Sliding to DEFCON 1: Twilight Struggle tournament thread

[Blackfyre]

Thanks. Good Game @janehatke

[Zebracadabra]

Since we are moving on to the next round of the tourney I thought I should share the survey results on balancing we collected so far:

1: no advantage
1: US+2
3: US+2 with optional cards
1: IP bidding

I'm fine with whatever. My suggestion would actually be to stick with no advantage for the first 4 rounds and then IP bidding for the final round if the overall championship is at stake then, especially if everyone gets to play both sides twice in the first 4 rounds, but not sure if that is possible within the Swiss style matching. Overall I think anything @SpiceTheCat decides will be fine. I also agree with the point @hardco made that we could just stick with the initial rules and always play another tourney in future.

I'm not sure any of us are yet proficient to bid in TS. If it is commonplace that outside tournament rules specify +2 for US then why wouldn't we do that going forward.

[SpiceTheCat]

Only game 3 to go in this round. Pretty good going in terms of speed and relative lack of defaults, thanks all.

1) bigjimou vs Zebracadabra win by default, but Zebracadabra continuing in round 2.
2) john_l vs Baelnor VP win after Wargames
3) doublebullout vs skoptic
4) SpiceTheCat vs Ferret96 default
5) rinelk vs Cgareth VP win
6) hardco vs irishdomer08 nuclear war
7) Snotty128 vs Kolbex nuclear war
8) Holsten-Knight vs Private Prinny control of Europe
9) JammaTal vs whovian223 VP win
10) geigerm vs JMH.75 VP win
11) JaneHatke vs Blackfire1929 VP win
12) Empt vs SleepingGiant VP win

In terms of the tournament rules, I'm not going to make any starting VP or bidding rule changes for round 2 at least. Ignoring the defaults, the win ratio is currently 5-4 in the USSR's favour, so given our collective lack of expertise, the imbalance probably isn't having much practical effect at the moment.

Once skoptic and DBO report, I'll open a new thread for round 2, to keep things manageable.

[doublebullout]

Skoptic and I are in the middle of turn 3. The US is ahead by just 3 points and DEFCON is at 3.

[Snotty128]

Well that games finishing by timeout then

[Blackfyre]

While we are waiting, anyone fancy a game?

[SpiceTheCat]

While we are waiting, anyone fancy a game?

Sent you a challenge. I'm happy to take on all comers as well.

My own tournament game has finally timed out. DBO vs skoptic is still ongoing, but as both players are in and committed, I'm happy to wait for a result before setting up round 2. Hopefully everyone is ok with that.

[doublebullout]

Quick status update: skoptic and I are in the middle of Turn 4. The USSR is ahead 11 points. DEFCON is at 3.

[doublebullout]

doublebullout (USSR) defeats skoptic (US) by VP after Turn 4.

The end of Turn 4 was interesting, set up by a fortunate draw of cards for the USSR. When the turn opened, the score was 4 VP in favor of the Soviets. skoptic headlined "Red Scare/Purge" while I headlined "Brezhnev Doctrine", effectively negating each other's card. With DEFCON at 3, I decided to play "Olympic Games", and the US participated, increasing the score to 6 VP. I also drew Africa (+5 VP) and South America scoring (+6). With DEFCON still at 3 and the score at 17 VP for me, skoptic had 2 cards left to play. Crucially, the US had 0 military ops points at this point. skoptic had earlier played "John Paul II" and spaced "Warsaw Pact", and then played "Quagmire" for ops to take over Poland. This shut me out of Europe, but awarded no military ops points. I played "Nazi Scientist" to advance 1 spot in space for 1 VP, and then crossed my fingers. skoptic's final card was "Suez Crisis", which he had been hoping to dump with "Quagmire" and retain superiority in Europe heading into Turn 5. But the military ops penalty for the US pushed the USSR to 21 VP, ending the game.

On to round 2!

[SpiceTheCat]

Thanks DBO. I'll sort out round 2 in a new thread.