Ladder Wars.

[edrim]

New Ladder system of games.

Hello players.

I want to introduce new system of playing:

• We will play in small boards with something like 15 active players.
• We will have a number of simultaneous games (probably 4).
• Fixed start of all games.
• After a person/team declares victory on appropriate forum by listing the current turn and winning player(s), the remaining players have 7 turns to oppose this claim. RIP players cannot oppose. If you post accepting your defeat you are survivor, if you do not reply, you will be considered a RIP player.
• After the one game has an official winner, all remaining games must complete within 37 turns or a tie is declared.
• Deadlines for all states (start-end of signups, polls, games, etc.)
• First Ladder will be set from Kryon’s Ranking List.
• Next games will be sorted by Ladder system.
• Players will be sorted by Ladder system and transferred to specific boards.
• All players could join new system but there will be punishment for being idlers.
• New players (from second wave) join the median game of the Ladder.
• A single player or alliance can win a game.
• The maximum number of winners for each game is determined by the number of starting players. For every 5 players in each game, there can be an additional winner.
• Each winner receives 3 points, 1 point for survivor or tie, 0 points for R.I.P.
• Minor points (determined by number of units killed) will help sort Ladder.

[edrim]

Ladder System.

We will use a modified version of other popular Ladder systems.

• All players will be sort in a Ladder, we will get first sort from Kryon’s Ranking List (KRL)
• Every player with correct sign in and idler statement acceptance will get his position in Ladder.
• Before first game every player will get 0 main and minor points.
• After signup closed and n players accept idle statement rules we will decide how many games will be played in first round (there will be m games which allow approximately 15 players each game, maybe little more).
• n/m players will go to all games in order from KRL. The last game (which includes players at the tail of the list) may get less players.
• After end of a game:
  • winners of all games will get 3 major points
  • survivors of all games will get 1 major point
  • RIP, idle or losers will get 0 major points
  • all players winners, losers, R.I.P, idlers will get as many minor point as they killed units in their last game
• Ladder will be sorted after first game in a way:
  • all players with 3 points will get top of the list
  • all players with 1 point will get place after winners
  • all players with 0 points will get last positions
  • players with the same major points will be sorted by minor points. Players with the same major and minor points players will be sorted by md5sum lexicon
• After every game, the Ladder will be sorted based on major points and then the minor points, players with same major points will be sorted by minor points and lexicon md5sum after it if necessary

Additional rules:

• Idler will be marked in forum as “idler” and will be excluded from next two Ladder games:
  • 30 turns idle when delegated.
  • 10 turns idle when not delegated.
• Delegation abuse will be punish by excluding from delegation system to end of a game.
• Password sharing will be treated as idler and additional ban from a game.
• Using vote system ingame is illegal for players, player setting new vote will be treated as idler.
• New players will join to medium grade (median) of a Ladder.
• Players should stay online not much more longer than making their moves and plan strategy, (eg. being connected for 10 hours/day may lead to random disconnections of the player from a game, normal time is around 2 hours a day).
• Delegation is allowed only when somebody is genuinely unable to play for a medium period. Minimum delegation is 2 turns, and should be removed immediately after away person return. Delegation should not be repeated more often than once a week. A person is considered idle if they do not connect for 30 turns (even if delegated).
• Delegate player need to write on “Vacation idle list” when he is going out and when he is going to be back.
• All Ladder games will suspend between 23.12 - 02.01 every year.
• Every time when server is not working (letting connect) more than 30 minutes, TC is delayed, and it is set to 23 hours after this breakdown, if breakdown is longer than 23 hours then TC will be delayed by 72 hours to let everybody knows that we are back.
• Every game has time limitation for players online. When number of board with player started from best once is a number n, so time allowed to spend ingame is (1/2^n)*m hours. "m" can be changed but preferably it may be 32. When player will abuse this rules several times his "m" may be reduced, when it will be reduced 3 times he may be trated as an idler.

[edrim]

Deadlines.

All Admins and Players should pay attention attention to deadlines.
Ladder game will need to adhere to this deadlines:
D is Day where we will open signups to a Ladder games,
D+10 is 10 days (one day 24h) after D Day
t is turn where first game will be completely ended.
t+10 is 10 turns after t turn, it means if t is T100 then t+37 is end of T137 and there is no moves in T138

• D Start Signups.
• D+7 Start creating polls.
• D+14 Ending create first wave of polls.
• D+21 End voting Polls.
• D+23 Another round of polls if necessary set only by Admins.
  • If there will be no another round of polls all next D deadlines will be cut by 12 so every player has 4 days for accepting rules and idle statement.
• D+30 End Voting second phase of polls.
• D+33 End Signups.
• D+37 (D25) Accept rules + No Idler Statement.
• D+39 (D27) Sort Legal signups to specific boards.
• D+43 (D31) Start a games.
• t - Turn when complete winning of First Game. "t" in different boards may be different (server crushes, delaying TC, ...).
• t+30 deadline for making winning list with survivors.
• t+37 Complete winning of Last Game (7 turns is for achieve victory in forum and all other things to do like giving time for survivors to place their defeat post, so all other games has only 30 turns to start achieving victory if there are survivors, if not there is additional 7 turns to killall).
• t+38 = Next D.

Rules of a game are written, additionally there is a ruleset which we will change by polls, so everybody have to accept rules (already written + changed ruleset) and idle statement by clicking "confirming signup" at signup game page. If you dont care about rules and you want to accept it earlier you can still do it. Acceptance window will start in D+14.

Idler statement:

I am active player, I will try not to leave the game and I will be logging in at least once a day to make my moves. If i will not able to do it more than 3 days I will write a post on forum “Vacation Topic” and set delegation or write that i am leaving my nation without control for specific number of days.
If I am idle without written reason I will be excluded for next two games.

[edrim]

Polls.

Every player signed to game has a right to make a poll.
Before you call a voting, remember:

• Don't make poll about impossible things:
  • don't propose disabling things not supported by software.
• Don't make poll about change in code - make a topic and after some discussion Admin will make a poll about it.
• Use correct game for a poll.
• Specify very clear what you want to be voted. One must know exactly what is the question, and what will happen when he will vote for one of options.
  • so asking "let's do XXXXXXX. Otherwise let's do YYYYYY", with "yes" and "no" options is unacceptable, because one don't know if "yes" means XXXXX or YYYYYY.
• If you want to change some option in settings or in ruleset, specify what option in which file should be changed to what value.
• If there is more polls asking about same thing, like: rapture delay = 2 (yes/no) and rapture delay = 4 (yes/no), option which will be implemented will be:
  • more “yes” voters
  • less “no” voters, if same number of “yes” players
  • created earlier
• Again, be very precise!. Don't use "do you want to add icons to units" question. Better ask "do you want to add XXX icon (file attached) to YYY unit?".
• If you want to discuss it first - make a topic discuss and add topic number to poll settings.
• Use preview button. It must look good. Put empty lines (double <cr>) between paragraphs. Use paragraphs!
• If you do not follow guidelines above, your poll may be deleted or wait until admin have time (which means it will not be published in poll window to specific game). Also, admin can change content of your poll without notice. Admins are supposed to look at all polls at last day of window for creating polls - some of them will be removed if they are not correct and not fix to rules, others will be rearranged, polls fixed to rules should be committed ASAP.

[edrim]

Winning conditions.

First of all definition of alliance:

Code: Select all

Alliance: Group of players who are either allied directly or at least indirectly ingame  (player X allied with player Y; Y with Z; so X indirectly with Z)

Winning:

• The maximum number of winners for each game is determined by the number of starting players. For every 5 players in each game, there can be an additional winner. It means that in:
  • 1 to 5 players game it can be only one winner,
  • 6 to 10 players game it can be 2 winners,
  • 11 to 15 players game it can be 3 winners,
  • and so on.
• Player or alliance can win a game, there is no possibility to win a game in some kind of bazaar or poll (who wants to win because there are some free places?). If you are not ally in turn ending a game you are not able to win together.
• Alliance need to make victory claiming post on forum, each person in the alliance must confirm this post, except players that are on vacations, in this case delegated player can accept victory.
• All non RIP players need to have a city at end of a game, players with settler/worker/explorer/partisan only will be treated as RIP and cannot get any major points.
• Survivor - if exist, survivor need to make a defeat post within 7 turns from claiming victory post (if victory post was set in Turn x defeat posts need to be posted within Turn x+7), then he will be treated as survivor, and get a major point to his account.
• “Rebel” - rebel can say that he is not agree with claiming victory by his enemies, if rebel will not do it in 7 turns in forum he will be treated as RIP player and not gain any major points, if rebel defise the victory post, winning alliance need to destroy all “rebel” cities to end the game (t+37).
• Spaceship is like winning without survivors agreement (with ally statement and setting winners by spaceship winner):
  • if 2 or more allies win spaceship in same turn they will divide winner points by number of players winning spaceship in same time,
  • if n players will win spaceship same turn, and m of them are in one ally and k in other then 3*m/n points will go to ally which m spaceships win and 3*k/n points will go to ally which k spaceships win (eg. 3 players win a spaceship race same turn - 2 from “first” ally and one from “second” ally, then first ally will get 2 points (3*2/3) and second ally will get 1 point (3*1/3).
• End Turn is a specific time when first board has completely end their game - make claiming victory topic & kill all enemy cities OR all survivor defeat OR 7 days passed without any rebel post.
• End Turn will start counting downturn in rest of games same wave, from this time future win allies have to:
  • end their games before End Turn + 37 turns:
    • they have 30 turns for post claiming victory post and have a faith there will be no rebels,
    • if there are some rebels they have 37 turns (End Turn +37) to kill all rebels and complete victory post,
    • any alliance can make a victory post sooner and wait 7 days for rebels and survivors, not to let be in hurry last turns.
• If some of this restrictions will fail (no winning topic, no all rebels RIP, winning topic doesn't adhere to deadlines) - all non RIP/Idler players will get a tie point to their major points and game will be treated as a draw.

[edrim]

Social Media.

I will try to be active in Social Medias like Twitter and Facebook

Add them to your accounts and you will not loose deadlines of Ladder Wars.

[edrim]

FAQ

Q: Will community stop playing regular game after Ladder Wars start?
A: No, we can start some massive regular games if there will be enough player to play same time to Ladder Wars.

[Marduk]

This sounds awesome, very well thought through!

In principle it would be compatible with team games, though in a team game you have an additional step in the starting process (team formation, then player location choice). Maybe team games are best kept for non-ladder games.

The system is quite information intensive (number of survivors, idlers, number of units killed etc). Is all information available, and can it be easily managed? Maybe it's possible to make a script that feeds the required information directly into the website?

[edrim]

The system is quite information intensive (number of survivors, idlers, number of units killed etc). Is all information available, and can it be easily managed? Maybe it's possible to make a script that feeds the required information directly into the website?

I will do it by hand in first couple of games, if players will join in big amount we will think in puting it in algorithm. I dont know if my system will be good idea and everybody will join or totaly disaster and there is lost of time to programe algorithm counting all this things.

[edrim]

I have added:

If you dont care about rules and you want to accept it earlier you can still do it. Acceptance window will start in D+14.

In Deadlines section.

[edrim]

I have added:

"t" in different boards may be different (server crushes, delaying TC, ...).

It means that if any server crush before first ending then this game will gaet less turns for completing, when server crush after first complete all other games has number of turns to complete, even if server crush all boards has 37 turns.

[edrim]

Added:

Every game has time limitation for players online. When number of board with player started from best once is a number n, so time allowed to spend ingame is (1/2^n)*m hours. "m" can be changed but preferably it may be 32. When player will abuse this rules several times his "m" may be reduced, when it will be reduced 3 times he may be trated as an idler.

In best board it is 16 hours.
In second it is 8.
In third it is 4.
In forth it is 2.

Any question?

[det0r]

I have problems with the 'game end' system. Because most players seem to prefer 'stopping someone else from winning' rather than 'trying to win themselves' these games will all be very boring and there will very rarely be a winner. All this does is further encourage the lame, massive alliances which have ruined the past 4 LT games, including now a team game where teams are actively working together.

What is the point in playing really hard early game to come out on top, when it will just mean that everyone else forms an alliance against you and the game will be declared a draw? For people who want to play a domination-style (control the entire world) turn-based strategy game there is no reason to continue playing LT.

[edrim]

I have problems with the 'game end' system. Because most players seem to prefer 'stopping someone else from winning' rather than 'trying to win themselves' these games will all be very boring and there will very rarely be a winner. All this does is further encourage the lame, massive alliances which have ruined the past 4 LT games, including now a team game where teams are actively working together.

What is the point in playing really hard early game to come out on top, when it will just mean that everyone else forms an alliance against you and the game will be declared a draw? For people who want to play a domination-style (control the entire world) turn-based strategy game there is no reason to continue playing LT.

The answer is that here will be not more then 20 players each game. Close to 15 i think.
Massive allainces can be formed in massive games, once you entered to 15 players game you can try to get 3-4 players alliance. We are not able to force players not to do it as you know. Some players are not accepting it and they are quit. I dont like it too, but I think it was a problem from very beggining.
Check this game LT9, it is early game, after it we have reduced amount of winning players but in this case games still have survivors who were helping winning ally.

Do you have any idea how to fix this problem? I hope less players games will reduce it, we can go to very massive games that you are not able to get from one big island to another easy and there will be local conflicts rather then global alliancess.

[edrim]

Added:

• Using vote system ingame is illegal for players, player setting new vote will be treated as idler.

[Xercise]

I think smaller number of players and NOT knowing the map ahead of time (i.e. not knowing where people are) should reduce the want for making deals outside of formal alliances. (although I have made many non-allied deals in the past two games I've played, I too wouldn't mind playing games like on the metaserver, where there is no time for that).

[edrim]

Hello again.
We are close to start games.
So there are new last deadlines:


20.02 Accept rules + No Idler Statement.
21.02 Sort Legal signups to specific boards.
23.02 Start a games.

Please look at this deadlines and accept Rules by "confirm your participation in LW1" not later then 20.02.2014 23:59:59 CET.

[edrim]

So we have 30 turns left?
Also, the idlers who didn't log on and build cities will be considered RIP, is this correct?

I have explained it to Wieder in game chat, so i will explain it here:

First of all LW1b need to have winning topic, I will change title in proper way if it will not be like "LWnx - winning topic"

Then all live players will have to write if they agree to be in winning list, thy are survivors or they are not agree.
In our situation one of 2 players in LW1b need to place a topic "LW1b - winning topic" saying they are in ally and they has won, second player need to agree.
Nobody left so after second player post in this topic LW1b will be ended in proper way.

After that all other boards will have same amount of time to end in proper way.

They will have to make a winning topic same way as LW1b in 30 turns, all alive players in this boards will have 7 days after that to agree or not, if there will be some disagree winning topic makers should kill all "Rebels".
So if a player will make a winning topic in 20th turn from ending of LW1b they will have 17 turns if any rebels will not agree. 37 is maximum amount of turns to end of all games, because a board can make a winning post in 30th day and we need to wait for posts of all live players for 7 days.

If you have any questions please ask.

[el_perdedor]

hi,

can i play here?

see ya

[edrim]

can i play here?

Yes, you can.


We will start couting deadlines for start LW2 in 1st sep

[Lord_P]

Glad to hear LW will continue Edrim.
Since LT33 is going to be a massive game (Which of course will be all about the big alliances and politics again....) how about making the LW series into even smaller and faster games as an alternative?
For example between 4 and 8 players with only one winner by anihalation allowed per game, so there will be no arguments about who the winner is. Maybe even reduce unit costs so theres more action.
That way you can keep these games turning over quickly and we will really see players move up and down in the rankings.

[edrim]

Glad to hear LW will continue Edrim.

LW games are quite fast, as you see on board is ending and other board has no time for end or doing it in big rush.

We will poll some changes in deadlines are written in LW rules. LW games are prepared for 15-30 players, if there is not so many players I am cutting number of boards. Last game it was only 10 players each board.
If we want to have 1 winner it should be not more then 5 players game, with 6 players it is 2 players win possible.

We are not able to cut time to end of a game, i think we will see less turns games every time, because of rush, nobody wants to play long game while other board is going to end soon.

Longturn are not short time games, and LW will not be short time games too, I think 3 months battles are quite nice.

If any player has question or see rules are not clear pleas write it, i will fix rules before LW2 starts. Rules in first post in this thread are for everyone, exactly rules (next couple posts) are for players who wants to know more about LW and show how main rules work in game.

I think low limit of 3 board is good, we will not play 2 boards LW games. Limitation of max numbers of players in a board are not shown but it is between 20 and 30.

[mmm2]

Glad to hear LW will continue Edrim.

LW games are quite fast, as you see on board is ending and other board has no time for end or doing it in big rush.

We will poll some changes in deadlines are written in LW rules. LW games are prepared for 15-30 players, if there is not so many players I am cutting number of boards. Last game it was only 10 players each board.
If we want to have 1 winner it should be not more then 5 players game, with 6 players it is 2 players win possible.

We are not able to cut time to end of a game, i think we will see less turns games every time, because of rush, nobody wants to play long game while other board is going to end soon.

Longturn are not short time games, and LW will not be short time games too, I think 3 months battles are quite nice.

If any player has question or see rules are not clear pleas write it, i will fix rules before LW2 starts. Rules in first post in this thread are for everyone, exactly rules (next couple posts) are for players who wants to know more about LW and show how main rules work in game.

I think low limit of 3 board is good, we will not play 2 boards LW games. Limitation of max numbers of players in a board are not shown but it is between 20 and 30.

i agree with lord p, keep ladder games as 3 v 3 or 4 v 4.. I think you should also try to balance out the games so that the teams are equal. THere is no point to have game where half players are idlers or total noobs. In my opinion, also it would be good to restrict the timeout so that each player only has 10 minutes or some specified minutes each turn to move before they are kicked, but not 23 hours to move. also, it would be good to make it so that it's NTE (no tech exchange). We don't want to waste time with micromanaging tech sharing, that is lame... also, don't worry too much about winning/losing.. more important is just to make it fun

[edrim]

i agree with lord p, keep ladder games as 3 v 3 or 4 v 4.. I think you should also try to balance out the games so that the teams are equal. THere is no point to have game where half players are idlers or total noobs. In my opinion, also it would be good to restrict the timeout so that each player only has 10 minutes or some specified minutes each turn to move before they are kicked, but not 23 hours to move. also, it would be good to make it so that it's NTE (no tech exchange). We don't want to waste time with micromanaging tech sharing, that is lame... also, don't worry too much about winning/losing.. more important is just to make it fun

I know that you have plenty ideas for playing, as akfaew said we have machines for start new games, if you want to start your own initiative you can do it. LW are like LT in pre 2.3 games. Limited number of players mean less micromanagment and all this super tricks are used in large alliances are not so big and usefull.

Once I will not like what is happening in LW I will change rules before next wave, but in this moment I like game a lot because it brings me to past.