Format
This tournament will consist of 5 leagues, with 10 players each. In the first season we will determine who plays what league, as described below under first season. Each player gets to choose his 'home' map, including card, fortification and fog settings. All games will be standard sequential.
Leagues And Seasons
As described, each League will consist of 10 players. In each season, players will play a home and an away game against each other player in their league. Home games (fairly obviously) are the ones played on your home map, and away games the ones played on the other players map. That makes a grand total of (wohooo, math!) 18 games per season per player. After each season, the last two players on the first league go down to the second league, while the first two players of the second league go up to the first league. The same thing happens with the lower leagues, (last two of second go to third, last two of third go to fourth, last two of fourth go to fifth, first two of third go to second, first two of fourth go to third, first two of fifth go to fourth), until the fifth (and last league) where the worst two players are dropped from the tournament, and can't sign up again for the next season. I am (sadly) assuming that mostly this will be players that aren't actually playing anyway, due to the reserves rules, which can be found below.
First Season
During the first season, we will determine who actually plays what league. The first two players in the each league will then be placed in the first league, the third and fourth go in the second league, and so forth. Thank you keylarion for that suggestion!
Gamedates
The games will be started each monday and thursday. This means if you play quickly enough you can play this tournament as a freemium too, but premium is (of course) recommended. It's definately worth the money (and in my case the hassle of getting someone with a credit card to help you) in my opinion. One season should usually (yay, math again!) take 9 weeks. If you fail to join your games within 48 hours, the other team automatically wins. Please report players that don't show up for their games to me in this thread or via PM. For each game missed by a player he will get a *. Players with three *'s in one season are kicked out at the end of the season. Again, for what happens then, read the bit below on reserves.
Reserves
Of course, just like other tournaments, some players will randomly (and some not so randomly) disappear, so we will also be needing reserves. However unlike those other tournaments, the reserves will not just take over where the last player left off, but will at the start of the next season start out in the fifth league. A player that has 3 *'s will automatically lose the rest of his games, and be placed in last place of his league. These players will all automatically be kicked out at the end of the season. The spots in the higher leagues will then be filled by players in the next highest league. So if for example two players in the first league drop out, no one will have to go down in any leagues. If then also a player in the third league drops out, a third person from the fourth and fifth league will be going up one, and a further reserve will be necessary. Every season at least two reserves will be accepted into the fifth league. If no reserve can be found, the fifth league will start with less players.
Scoring
Well, scoring is actually quite simple: you either win or lose. Winning gets you a point, losing does not. If at the end of a season two or more players have equal points, the games they played against each other will serve as tiebreakers. If they won/lost the same many, the armies left on the maps will be added up to serve as the second tiebreaker. Should those numbers be equal too, they will just have to share their place.
Any other questions? Ask ahead.
