Holien

Hi Gents, Sorry no reply yesterday. Yes there are four total scenarios. Yes one scenario per round. Yes around 22 turns each. As for the e-mails it will depend on who is watching etc.. so three is an average and I can no be specific as to who sends them as that will change each turn, if you see what I mean? So far we have an all american tourney and if we get enough East coast and West coast players I shall have two groups to allow easier play. If all players finish the scenario before the timelimit then we can move onto the next connected scenario. I hope this helps? H

Sorry to hear that. If this works well and there is a demand for it I am sure the designers might be persuaded to do some more at some stage. Cheers H

Hi, On my Calcs if you can only do weekday play and only do 3 mails a day it will not be quite enough. It of course depends on your opponent and if you can do some TCP IP at night? If you can do that then four weeks is easily achievable. The choice is yours, if in any doubt don't sign up. If you drop out it affects the other players and I really only want people who will commit come what may to completing the games in four weeks or less. Cheers H

Hi Sandy this is the tourney you will be playing if you come up to Banbury on Saturday 30th April. If you are not comming then I will sign you up the same as all the other players. Send me an e-mail with the details above. Cheers H

No European players yet. I guess it might be just a USA Tourney... H

An Early War TCP IP / Quick play Tourney has just opened for business. All Early War Fan's welcome... H

Please pop over to the CMBB forum if you want to know more. H

Right Sign Up Time is here. Please e-mail me the following details: - 1. Player name, 2. Real Name, 3. E-mail Address to be used for tourney, 4. Section Pref (i.e. Timezone you can TCP IP in.) Read the tourney rules below: - Two Groups of 10 players per group. (This might be expanded depending on interest.) There will be a reserve group of players. Choose which group to play in based upon when you can game, 1. European Group 2. USA (aka everywhere else) Group. You specify what group you want to join. Please ensure you can actually play when people are home from work in those time zones. You must make a serious commitment to complete games within 4 weeks or sooner. There will be four rounds. 1st round random mix of players. 2nd round players matched according to results. 3rd round players matched according to results. 4th round is the final best players matched with one another. You must be doing three e-mails a day to complete or arrange TCP IP play. If you can not commit to this then do not sign up. After each week you must report back what turn you are on. If after two weeks you are nowhere near completing and no clear commitment is made to complete then I reserve the right to supersede a player with a reserve player. AAR not required but would be great to give the designers feedback. AAR thread to be set up after each scenario played. If all players finish a scenario quickier than deadline then next scenario will be issued. Scoring. You will be rated against the other players of the same side. I.e. All Germans will be compared and all Russian players compared. The best player of the Germans / Russians will be awarded 5pts, next best 4pts etc… So each round (based on 10 players per group) a total of 15 points will be awarded to each side. In cases of a draw the points will be split. I.e. The top position is split between two players the nine points would be split 4.5 each. (4 for second and 5 for first spot.) The next round the players with comparable points will be placed against one another (as far as possible). You will always be a Russian or German, no swapping will take place. The winner will be the player with the most points at the end. Ties will be be judged based upon any AAR submitted. There might or might not be a prize depending on what I can muster together. Any questions post them here so I can respond and all can see. I will take entries as from now. Good luck and I expect files for game play to be sent out shortly after the weekend of 30th April at the latest, if not sooner. H

More this week. Sign up time is approaching. H

Hi Ted, U8led, I did not mention it but part of the idea is to allow the player to choose time zone so that TCP IP play is easier to facilitate. I was thinking along the lines of Europe and the rest of the world. (aka North America, (my tongue firmly in cheek)). I need to dig out the time zones to see when players of certain areas would play. I know in the evening here in Europe I tend to play from say 7pm to 11pm GMT. I would presume that most players work within those limits weekday. Weekends is another kettle of fish and depends on life style and circle of friends etc... So Yes I would have at a minimum two groupings of players along time line basis. I know having tight timescales will put some people off but I am happy to live with that to keep peoples interest. Yes 28 days (4 weeks) is a tough timescale but certainly achieveable and if players finished quicker then we could move onto the next round sooner. I would put in place a weekly reporting schedule where I would be told what turn players are upto. If there are problems it would appear quickly and can be dealt with by reserve players. U8led has an interesting idea which I have given some thought to. What it would in effect do is hurt players in the bottom half and I think I want to give players more chance of staying in contention for longer. So all players would stay involved and the winner would not be known until the last game is over. Obviously it might become apparent that certain players are stronger but by getting these to play one another it should give them good hard games. Having reserve players drop in(Real Life always means players drop out) would add to this point, as they could still have a chance of winning. Yes they are all CMBB scenarios and I posted here as I wanted a general discussion about running tourneys and what styles could be adopted. There seems to be more traffic in here and I hoped to attract some of that traffic for discussion purpose. There is a thread in CMBB but it is just a Heads Up posting, not after any response. The sceanrios are being tweaked and will be run over the weekend of the 30th April for the UK players attending the gaming weekend (spaces still available). I will then start the on line tourney after that weekend or maybe at the same time? Sign up will likely be this weekend (8th April). Details of what to do to sign will be posted and I will make people aware. H

GaJ I hope so... Keep your eyes peeled once I firm up the tourney rules I will post them and the joining date. There is a thread on the CMBB forum and I shall run it there as the games are all CMBB games. Cheers H

Thanks for the response Jim, I guess that players might be inclined to try, but how do you play less well? A dangerous thing to attempt? Also if in the second round you shoot up the scale you are then matched with someone of a similar point level (as far as possible.) Not much response to this and I am guessing I can only but try it and see how it fairs. The other problem I thought about last night is the ROW tourney and the number of players playing that at the moment. I guess that has sucked up most players and I might have problems getting players? I am not trying to compete with ROW I am just trying to find a way to put some bloody good work from three great designers out to market. I am running a Games Weekend in the UK and I managed to get three designers to do four interconnected scenarios. I have playtested these and they are very good. So rather than just having it for the games weekend in May I thought lets get it out to the community in the form that it was designed for. Hence my musings on a tourney. The other idea is that it will be a quick turn around tourney. ROW is great in that it allows plenty of time to complete games. The downside to this is that people lose interest towards the end. I wanted to see if we could keep peoples interest longer. Or shorter as the case will be. So to that effect the scenarios are all around 22 turns long and designed for quick play. I was thinking of imposing a 4 week time limit per game. This might not suit certain players but will allow a quick turnaround and keep peoples interest. Anyway I plan to put this all to the test in May. Watch the CMBB forum for more details. If anyone else has any constructive views I would welcome input. Cheers H

Hi, I am looking at an idea to run a tourney in slightly different fashion. I want to try and get the best players playing one another sooner rather than later. So I was thinking of the following format. Four rounds. 1st round random mix of players. 2nd round players matched according to results. 3rd round players matched according to results. 4th round players matched according to results. The player with the most points would be the winner. Draws would be decided by those with the most points scored during the games. I.e. using the points scored within the games added together. After the 1st round the scoring would go as follows: - You will be rated against the other players of the same side. I.e. All Germans will be compared and all Russian players compared. The best player of the Germans / Russians will be awarded 5pts, next best 4pts etc… So each round (based on 10 players per group) a total of 15 points will be awarded to each side. In cases of a draw the points will be split. I.e. The top position is split between two players the nine points would be split 4.5 each. (4 for second and 5 for first spot.) The next round the players with comparable points will be placed against one another (as far as possible). I realise this will make the stronger players work harder and give the not so strong players a better chance to still win overall. The aim is to give players a challenge not to show who is the top dog, that will be self evident at the end of the tourney and as there would be no prize not really an issue, IMO. What flaws do people see? Any constructive comments welcome. Cheers H

Just a quick heads up. There will be a small tourney starting the 2nd May 2005. Four purpose built interconnected scenarios based upon the German drive towards Leningrad in August 1941. They are small and interesting scenarios which can be resolved quickly. The tourney will have a quick turn around and only players who can commit to quick play need apply. No prizes but something to give you a challenge and plenty of headaches. If you are interested keep an eye on this thread and I will let you know when it is open for business and specify the exact tourney rules. More later... H [ August 18, 2005, 12:03 PM: Message edited by: Holien ]

Donation made... Now can we have back the feature that shows the most popular scenarios so I don't have to spend ages searching... I hope you get a new job as I am deeply aware all IT professionals in the UK and USA can have their jobs moved to India. I am an IT professional and share your undoubted frustration at the recent turn of events. Good Luck H

GOJ I share your frustration that all that effort is not being seen and I still have all the original AAR's on my PC. I can only hope that some of the B&T team will pick up the baton and publish them. All the effort goes into running the tourney and not much into the backend processing which is a shame. When I took up the job of running the AAR competition we did not have in place the agreement to publish them and who would do that. I just assumed that someone would do it as it is a mamouth job to undertake. I wonder if there is a way we could do this where the authors as part of the submitting process could do some of the legwork to place the AAR's on the net? I.e. Like the Scenario Depot where authors can upload their own work and hence save the Admiral form all the headaches of administration? H

Stop thinking and send me a PBEM turn!!! While it is still there to send. H

The Lost Gardens an Absolute MUST http://www.heligan.com/ Nothing to do with the military but a great day out. Ohh and if you really want some military sites check this site out for some WWII fortifications in the area. http://www.britarch.ac.uk/projects/dob/ Ohh and while I remember. http://www.cornwall-online.co.uk/english-heritage/pendennis.htm Has some good WWII stuff in the Musuem and some great fortifications to clamber around. My wife took me there for my B'day. She is a lovely woman... And as for bloody Germans giving tourist advice for the UK I keep telling you Andreas you are an Hon Brit. H

A As long as it hit the right buttons. PBEM is very important to me but if the game is good even without PBEM I would buy it. H

You fail to keep track of all these threads and bang something catches your eye... Well more like hits both of them and leaves you with one sodding big headache. I am not wading through the thread as Steve has made himself clear. H

Marks & Spencer does bloody good food to take on a journey. C3K is spot on the money for the lack of decent food or places to eat. H [ March 01, 2005, 04:40 AM: Message edited by: Holien ]

Sorry to hear about the issues... I hope you get it sorted and nice to see you loitering on the boards again. H

Stongehenge = Yes very much so... Warwick Castle - Whole day Stratford Upon Avon - Whole day The Globe Theatre in London - Evening play And don't forget a pub a night for food and beer. http://www.goodguides.co.uk/ Don't just choose any pub try and get a recommendation as some are really naff. H

Hi Hans, Sounds an interesting Idea and you should complete it. The design process is well underway at the moment with several great maps complete already. I am just starting to play again after a laspe of well over a year and I shall dig out your mini battles around the Calais area as these were one of the things I wanted to have a crack at. Especially after doing a War Walk in Calais last year. Cheers for the suggestion. H

Hi Bimmer, Thanks for the framework. I guess we might want to keep it off air from now on. We need three designers to join the enterprize. Anyone out there who has not been in touch please do e-mail and get involved if you are interested? Cheers H