall having seen any calls for further changes since that patch was released two months ago, and while that doesn't guarantee it has now been fully addressed I think the issue is now less of a concern than it was before.

If anyone reading this thinks it is still an issue I would appreciate your starting a new thread in this forum so we can discuss that and game balance further there. [:)]

Thanks

Bill

[Hubert Cater]

ORIGINAL: calcwerc

I dont see how that is an argument? Without house rules the game is unbalanced.

Hi calcwerc,

I believe there are two concerns here:

1) One is the early invasion of the USSR by the Axis side which hopefully Bill's message just above has addressed, e.g. that changes have been made to ideally make this a bit of a riskier proposal.

2) The idea that campaigns that start in 1942 or 1943 are one sided, perhaps favouring one side over the other.

As manickennel mentioned, the rounds are mirrored, so each round will have two games of the same campaign, where one player will play as the Axis side, and the other as the Allied side, and then vice versa.

There is a scoring system in place relative to the victory conditions for each campaign, and since each game is mirrored, it does at least become for these campaigns, more than just winning and losing, but indeed how you win or lose.

For example, the round scoring will be your combined score from each game. This just means that while you may lose the 1943 campaign as the Axis, if you limit your opponent to let's say a Minor victory, but in the other game where you play as the Axis are able to achieve a Major victory, then you will end up with a combined score greater than your opponent for that round and so on.


* * *


The tournament will start with the 1943 campaign, followed by the 1942, and finish with the 1939 grand campaign.

Hope this helps,
Hubert

[The Land]

ORIGINAL: manickennel


Six weeks per round, three rounds total.

Thanks Manickennel. That does strike me as quite a short timescale for a 1939 game to run its course. Most competitive games are resigned well before the end date - how will that be handled in the tournament system?

[Hubert Cater]

Resigning is not an option in tournament games and players are encouraged to play to the end, even if they are losing, as how you lose, very badly, or only slightly so, reflects in the final score. This is important as games are mirrored and the score per round will be a combination of the results from both games per round.

Essentially, your best bet for achieving your highest possible combined scores really is to keep playing, even if you are losing, e.g. while you may have a lower score than your opponent for your game in progress while you are losing, it could potentially become even lower if you time out and stop playing, or stop sending turns in a timely manner etc.

This also matters as each round matters to your final score and ranking in the tournament.

[Marcinos1985]

or stop sending turns in a timely manner etc.

Could you elaborate a bit more about this? How are players encouraged to play their turns fast, or penalized for playing slower?
I would assume longer game can lst about 250 turns, so 125 per players. 6 weeks are 42 days, so one would have to play around 3 turns a day with each side, which equals to 6 total. Am I right?
Sorry if those question sound dumb, I didn't play in beta and have a hard time to understand this. [:)]
Is there also some clarification about scoring? I very much enjoy a system, where you are rewarded for playing in tough/losing position and are rewarded somehow for this. Good idea!

I do not recall having seen any calls for further changes since that patch was released two months ago, and while that doesn't guarantee it has now been fully addressed I think the issue is now less of a concern than it was before.

Sorry for raising balance issues here, that was not my intention to hijack this thread. I just think there were no complaints because it is a houserule in ELO tournament and 1940 invasion wasn't tested after changes.

[Epekepe]

Thanks for the information, this will be great tournament. It's already full, btw.

[Hubert Cater]

Hi Marcinos,

No problem at all and really the tournament, while competitive, should be fun, and that's what we are hoping it will be here for everyone [:)].

It's difficult to say for sure if 6 weeks will be enough for everyone per round, some players play a lot of turns and finish up games quickly, some take a bit longer. The beta test told us things were working as expected, and this official tournament will likely reveal a few things as well even though it is official. The initial rounds which start in 1943 and 1942 should help in this regard as well as they are shorter game lengths.

For playing turns, from what I understand, it is not a function of how fast you are playing, it is more just the server looking to see if players are more or less abandoning the tournament games or being considerably slow in replying with follow up turns. Off hand I don't have the exact formula for this, it is a backend item, but from what I understand it's not something to worry about either for the clear majority of games. It's more of an obvious timing out and ensuring that the player that has been playing their turns consistently is not the one penalized etc. It is also the exact same setup used for all other releases under the Slitherine/Matrix banner using the tournament system.

In terms of scoring, I'll put something together in the next few days to help clarify this going forward.

Hope this helps,
Hubert

[LoneRunner]

Thank you Hubert and Bill for answering our questions. I really appreciate the development of a WaW tournament. Sounds like a lot of fun.

I had some concerns that you might consider:
o With only three rounds and 48 players, tournament leaders are unlikely to ever meet in a match. As a result someone may win the tournament without beating another top player. I'd recommend adding several more rounds.

o Odds are that the tournament will be won by someone who is matched with a beginner in the first round. They will rack up so many points that other evenly matched players will not have a chance of catching up. I recommend adjusting the points earned in each round such that a lot more points are earned in later rounds.

o According to tournament rules winners are matched with winners and losers with losers. However, when two evenly matched winning players meet and grind out a tough win, their game will probably not generate as many points as a blowout between two players who lost in the first rounds. As a result a game between two beginners could have a big impact on tournament results. Perhaps even catapulting the beginner into a top position. I recommend in subsequent rounds winner vs winner matches be assigned a lot more points than loser vs loser matches.

[HamburgerMeat]

In any event it seems like a good testing ground for the current effectiveness of the 1940 USSR invasion. Looking forward to it!

[Hubert Cater]

Thanks LoneRunner, and it might very well be that additional rounds would be better, however since this one will already take approximately 4.5 months as is, there is some desire to see how this one works out first before running a much longer first official tournament, if necessary.

Some good points on the rounds and the values of rounds as well, and we are discussing as currently there are some limitations, e.g. I don't believe this is currently an option with the tournament settings, but something to look into and consider for sure.

[The Land]

ORIGINAL: LoneRunner


o Odds are that the tournament will be won by someone who is matched with a beginner in the first round. They will rack up so many points that other evenly matched players will not have a chance of catching up. I recommend adjusting the points earned in each round such that a lot more points are earned in later rounds.

o According to tournament rules winners are matched with winners and losers with losers. However, when two evenly matched winning players meet and grind out a tough win, their game will probably not generate as many points as a blowout between two players who lost in the first rounds. As a result a game between two beginners could have a big impact on tournament results. Perhaps even catapulting the beginner into a top position. I recommend in subsequent rounds winner vs winner matches be assigned a lot more points than loser vs loser matches.

This is a good point - ideally there would be some kind of player quality weighting on the match scores. A simple way would be having more points on offer for winner vs winner matches, as Lonerunner indicates, but then there is still the fact that a narrow victory against a strong player should be worth more than a total victory against a novice.

The theoretical ideal is probably to do this at the end of the tournament where you have the most possible data, and then go back and re-weight scores from previous games based on the full results. Though that would mean people didn't know their actual scores until right at the end.

Still I think the bigger challenge is about commitment and game completion, it will be interesting to see how many players stay the course! Good luck with it all

[Cpuncher]

ORIGINAL: The Land

Still I think the bigger challenge is about commitment and game completion, it will be interesting to see how many players stay the course! Good luck with it all

I concur. From the Beta tournament results, it seems 8 players out of 32 dropped out after 1st round of 14 days. I suspect a higher percentage will happen after each round of 42 days here. Life happens, I can't imaging to commit to 4.5 months of gaming, especially a game so challenging and time consuming as this one. It will be amazing to me if 30% players can last to the end.

So to our very much beloved Devs: Is it possible to allow new players to join after each round? Meanwhile, allow rankings for each individual round, as well as a final grand ranking of those who completed all 3 rounds.

Also can we have a whole lot more slots to start with, so that more may finish? The 48 spots were filled up in just a bit over a day.