Rules Changes from "Round B Official Version" (16-Feb-98) to "Round B Second Official Version" (7-May-98) II. Overview of the Tournament E. How to Win the Tournament -> Added separate tiebreakers for players eliminated during a round, including Lost Players. See the new version. Only criteria after #5 have been changed. Revised #9 on May 7 (others May 4). -> Removed the phrase "in the rounds where you didn't play them" from the description of the Opponent Quality scheme. Rules Changes from "Round A Second Official Version (3-Dec-97) to "Round B Official Version" (16-Feb-98) III. Game Setup / General Rules D. Turnaround Time Limits, Timeouts, and Absences 1. Added a sentence allowing the time limit to go to 3 days when 2 players left: The limit will be increased to 72 hours if two players are eliminated from the game and only two players remain. 9. Added this sentence on retroactive timeouts for late gamefiles: If you get your move in before the Moderator applies the Lost Player rules, that's allowed, but you will be charged 2 vacation days as a "retroactive timeout". V. Game Endings A. Losing Gracefully 3. Changed last sentence to indicate that it's against the rules to resign. Players should go out via Standing Orders (or Static Defense if they bail out of the tournament complately). 5. Added a new paragraph with the Standing Orders rules:
  • Standing Orders: (Initially conceived by Elam Birnbaum) In Standing Orders, a player stays in the game without actually taking their turns. The player arranges their own defenses. Once the "Standing Orders" command is given, the player's turn is automatically skipped by the preceding player. The preceding player takes their own turn and sends it in, and then skips the Standing Orders player's turn and sends that gamefile in as well, along with a one-line turn report indicating the cities/gold/income/expenses for the side on Standing Orders. The player on Standing Orders can cancel the Standing Orders at any time by sending an archive message to announce that they're actively playing in the game again. (If this happens just after the preceding player has skipped their turn, they can back the game up a move and actively take their turn instead of letting it be skipped. The player on Standing Orders is kept on the email distribution, since they remain "alive" in the game and the tournament; they are also given a chance to sign up for the next round (if they make the cut). Rules Changes from "Round A Official Version" (1-Nov-97) to "Round A Second Official Version" (3-Dec-97) O. General: updated all links to the Moderators' Bible (ModBible.html now) II. Organization C. First 3 rounds Clarified the round overlap info. The second paragraph now reads: "Each player will be involved in at most 2 rounds at the same time. Round B will start towards the end of Round A, but before Round A ends. Round C will begin after Round A ends but before Round B ends." The third paragraph now says that the cut for Round D occurs using the rankings after Round B, not Round C. III. Game Setup / General Rules D. Time Limit Rules Updated these rules to reflect the new Lost Player rules, in which a player's turn is skipped once (with units sent to back to nearby friendly cities) before they are dropped from the game. V. Game Endings B. Forfeits and Lost Players Updated these rules to reflect the new Lost Player rules, in which a player's turn is skipped once (with units sent to back to nearby friendly cities) before they are dropped from the game. Updated the links to the official Lost Player rules. Also some minor changes to the Lost Player rules (http://www.heeter.net/w2home/tournament/LostPlayers.html) ============================================================================= Rules Changes from "Practice Round Version" (20-July-97) to "Round A Official Version" (1-Nov-97) II. Organization: C. The First Three Rounds: Replace the sentence describing the first cut: >When the first cut occurs, a single pool of players will be chosen for >Round D, with each of the Four Groups represented in proportion >to the size of the group at the start of Round A. with the sentence: "When the first cut occurs, a single pool of players will be chosen for Round D, based on the rankings at the end of Round C. (This pool may be divided into "Classic" and "Deluxe" groups with cross-platform play within each group; this would allow Classic players to play one more round before obtaining Deluxe.)" E. How to Win: Changed the statement: >In the early rounds, each of the four groups will be ranked separately. to "Players in all four flavors of Warlords will be ranked on a single scale." F. Prizes and the Final Rounds Changed: >This game alone will be made "public" on >the remailer so that everyone may observe (but not interfere). to "The Diplomatic History of this game alone will be made "public" on the remailer so that everyone may observe (but not interfere)." III. Game Setup and General Rules D. Time Limits - 3. Rewrote the vacation rule. (Now 2 weeks.) 4. Rewrote the additional absences rule (Now 2 weeks.) 5. Tweaked the timeouts rule. 6/7/8. Tweaked the rules about declaring emergency absences before running out of timeouts. 6/7/8 Vacation days may now be converted to "replacement" timeouts. 9. Made a note that players should not suspend games. [ These changes are all significant, you should read the new rules. ] IV. Taking Your Turn C. Hero Rules Adjusted the gold limits on ruin searches to match the actual distribution of outcomes better and reduce the amount of reverting required: "You may revert as much as you like when receiving gold, but you may not receive more than 1250 from a ruin/sage, or 2500 from a stronghold. We recommend reverting to get 1200-1250 from each ruin/sage and 2400-2500 from each stronghold." E. Rules Violations Adjusted the number of allowed minor errors: "After the Practice Round, each player is allowed 3 Rules Errors per round (5 in Round A), with an overall limit of 12 (subject to change) for the whole Tournament." Then changed the rules error definitions and punishments:
  • Rules Violations (Rules Errors and Cheating):

    1. Rules violations are divided into three types:

      "Simple mistakes":
      These are minor violations, presumably due to a simple accident or misunderstanding of the rules. These are the errors that can be fixed (backing the game up a little if necessary) without affecting the course of the game afterwards. For instance, failure to report a battle(s) or hero action(s) is a rules error, and so is a minor WarBOT mistake. After the Practice Round, each player is allowed 3 Rules Errors per round (5 in Round A), with an overall limit of 12 (subject to change) for the whole Tournament. These Rules Error points are assigned and tracked by the moderator. There is no penalty for an individual error, but once either limit is reached, additional errors are considered cheating.

      "Major mistakes:"
      These are errors which cannot be fixed without affecting the course of the game. The prime example is a player sending a third diplomatic message. Messages cannot be un-sent, so this is a mistake that can't be fixed. Once Round A starts, we will use these rules:
      • A major mistake is counted as a rules arror as in (1).
      • The first major mistake causes your final reported gold and army strength values to be set to zero, causing you to lose out in any ranking tiebreaker.
      • Any subsequent mistakes result in the subtraction (at the *end* of the game) of one city from your final city count, or one turn from the your survival time (if you are wiped out).
      • Any repetition of a previous mistake is a two-city penalty.
      • A third repeat of the same mistake is considered cheating.

      "Cheating":
      These are deliberate rules violations which cannot be explained by ignorance or stupidity. Examples are editing the gamefile, generating invalid battle reports (fudging the odds), and repeatedly making the same mistake as though one didn't know better. In a case of possible cheating the issue will be decided by all the moderators. Cheating is a serious offense which will result in expulsion from the tournament; in clearcut cases players will be blacklisted and banned from future Warlords PBEM activities.
      F. Sending Gamefiles Added the new rules on Gamefile Transmission Errors:

      If you send an invalid gamefile, (wrong turn, wrong game, not compressed right, etc.) the game will be suspended until a valid gamefile is sent, and a rules-error point will be assessed against you for delaying the game, since the delay might have been intentional. When re-sending the gamefile after a transmission error, do not replay your turn. If a turn report was sent with the invalid gamefile, the valid gamefile that is finally sent should match the turn report. (If there are other rules errors that require changes in the turn, then of course the entire turn must be replayed.)

      If you send a valid gamefile, then it should be played. But if you realize that an incorrect file was sent (say a file from before the move was finished), you can say in effect "Oops, I made a gamefile transmission error" and re-send the gamefile if you wish. This is only allowed if (a) the next player hasn't sent their turn through the Remailer yet, (b) no player has sent an "archive" (diplomacy) message since your turn report, and (c) the next player's turnaround time hasn't expired yet. And if you do send the gamefile again you will still be penalized with a rules error - but it might be worth the price! Rules Changes from "Final Beta Version (18-May-97) to "Practice Round Version" (20-July-97) II. Overview of the Tournament A. Registration/Practice Round - Italic comment at end of first paragraph revised. E. How to Win the Tournament - Inserted a new tiebreaker criterion #3: Number of sides you lasted through on the turn you died. So if 2 Green players in 2 games are eliminated on Turn 16, but one is eliminated by Blue (side 4) and the other is eliminated by Orange (side 2), then the first player survives 15 turns and 3 sides, while the other survives 15 turns and only 1 side. The first player gets the better rank. - Inserted a new tiebreaker criterion #5: Your position within a game (1st, 2nd) is now the main tiebreaker *after* city fractions. So if two players playing Orange in two different games end with 25% of the cities, but one finishes 2nd and the other finishes 3rd, the player who finished 2nd is ranked higher, regardless of his army strength, gold. etc. - Adjusted tiebreakers #4-8 to apply also to players who are eliminated during a game. IV. Taking Your Turn A. Receiving Gamefiles - Added some info on which saved-game slot PC-Classic players should use. B. Fundamental Rules - The first fundamental rule was clarified slightly. It now reads: 1. Anything you can do WITHIN the Warlords application is LEGAL (except as restricted elsewhere in these rules), BUT the only changes allowed in the official gamefile sent to the next player are those from playing your own turn. This specifically allows you to: * Revert moves in the official game to improve outcomes. * Save unofficial copies to peek at other players' upcoming turns. You are NOT allowed to adjust another's side in the official game file; this includes changing another player's "enhance" setting. Rules Changes from "Draft of Final Beta Version" (24-April-97) to "Final Beta Version" (18-May-97) I. Getting Started - This section has been almost completely rewritten, especially part A. III. Game Setup / General Rules E. Shared Information and Limited Diplomacy 6. Rewritten (some players found it confusing). IV.(Taking Your Turn) C. Heroes and Hero Actions 9. We have officially ruled that you are not allowed a replacement hero if your gold is below 300. Warlords doesn't seem to allow it and we don't want anyone cheating by claiming they were able to get a hero for 250 or whatever. D. Combat - Added a sentence to the second paragraph with a link to the battle-bonuses page.