City of IF

[Key]

:welcome:

Announcing the Second Every-Once-In-A-While Arena Tournament, where citizens of IF compete in the game of Arena for fun and prizes!

:duel:

Those of you who don't know what Arena is can follow the link above and read all about it - newbies are welcome in this tourney, in fact the whole point is to get lots of people practicing and playing, so anyone is welcome.

Exact rules and format are TBD depending on who and how many entrants we have, but there will certainly be fable prizes - 500 fables for first place, 250 for second. This round, unlike our first Arena tourney, will also feature some card-creation skills, so rather than building a deck from a random set of cards, you'll have the chance to create the card(s) you want.

Questions? Suggestions? Sign ups? Post them here.

:-)

[LordoftheNight]

I think it'd be fair if the current Arena Champion - whoever it happens to be, can't remember right now - should be given an automatic bide to the third round, and extra cards. Just to show off their superiority of course.

[Chinaren]

lol.

I'm afraid I don't have enough time for this right now. :(

[D-Lotus]

I'll sign up. Are there any limitations on this card creating business?

[Key]

D-Lotus wrote: I'll sign up. Are there any limitations on this card creating business?

Yes, not sure yet what they'll be though. We'll see how many people we get and figure out the format from there.

:-)

[Crossfire]

Nothing gratuitous, I suppose... all the rules I can think of are painfully obvious.

You may need to revise the cost system a little though, if you'd like to make Bonuses on the cards we make illegal.

There are some useful ones out there, like Coruscate, which require massive cost penalties in order to be effective. I'm sure that the new cards we make are going to be inventive enough to really tax the existing way of assigning costs.

[Key]

Hmm...well, that's four if you count me. I'd hoped for more, but that will do. What do you think about a round-robin - everybody plays everybody else (i.e. 3 matches each) and then the two players with the best record face off for the final?

Re the cards: you're right, we may need to do some tweaking and/or enhancements to accommodate the cards you guys want. For Coruscate, I think it may work out if we just add the ability to have a second "Other limit". If we put in both "Activator dies" and "When attacking" as separate limits, that may get it down.

How do you guys want to do card and deck design? Is one custom card each enough, or do you want to create a whole custom army?

[Crossfire]

It would probably be best to create an entire custom army. With a single card, it might be difficult to enforce the No Overkill rule until after the first battle.

Let's say you create a Size 3 Vehicle, Power 0T, Speed 2, Forest with the ability "This creature cannot be damaged by Targeted attacks". It would probably cost around 15 at most.

Seems perfectly innocuous, right? Well, try interfacing it with a Living Tree. Add a Power increasing item, and you have a Power (N+5), Speed 2 Surestepper unit that's virtually unblockable.

If it cost less than 13 and was a Horse, it could even be Speed 3, thanks to the Horseshoes...

There's countless other combinations available.

[D-Lotus]

Quote: How do you guys want to do card and deck design? Is one custom card each enough, or do you want to create a whole custom army?

It depends. Is anybody going to deem which cards are fair and which aren't? 'cause I once created a pixie army that was way too powerful, and I'll probably get carried away again if I create a custom army. I think I'd rather create a single creature, especially because a custom army is very time-consuming.

[Key]

D-Lotus wrote: Quote: How do you guys want to do card and deck design? Is one custom card each enough, or do you want to create a whole custom army?

It depends. Is anybody going to deem which cards are fair and which aren't? 'cause I once created a pixie army that was way too powerful, and I'll probably get carried away again if I create a custom army. I think I'd rather create a single creature, especially because a custom army is very time-consuming.

Yes, I'm thinking that a single custom card makes more sense too, much easier to keep things under control. I'll have to have the final decision for what's legal, and I guess I should exempt myself from card creation to minimize conflict of interest. Which I think is fine, since I've already most of the cards anyway.

What do you think about army size? 45 points ok?

[LordoftheNight]

Is building your own cards really necessary? It seems like such an extra level of complication that isn't required. If everyone has the same choice it's much more balanced than if someone accidently stumbles across a winning combination. Not to mention your having to judge whether a card is fair or not - if the scripting doesn't recreate fair cards, then it's always going to throw the balance off, no matter how slightly.

[Crossfire]

I want it to be something other than 45 Points... If at all possible, for variety's sake. *wanders away somewhere*

[D-Lotus]

I like 45 points, personally. It seems well-balanced. Anything over that allows for too many creatures, and anything under that is too limited.

As for the card creating- If someone creates a card, is he the only one allowed to use it? Lordy pointed out that creating new cards might unbalance the game, but this would only be the case if players were not allowed to use cards created by their opponents.

Quote: If everyone has the same choice it's much more balanced than if someone accidently stumbles across a winning combination.

Stumble? Nobody 'stumbles' upon a winning combination. At the very least, intuition plays a big role. Creating cards is as strategic as playing the game.

[Key]

I'd like to test out the card creation rules, so Lordy, if you're ok with it, let's assume everybody can create one custom card.

I was thinking that everybody could only use their own custom card, but if you want we can make them available to all. I doubt it would make much difference, since people will probably use their own strategy with their own cards, but it might be a good safeguard if a killer card accidentally gets in there.

Do you want the whole set of "official" cards to be available for deck-building, or should we do some kind of random thing like we did last time? Having the whole set is a little more fair and gives more strategic options, but it's also more complex and potentially time-consuming.

[LordoftheNight]

Have the whole set available - I know a complaint made by some last time was the random choice of cards to choose from.


And D - people often stumble across winning combinations by accident in this sort of game. I do it all the time in other strategy games.

[D-Lotus]

I thought what you guys did last time with the random cards was a good idea. That way, players are forced to be inventive, rather than rely on an experimented strategy. If your cards are really really bad, you could trade some.

[Key]

OK, since we ruled aganist what Lordy wanted last time, I'll rule for him this time. ;)

So how about this as the complete tournament rules:

Everybody creates one new card, which will become an "official" card that anyone can use.
I will work with you all to make sure that the point system supports what you want to create, within reason, and I will have final approval on any new card created so that it isn't too unbalancing.
You can create your army from any official cards, including the new cards your opponents created.
Each army will be 50 points or less. We'll play with the current Advanced Rules as defined in the wiki.
Everyone will play a match against everyone else. Each match is best two out of three games. We'll roll for who goes first on the first game, then alternate.
For a given match, each player chooses their army before seeing their opponent's army. Players may not change their army between games within a given match.
From one match to another, players may change their army however they wish.
Games and armies are public after they are played, so players may see what their future opponents are playing and adjust accordingly (although you never know if they're going to play the same thing...)
Once we have all played a match against all the other players, there will be a final match between the top two players.
Top players will be defined by (in the following order):
Overall match record against all three opponents
Head-to-head record against each other (in case of tie in overall record)
Overall game record (in case of a tie in overall record and head-to-head record)
Coin flip (in case of tie in all three categories above)

Does that sound good? Anything I've left out?

:-)

[D-Lotus]

Good enough. When do we start?*

* I will be traveling from Sunday to Tuesday.

[LordoftheNight]

Two points - One: I take it we still won't be using magic?
And Two: When you say roll to go first, are you talking highest number starts, or highest number gets to choose whether to go first or second. Just to check.

[Key]

lordofthenight wrote: When do we start?
First step is to come up with your custom card and run it by me, so you can do that as soon as you like. :D

Quote: I take it we still won't be using magic?
That's right. I still don't have cards for that yet.

Quote: When you say roll to go first, are you talking highest number starts, or highest number gets to choose whether to go first or second. Just to check.
Highest number chooses whether to go first or second. Just like we've been playing.

[LordoftheNight]

Key wrote: lordofthenight wrote: When do we start?
First step is to come up with your custom card and run it by me, so you can do that as soon as you like. :D

...I didn't say that, D did. Did the quote system glitch again?

[Key]

lordofthenight wrote: Key wrote: lordofthenight wrote: When do we start?
First step is to come up with your custom card and run it by me, so you can do that as soon as you like. :D

...I didn't say that, D did. Did the quote system glitch again?

Oops, sorry. :oops:

No doubt my mistake, not the system's.

[Key]

OK, I've got D's card. Lordy? Crossfire?

[D-Lotus]

So, do people wanna ditch the card idea and just play, or what?

[Key]

I've got one from D and Crossfire. Lordy, do you still want to play?