Settings
Balance mod: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=661597466
Strong Defender Normal Reward mod: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1374641017
Later seasons will include the Shadow Realm expansion.
Turn timer = 1 day (activate only after the 1st turn is played)
Small Square Map with Surface and Underground on Continents
Tournament Game flow
Start town: Village
Starting units: Weak
Starting distance: Far
Roads: Few
Roaming units: Average
Treasures: None
Cities: Few
Dwellings: Few
Ressource structures: Average
Visit structure: Average
Treasure structures: Average
Water Slider at 25%
Undiggable walls and Diggable Wall Sliders down to 15%
Barren, Mountain and Wetland at 40%
All other sliders left untouched at standard 50 %
2 teams of 1 (start at war)
Ironman Mode: on
Seal Victory: off
Unifier Victory: off
Tactical Combat Mode – Against AI: Always Ask
Game speed: Normal (Fast Population after v1.32)
Starting Resource: Standard
Starting Skills: None
All Heroes Have Resurgence: Never
Defenders Strength: Strong
Cosmic Events: Medium
Maximum Number of Heroes: 2 (1 Leader + 2 heroes)
Maximum Heroes Level: 13
Map Exploration: On
City Founding: On
Random heroes match player race: Off
Empire Quests: On
Rules
1. The tournament is a
championship with multiple sub-leagues and with promotion/relegation at
the end of each season. Each sub-league has 4 players who play each
other exactly once during a season. Each match played yields 1 point and
a victory yields 2 additional points (so 3 points for a match won). At
the end of the season, the best ranked of each sub-league are promoted
to the sub-league above (if any) and the two worst ranked are relegated
to the sub-league below (if any). If two teams are to a tie and the two
teams have played each other this season, the winning team of this match is ranked above. For other ties, the ranking of the team is decided randomly.
One season lasts maximum 9 months. Players can start all their matches of the season in parallel if they so wish. If
neither of the players won 2 months after the start of a match, then
the players should notify Judges who will take appropriate measures.
Such measures can include asking one to surrender and take a
screenshot of the score and provide it to the Judges. Based on the
score, the Judges can decide that it is a draw and decide a replay the
game with a shorter deadline (for instance 1 month), an extension or
another solution (including awarding victory to one team), based on the
circumstances of the match and the tournament.
In case of score victory, Judges may require the “new turn notification”
logs to all players to determine if they delayed the game by repeatedly
breaking rule 3. A malus (e.g. -10% or more) might then be applied to
the score of the rule-breaking teams.
2. The settings described in the “In-Game settings” above are to be
considered the default. If all the players involved in a game agree,
they can arrange settings that differ from default settings in order to
improve balance (e.g. if some exploit or imbalance has been discovered
during the tournament but has not yet been dealt with the usual balance
mod). Judges can oppose the settings change.
The player hosting the game is automatically and randomly chosen by the
Battlefield website. If for any reason (e.g. no DLC), the designated
host team cannot host the game, then the other team does. The host
should start on slot #2. The host must take screenshots, preferably in
windowed mode (showing the date and hour when the screenshots were
taken), of the settings and post them publicly (so that his opponent and
the Judges can access them) before the match starts.
No game restart due to bad starting conditions will be allowed except if
one player is totally blocked (e.g. by Lava or Cavern Walls).
3. If one player temporarily cannot play his turns in 24 hours (e.g.
because of holidays, or personal issues), and warn the host reasonably
in advance, then the host should temporarily change the turn timer to
accommodate him.
If a player skips his turn because of the timer, it is not allowed to
revert the turn: the host should remove the turn timer and players
should notify Judges and wait for their indications on how to continue.
4. In the event of a crash (from your PC or from AoW), the player who
crashed must not re-enter the game after the crash, he must wait for
feedback from the Judges allowing the game to continue: the player who
crashed needs to take appropriate screenshots, pictures or videos (with a
mobile phone for instance) and sends them to the Judges. The turn timer
must be turned off by the host while waiting for judges’ feedback (see
rule 8). Reloads should be counted by all players and reported to the
judges. If no proof of a justified crash or in case of repeated
reloading (during one match or during the tournament as a whole), the
Judges have full power to disqualify the player.
5. Each season, a pool of 4
classes and 4 races available to all players during the season will be
announced: during that season, players can pick their class/race only
from this pool. On top of that, a player can never play a class or race that he/she played in all his/her previous matches of the season (so you can play Goblin only once in the whole season, and only if it belongs to the 4 races allowed this season, you can play Sorcerer only once, etc.).
BEFORE the match, you must let the Judges (but not your opponents) know
what class and race you will play for your upcoming match by private
message in the Battlefield website.
6. Banter and taunting is allowed, rudeness, swearing and racial (or
other prejudicial) language is not. Repeatedly trolling will lead to
forfeiting the match.
7. The decision of the Judges is to be respected. When the rules are
imprecise or do not cover a case, Judges have flexibility to take the
most appropriate decisions. Players arguing with Judges inappropriately
get a total of 3 notifications before being disqualified from the
tournament entirely. Judges may disqualify a player without
notifications if their behaviour is deemed to be completely out of order
(e.g. racism).
8. When awaiting Judges’ decision (as soon as his opponent requests
arbitration), the host must remove the turn timer and may need to revert
turns to come back to the situation existing prior to the issue being
judged.
9. Players must play with the latest official version of the game (no
beta). If the official version is updated during the tournament, players
must update to it as soon as it is released both on GoG and Steam (and
turn timer must be removed while waiting for the GoG release). Players
must also play with the PBEM balance mod and Strong Defender Normal
Reward mod. At the beginning of the tournament (season 1), v1.31 of the
mod was used. All the games may be updated to a newer version if all the
Judges deem it to be stable and necessary for game balance (they may
require the non-binding opinion of the players through a poll).
10. If you feel one of the rules had been broken, but you carry on
playing without reporting to the Judges, then you have no recourse.
11. Players should not voluntarily exploits (e.g.
behaviours unlikely to have been expected by devs, unknown to the AoW3
PBEM community and/or which provide an unusual advantage such as
unlimited healing, etc.), bug or weaknesses in the game.
Players should report any bug or exploit to Judges or on the official
forum when they discover them (and ask to Judges in case of doubt). Judges can decide to ban players using exploits from the tournament.
Arbitration process
The main Judge is Hiliadan.
Assistant Judges are: xx and yy
When arbitration is necessary:
1. If 1 or 2 of the Judges are involved in the game which needs
arbitration, the 3rd Judge should name two temporary judges to replace
them for this arbitration. If all 3 Judges are involved in the game,
they need to all agree on a 4th person not involved in the game as a
temporary Judge, which will then design 2 other temporary Judges; the 3
temporary Judges will conduct the arbitration;
2. The players should both send necessary files to Judges (screenshots,
videos, their latest saved game which can be found here in Windows:
C:\Users\[user name]\Documents\My Games\AoW3\Profiles\[profile
name]\PBEM) by email or any other means;
3. The arbitration will be taken at the majority of the 3 Judges and the
decision taken is definitive. If one player refuses it, he is
disqualified.