And now for the rules.
Season 3 will consist of 9 64-player double elimination tournaments. You can play all 9, but only the best 6 are counted. Each tournament awards points based on your final position of the tournament. At the conclusion of the season, the top 8 finishers will play a playoff round which awards additional points.
Tournament invites are staggered to favor the players who have played the least number of tournaments. That is, for tournament #4, those who have played 0 tournaments will get first invite, then 3 days later those who have played 1 tournaments will be invited, then 3 days later those who have played 2 tournaments will be invited, then finally those who have played 3 tournaments will be invited.
All tournaments will be 3 days autoboot with vacation honored.
The tournament templates and order are as follows (template & game links to be added in an edit to this comment). This list was semi-randomly determined, ask me if you want to know the nitty gritty details.
1. East Asia & Oceania WR with Classic Ladder army/neutral settings
template:
https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?TemplateID=846024example game:
https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=97417002. Treasure Map 0% SR
template:
https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?TemplateID=846026example game:
https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=107834333. Fast Modified Medium Earth 0% SR 75% off kill rate 50% def kill rate
template:
https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?TemplateID=846029example game:
https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=63981544. Battle Islands V 0% SR with Recon cards
template:
https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?TemplateID=846030example game:
https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=100895115. Guiroma 0% SR
template:
https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?TemplateID=846032example game:
https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=100944376. Snow Mountains Multi-attack
template:
https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?TemplateID=846037example game:
https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=98040487. Classic Ladder Medium Earth 0% WR
template:
https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?TemplateID=846042example game:
https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=88819278. Ancient Greece 0% SR
template:
https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?TemplateID=846044example game:
https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=87830939. French Brawl 0% SR with modified bonuses, 0.5 extra income per territory, and light fog
template:
https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?TemplateID=846045example game:
https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=9801749Estimated schedule is as follows:
On opening day, tournament #1 will be created. Each subsequent tournament will be created as soon as the prior tournament starts, with the exception of tournaments #4 and #7, which will be created 3 months after the prior tournament starts. This is to ensure players aren't overloaded with games.
In the event an tournament does not start within 3 days of the final round of invites, I will recruit new players from the forum and add the new players to the league as necessary
Points for tournaments #1-9 are determined based on x = number of losers bracket rounds won, with the finals counting as two rounds, according to the quadratic formula 1.5 x^2 + 2.5 x + 4.
1st - 250
2nd - 179
3rd - 148
4th - 120
5-6th - 95
7-8th - 73
9-12th - 54
13-16th - 38
17-24th - 25
25-32nd - 15
33-48th - 8
49-64th - 4
There will be an additional playoff round between the top 8 players and will proceed as follows:
Double Elim Tourney A: Rank 1 vs Rank 8 & Rank 3 vs Rank 6
Double Elim Tourney B: Rank 2 vs Rank 7 & Rank 4 vs Rank 5
Points awarded for each tournament:
1st - 200
2nd - 100
3rd - 50
4th - 0
(essentially, 50 points per round won in the losers bracket)
The template of each tournament game is decided the following way:
The "lower" player will veto 3 templates, and the "higher" player will choose from the remaining 6 templates. Only the 9 templates used for the initial 9 tournaments will be considered.
In the winner's bracket and first round of the loser's bracket, players' relative standing is determined by seed
In the loser's bracket, the player advancing from the winner's bracket is "higher" and the player advancing from the loser's bracket is "lower"
In the second final (if necessary), the player advancing from the loser's bracket is "higher" and the player advancing from the winner's bracket is "lower"
The winners of tournaments A and B will then play a best of 3 series, with the winner granted 300 points.
Game 1: Player 1 vetoes 3 templates and Player 2 chooses from remaining 6
Game 2: Player 2 vetoes 3 templates and Player 1 chooses from remaining 6
Game 3 (if necessary): Both players list all 9 templates ranked high to low. Then, working up the list from bottom to top, templates are vetoed until one is remaining. IF there is a tie, then the tied templates are vetoed and the process is repeated.
For example...
Player 1 ranks templates from high to low: 8, 2, 3, 6, 1, 5, 7, 9, 4
Player 2 ranks templates from high to low: 3, 4, 8, 5, 9, 7, 6, 1, 2
The following templates are crossed out: 4, 2, 9, 1, 7, 6, 5, and 3 & 8 are tied
Ignoring the tied templates, 5 is the last one crossed out, so template 5 is used for the 3rd game
Ties on points at the end of the season will be resolved the following way:
1. Points earned in the final playoff rounds
2. Head-to-head record in the playoff rounds
If still tied, or for deciding who makes it into the playoffs:
3. The greatest number of first place finishes, then the greatest number of second place finishes, and so on all the way down.
4. Head to head record in all 9 tournaments.
5. If by some miracle it's still tied, screw it, I'll set up a single tiebreaker game, whose template is decided the same way as the 3rd final game described above.
some disadvantages:
1. luck is a big factor as you can get a hard draw and be eliminated early
2. the season will be long, estimated 1 year
3. one player can stop progress by being slow/taking back to back vacation
4. not every player will get to play in all the tournaments he would like to
5. there will likely to be a big skill difference that could deter top players as this is not an exclusive competition
some advantages:
1. boots and resignations will not be a big factor (unless they are at a very high percentage)
2. 1 or 2 early eliminations does not rule you out and you can still win the overall season
3. The maximum number of concurrent games should be 3
4 .you are not obligated to play any game/template you don't know/like and still have a chance to win overall season
Edited 4/28/2016 03:05:21