Possible Survivor 2 tourney...
 

So I was thinking about doing a Survivor 2 tournament. I want the idea to be basically the same, but with some differances. What do you think about this idea for a tourney format?

We take everybody that want's to join and put them in one big game. If there are more than 20 players we split them up into "tribes". Each round will progress until one player is eliminated, and then everybody left will move on to the next round. If we have tribes, then both games will eliminate one person each until we are down to 20 total and then you will all be thrown together in one big game.

This will be a little wierd so some people will not like it. In some games you may not even get into the action before a player gets eliminated on the other side of the quadrant. For that matter technically it would be possible not to even meet anybody before one player gets eliminated.

How you go about eliminating someone will be totally up to you. Two or three of you could try and gang up and wipe out one player and quickly end the round. Or you could play more defensivly and just try to ensure you don't get eliminated and thus move on.

It would be very cut throat I think. Players with reputations as strong players would be huge targets in the early rounds I would think because the other players would try to gang up on them early and give themselves a better chance to ultimately survive. This tournament could literely be won by anybody becasue of that point.

Things will move quickly becuase I will set the time limit at 36 hours, and that will be strictly enforced. If your vaction happens to fall during a round, you will have to get someone to take over for you till you get back, or just hope the AI manages to survive till you get back or you will be eliminated. Unless you go off for two weeks or more though you are only talking about 7 to 10 turns, so that should be too much of a problem.

And we won't have to waste time seeking replacments and stuff cause if someone just flat abandones the game they will be eliminated and everyone else will move on to the next round. We will come up with some definition of what constitutes abandonement. I am thinking five consecutive missed turns (that's a week) without posting a notice in the game forum or something.

Typically I don't like large games, but the strict turn time limit and the fact that the games end when the first person is out should counter that effectivly I think. And later rounds would not be such large games.

Whatcha think?

Geoschmo

Re: Possible Survivor 2 tourney...
 

i think people would keep themselved from being eliminated by droping a mine in a corner of the map, or colonizing some little moon that is protected by one of their stronger allies.

there would have to be some sort of arbitrary 'you are dead' clause that kicks in if someone drops below 50K points or something.

Re: Possible Survivor 2 tourney...
 

I agree with Puke on needing a "You are dead" clause, perhaps just not owning any planets would suffice. Checking score probably wouldn't be good because in the early game scores vary quite a bit depending on a persons expansion methods and what type of planets are around.

The format sound quite fun to me, though. I'm definitely interested.

[ June 14, 2002, 18:24: Message edited by: Alpha Kodiak ]

Re: Possible Survivor 2 tourney...
 

Well in survivor one it never came up, but I was sort of prepared for that. The rule was to be that if you had no more planets, and no colony ships that could establish a colony you were eliminated.

We could go beyond that even and say you must not lose contact, then the colony ships wouldn't be enough. You'd have to have at least one planet somewhere to remain in the game.

As far as allowing your ally to hide on a protected moon or something. That could be considered a bit cheesy. I would hope something like that would not happen. What would concern me most about something like that is if the protected player were then assumed to "owe" the other guy where in a later round they would maybe take a dive. That would be definate collusion. But two players agreeing to band together in an alliance and help each other out until they were the only two left would be ok I think. Although they might not be in a position to help each other in every round. Helping an ally survive is OK I think, where laying down so an ally can advance without you is not.

I would hesitate to make a strict rule there though cause where do you draw the line? Is one moon not enough, but trading a whole systems worth of planets for one that is on the other side of your allies territory ok?

And what of the legitimate case where the empire happend to colonize that planet and it happens to be the only bastion of their empire left, but is well protected. There they weren't really manipulating things intentionally, it just worked out that way?

Also, I didn't say this, but if two empires were eliminated on the same turn I would just drop both of them, instead of trying to split hairs and try to figure out which one went first. That DID almost come up in Survivor I.

Geoschmo

[ June 14, 2002, 18:43: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: Possible Survivor 2 tourney...
 

The other nice thing about this is we don't have to worry about disallowing surrender. That was a BIG sore spot in Survivor I.

Since each round ends as soon as one player is eliminated, there is no reason not to allow surrender. You won't be forced to play on to the bitter end if you don't feel like it. Although you would be wise too cause all you have to do is hang on a turn longer than at least one other player. And who you surrender to is unimportant too since the game ends at that point.

Geoschmo

Re: Possible Survivor 2 tourney...
 

Cool! Count me in. When do we start.

Re: Possible Survivor 2 tourney...
 

I'm interested, although w/ 36hr turns, vacations would be a bit painful. Having the No AI mod would be quite useful. Also, will you be using GOLD or 1.49?

Re: Possible Survivor 2 tourney...
 

Gold or 1.49, probably Gold, but whichever I can get the most people with. (Hey, maybe one of each! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif )

As far as the No AI mod, I would say no on that, but you can use the "None" minister style when setting up your race and it will do the same thing. That way if you want your AI to nothing they will. But some people would prefer the AI play for them to having nothing going on while they are gone.

If anybody is unsure how to do that check out this thread,

NONE AI THREAD.

Geoschmo

[ June 14, 2002, 20:23: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: Possible Survivor 2 tourney...
 

I think I might like to give this one a go. I have no idea who the strong PBW players are, nor anything to measure myself against (I can beat TDM races on high diff.-med. bonus, but who can't).

Re: Possible Survivor 2 tourney...
 

geo-
Seems to be a good idea.

I'm just curious... what were the results of Survivor One? Was there an official thread with standings and the renound final "Survivor"?

This would be an interesting read, in my opinion.

Re: Possible Survivor 2 tourney...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yep, here it is.

Re: Possible Survivor 2 tourney...
 

Thanks for the link, geo-

Seems like your updated idea should go much quicker than the first Survivor tourney. The problem with these things is that it's really not "the best of the best," as the best players, as you mentioned, can be dogpiled and removed early. As with the TV show, usually someone flying under the radar wins. A fun concept, no less.

Re: Possible Survivor 2 tourney...
 

True Stone Mill. By goal was that exactly. With a game like SEIV there really is no way to determine who the best player is, becasue there are so many different aspects of the game that are important, and so many different ways to play the game. I think this format would offer many different challanges, military, economic, and diplomatic.

And keep in mind that being dogpiled wouldn't neccesarily mean gauranteed death for a better player. Since alliances are such varporous things, and this game is so cuthroat. You might form an alliance to go after someone and while your ships are off attacking them one of your allies could turn on you and wipe out your empire. Choosing the easy kill and an alliance with a stronger player.

Even if that doesn't happen, the target of your alliance doesn't have to defeat all of you. Just the weakest member of your group, or someone else entirely, or simply hold on until someone gets pasted somewhere else in the galaxy. And then your card is played and they will be gunning for you in the next round.

It all sounds very interesting to me, even more so after thinking about it more.

Geoschmo

Re: Possible Survivor 2 tourney...
 

I assmue this means playing 19 games...granted that the first dozen have the possibility to end fast.

However, I can see the Last few games, other than the 1 on 1, might lack a real sense of competition simply because all wrath will naturally drift toward the weakest. A gang effect.

If this is a thread just for new tourney ideas, I'd like to suggest a team tourney. With either two or three empires to a team. Teams taken by lot or simply by buds who want to play several games together. Each team plays all other teams, top two standings play each other in the world (and i do mean world, unlike other misleading sports) series.

Just ideas

Re: Possible Survivor 2 tourney...
 

Well there is plenty of room in the SE universe from more than one tournament. I would like to see someone do a team tournament. The Suvivor Tourney isn't a team event though.

Geoschmo

Re: Possible Survivor 2 tourney...
 

Well you could always make it a team event for the first few rounds of the tourney till the numbers started to get thin

Just like in the real tv show where first they play the challenges for the team, then it switches to individual glory near the end game.

It could be done, depends if you want to do it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Possible Survivor 2 tourney...
 

Well you are certainly free to make alliances or whatever you feel would get you deeper into the tournament. What I don't want to do is force these artifically on people. I want people to be free to make or break alliances whenever they feel it benefits them the most. This way you never know if your ally is going to turn on you. It's that little extra bit of the unknown that makes things really interesting.

Geoschmo

Re: Possible Survivor 2 tourney...
 

Well, count me in!

Re: Possible Survivor 2 tourney...
 

I'd love to play but I know I could never keep up with 36hr turns. It is an effort for me to do 48hr turns as it is. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Possible Survivor 2 tourney...
 

Consider this:

Start with two "tribes"; one game dedicated to each. Each tribe must eliminate it's weakest member.

At some point, the tribes must merge, and then there will be a free-for-all. However, as with the show- alliances will preserve within the tribes. You will see that cross-tribal alliances will be rare. After playing 10 or so rounds of "you get my back, I'll get yours," you will tend to trust that person when the two tribes merge into one game, rather than some fresh meat. Besides, you will be suspicious and paranoid (and rightly so) of the alliances formed by the other tribe.

Another thing to add as a feature to this game is "IMMUNITY." If you are the player who successfully eliminates the weak race, you get to sit out the next round. That will provide incentive for aggressors, rather than having everyone adopt long drawn-out defensive postures. That should help hurry along playing time.

Re: Possible Survivor 2 tourney...
 

The only problem with the tribes is one game will end beofre the other and they will be waiting around on the other game before they can start the next round. That happened a LOT in survivor 1. I will add tribes in, but only as a Last resort if we get more than 20 people to join.

The immunity thing sounds interesting, but there are problems with it. How do you determine who knocked off the other empire? What if it was more than one cooperating? Or worse what if you had been beating on this guy and had him down to one planet and another guy happens along at a critical moment and finishes him off? Who gets the immunity?

Sorry, there are just too many judgement calls that have to be made with that sort of arrangment. But it is an interesting idea.

Geoschmo

Re: Possible Survivor 2 tourney...
 

Gee... those ideas sounded so easy when I mentioned them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif You do have valid points.

Still, I'd like to see some brainstorming around making the concepts work... especially IMMUNITY.

Rules... What the heck. One could say, whomever gets the final kill, (finishes off a race) wins it. Period. So what if they were a seedy vulture who pounced in on someone's hard work? That's part of this type of political game. A player who employs that tactic probably won't be liked. So with the win, he sits out one round. The next round he enters, he will find he already has a vendetta against him for snatching a controversial win.

Re: Possible Survivor 2 tourney...
 

Well, I suppose that's an option, but then you are back to having to disallow surrender. Otherwise an empire on the way out could simply surrender to someone they want to have the immunity. yeech. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

And then there is the matter of an empire with two planets left. One guy kills off one planet and the other guy kills off the other planet. SO you give the immunity to whom? The guy with the higher player order? Double Yeech.

Not trying to poke holes in your idea, I do like it on principle. It's just I don't see a way to execute it that doesn't end up with me having to mediate a lot of hissy fits. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Geoschmo