Warbaron's Cup 2013

[KGB]

Green and Mammoth can't be touched on turn 1 or 2.

The others you mention (Elephant, Pegasi, Medusa, Unicorn) can all easily be handled on turn 2 if you have a Barb hero and buy Dwarves (a good investment on this map since they mostly boat around at really fast speed anyway) in the capitol and spend turn 1 using the Barb to take the other 2 cities (so u have no losses). Then on turn 2 you'll be over 90% vs those units with Dwarf up front, the rest of your starting units + Barb. The gold u get from looting can then be used to start Serpent production. This is how I did my other 3 games (actually used Ranger instead of Barb when facing Archon/Pegasi).

KGB

[Chazar]

I think this is a deficiency in Warbarons' balancing or Map Editor, but not the map itself!

The map maker's categories "poor", "normal", "good", "powerful" ought to be narrower, to allow map makers a better control over starting positions. "normal" should always be a 2 turn unit, "good" should be 2T excluding Mammoth, etc. Maybe add the city categories "random", "poor random" and "good random", if map makers desire randomness in center cities, etc.

Sure, scenario maps allow full control, but those aren't options available to ladder map makers.

[KGB]

The map maker can already do this by limiting production in the city. If Mammoths and Greens are excluded from the build list then they won't appear in the city if it's marked 'powerful'.

Of course Mammoths and Greens won't ever be able to be built in those cities but there are lots of others where they will be able to be built.

KGB

[Igor]

Still no map for 2nd round. It should be something about 20-25 turns to complete it, a little more than in 1st round, good balanced map, with all units possible for production.
I look at The Waste map. Good known map, good balanced as well. Or something else? Would be good to choose the map a week or so before 2nd round will be started.

[KGB]

The Waste is a bad choice for a map. It's too Sandworm / Horselord dominated. It should not be used.

I already suggested 3 good maps for round 2 so that each map can be used once by a player so that they play 3 games on 3 maps. That's by far the best way to determine who can rise to the challenge of different conditions which is how the best Warlord should be determined.

KGB

[Moonknight]

I fear that Bullrun & Battlefield would take 50+ turns to complete in 1 v 1 format...

[Igor]

KGB, your offer was:
"1) Colorful Snowflake - Retains a water themed map that we are using now
2) Bullrun OR Battlefield - Adds an open flavored map that provides enough other terrain types to keep things interesting and prevent Horselord from being too dominant.
3) Mitchuaquan - Half way between Colorful Snowflake and Bullrun/Battlefield in terms of water/land plus it includes some tougher neutrals to prevent a lone L3 assassin from being 100% able to take any neutral."
I forced to say objections of Colorful Snowflake because it limit kinds of units to be produced. I think it's not good for the tourney because players must be absolutely free to chose any unit in any city they wish to produce.
I can't see Mitchuaquan between ladder maps. This map probably need to be tested. We shouldn't use non-ladder maps for the tourney.
I can agree with Moonknight that Bullrun and Battle Field are too long to complete than it's possible for 2nd round.
Yes, The Waste is good for Sandworms, Scorpions and Horse Lord. But it's good for Elephants, Eagles and Valkyria as well. Probably any map has it's favorite units.
If not The Waste, what then?

[KGB]

The Waste is too extreme of a map with a single terrain. I wouldn't use Tundra Conflict either for the same reason.

I didn't know a map had to be an official ladder map to be considered for the tourney. Mitchuaquan is pretty well balanced map with resources split between the 2 sides of the central island.

I also wasn't aware there was an official turn limit on games in rounds. Especially once we are past round 1 and down to the dedicated players. I personally don't mind 40 turn games as that lets long term strategy come into play. If Bullrun/Battlefield takes too long you can use 8 Kingdoms which typically has shorter games.

Until DarkH ruined his 4 Lords map, that would have been an ideal choice for one of the maps. But now it's totally unusable even for casual games.

I didn't realize Colorful Snowflake had such limitations (haven't played the latest version). Maybe Experix can create another version for the tourney with all unit limitations removed.

Sadly, I have to say I'm finding the tournament not very interesting. Lack of map variety and rush style games needing to be completed in X numbers of turns in order to get the tourney done by a certain date isn't what I was looking forward to. I thought that was more or less what ladder play was for (where players can endlessly play their favorite 3-4 maps over and over and the ladder season is a set length). I'm seriously debating between continuing on and playing in round 2 or attempting to organize another tourney for players who would like to play longer more involved games on a variety of larger maps.

KGB

[Moonknight]

Let's just put it to a poll?

I'll be honest, the smaller the map, the better my chances against most of you in Round 2.

I really don't care which maps we use, but I'd like each group to use the same map(s).

[Igor]

When we will start 3rd round, there will be 8 best players who probably can to play fast enough to use Bullrun or/and Battle Field maps for this round. I already keep it in mind. Let's choose something not so long for round 2nd.

About total time for tournament, I never wish the tourney will go on very-very long, because if to say this to potential participants, many of them could say that they don't interested to play so long seria of matches, they probably don't know can they finish it or not. We called the tourney as Warbarons Cup 2013, this means that such tourney can be every year, that propose that the tourney ought not to continue all the year or even half of the year. Current tourney started 21.10.2013 and if it will be finished in February or even in March - we will have 4-5 months to play it. Looks long enough for annual tourney.
Also let's look on any official tourney in sport competition. All of them have not only definite length but certain date of final match. We couldn't call such date, just for to let players to complete their games if they got more turns than usually are for this map.
KGB, if you will start a new tourney, could this be in spring? Just for all players in Warbarons Cup 2013 will have ability to play both tourneys not in the same time but one after the other. This can be too much for many players to play 2 tourneys now.

Why I offered The Waste and not Tundra Conflict. Also based on how often map in use in regular games. I very often see opened personal or team games on The Waste and almost never saw opened games on Tundra Conflict, except 1-2 times.
When all places in 2nd round will be taken, we will be able to ask players what map they wish to play, then to compare them. Only things I would like to see in a map for 2nd round: not too long, may be 20-25 turns to complete, all units are possible to be produced in each city, map has some experience in ladder games, not just turned to be ladder.
8 Kingdoms map looks good, too. One thing that start positions on The Waste far enough to get some expansion before fight with opponent, and in 8 Kingdoms capitals can be in neighbor areas that can make the game 5-10 turns long, that looks too shortly for 2nd round.
Old Four Lords map was really good, I play it some times. It has become other now.

Any offers are still interesting.