[Complete] TOURNAMENT: King of the Frontier!

[neki]

So, TBS, what's the score between you and Rigor ?! I am counting on you to brutal kill Dauntless and Kolbur btw

[Rigor]

i only kicked kolbur during this tournament, the others didnt want to play according to my rules (aka. getting tossed around by my usual mega-strategy) . looks like u will have to fight a little harder for no.1 of the ape group! im glad to welcome nelson on the ship of the owls, i dont understand why players who cannot play just dont say so. ull certainly finish ur games very quickly im sure btw for those that follow this tournament but arent active competitors, there will be another tournament on the 1.9 server dedicated to all the balance-fetishists (cav/footie nerf). not sure which maps will be tested in detail, but im sure it will be fun to get some feedback from experienced players. Black sword will the (poor) organizer

[Kolbur]

Here are my wins vs neki.

Edit: Better?

[cookie]

Who won those rounds? I'm not bothered to download it and see for myself.

[Rigor]

short recapitulation:

we started the tournament mainly to balance the maps and find out about exploits. what is your experience so far?

aethermaw: the terrain between the main keep and the whirlpool hex is very ulf-friendly, making it possible to threaten the leader significantly, maybe icewould be perfect to slow both dw and dr and everything that flies since there is shroom terrain already.

1000s: the central village is a bit hard to defend from the experience of mine and other games as p2, maybe there should be a shift to a safer region or terrain changes?

pyrennis: from drake v ud matches i experienced a problem when the ud player goes all in and relies on almost exclusive adept power. i think a daytime shift from dawn to morning should do, but maybe it shouldnt be so easy to get to the other keep in 2 turns in the first place.

citadell: nothing im aware of, a leader can fight his way through the center and recruit all over the place as a price. nice and dangerous

[neki]

1000s is still a very imbalanced map, a chaotic faction as P1 just blasts through a lawful P2 opponent, too many villages spread across a long diagonal. Solution: Shift starting TOD to morning => collateral effect: camping lawfuls have time to grow their fat ass recruiting massive amounts of fighters and prepare well and "incredibly fast" for an unstoppable 7th day cycle attack. Other solution: stop building so spread out maps like 1000s and Pyrennis, they are impossible to defend vs. mass grunts or mass archers/adepts. Plus, dwarves are useless on 1000s, u can gg directly vs. a mass fighter recruiting, no plans for attacking in the next 3-4 hours opponent. This map just laughs in the face of a decently attacking player. Implementing solutions like TOD will make all games resort to mass fighters recruiting, camping and 4-5 hours fights. While this can be entertaining when you have a sacrifice brutal player like me playing the game at the limit between novel strategy and madness, throwing the game "for the crowd" at his mass fighters recruiting opponent, I myself might think of switching to playing an 8 hour camping championship Wesnoth game. Of course, this will mean I will have to reduce my Wesnoth portion to 1 game per month .

[Doc Paterson]

1000s is still a very imbalanced map, a chaotic faction as P1 just blasts through a lawful P2 opponent, too many villages spread across a long diagonal. Solution: Shift starting TOD to morning => collateral effect: camping lawfuls have time to grow their fat ass recruiting massive amounts of fighters and prepare well and "incredibly fast" for an unstoppable 7th day cycle attack. Other solution: stop building so spread out maps like 1000s and Pyrennis, they are impossible to defend vs. mass grunts or mass archers/adepts.

About that last generalized statement: where's the evidence for that? Are you saying that that's true for maps like Sulla's? If you do think so, link to some replays, because I've never noticed a clear trend. As for 1000s and supposed chaotic overpoweredness, I think that that may be true for Drake/UD, but unless my memory is weak, it's been about 50/50 between Choatic and Lawful there, and I think that's a good sign. I'd like to hear other opinions on this, because- Neki, there's a lot to love about you, but I think many of us would agree that you are very emotional and very subjective about these sorts of things. When you lose, it generally seems to be only a matter of if it was because of the map (I'd file complaints of "camping" under this category, too), the factional combination/matchup, or the RNG. The most common explanation for a loss from you seems to hit at least two of these three categories, and I'm not just talking about these new maps. Am I wrong?

About the more specific complaints from you about camping, I'd again like to hear from more people, because if anything, I think these replays show that Aethermaw and 1000 Stings lend themselves to aggressive play. I remember that before this tournament began, you said that you predicted long camping games- that this was the best way to play on these maps, and that matches with all of the best players would prove it. What I've seen in general is that aggression is well rewarded. Anyone, feel free to correct me if you think I'm wrong. It seems as though your view though is that defending should not be an option, and that if an attack fails, the assumption is that it was a perfect attack, which only didn't work because of one or more of the above three categories (Map-Factions-Luck).

I'll say again though that this isn't a personal attack or anything- You've done a lot of good for the community. *But* I think your view of balance depends mostly on the results that you yourself get when you attack and don't win.

[neki]

He he, I have not said anything about Aethermaw, Doc! Aethermaw has almost equaled HGB in neki approved top maps. My remarks were just about 1000 stings and some analogy to Pyrennis, which is even worse in terms of the spread-out.

My match vs. Kolbur in KOTF (you find it in a previous post): Dwarf (me) vs. Loyalist. I went HODOR (to grab those vills decently), he just went mass spearmen. OFC I could have gone a more dwarf heavy recruit but that's just saying: 3 day-night cycles you do whatever u want while I scramble to move my dwarves around hoping hoping I will get lucky enough to not get isolated and killed because of my low mobility.

My match vs. Dauntless (my last ladder game) http://ladder.subversiva.org/profile.php?name=neki Undead (me) as P1 vs. Drake - I just beat him with the first attack easily and this is no noob, this is Daunt.

You can also ask Daunt, he even lost as loyalist vs. orc on Thousand Stings.

There are many other examples that I could give you but I just don't have time to search for the replays now (oh, a match between me as loy and TBS as orc) etc.

EDIT: Ah, you can search in previous posts here my match vs. TBS on 1000s, me as Orc. him as Drake, again, easy win. And Pyrennis's Orc (P1) vs. Drake is a nightmare. There was a series of 4 games played: me vs. Daunt, Daunt vs. Rigor, Daunt vs. me, Daunt vs. me, all Orc (P1) vs. Drake on Pyrennis. Each time Orc won easily. I am sure Daunt and Rigor can comment on that. Doc, I just love your work and you as a member of the Wesnoth community, but I am not attacking YOU, I am attacking some of your maps, the ones which in my opinion have flaws, while you are attacking ME. I am highly disappointed in that, by the way...

EDIT EDIT: About Sulla, Sulla is not a spread out map!!! You have 2 entries in your base, not 3, or better said 1000 and the villages on Sulla's like on most of the classical maps come in rows: few in front, some in the middle, most way back. If u can keep 2 villages in the front, u are fine!!!! On 1000s you have 4 to 5 (not sure exactly) that aren't protected by other villages to hold the front, this is what I mean by "spread out". 1000s is diagonally spread out, I am sure it can be improved in time by skewing some villages and terrain, but Pyrennis is horizontally spread out (see my previous posts on our ladder council), that map, I am sorry for Rigor, is just a hopeless case.

I only give my opinions to help with the map balance, I never said a measure should be taken based on my opinion only and you don't need to call for other opinions saying how bad and irrelevant mine is. I am losing time writing this post just to make a small difference (or not) for the future of Wesnoth maps, I am not doing it for the sake of a circus. I am sure other players have experience on this map and they care enough to post their opinion. They won't do it just because OMG, only neki posted. If I am a persona non grata and my opinions are just sh*t and not worthy to take into consideration, I have no problem in not expressing them for the future. But I am telling you, these large spread out maps don't do Wesnoth any good, or at least competitional Wesnoth: they increase the game duration considerably, favor non-creative mass fighter recruits and decrease the importance and spectacularity of each move you make.

neki out

[Horus2]

Interesting thoughts here. Personally, i felt the total opposite: i'm always losing as orcs on the Garrison.
In my theory orcs have to rush, and for a successful rush they need to trick the opponent likewise dribbling in football, they need to assemble multiple threats, gather a critical mass by surprise and so on. This all seems impossible here.
If i buy 2 units at a certain end of the castle, i can't use them to anything else but to threat the opposite vils. The another player can scout this far before, also buy 2 units to secure. With this tricky "you can reinforce wherever you want at any time" castle system not only i won't be able to push behind enemy lines without the essential numerical advantage, but actually i felt orcs get slowly disadvantageous turn by turn. Orc's core unit is the grunt and every faction's core fighters are of a higher quality. If i invest 24 gold in the shape of grunts for attacking, the enemy invests a little more and the 2 dwarvish fighter/elvish fighter/skeleton/etc. make rushing attempt barren, because you have to oppose those 2 fighters and nothing else you can do, it's like the two kings in chess stepping sideways so king1 can't evade king2. And i can't even spare money and fool the opponent on the other half of the map, so i can buy the critical mass in bulk, since there's only two castle hex, which means two warriors at once so, enemy can prepare...

Spoiler:

The gemstone of this theory is my second KOTF match against Oook, where i can't even manage to do a single kill.

Or i just have to watch those replays of northener superiority, because i fail at this map, which seem not to be impossible at all. *leaves silently*


But before going out of the world to study the case, here's now something less theoretical: my first match with nelson. The only conclusion of the battle isn't related to map balancing, however.

KOTF_nelson_1.gz

Drakes (me) vs UD on Aethermaw

(26.44 KiB) Downloaded 163 times

[Doc Paterson]

He he, I have not said anything about Aethermaw, Doc! Aethermaw has almost equaled HGB in neki approved top maps.

I seemed to remember you saying some things, in game, about you having to make suicidal attacks against camping opponents. If you were going to make the statement that Aethermaw is campy, that would have been going against the opinions of most others, so I wanted to know what your evidence was, because I wasn't seeing it in any of the KOTF replays thus far. Maybe I misinterpreted you there.

My match vs. Kolbur in KOTF (you find it in a previous post): Dwarf (me) vs. Loyalist. I went HODOR (to grab those vills decently), he just went mass spearmen. OFC I could have gone a more dwarf heavy recruit but that's just saying: 3 day-night cycles you do whatever u want while I scramble to move my dwarves around hoping hoping I will get lucky enough to not get isolated and killed because of my low mobility.

I think part of the problem here is just the assumption that there was no other way to play it or no other set of moves which could have succeeded. Now maybe you're right, but I think you should keep an open mind about the possibility that you are wrong, or that it is not as *extreme* as you say (i.e. no way to beat a good opponent playing as Kolbur did). What's your opinion on the Demo/Crem match on 1000s? Do you think you'd have beaten Demo in that situation?

My match vs. Dauntless (my last ladder game) Undead as P1 vs. Drake - I just beat him with the first attack easily and this is no noob, this is Daunt.

Like I already said in a previous post, Drake/Undead on 1000s is probably something to work on modifying. No need to try too hard to convince me on this one. We are going to have a "summit" after the close of round 1, during which we will draft ideas for modifications, which will go into effect for round 2.

You can also ask Daunt, he even lost as loyalist vs. orc on Thousand Stings.

Yeah, I know, but the match didn't occur that many times during KOTF, and I know that there is at least one match, maybe more, in which Loy beat Orc there. I guess you can argue that Dauntless is the supreme master, but, it cannot be overlooked that these are all great players, and that contrary evidence should be taken seriously.

my match vs. TBS on 1000s, me as Orc. him as Drake, again, easy win.

Would you agree that that is hard for Drake almost anywhere though? Whether it is way too hard here is the thing to determine, and maybe it is indeed too extreme. There's a good chance that some modifications will occur after the Summit.

And Pyrennis's Orc (P1) vs. Drake is a nightmare. There was a series of 4 games played: me vs. Daunt, Daunt vs. Rigor, Daunt vs. me, Daunt vs. me, all Orc (P1) vs. Drake on Pyrennis. Each time Orc won easily. I am sure Daunt and Rigor can comment on that.

Rigor would be the one to try to convince on this, seeing as it's his baby. I've only played on it about 5 times, so my view of its balance is shady at best.

Doc, I just love your work and you as a member of the Wesnoth community, but I am not attacking YOU, I am attacking some of your maps, the ones which in my opinion have flaws, while you are attacking ME.

Alright, listen. I tried to make it as clear as possible that I wasn't "attacking" you, and I thought I said so above. If this wasn't going on on an internet forum, and we had such handy tools as facial expression and tone of voice, I'm guessing you'd interpret things differently. It's too easy to take a critical statement and read it as being arrogant or ignorant or nasty, particularly when the statements involve disagreements. Some of the stuff I said above was influenced by your match with Kolbur, in which there was unanimous agreement among all observing players that your behavior was pretty bad. I just couldn't remember the last time I'd heard you end a game with something like "well played...." It always seemed to be something about luck, or other outside forces that made you lose. Maybe I'm wrong, but just look through your ladder comments and tell me what you think. I also realize that I may also be making the same mistake of reading too much into your words, but the extent to which you are joking is hard to tell. It seemed to me like, in that last game, you were being pretty nasty.

Now, here's the important thing: Telling someone that you think their behavior is sometimes bad is not the same thing as saying "I hate you" or "I don't want to be around you." I'm only pointing these things out because I think it may help you to be more aware of the times when your words have a negative impact on people. I still consider you an ally, and, contrary to what you wrote above, take your opinions on maps very seriously. In fact, if you recall, your feedback on 1000s has already resulted in a few specific changes.

Anyways, let's chill out and get back to business. I hope you get the gist of what I'm saying here.

[Horus2]

You can also ask Daunt, he even lost as loyalist vs. orc on Thousand Stings.

Yeah, I know, but the match didn't occur that many times during KOTF, and I know that there is at least one match, maybe more, in which Loy beat Orc there. I guess you can argue that Dauntless is the supreme master, but, it cannot be overlooked that these are all great players, and that contrary evidence should be taken seriously.

Yes, i was that certain orc.

[Doc Paterson]

Yeah, I know, but the match didn't occur that many times during KOTF, and I know that there is at least one match, maybe more, in which Loy beat Orc there. I guess you can argue that Dauntless is the supreme master, but, it cannot be overlooked that these are all great players, and that contrary evidence should be taken seriously.

Yes, i was that certain orc.

I thought that there was at least one other. Getting hard to keep track of all the various matches. Maybe we can compile them after this round ends, and log all of the factions/maps/results.

[The Black Sword]

Neki, as I said after our game on 1000s, I thought I played it pretty badly. My defence was mostly to just sit on the villages and I didn't give nearly enough thought to trapping some of your troops for day. When I looked back on the replay I saw a number of moves I thought I should have played differently.

Now you did win it pretty comprehensively and there are other examples so I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you but I don't think that match is the best evidence. As I said I'd quite like to test a few other drake strategies on the map before deciding.

My gut feeling has been that chaotic rushes seem quite powerful here but I'm reluctant to decide after only so few games.

Btw, I'd also agree with Doc, in that IMO, you're often not very objective about games you've played. Perhaps trying to exclude your own games and look for other examples might make a better argument? That is a lot more work though and everyone has a certain degree of self bias, so its understandable . Additionally, I think your view that long games = imbalanced/bad maps isn't held by everybody, I think there should be a mix of maps that encourage varied game lengths.

[nelson]

Hi folks, I'm starting to realize that I was nuts to think that I could play in KOTF as the end of the semester is coming up. I really need to quit Wesnoth for the next month or so in order to focus on my final exams/papers.

If many other people are in the same situation and it's OK for me to come back in a month or so, then I'll stay in KOTF, otherwise I need to hand my slot to soul_steven or someone else. My apologies.

[Kolbur]

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