Extended by 1 day the deadline in 2 group C games (I noticed the problem with only ~ 5 minutes left before the deadline), now I'll PM the missing player(s)

Hi guys, I'm getting multiple questions about
1) what "is" a draw
2) how you'll decide who advances to the next phase in case of ties (e.g., a group where all the games ended in a draw between all the 3 teams).

The answer to question (1) is simple: a team wins only if it owns all the SCs on the map. Therefore, if anyone manages to survive, even with a single SC, that's a draw. That's the reason of the very high winning requirement of the games.

Instead, the answer to question (2) is somewhat unclear to me: I think someoun (YCHTT?) mentioned that the numbers of SCs would be used as tie-breakers, and it makes sense. But I'm not 100% sure.

What about a group where:
- team A wins game 1
- team B wins game 2
- game 3 ends in a draw but there is a clear majority of SCs to team A

?

I believe you have:
team A 1 win 1 draw 1 loss
team B 1 win 1 draw 1 loss
team C 0 win 1 draw 2 losses
so, you definitely have team C in 3rd place.
team B and team A are tied in wins/draws, so you need to look at a tiebreaker.. if it's really the number of SCs, I'd say that team A comes first and team B second.

But I was asking for a confirmation from the ones who set up the tournament.

The intent was that number of SCS from draws was the tie breaker. We have played in our group that the first team to break 40 SCS gets a win and to save everyone's record, we draw at that point but it is still a win for them.

What the hell YCHTT. Why bother making the SC win to be 100% if you intended for players to 'draw' when one team get's over 40 scs. What a crock. THAT would have been useful information to know before the tournament started. Save your record my arse.

If it was going to be a race to 50% +/- a few scs, then why in any multiverse did we just put ourselves through that abortion of stalemate ridden steaming pile of annoyance that this variant is???

Group A
gameID=21037 - ongoing
gameID=21040 - ongoing
gameID=21041 - ongoing

Group B
gameID=21042 - Drawn, Germany/Italy (win) [CubanJedi/Mapu], 30 SCs
gameID=21043 - Drawn, SovietUnion/Italy (win) [Sendric/Battalion], 40 SCs
gameID=21044 - ongoing

Group C
gameID=21045 - ongoing
gameID=21046 - ongoing
gameID=21047 - ongoing

I went back in the forum to look for what was said about winning/drawing/tiebreaking. I think the most important posts were the two you'll find below.
I think the "definition" of win was ambigous.. I interpreted it as "getting 100% of the SCs on the map", but that was never stated explicitly.
However, I have a resonable hope that this will not matter.. a guy getting a draw with 40+SCs is as good as a winner from the point of view of the tie-breaking rule, so there is a strong chance that the ranking will be the same with both methods.
I'll look into it when I get a little bit more time (hopefully, this weekend)

cheers
diatarn_iv

==========Relevant "rule" post #1==========
From YCHTT, September 26
I'd like to get to 9 teams before we start as I really think the 3 team nearly anon (you know who your teammate is but nothing more) and a "winners progress" so two formal rounds of play with a third consolation round to decide who gets second and who gets third.

Each round will be three games played simultaneously so players won't be able to deduce which team is which nation set based on what nation set they already played. Solo is 7 points, draw is 6 points divided by those in the draw. So a solo *should* get you to the top but if another team solos a game and draws a third or solos the other two, it's not guaranteed. Any ties in point go to total SC count in games the team won or drew only. A concede will assume the wining team took all SCs and a solo requires the winning team to take all the SCs.

Games will be set as 100% of the SCs required to win. It will be against the rules to reveal your team in game through words. Also, no player will get the same nation twice and no team will get the same nation combo, but the nation combinations will vary from game to game so there won't be any way to deduce who will be working together on your opponents. This end up several possible ploys to male it look like one nation is another nations ally and get the third team to attack on.misinformation.
[...]

==========Relevant "rule" post #2==========
From YCHTT, October 21
For figuring out the winners, we discussed it early in the thread. Solo is 13 . Draws are 12  divided by teams in draw. Tie breaker is SCs owned. If each team were to solo or two teams solid with the same number of SCs in a third draw, we'll have to figure something out. But we'll cross that bridge if we get to it.

You can't change the strategy half way through. We purposefully made sure that we could find stalemate lines to stop solos. It has to stay consistent. And it was consistently 100% of centres.

KingCyrus: I'm quite sympathetic to your point of view (I shared your impression, too.. and I don't have any incentive to tweak my point of view).
I just hope that it won't make a difference.

Surely, if different groups prefer different "winning" results, for this round we use what the group wants, and clarify it after for those in the next round?

A nice compromise, but I don't think it would work since a tournament needs to be consistent.

The good news is the net result for group B is the same. The teams are tied and awaiting results of the third game to determine ultimate winner.

Incorrect Sendric. Only one has a solo thus far. A second is the leader in a draw. But, it is correct that we await the outcome of game three which has already been decided and the players are in violation of the agreement. R/G has 42 SCs, a clear majority and a victory, but two players refuse to draw. But the two teams are not tied. One has a solo and the other is leader in the draw of game 2.

At this point, group B has Sendric and Battalion leading with a solo in game 2. I suspect they also have the 42 SCs in game 3 giving them the solo, but if not, Mapu and CubanJedi have it and they win with 430 SCs to 29 in game 1's draw.

So who is R/G in Game 3? Is it Sendrick/Batallion? Or is it Mapu/CubanJedi? The answer is the winner of the league.

So the corrected states adjusted for group B.

Group A
gameID=21037 - ongoing
gameID=21040 - ongoing
gameID=21041 - ongoing

Group B
gameID=21042 - Drawn, Germany/Italy (draw leader) [CubanJedi/Mapu], 30 SCs
gameID=21043 - Agreed upon solo, SovietUnion/Italy (win) [Sendric/Battalion], 40 SCs
gameID=21044 - Solo that needs to be ended, SovietUnion/Germany (win) [???/???], 42 SCs

Group C
gameID=21045 - ongoing
gameID=21046 - ongoing
gameID=21047 - ongoing

Diatarn, we agreed in game 2 to save time that SovietUnion/Italy had a solo. There was no reason to draw it out further. This sets a precedent for Group B at least.

So let's get this straight. If players decide to draw a game, does the team with the most SCs receive a win? Or has that not yet been determined?

No, in a draw, all share points, 12 / # of teams drawing. But in the case of Group B game 2, we all decided they got the solo to avoid having to play it out to the end. It would have taken forever, but the team held more than half the board. It only seemed fair to give them the solo if they agreed to draw it early so we woildn't have defeats on our records.

OK, if the mods can undraw Game 2, we could continue on. The thought was that it is a waste of everyone's time to play to an inevitable end.

Sorry, I hosed it up by suggesting it in that game. Perhaps we undraw it and then play it out until one team solos it in full or they are stalemated and forced to draw.

YCHTT: in the posts about rules, you clearly stated that a concede is equivalent to a defeat with 0 SCs (btw, that rule sort of confirmed my belief that victory required control of 100% of SCs). So, if two teams agreed to a concede but they "technically" drawed the game just to avoid losing time/ruining their stats, I'd say that what counts is the agreement. So, unless these very same players who made the quasi-concede have an objection, I'd avoid reopening that game.
The situation might be more delicate with the other groups, where people might have been playing with a different "set of rules" in mind.

Windir, if you draw and no team holds more than 42(?) SCs (I took this number from the variant homepage), it's definitely a draw. That's what happened in gameID=21042 , where no team had more than 30SCs.
If instead there is a team with 42+ SCs, and both the teams with few SCs concede the game, it's a win for the 42+ SCs team (regardless of what the "official" page says.. it's enough that the winning team can give "proof" that the other teams agreed to concede, e.g. quoting the messages they exchanged ).
The problems are for games where one team got 42+ SCs, but someone refuses to concede (even virtually): I now believe that YCHTT intended these games to be considered as solos.. but that's not clear from the "rules" (for one, I believed that winning required getting ALL the SCs). And I believe that's what you should discuss in order to find a solution.

I agree diatarn. And that was why I proposed it in that game. The key difference is I figured 40 was enough as there is only 79 SCs. that is why I get everyone to agree to the concede draw in game 2 and game 1 was a normal draw. I really think, with 42 SCs now, Game 3 should just be drawn as a concede draw to R/G.

Perhaps we play out game 3 only until the one standout non-winning player agrees to concede as well. I have no skin in it either way as my team has been in the bottom of the SC count in all three games as my partner had a bad habit of NMRing on a regular basis.

YCHTT: you might be right about your group (though I'd like to hear the opinions of other participants): since you were in the group, you probably "clarified" the rules to everyone else in the game messages.
The problem are the other groups, where someone (in at least one case, I'd say the majority of players) was definitely acting under a different set of assumptions: see what kaner was saying (and I might show you some clarification requests I received from other players).
So, I'm sorry for the consistency of the tournament, but I believe that the best way to handle this is that EACH group decides on its own if a "draw" with one team holding 42+ SCs (see, rodgers' suggestion) should be considered draw, or a solo. Even so, it might not be entirely fair to some players.. but I believe it's more fair that simply having a one-size-fits-all rule.
But all players should probably have a say about this.

I don't know if allowing each group to choose victory conditions is the right way to go. Their votes will be heavily influenced by how successful each team is at the moment; someone who is doing badly will sue for a draw, but the winning team will want a 42+ SC draw to count as a victory. Since the losing teams would outnumber the winning team, the outcome would be unfavorable for whoever is actually doing the best at the time.

For example: assume that Team X is winning in one game, and Team Y is winning in one game. Team Z is losing in all three games. In the final game, Team X and Y have reached an insurmountable stalemate. However, Team X has about 50 centers and Team Y has roughly 25. If we allow victory conditions to be made at the group level, Teams Y and Z will vote for the "a draw is a draw" option (i.e., the number of SCs in a draw is irrelevant). This decision would be clearly biased against Team X due to their advanced position on the board, but the decision would be passed since four outvotes two.

The fact that we're having nine separate games going on at once is already extreme. In the scenario I described, it would be absurd to create tiebreaker games; much of our time has already been devoted to playing this tournament for the past few months. Creating even more games would be gratuitous. The fairest and most efficient option would be to go with what YCHTH originally said, "Tie breaker is SCs owned."

Oops, I meant YCHTT!