It was always unpopular because there is a random element in there. Lately it is also criticised because tournament drops have a noticable effect on SoS. For me it's more important that the scoring system doesn't noticably affect how you play the game, so I don't mind.

This article suggest Cumulative Score instead, which is a suggestion I like. (Cumulative score means you sum the score a player had after each round to determine the tiebreaker. In a chess-like system a player who won his first two, then played a tie and then lost would have a cumulative score of 1+2+2.5+2.5=8.) It rewards winning early (which is important in a swiss system. The article notes that Warmachine (with its win/loss and no ties system) isn't granular enough, but for an Epic scoring system with win on objectives, win on points and draw as possible outcomes is ideal.

Yes I agree it's good to factor this in which is why my "football" mechanism would add bonus tiebreak goals for winning in earlier turns. This effect is still present in the EpicUK system as I described previously (and the example you give even), it's just much less likely to actually affect peoples' behaviour.

The thing about the football system is that wins would still be the most important thing, but as you say this is not granular enough which is why the cumulative tiebreakers are needed (goal difference, goals scored). With this you can actually make it capture exactly the same things as the EpicUK system (e.g. +2/-2 for third turn), it's just there is an extra element awarded for the actual win. For me this would incentivise all the right things, and should provide even more granularity than the Epic UK system (I think...).

By the way, I was only giving the W/L/L vs W/W/W example purely as that, an example, which was a bit unfair as it's unlikely to be that bad. In actual fact it does have a real effect though - just as you were affected by someone deliberately delaying a win until a subsequent turn, you must have experienced games at the end of the tournament where your opponent plays for the draw? I have, and I haven't been to that many events. It's not a big deal, I'm just saying it's my personal preference for a system that encourages people to play to win. Or anti-gamesmanship, as you say. Pretty minor overall though.


I find this interesting, surely any scoring method does that? It's just a matter of what you count as the "default" for how one should play. As the examples above illustrate, the whole reason for having a more elaborate system is because the natural consequences of "let's just play a game and see who wins" do affect how people play the game, e.g. they play more conservatively and don't try for a big win. The only difference is that you take a particular view on how people should play, i.e. that they shouldn't try any harder than necessary to achieve a minimum winning score. Others with a different view would say that it is the "all wins are equal" system that is affecting how you play the game compared to how you "normally" would.

_________________
Kyrt's Battle Result Tracker (forum post is here)
Kyrt's trade list

The UK championship site orders players by total points, then total number of points from wins, then total number of points from draws. So it gives precedence to winning games over drawing games.

The only down side with the 3-1-0 system is that players HAVE to give you additional info when they report their games... getting one number out of them can be tough at times

_________________
@MephistonAG for all sorts of twitter madness

In my experience the motivation for playing for the draw was to win the tournament (for which you get prizes). It wasn't the most enjoyable game I'll be honest, but hardly a big deal. One hell of a first world problem

What do you mean exactly? To be honest I don't know the scoring table off by heart so, if I don't have the table to hand to work out the "points" result, I just say "2-0 in the third" or "winning draw" for example and presumably the organiser has to work it out on my behalf. Surely "23-9" is derived from exactly the same information, so wouldn't removing the need to calculate the score make it easier to capture the result?

_________________
Kyrt's Battle Result Tracker (forum post is here)
Kyrt's trade list

Well the result sheets I hand out have the score table at the top

Really doesn't matter how you score the games, as long as its clear when people sign up how it all works, and people have fun then all's good.

_________________
@MephistonAG for all sorts of twitter madness

Yeah I'm probably one of those annoying people who never hands in the result sheets I tend to find myself tight on time (either run out or only just finish in time) so inevitably the TO ends up asking me what the result was. Sorry!

I agree, I enjoy these kinds of debates and thinking up new systems, but in the end it's a game of toy soldiers and we're lucky enough to have a relaxed community so it really does not matter and a tournament is always fun.

_________________
Kyrt's Battle Result Tracker (forum post is here)
Kyrt's trade list

I'd say that if you played a random casual game you'd mostly care about if you won or not, but of course you also care how close it was. But, consider this: If it's just a one-off, most people like it better when it's close, because they find it more exciting and interesting. Tournaments with scoring like the UK will instead encourage you to make the games as one-sided as possible. My argument is that the "natural" state of most games (especially games like chess and card games, but also war games to a lesser degree) is that you try to win, and you care more about how fun it is than how much you win by. It's more fun to pull out a tight win, but systems like the EUK system (and most warhammer scoring systems) penalize you for it. You could say that it gives the losing player nothing to play for, but on the other hand he's punished even further for losing in a blowout - not only is the game probably no fun, but he also walks away with an extra-bad loss.

Going for blowouts is an artifact of scoring systems. Going for the win, in whatever way, is how you play the game.

All examples for 5 games tournaments. The numbers will change for other kinds of tournaments, but the principle still apllies.
Of course dice rolls or being a better player may cancel any disadvantage a rule may give to an army list, but when comparing armies it shall be assumed that everything but the army lists is the same

My 2 cents - ahh looks more like 5 cents.

Basic Scoring
IMHO there are two premises to scoring
1. It should always put wins above everything
2. It should not influence army selection in comparison to making a game just for fun.

Somebody winning 2 games should always score better than somebody winning 1 game.
If you have the same number of wins, the number of draws should decide the ranking.

A simple 3/1/0 sheme will be like that in most cases. The problem being 3 draws offsetting one win.
You might find that acceptable - if you don't a 6/1/0 sheme will sort it out.
This method has no obvious influence on army selection, as in an non tournament game, you would just play to win.

Using the UK system you can loose depite having 4 victories (close) and one loss (big) to somebody having 2 wins (big) and 3 losses (close).
I find that way off not only by ignoring the value of a win as a win, but also in the way it influences army selection.
Because the early big win and the late loss are favoured, all-or-nothing armies and armies that do not set up (teleporting, drops, flyers transporting troops) get an advantage, by having increased chances of an early decisive strike and good changes too draw the game out if the first strike isn't that decisive.
This doesn't mean it is unfair regarding players' chances to win, because everbody can choose a drop list if he wants, but it's unfair regarding army-lists the probability of success of armies.

Tie breaks
No matter what you do there is also the possibility for a tie, so you need a tie breaker.

You can hide the tie breaker in the basic scoring as the UK system does or you can name one explecitly.

Nameing one explecitely prevents cross over effects i.e. the tie breaker spoiling the ranking established.

In Warhammer tournaments you often have the victory points difference worked into the scoring, that's a good example for a hidden tie breaker.

The UK system has also hidden tie breakers and they cross over into the basic scoring quite heavily.

The EEC used a (3/2)/1/0 sheme, having an implicit tiebreaker in the form of rating a victory by goals over a victory by points, and difference of goals followed by difference of points as expilcit tie breakers.

So what to take as a tie breaker ?
Epic only states goals as relevant and victory-points as a tie breaker.

So that would be the natural choice - goals first, victory-points second - nothing else third.

Whether you choose goals claimed only or the difference of goals claimed and lost, has no obvious influence on the army composition, and only a minor influence on the style of play. If you play for win on tie breakers, as you usually try to claim as many goals as possible and to loose the least possible number of goals.

The UK system uses other things like the game length as well, which are not related to the "game imminent victory conditions", but to personal preference and "schedule" related issues.

Which I do not think is wrong in itself, but I feel it's wrong in combination of the tie breakers being weighted strong enough to overwrite basic scoring.

You could also add other tie breakers like sportsmanship or painting or even a background story as it had been in early GW grand tournaments. But those have been falling out of favours and tournaments drifted from being a "holistic affair" to a best general competition only.

Schedule
You will need a maximum game length and it usually will effect the points scored by some players.

It might be good for the advancement of your soul to accept a game takes as long as it takes, but that approach is an organisational nightmare. And if people don't live across the street, but have to catch a plane or train, it will not be a real option.

In my experience a 3k game can be handled comfortably in two hours most of the time, if players are accustomed to each other and/or the style of play.

Two and a half hour should be fine for most games, even with somebody from a new "group".

There are some players or games which will not finish or being finished within 3 hours.
But allowing for those will have the majority of players wait at least an additional hour probably two between games. That's just as unfair and annoying to them as it is to for the players having to abort a game prematuredly.

So you can only hope you find a good compromise - and always give the players to finish the current turn.

Matching

The accepted way for singles tournaments is the Swiss system. It works well enough on larger number of players and not worse than others with small numbers of players.

But for a team tournament, you might have a agenda different from matching up the best teams.

A good reason is to have every team to play against every other team, even if only parts of teams play against each other. That's the way EEC didi it.

Restrictions to matching
For single tournaments there is only one valid restriction, that is not playing against the same player twice.

Having said that, I admit that it often does not matter whether restrictions are applied to matches in the lower half of the ranking.
So I would see it as a possibility to impose the restrictions only to games with at least one player from the upper half of the current ranking. And to make the matching in the lower half as unrestricted as possible. This obviously needs the matches to be determined just before each match, like it is with the Swiss System.

Mirror matches. Their are armies that are considered harder or weaker than others. To prevent mirror matches reduces the chance of a weak list to draw an other weak list and remove a hard list from the potential opponents for a hard list - thus putting a disadvantage to the already weaker list and giving an additional advantage to an already hard list.
So I think disabling mirrormatching is a must.

"Played last week" and team mates.
You can not allow the best players to prevent to fight each other by joining the same club or having played recently against each other.
If they were not team notes, one would be kicked down the ladder and somebody else would have the chance to come up, but by restricting this, the other players will be kicked down while the team mates are save from some serious competition.

For team torunaments it's different, obviously you will not play against any player from the same team.
And depending on the goal of the tournament, you should have your games spread between nations as evenly as possible.

Terrain
There is always somebody crying for more terrain. And he just must have it.
But as an organiser you have to realise, if the amount is crucial to some player, it will give him an advatage - in this process giving a disadvantage to other players.

It's unfair to effectively restrict the range of a Shadowsword to 45cm or to reduce the effectifity of a Leman Russ company by allowing all enemy infantry to hop from cover too cover. Those guys have payed for the privilege to shoot you.

Obviously you will have to find a compromise - and don't think that one side has more right than the other just by crying out louder or more frequently.

Interesting posts Brumbear and Hena.
I think we all prefer to understand whether a game is won or lost, and in that respect I really like the E:A tournament objectives mechanism - Victory points is a reasonable way of determining very close games. But after that, for competition purposes giving 3 points for a "Win" and 1 point for a "Winning draw" would seem reasonable.

However, I take issue with the thought that the scoring mechanism influences the army list - in my experience it does not. I grant you that 'slower' lists find it harder to get the enemy Blitz, but that difference is marginal at best. Also getting a 'bigger' win when you are already in a winning position is much harder than it seems, you have to avoid being in a winning position (having 2 objectives), be able to gain up to 4-5 objectives in the next turn and be able to prevent the opponents from doing so.

As to "tie-breakers", I presume you mean for competition purposes where two players have the same cumulative score from their games. Here I would have thought cumulative goals and then casualty points would be a better approach, however I suspect that this approach would rapidly descend into using goals and casualties on a permanent basis (which may be why the E-UK mechanism evolved into what it is now). One point in favour of the E-UK approach is that it does save time in counting up the dead and resolving these kind of tie-breakers.

In the UK we try to allow 2.5 - 3 hours per game, with ~30 mins between games, 1 hour for lunch. However, the point about allowing time for players to travel is a very good one, and so the playing time needs to be adjusted accordingly.

As to matchups between players and army races, this subject becomes easier or harder depending on the number of players. Even so, unless there are several players to provide alternative matchups throughout the competition, these restrictions cannot always be enforced. This also touches on the intent of the competition as we discussed in past months.

Finally, Terrain is a critical issue which significantly affects the game, so should be as consistent as possible across all tables, and preferably consistent across tournaments. Note, The 5 min warm up can cover interpretation of how to use terrain, but cannot increase or decrease the number or size of the terrain pieces and it is this aspect that is crucial. Here, I wonder if it is a sensible idea to set up a separate thread for defining tournament terrain as exactly as possible.

I just want to say that I really agree with brumbaer about implicit tiebreakers - that's exactly what you have when you attempt an in my opinion artificial differentiation for tournament scores. I much prefer explicit tiebreakers.

Another area that needs clearer rules is going to time. What exactly happens when the ref calls time? Do you finish the turn? Is it "dice down!" like in warmachine? Does the current player finish his activation, and does his opponent get one more?

_________________
- Ulrik

I say the UK and Finish scoring have "hidden tie breakers" because they just rate basically wins higher than no wins (14 points min for a win, 13 points max for a non win) so that's basic scoring.

But because they feel there is a need to stretch the range the results to avoid the same result - to break ties - there are different scores in each category. Up to here it's classic tie breaking.
But sadly the relative worth of win and loss is in a way that the tie braking or value spreading mechanism overrides basic scoring so somebody with 4 wins can score lower than somebody with 2 wins.

An easy way to counter that would be to give 0 points to all losses and give only less points to a win, instead of giving lots of positive points for a loss.

Hena, we agree that for terrain there has to be a compromise. But I'm not sure that this should be in the form of 12 pieces of terrain and they will be 4 of that type, 4 of this type and 4 of that and they have to be of that size and shape and best of all put on fixed places. I'd prefer to have tables with different amounts of terrain to have players not playing the same game every time. I'm also one of the big supporters of scenarios at tournaments, which has sadly come out of fashion. Replacing the need of flexibility with the plan-ability so many tournament players seem to crave nowadays (no dig here, just my impression).

Ginger, there are a lot of people who go to tournaments to win and they select race and army-composition to that end.
And some go out of their way to win which includes choosing an army/race that gives them all advantages and puts their opponent at a disadvantage. And they will calculate how many and what kind of victories they need and what to do if they don't manage that in the first place..

IMHO for this reason "serious" tournament players, do not want tables with mixed amounts of terrain, scenarios and scoring that favour wins over everything else, because they can't plan ahead that much and it makes contingency plans more difficult.
Look at the ETC mechanism of matchmaking. The teams choose who plays whom - and there are players whose only task it is to draw or stall. It's not about having a game of Warhammer and win, but about creating armies that deny the opponent to have a decent game where they would have a chance to win.
What sense is it to have a game where you know at the start that nobody will win ?

Again I do not say this is wrong, if you are one of the players who like that kind of thing it's great, but if you are going to a tournament and hope to have some games that are comparable to "ordinary" games and with results that are not predetermined that much, you might look for a different approach.

The scoring system is influenced by the people who makes them and influences the people who play by them.
If you design a scoring system most players choose something that suits them. That's the reason why we nowadays have best general scores (no painting, no sportsmanship), no scenarios and predictability as far as possible. If you are born into this system or play it long enough you will find it the best one. That doesn't mean it is really the best one for everybody or the hobby, but it doesn't mean either it's bad or wrong.

For a tournament you will have to define the goals and the target audience and than choose a fitting scoring system.

as an interesting experiment, does anyone want to recalculate the scores from the EEC event under other systems to see what difference it makes?

personally I disagree with the prepositions that winning is above all, there are certainly degrees of victory in any game, I also disagree strongly that the system used over the weekend is in any way more fair or representative of players winning, you can table 3 opponents 5-0 and have two losing draws and finish behind someone with 5 winning draws who didn't win a game, for my money that is every bit as bad and defeats the stated aim that someone who wins more games should always score more than someone who wins less.... it's also equally as unlikely to happen....

in the UK system there is *always* a reason to keep playing and try to reduce the deficit in a game, even if you can't win, by reducing the winning margin from 4 goals to 2 through smart play you can often improve your standing in the event through an extra few points gained, there is literally no reason to do this in the EEC system

_________________
Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator