Yes, I saw that. Shit happens :)

Spring '03 is definitely the move after which I was pretty certain I would solo given that it was Fog of War and Italy wouldn't be turning on me before I was ready to invade him.

If Italy and Austria war early, especially in Fog of War, its suicide for both. I figured Austria was at least surviving in the east, but never thought you were doing that well that fast. I was more worried about the opportunistic stab than a full on invasion. Great job.

We doing this again? I'd almost prefer double the games per round since one bad/unlucky game and its very hard to recover.

There's one more round right?

Yes, there is... at least for 5 players ... waiting for Guaroz to confirm, but if my calculations are correct I am not one of them.
Thanks for those fun games everyone, and thank you very much for organizing this tournament Guaroz.

Oh, I assumed I would be eliminated too.

I was too curious to learn if I was in.. if I'm not mistaken, the standings should be like
1) y2kjbk (30.58 )
2) nickbar1 (6.66 )
3) didigoose (5.87 )
4) GOD (4.06 )
5) Sevyas (3.79 )
-----
6) raapers2 (2.15 )
7) diatarn_iv (0.96 )
However, I'll wait for confirmation before thanking everyone ;)

Oh, in that case I do hope I am indeed wrong with my quick calculations ...
... and I now see my mistake ... I calculated my own points correctly, but forgot to use some countrys benchmark when calculating the others points ... :-/

carry over will be these scores divided by 6, so a 4 point advantage for me isn't all that huge

When I saw Austrian armies in St Pete and Finland in 1908 I knew that the end was near. Well done, y2kjbk! Good game, all.

Hi all! :)

Again my apologies, it's been a very busy Easter time.

Round 4 is complete, you can watch results, current standings and Round 5 next COs at:

http://www.vdiplomacy.com/wiki/index.php?title=BENCHMARK_GUNBOAT_TOURNAMENT_-_Edition_1_-_2014-2015


Many thanks to diatarn_iv and raapers2 for partecipating this Tournament and congrats for your good final placements, just one step away from the Final. Both of you played a very good Tournament but, if I'm allowed to tell a possible flaw in it, imho you didn't made a good use of the chance to score points you both had in 3rd Round's game.
If there will be a 2nd edition, I hope you'll join it and I wish you all an even better luck. Please stick around for some more days. If someone will miss to join next games, I'll ask you to join them, in that order. Thanks.

Also, many congrats to y2kjbk for topping the current standings and to all the other 4 finalists: you've done it!:) I'm looking forward to watch the final battle!


As usual, some very important things I must ask you.
Please everyone check your own Integrity Rate. Next Round will start on Wednesday morning CET and if it's not good enough, you might be unable to join your next Round games. Please check it now and in case fix it ASAP.
Also please let me know ASAP if you think I've made an error in calculating your score. Next Round will begin in about 36 hours, so please no last-minute claims.

I hope you all had fun playing until now.
The silence is still OFF and it will be until last and final Round game will be created.

Cheers! :)

Guaroz

A few comments of mine on what's above but, first, a little consideration. The reason why voting for concede is allowed is not that I expect some game in this Tour to end that way (though the rules must number such a circumstance).
The concede has been allowed because it's a diplomatic tool. In my experience with gunboats, it sounds like: "Help anyone! That guy is grabbing my land! If some don't attack him from the other side ASAP, I'll soon be dead and you'll have to face a big bad guy!".
While it's useful in normal gunboats when you think someone isn't paying attention enough to the map, it looks even indispensible in Fog games when they *cannot* know how things are going.
I'm not saying that the game would have been different if Russia and Turkey put up that vote at some point in 1903, but I'd really have tried it. Mostly Italy and Germany should say whether it would have worked or not.
More thoughts? Has anyone evre used the "concede" button this way in a gunboat?

@raapers, like I said in the first post of this thread, the carry over is there to help "you not to be eliminated just for one single unlucky game". So, when some get eliminated, they should wonder: "Why my current CO wasn't high enough to face the bad result in the last game?". One of the possible answers is that it was at least _two_ "bad/unlucky" games in a row. Not one.
See, at some point in this Tournament you have to face Fortuna... Like I suggested in the previous post, if I was you I'd have faced that Goddess in Round 3 when you were running the biggest Country on the Board but in the end you scored 7.50 TPs only.
In the original structure, the only "double round" was the first one. Then I doubled the second too, for several reasons, and that could have mislead many of you all, I'm afraid. Most of the work in this Tournament was keeping as high as possible your CO, so the most hard decision in every game was deciding when to push your "draw" button. Too soon = bad CO. Also the TPs are not a variable, they're constant. So the points you don't score will be scored by someone else. Draw too soon = worse CO for you and better COs for your opponents.
Anyway... you're 6th! So many made decisions worse than yours...

@D4, congrats: perfect calculations!

@Sevyas, thanks for the thanks, but it's too soon: you're in the Final! :)

@y2kjbk, yes it's divided by 6 purposely to make hard having one player winning after the 4th Round, or the Final would be almost useless (like I said in my first post). But a 4 TPs advantage is not that bad at this point, is it? It's more than the difference between the BMs of the best and the worst country in last game... So if you draw the best Country (Persia) your worst BM will be entirely covered by your CO. If you draw the worst Country (Greece), you add to the best BM the best CO!
Not a huge advantage, agreed. But I wouldn't spit on it! :)

Obviously I am still the winner of hearts.

GOD you'll always be the winner regardless of how many times I crush you :)

@Guaroz: I agree with your argument about the concede button. It is why I hit the draw button as soon as I saw Germ moving against Mars while I was trying to fend off Austria. Had both Russia and Turk voted for an early draw/concede I would have been more aware of Austria's very quick growth. Not sure how much it would have changed my strategy though, as I personally couldn't settle for a 6 (or probably 5) person draw.

I understand the carry over is there to help reduce the importance of outlier games, and the benchmarks help against unlucky country selections. I was suggesting even more data points. Instead of 2-2-1-1-1, why not something like 4-4-2-2-1? As noted above, given my place in the standings going into this last round, I couldn't settle for a large draw. I had the bad luck of getting Italy, who is decent for hanging around but the 2nd least likely to solo. Had there been two simultaneous games with that map maybe I could have made up more ground. It would obviously extend the length of the tournament, but each game actually took considerably less time than I expected.

First of all, thanks to everyone for a well played tournament,, and to Guaroz for the outstanding organization: it has been fun.

About Guaroz's toughts:

1) I definitely agree about the previous round: at the very least, I (Turkey) should have thrown Italy out, rather than becoming concerned with a possible stab from Russia (with the result that I started fighting Russia..). That was a huge blunder.

2) I admit I did not think of the concede button. But I considered the draw button, and decided that it was better NOT to press it.
My reasoning was that, if I was going to be crushed (and I thought that was the most likely outcome regardless), the best result for me was a solo, because with a solo I might still get lucky. For example, if we had the very same final map, but nickbar1 and raapers2 were playing Russia and France rather than England and Italy, they'd have -1.41 and -1.03 , and I'd be in. I knew it was a small chance, but I thought it was better than what I'd get with a draw.

3) As Guaroz already knows from my PMs, I did like the idea of keeping the two-games-per-round format through all rounds (including the final?) in order to limit randomness a bit. 4 games per round is too much (both in terms of possible problems/defections and of tournament length), but two should be ok. Carryover helps, but there is no reason not to have TWO safeguards rather than one. Obviously, I might be having these thoughts because they fit my playing style..

Oops i am late to the forum party i mainly check the global :)
Thanks for the great game. Nickbar let me grow a few additional grey hair, but i got out of it lucky.
I wouldn't have understood the concede in first place. Not sure to say how i would have interpreted it, as i might have thought quite a while about it if somebody put it in.

There was once a support from St. Petersburg coming to Norway which made me actually think that Britain was spreading out already into russia and big as well. Now i see it actually came from Russia. The stab on britanny was wrong, but i had peace with austria for so long already and i tried it with appeasement with the other axis. When i realised austria would crush me it was to late already but i pulled all back from my fight against britain.

Britain one question: If i had put all my units on hold or march towards austria would you have let loose of my SCs to stop austria or crushed me?

@raapers. if you couldn't settle for a 5 or 6 way draw, you could even less with a survive only. No?
And BTW, the best scorer of the 4th Round was the 1st least likely to solo. He hasn't voted for draw at some point. LOL.

@didi. You haven't seen Russia disbanding in 1903. So... Would you have understood the concede if Russia disbanded Baltic instead of Ukraine in 1903? Now what you see would be: the Russian concedes + the Russian is disbanding (at least one unit).
And what if you add: + the Turk concedes?

@GOD. Actually, I'm still wondering why you disbanded Ukraine in 1903.

@D4. I see what you mean: although it's counter-intuitive it makes sense, but I'm not sure whether it was the reasoning guaranteeing you the best chance. However, since in general the RS rewards survive better than defeat and the more you score the less the others score, I would have tried to survive just for fun, for pride and for not being counter-intuitive!:)
Thanks for the compliments, happy you enjoyed playing this Tournament.

i also took great care to make sure germany knew as little of my success as possible, munich wasn't in the solo plan.

@didigoose - if you had indicated that you were going to stop attacking me then I would have left you alone. I probably would have made a fuitile attempt to push Austria out of St Pete

@guaroz, i really can't tell you know what i would have thought in that case with all the new information in my head i am pretty sure biased. I knew russia was in big trouble. When britain indicated the draw or a concede as well, that made me think, but i was just to slow with pulling out there. I wonder if could have stopped austria even then at this point. In a gunboat it would have been hard to coordinate counter attacks between me, italy & britain and we all had units all over the place.

as y2kjbk wrote. I almost never seen any austrian army. And very seldomly an italian. So i was a bit in the dark what is going on between those two in the south.

I was thinking several times that austria could be strong already but understimated him. With the information from nickbar i know now i should have stopped attacking him. So that was clearly a mistake on the other hand i come out third of that round with a good chance of a victory in the finals. We only need to wipe out y2kjbk :)

@raapers & diatarn_iv.
Sorry, I've swapped your names in last Monday 1st message: raapers got the better placement. So it's:
"Please stick around for some more days. If someone will miss to join next games, I'll ask you to join them, ***raapers first and then, in case, diatarn.***"

@y2k. Yup, I noticed you took care of that, that's why I was asking questions to the others about possible signals with diplomatic-votes.
Well done.

@all. Final Round starting in a few minutes....

Guaroz: I probably overestimated my chances in the case of elimination+solo: I was thinking of ~25%, but after looking at the final map I think it was more like 10% (a posteriori, the probability that France and Russia were played by nickbar1 and raapers2 is exactly 6.67%; but in 1903 I could have hoped for a more favourable final map, e.g. with a third elimination). So, yes, it was a (very small, in my opinion) mistake.

@didi. Yes, I realize it was very hard, maybe impossible. It's the beauty of such variant. Thanks for your thoughts and good luck!

@D4. I see, if it was a mistake, it was small. But we could still talk about whether a 3rd elimination would have been more likely with a fulminating solo by Austria or with a longer game...

Ok, the game has been created and invites sent.
PLEASE EVERYBODY, before you join it, check into your settings if you're blocking someone who qualified for this Final Round and, in case, unblock them and keep them unblocked until the game will start.
Please PM me if you are having problems joining.

Thank you all & may the best man win! :)

SILENCE is ON.

Please everybody, join me and congratulate with the Benchmark Gunboat Tournament Champion:

*** y2kjbk ***


Final standings:

.1. y2kjbk
.2. didigoose
.3. Sevyas
.4. nickbar1
.5. GOD
.6. raapers2
.7. diatarn_iv
.8. Decima Legio
.9. Spartan22
10. Ender
11. Samj
12. Mapu
13. Hirnsaege
14. Dr. Recommended
15. The Czech
16. Alcuin
17. Sendric
18. bozo
19. rexgarum
20. brettj72

Rules:
http://www.vdiplomacy.com/wiki/index.php?title=Guaroz%27s_Benchmark_Gunboat_Tournament

Games & Results:
http://www.vdiplomacy.com/wiki/index.php?title=BENCHMARK_GUNBOAT_TOURNAMENT_-_Edition_1_-_2014-2015

Statistics & study of the Tournament:
http://www.vdiplomacy.com/wiki/index.php?title=BENCHMARK_GUNBOAT_TOURNAMENT_-_Edition_1_-_Stats


SHORT HISTORY - COMPETITIVE SIDE
Qualification: double game Rounds.
The first Round was intended to be just like a "warm up", with a low elimination ratio, but we had some big site's name eliminated already. Shocking, at least for me: you don't see everyday bozo failing two gunboats in a row. Spartan22 did very well and got the 3rd round guaranteed: good scores earn you more chances along the Tournament. Good scores also by GOD and nickbar1, but it's too soon to talk about rifts.
Instead six players create a notable rift between themselves and the others in the second Round. GOD (topping), Sevyas, diatarn_iv, didigoose, Decima Legio and y2kjbk were all able to score at least 17 TPs in the 2 games. All the others get a negative sum of scores, except for Ender, who saves himself from a desperate-looking ranking, and nickbar1, who keep himself in a good rank. Again, more very eminent players get eliminated.
At this point the players looked warmed enough and I thought that everyone got how important is to score all the TPs you can: those that you don't, your opponents will (The density of TPs available in any game is a constant (2 TPs), so not to score all the points you can is a double damage for you).
Qualification: single game Rounds.
I was wrong. The third round ends in a big draw, so no big changes. Although with a lesser advantage, the aforementioned six are still topping the standings except for Decima Legio who has to face an incredible and extremely unlucky elimination. Ender can't repeat the previous miracle and Spartan22 hasn't kept what he gained in the first round, while nickbar1, with a precious and probably unhoped-for 1-SC-survive, thanks his neighbours for the mercy and keeps himself in play with a score not so far away from the top. GOD still topping and Sevyas still runner up.
The 4th Round starts without a big difference in Carry Overs: less than 6 TPs between the 1st and last position. But y2kjbc has eaten basically all the pie, forcing all the others to count their own crumbs in the end: nickbar1 got the most and is the new runner up, raapers2 and diatarn_iv got less and get out. Things that happen when who solo'd takes the 176% of the Pot (24.69/14 - The Pot of any game is number of players x TP-density, which is constant so, here, it was 7 x 2 = 14).
This is the meaning of these 2 single-game-Rounds before the Final one: there is only one pie and if you play neither for the whole pie nor for a very big slice, then you're playing for the crumbs. Although the Tournament's structure was known by everybody since the sign-up, some have been better than others at adapting their tournament-strategy accordigly.
The Final Round.
So y2kjbk, nickbar1, didigoose, GOD and Sevyas are the five finalists, with y2kjbk's Carry Over creating a little but meaningful rift between him and the others.
The game begins with the easy NAP between Carth & Egypt, while Rome and Greece can't find their harder one. Persia look to be easily handling Egypt and decided to annoy Greece. So Rome & Greece are not the only 2 powers committed on two fronts, but at the end of year 3, and although Rome is building, they both look to be history.
In year 4 Rome look to be desperately proposing a NAP to Greece, but Greece takes advantage of it. Rome is dead, Greece & Persia find their own NAP, Egypt can face Carth's attack only with the help of Persia, that attacks Egypt too instead.
At the end of year 9, only Carth, Greece and Persia are stil standing. The latter two start cooperating against the bigger one, at first, but a year later Greece puts down a dangerous and hard to be interpreted draw vote. Persia moves against Greece, Greece reacts, and things look now simple for Carth.
Autumn 13, the curtain is up, Carth is y2kjbk, y2kjbc is the Champion. Congratulations.


HOW THE TOURNAMENT WENT - TECHNICAL SIDE
Personally I'm happy about how the things went. The goal was to have a tournament without those issues I've often seen (or undergone) in my 7-years-long OnlineDip experience; poor-organization makes arise the same issues that always lead to delays and to unpleasant discussions among players, which in turn lead often a tournament to die before the end.
My organization strategy was to have the most common tournament issues univocally pre-resolved . The price to pay for it was forcing players to read a long and - I must admit - rather boring Rulebook, but I believe that the outcome was worth the effort. I believe that it's better you bore yourself reading a rulebook before you sign-up for a tournament than to be trapped in endless and annoying discussions while it is ongoing. Unless your goal is to take advantage from such discussions: I've met people who supported one point in a Tournament and its opposite in another one, depending on which one better suited his interests into each Tournament.
How did it go. Well... Notwithstanding the infinite fantasy and the tireless stubborness of several players in exploring those limits they should have kept themselves away from, which is what forced the Tournament Director to handle a lot of workload especially in the first 2 Rounds, I had to make only a few arbitrary decisions. This looks to me a great result.
The biggest issue was some players abusing the NMR-Policy setting. They CDed (for no acceptable reason: they logged in 10 times that day, even 30 minutes before they went CD) in one game, so they should have been replaced, but they didn't CD in the other game. The rules simply don't number the case - I've forgotten double-game-Rounds here, sorry - so I decided for not replacing them. While I believe the TD should be allowed to force CD in the other game, change passwords and replace them.
Another issue it's rules not mentioning the capability of players to join new games, which is a direct consequence of a bad Integrity rate. So, another thing the rules should make clear is that it is players' own responsibility to watch their own capability. If the site-system doesn't allow them to join all the new Round's games, they should be replaced.
Other aspects that can be better handled are: 1) the TD should be allowed to force the game/s start as soon as *all* the players who are supposed to join the it/them have correctly joined it/them 2) I'd change the current grouping rule for the first 2 Rounds and make them more "open". Each player would still play 2 games, but not with the same players. Basically 4 different mixed groups. 3) Maybe remove the "Extend" button too.
In conclusion, there have been many issues during these last 9 months, but in the whole I think they've been basically invisible to most of the players, letting them focus on the competitive side, thanks to the pre-emptive organization.
What I hope for is that each competitor of the BM Tour - any the number of Rounds he played - is as happy as I am about how the things worked, had fun with it, and appreciated its environement, which has been free from quarrels about procedures. If you've found it even too calm, well, you're probably right. Personally, I expected some more EoG statements after each Round, but we should consider it was a Gunboat Tournament played mostly by Gunboaters, so usually not so talkative. :-)

DURATION
Lastly, some considerations on the Tournament duration that involve both the competitive and the technical sides. "Less than 9 months" looks what was expected. But what you should consider is that a multiple-Round lasts as long as its longest game and that players in a good position to score tons of TPs might decide to not score them and to let their opponents have them.
So. Round 1 could have lasted one month more or so, because its longest game (FoAE-A) was finished in the middle and very powerful Countries refused to easily dare, and conceded to 1 or 2 SCs Countries a slice of the Pot. Even more incredible was Round 3, a Classic map in which the biggest Country ended with 8 SCs only: this game was finished in the early stage and it could have lasted no less than 1 month more. Also 4th Round's FoW was very fast because of Austria quickly getting a strong position: you shouldn't expect this happening everytime.
In conclusion, I've been lucky with the duration forcast I wrote on requirement "D" (8-10 months), but I think that 9-11 months would have been more realistic.

THANKS
This Tournament would have never started without the precious help by Decima Legio. His long and constant help has been very useful in every aspect of the Tournament setup, even decisive on some, and it has been indispensible while setting the structure, a job that took us months. Actually he helped me a lot in defining the necessary criteria you should keep in mind while choosing both the stucture and the maps it should be played on. Very big and special thanks to Decima Legio.
Also thanks to everyone who gave me big and little hints during last Summer 2014, or who just helped me fixing the language in the rulebook. I can recall Spartan22, Devonian, jeremyk2142, kaner406, fasces349, Dr.Recommended. There were several more, but a long time has gone: I hope they will forgive me for forgetting them now. Thanks to all, how little your help may look regardless: everything has been important.
But the most thanks are for the BM Competitors. Twenty high quality players, fair, showing often an excellent level of play. It's you who made this Tournament: being your Director has been a pleausure and a honor.


FINAL GREETING
I don't like long goodbyes so I'm not listing all the people in the vDip Community who I liked the most, recalling good old times or past epic games that we experienced together.
Actually, even with the inevitable differentiations, I enjoyed having to do with you all. No exceptions.
So... thank you everybody, it has been great and I'll miss you all. Goodbye.

Wait -- are you leaving the site?

Thanks for organizing the tourney and congrats to y2k, who also won the elite GB tourney on webdip!