Hi Everyone, I’m looking to make some more Zenith tournaments and wanted to hear people’s thoughts on the required game duration for a turn based Swiss or Single Elimination tournament. I’ve played about 5 games so far and watch Andrewsmile play /chat a bunch to understand the game.
The main factor in game duration should be the expected number of turns for each player. Zenith seems to required about 25 turns to complete a game, but games can often take longer due to the tug of war and there is no defined final turn. With this in mind I think the tournaments need longer duration.
Here’s an ongoing single elimination tournament with 3 day duration for reference.
https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=357971
It’s hard to tell by looking at the scores because it shows 1-0 in Zenith regardless, but SO MANY of those games were timeouts or abandoned, which means that was insufficient time. Players would have needed to play 8+ moves per 24h while also managing their clock to avoid getting skipped after their time runs out. Based on the number of timeouts it’s fair to say that the majority of players that signed up did not look at the game duration (trusting the creator) and/or may not have thought about how much time they need.
I always recommend game duration based on 2-3 moves per day so for a 25+ turn game I would expect 10 day duration, 7 days is also too short. The required number of moves per day is actually higher than the calculation suggests because players have a fixed amount of time and their opponent can put a lot of pressure on your time if they move within 1-2 hours after your move every time, putting clock pressure on the opponent. This can often cause a 80-20 time use difference which can make a player run out of time after about 2/3rds of the max game duration and give their opponents the opportunity to skip, bad sportsmanship IMO, but cannot be disabled. For example, a 10 day game will often have 1 slower player out of time after 6 days and able to be skilled despite making enough moves to clearly complete the game by 10 days. TLDR, players need more time than you would think by simply looking at the game duration.
Since it was a single elimination tournament the consequences are quite minor. Some players lose 4 reputation and get a an abandon mark on their account, not a huge deal. However if this happens for a Swiss or Round Robin tournament players will be more upset.
Based on my tournament creation knowledge I would recommend 10 day game duration for Swiss and Single elimination. For round robin I would use even more time depending on group size. Groups up to 8 should be okay with 15 days, larger groups up to 15 people might want 30 days.
The main factor in game duration should be the expected number of turns for each player. Zenith seems to required about 25 turns to complete a game, but games can often take longer due to the tug of war and there is no defined final turn. With this in mind I think the tournaments need longer duration.
Here’s an ongoing single elimination tournament with 3 day duration for reference.
https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=357971
It’s hard to tell by looking at the scores because it shows 1-0 in Zenith regardless, but SO MANY of those games were timeouts or abandoned, which means that was insufficient time. Players would have needed to play 8+ moves per 24h while also managing their clock to avoid getting skipped after their time runs out. Based on the number of timeouts it’s fair to say that the majority of players that signed up did not look at the game duration (trusting the creator) and/or may not have thought about how much time they need.
I always recommend game duration based on 2-3 moves per day so for a 25+ turn game I would expect 10 day duration, 7 days is also too short. The required number of moves per day is actually higher than the calculation suggests because players have a fixed amount of time and their opponent can put a lot of pressure on your time if they move within 1-2 hours after your move every time, putting clock pressure on the opponent. This can often cause a 80-20 time use difference which can make a player run out of time after about 2/3rds of the max game duration and give their opponents the opportunity to skip, bad sportsmanship IMO, but cannot be disabled. For example, a 10 day game will often have 1 slower player out of time after 6 days and able to be skilled despite making enough moves to clearly complete the game by 10 days. TLDR, players need more time than you would think by simply looking at the game duration.
Since it was a single elimination tournament the consequences are quite minor. Some players lose 4 reputation and get a an abandon mark on their account, not a huge deal. However if this happens for a Swiss or Round Robin tournament players will be more upset.
Based on my tournament creation knowledge I would recommend 10 day game duration for Swiss and Single elimination. For round robin I would use even more time depending on group size. Groups up to 8 should be okay with 15 days, larger groups up to 15 people might want 30 days.
