Taking Competitive gameplay (Tournaments) to the next level

[Luis_91]

Hello Guys,

i really enjoy the Tournaments on this webpage, but i think there is a lot of room for improvement. A big minus i found since i started playing here was the limitation to 2 player games in tournaments, while i didn´t really see a reason for this limitation, it was not bothering me enough to complain until now.

The main reason is the availability of Terra Mystica, one of the greatest strategie games, but lacking a lot of its fun and strategy in a 2 player game.
Thats why i would highly reccomend more than 2 player tournaments.


They could work in different ways:

- A bunch of 4 player games, where 1 or 2 player advance to the next round. For example in a tournament with 16 players: four 4 player games, where in each game the best 2 advance, then another two 4 player games where the best two adance and then a final of remaining four.
- A series of 4 player games, where you get points depending on your position in the game (1st: 5 points, 2nd: 3 points, 3rd: 1 point, 4th: 0 points) and then after a predetermined number of games declaring the winner depending on the points.

Or last but not least my personal favourite:

A recurring League System, where you register once and then each season could last around 1 month. This could or should even be organised by BGA itself.
The league would be structured as followed:
Different Tiers, where each lower Tier contains twice as much groups as the previous Tier, meaning:
- 1 group in Tier 1
- 2 groups in Tier 2
- 4 groups in Tier 3
- 8 groups in Tier 4
etc.

Each group could consist of 7 players. In each season you will play four 4-player-games against opponents of your group.
Four 4 player games, mean that you will play against 12 opponents, so when the groups consist of 7 players, that means that you will play 2 times against each other player in your group. Each player is receving points depending on his position in the 4 games (1st: 5 points, 2nd: 3 points, 3rd: 1 point, 4th: 0 points) and at the end of each season the first player of each group will advance to the higher tier and the 2 lowest player will fall down to a lower tier.

This is similar to the League system at snellman.net (http://tmtour.org/#/).


I think such a League System would highly increase the use and the significance of the competitive system on BGA and would attract even more players to BGA. ( Just look at the snellman page. There are a lot of participants in the League System even though the Implementation of Terra Mystica on that webpage is by far not as beautiful as on BGA).
And of course these suggestions can be applied to other games!

[Sunmaster14]

Support. Ability to create tournaments for 3+ player versions of games would ad a lot to their depth, as some games play quite differently for those player counts (i.e. Terra Mystica, Trough the Ages).

[turtler7]

There are stable 4 player brackets at a number of player counts such as 13 and 16 and many others that allow each player to compete against each other player once and only once and the player with the highest record can advance to the next sized bracket or win outright. Often a middle sized tournament like 13 could just identify the final 4 who play each other for the championship. A year ago BGA announced 3+ player tournaments were in the works.

I got tired of waiting and made a discord server where we have started running 4 player tournaments through player organization. Not as ideal as through the tournament system and cannot be as harshly timed as the real thing would be. But it is a start. https://discord.gg/rdYXkCc

[Robo65]

I'd love a league system too. One important point is the time raster. Leagues usually have a fixed game plan, but when a league runs over several weeks or months, exceptions must be possible. A player must be able to play ahead or behind schedule, if accepted by the league manager.

Then, there are games that can be played in teams. Carcassonne Double is quite a different game (four players, each with their own color, playing their own moves, but the scored points of two of them get added at the end.

A Carcassonne team league with a mix of single player duels and team duels (something like Davis Cup in Tennis) is a fascinating thing, our group is playing that since 2003 on the Koch Media Carcassone game. Since the Koch Media Server is breaking down, we are evaluating other game platforms.

Greetings
Robo (of forum.carcassonne-online.info)