Do tournaments really take a YEAR to complete?

[Mathew5000]

There are 42 of us still actively competing in tournament 157664, which started 973 days ago, on January 22, 2023.

After the current round there are three rounds remaining, so the tournament should go into 2026 but won't see its third anniversary.

Each player who makes it to the finish will have played 40 games of Catan. At 30 days max duration per game, the tournament could have gone 3 years and 4 months but I guess enough rounds completed in under 30 days that we've saved a few months.

[matthias7]

There really should be a warning or notice letting people know how long it will take to complete. I did a tournament for another game earlier and 6 games started at the same time with much less time to finish each game. That's why I wasn't expecting 30 days each, one after another.

Hmmmm. Maybe read the tournament details before joining. And use some simple math to figure out that a 30 day per match might take awhile. Sounds like you got in a round robin tourney without even knowing it. Again. Please just read All the tourney details before joining.. but. Don't feel like your the only one to not read tourney details. I have done it myself. Learned that i need to read all the details. Learned lesson in what not to join .

I was eager to try tournaments once I became aware of them and didn't think to read the details first. I assumed the time period would be reasonable. A simple pop-up saying, "This tournament will take 10 months to complete!" would have been nice. The length isn't a big problem for me (I could always intentionally lose or forfeit if it was). I'm just surprised at the long delay between games.

[Meeplelowda]

There really should be a warning or notice letting people know how long it will take to complete. I did a tournament for another game earlier and 6 games started at the same time with much less time to finish each game. That's why I wasn't expecting 30 days each, one after another.

Hmmmm. Maybe read the tournament details before joining. And use some simple math to figure out that a 30 day per match might take awhile. Sounds like you got in a round robin tourney without even knowing it. Again. Please just read All the tourney details before joining.. but. Don't feel like your the only one to not read tourney details. I have done it myself. Learned that i need to read all the details. Learned lesson in what not to join .

I was eager to try tournaments once I became aware of them and didn't think to read the details first. I assumed the time period would be reasonable. A simple pop-up saying, "This tournament will take 10 months to complete!" would have been nice. The length isn't a big problem for me (I could always intentionally lose or forfeit if it was). I'm just surprised at the long delay between games.

Not all tournaments have 30-day rounds. The ones I create have between 7- to 15-day rounds, depending on the game.

[Mathew5000]

The length isn't a big problem for me (I could always intentionally lose or forfeit if it was).

You can withdraw from a tournament by clicking the red button on the tournament page. This is a better option than intentionally losing or forfeiting, especially in the case of multiplayer games, because it removes you from the tournament after your current game, so it does not spoil any game for the other players.

[BananaHarambe]

There are 42 of us still actively competing in tournament 157664, which started 973 days ago, on January 22, 2023.

After the current round there are three rounds remaining, so the tournament should go into 2026 but won't see its third anniversary.

Each player who makes it to the finish will have played 40 games of Catan. At 30 days max duration per game, the tournament could have gone 3 years and 4 months but I guess enough rounds completed in under 30 days that we've saved a few months.

Thanks for sharing. Looks like it has reached the stage at round 16/17 where everyone has already played everyone and the matchmarking algorithm breaks. There are 48 players in finals, which is only 47 opponents for each player. Duplicate pairing were guaranteed after 15 rounds. The final stage should have had at least 64 players to function properly with each player having 60 opponents.

The top players will never play each other again because pairings are assigned by top of standings against the bottom, one by one so the final round pairings are cursed from Rounds 16-20. 1 strong player with 3 weak players for all the top tables. What a finale.

[matthias7]

There are 42 of us still actively competing in tournament 157664, which started 973 days ago, on January 22, 2023.

After the current round there are three rounds remaining, so the tournament should go into 2026 but won't see its third anniversary.

Each player who makes it to the finish will have played 40 games of Catan. At 30 days max duration per game, the tournament could have gone 3 years and 4 months but I guess enough rounds completed in under 30 days that we've saved a few months.

The main reason I asked was out of curiosity to see if tournaments really take 1+ years to complete so thanks for answering. I entered tournaments to see how good I am and wouldn't want to wait 3 years for an answer. You all must really love playing Catan to stick around so long.

[matthias7]

The length isn't a big problem for me (I could always intentionally lose or forfeit if it was).

You can withdraw from a tournament by clicking the red button on the tournament page. This is a better option than intentionally losing or forfeiting, especially in the case of multiplayer games, because it removes you from the tournament after your current game, so it does not spoil any game for the other players.

I agree it's better to withdraw in terms of fairness to others. However, isn't there a penalty for withdrawing versus no penalty for intentionally losing or conceding?

[Meeplelowda]

The length isn't a big problem for me (I could always intentionally lose or forfeit if it was).

You can withdraw from a tournament by clicking the red button on the tournament page. This is a better option than intentionally losing or forfeiting, especially in the case of multiplayer games, because it removes you from the tournament after your current game, so it does not spoil any game for the other players.

I agree it's better to withdraw in terms of fairness to others. However, isn't there a penalty for withdrawing versus no penalty for intentionally losing or conceding?

The penalty is minor: 4 karma.

[RazorOz]

I mean ultimately they take as long as the settings dictate. I too would avoid tournaments that are going to take >1 year to complete, but it doesn't mean everybody does, some people want a long grind.

Looking at the tournament in OP here, although it's set to 30 day rounds, I find it hard to believe 2 player Stone Age games should be anywhere near to 30 days, and the next round will start as soon as it's ready, not automatically after 30 days.

[BananaHarambe]

There appears to be literally 0 restrictions on tournaments other than the drop down menus and logical player counts for table size, minimum players for group stage.

To see how absurd this is I tested the limits of how far in advance I can create a tournament start date. The year 2064 is allowed, 39 years from now. I tried the year 3025, 1000 years from now, but that wasn't allowed. The year 2225 is allowed, 200 years from now.

I can create a tournament 73,063 days in advance and have it open for registration. Why aren't there any normal limits on this? No idea.