World Championship 2025

kwojtasz

Excellent tournament format and thanks pajada for running it!

Zero_1627

I second this, I had a blast with Stage 1 - looking forward to Stage 2!

pajada

I plan to start Stage 2 on December 27.
Merry Christmas everyone!

Zero_1627

pajada
thank You for information!

kyshantry

If someone bots basically immediately in the 4p games, should we re-start them as 3ps, or just play with the AI and they'll be removed from the future games? (Upper 118)

Cogito3

kyshantry There's no good way to restart the games so you'll have to play with the AI for now, and their future games will indeed be removed.

Bull3

Is the 48 hour reserve time not counted in both age A and age I? I played my age A turn yesterday morning, and by today evening I got timed out in age I 🙁

Cogito3

Bull3 Age A and Age 1 share the same reserve time, as do Age 3 and Age 4.

Serena

I will be in the mountains with likely bad connection until 06.01. If it should happen that I time out I would like to state that it is not on purpose (Upper 61). TY.

Zero_1627

It would be nice if involuntary bots (eg. those introduced by timeouts) followed a different logic - eg. with "surrender at first opportunity" directive added. That would be most graceful way to get rid of them while not disturbing game mechanics.

HopeForLuck

Sorry, but I have to drop ut of all tournaments as. I am in a hospital for longer time. I got a new liver Tonight!
thanks to all organizers!!

Zero_1627

HopeForLuck
I hope You will get better soon - best of luck in real life!

isman

In Upper 106 game 10:
-oleKanin played war against DarthVaderLots and did lose it
-being clearly 3rd in the game played IA against me
A kingmaking behaviour?

GerisNezus

isman dude I feel you. But you won, so lets chill and celebrate. GG

Demetrius

isman I watched the match. It's not like you describe. Absolutely not.
You make it look like he lost the war on purpose, but in fact it's the sum of factors that are very difficult to calculate.

Before the war, Ole had 57 strength, and Darth had 25 strength.
Darth won for three reasons:

He had the "Modern Army" card in his hand, which Ole couldn't have known about;
Both you and Ole didn't take the Rockets from the line, so Darth's victory in the war is partly your fault;
And most importantly! The economic progress event came out, which gave Darth the necessary amount of resources to get 59 strength and win the war.

That is, due to a series of factors, Darth received +7 culture. Labeling it as unsportsmanlike behavior is way over the line.

Zero_1627

well... kingmking is not easy to judge. IMO player should always play to his advantage.

Ensuring that winner has lower score means player has better tiebreaker score (higher proportion of winning points) - so if his behavior could give him better proportional result, it seems fully justified.

Likewise - within round, total scores count. If he can maneuver player order to have a shot at better place (whether to hold current winner to have hope of surpassing him, or coversely prop up winner to ensure better chance of not being last) - it IS kingmaking technically, but also seems fully justified to me (it's not giving advantage to other player out of spite, but rather the best possible play as defined by tournament conditions).

Last but not least, "being clearly third" and "trying to achieve as much as possible" do not exclude each other. Player may prefer to be 3rd with 200 points out of 300 than 3rd with 200 points out of 400, even outside tournament (and effect would be the same as with point 1 above).

Last but not least - "playing AI" is debatable... but also, it would be a poor play not to use the opportunity to achieve more (however "more" is defined, as above). If AI resigned, it couldn't be maneuvered to any player's (dis)advantage.

Boristina

Zero_1627

This spins off into an interesting discussion. According to the "sportsmanship" section of the tournament rules:

Do not purposefully lose to help someone else or for any other reason (e.g. no attacking others/resigning to help a friend, no declaring wars and then disbanding all military units).

It seems that this is most likely to come up in 3p games, since the 4p games will have already happened and everyone will have a sense as to who's the best and who's the worst. If you're in a game with Player A and Player B, such that A won both 4p games and B got last in both 4p games, feeding culture to B by declaring war and disbanding your military is a smart choice with regard to tournament standings, but I would argue that based on the above text, feeding Player B culture in this manner in "order to have a shot at better place" is in fact against the tournament rules. To me, "or for any other reason" is pretty clear language.

jhutc

I had a quick look at the game out of nosiness. With that War, he only lost because Economic Progress turned up (which he didn't play originally, so wouldn't have known about), and his opponent had Modern Army tactic. Looks like he took a calculated risk and it backfired? On another day I think the war might have a different result.

Zero_1627

Boristina
I feel I am missing context - I thought AI was "manuvered to take advantage of another player". Losing culture to AI doesn't seem to be a problem, as AIs are skipped when assigning points?

And primarily - as I see descriptions above, situation seems like fully legitimate attempt to win culture (which backfired, but this happens 🙂 ).

feeding Player B culture in this manner in "order to have a shot at better place" is in fact against the tournament rules. To me, "or for any other reason" is pretty clear language.

I understand, and will argue it's wrong.

Imagine a situation:

A attacks C (aggression for culture)
- C CAN defend, but doesn't (reasoning: he can afford losing some culture more easily than losing buildings, and he's afraid that B can raid him with similar power advantage; military cards allow defense from one aggression but not both)
  
  So... by strict reading of the above, this is forbidden - he lost "for other reason"...
  
  Frankly I didn't even interpret it so broadly until You mentioned it above - my interpretation is that You can't deliberately help anyone else (eg. make actions with sole objective of improving standing of other player). This doesn't preclude making actions with objective of improving OWN standing (that also happen to improve standing of other player).
  
  With such a broad interpretation - most pacts do help both sides, so You can't play them without helping other player...

Zero_1627

Another case.
Say, I can exactly count the result of game will be:

A: 304
Me: 302
C: 294

I add event giving +14 points to C, +7 to me, and 0 to A.

Result:
Me: 309
C: 308
A: 304

So... C was propped up from third to second place (and the event gave most culture to him, which I knew in advance). Nonetheless, I played this with intent of achieving my own advantage (and even succeeded, with numbers above).

Would that be a fair play, or not?

Similar case - International Tourism pact.

I propose to C, which will gain 4 points per turn, while I gain only 1.

But C is far behind and I do not believe he can reach me... while that 1 point helps me (a bit) vs B, which is closer and has better culture production and I am afraid of him.

This will help me keep the lead (whether enough in the end, or not) - but also will help (possibly decisively) C with overtaking B...

In fact, in multiplayer game, situation where You need to make action in context wider that directly parties of attack/pact/event/whatever arises quite often, and the best action isn't necessarily the one that benefits You most on face value.

Boristina

Zero_1627

You raise some good points! I concede that applying my logic in your examples would be invalid.