Official Tournament Rules Thread

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Ritalingamer
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Re: Official Tournament Rules Thread

Unread postby Ritalingamer » Mon Mar 30, 2015 5:32 pm

Congratulations, Kampfgruppe, it looks like you won it all!

Also, thank you to Stahlgewitter and Tankman as our runners up - well fought, gentlemen.

I'm working on writing a blog post recapping the entire tournament - if any of you players have any screenshots, videos, or andecdotes you'd like me to include, please post links here.

Thanks again!

PS Tomislav will be on later to officially conclude the tournament and send Kampfruppe his Talos Principle grand prize.

Stahlgewitter
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Re: Official Tournament Rules Thread

Unread postby Stahlgewitter » Mon Mar 30, 2015 7:30 pm

Thanks, it was fun. Let's do it again sometime.

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Tomislav Uzelac
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Re: Official Tournament Rules Thread

Unread postby Tomislav Uzelac » Mon Mar 30, 2015 9:07 pm

Congrats to Kampgruppe on winning the tournament. I sent you the key via PM mate, enjoy!

I hope everyone enjoyed themselves and better luck next time. :)

Cheers!

Kampfgruppe
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Re: Official Tournament Rules Thread

Unread postby Kampfgruppe » Tue Mar 31, 2015 12:10 am

The Tournament was fun and the battles great. But, most of all, my opponents were the best and kept me on the edge of my mouse every turn. The AI in UofC makes a good opponent..but a human opponent, especially the tournament players I played, were most impressive. I was lucky to win the very First Unity of Command World Wide Tournament!

To both Stahlgewitter and Tankman...till we meet again on the battlefield...Salute!

Ritalingamer thank you for being the Grand Marshall hosting the tournament. I will have to seek out my old game codes so I can review and give my operational notes on my almost fatal mistakes and lucky strokes of strategy.

UofC...thanks for making a game that made it to the Top 20 List of All Time Games by PC Gamer...but even more so for designing such a unique WWII gaming system and hopefully designing even more unique games of strategy and tactics for the future!

Uzelac, Cheers and only the best to you at UofC and your team of game developers!

Now....that Spring is upon us...time for another tournament chaps!

Kampfgruppe

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spillblood
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Re: Official Tournament Rules Thread

Unread postby spillblood » Tue Mar 31, 2015 11:07 am

Fun tournament, thanks to Ritalingamer for hosting it, and congratulations to Kampfgruppe! Regarding screenshots: I posted some of the games I played in this thread. Not familiar with recording gameplay vids myself, but it should be easy with the replay/history function, the game codes (all that were posted here in this thread) and some tool for recording video.


Ritalingamer
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Re: Official Tournament Rules Thread

Unread postby Ritalingamer » Wed Apr 01, 2015 9:29 pm

A recap of the tournament is up on the blog. https://unityofcommand.net/blog/2015/04/ ... ent-recap/

spillblood wrote:Fun tournament, thanks to Ritalingamer for hosting it, and congratulations to Kampfgruppe! Regarding screenshots: I posted some of the games I played in this thread. Not familiar with recording gameplay vids myself, but it should be easy with the replay/history function, the game codes (all that were posted here in this thread) and some tool for recording video.


You're quite welcome.


Re: recording videos - Unity of Command doesn't play well with every recording program (this has been a recurring problem with YouTubers), but FRAPS should work.



Yes, thank you! There's a lot of background noise, but other than that it's great.


The developers and I would love to have your feedback, especially about multiplayer.

What can we do to improve online play?
Have you noticed any bugs or exploits that need to be addressed?
What are your favorite maps for multiplayer?

Also, how would you like us to do future tournaments:
How often can people commit to playing? We lost a lot of players who were unable to finish games - what's a reasonable timeframe in which to schedule and complete a match?
How do you feel about leagues? We could divide up players based on how often they can commit to play, hold league tournaments, then hold big championships between leagues. What do you think?
Did you like the way we ran the tournament this time (play the same map twice, alternating sides)? Do you have any suggestions for how else we could run it?

Thanks and I look forward to your feedback.

Stahlgewitter
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Re: Official Tournament Rules Thread

Unread postby Stahlgewitter » Sun Apr 05, 2015 11:08 am

Multiplayer emphasises some of the game's limitations. Fortunately, the biggest (frequent wipeouts / offensives becoming walkovers as the strength ratio between attacker and defender widens in the attacker's favour over time) is being addressed by the devs for the sequel.

Another would be that the best strategy for the attacker, especially the German and especially in smaller map scenarios, is simply to mass all their available tank units in one part of the map and advance with impunity down a single corridor. This works in Stalingrad, 2nd and 3rd Kharkov, Taifun, Edelweiss, Fall Blau to some extent, and others. Combined arms, the essence of blitzkrieg, don't really pay in UoC. The Soviets, on the other hand, have little choice but to perform suicidal mass attacks directed at isolated German armour / mech units in the hope of cheap shots, especially against a clever and single-minded human opponent. Falling back to form a strong defensive line is a great way to lose the game, as three or four German tank / mech units operating in concert can gut any Soviet defence with ease.

The limitations of the air power and weather models have been discussed to death.

Finally, there is no room for attrition. Occasionally lines are locked here and there, either due to the opponents being evenly matched or because one or both sides can't afford to expose their supply lines, but in UoC you're either advancing or being slaughtered; there is no 'holding the line' for long. Stalingrad is the best example of this.

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Re: Official Tournament Rules Thread

Unread postby Kampfgruppe » Wed Apr 15, 2015 2:19 am

Harry thanks for the video posts on the actual tournament battles.
Now to answer your questions below:

What can we do to improve online play?
--Online play is great. I love not being able to recall a bad move! When I played Tankman in the first round of the tournament I didn't know that you couldn't recall a unit move like you can against the AI. Made ever move and battle an unknown. I like unknowns and the fog of battle effect. Though, I would suggest that each player can't really get a good intel on the unit they are facing and supply lines should remain hidden/partially hidden.

Have you noticed any bugs or exploits that need to be addressed?
--The breakthroughs are usually only after the attacker has paid the price. To continue on attacking with the same unit can easily put that unit at GREAT risk..so the balance is kept. If you want to continue attacking...then pay the price and the attacker will.

What are your favorite maps for multiplayer?
--I like the big battles with big maps and lots of unknowns. Victory locations create nice attempts at depleting units for points. Using supply aspects can create very interesting maps. Please consider depicting that the more a unit is moved the more attrition that unit will see and the more the unit stays in place the greater its defense capability and supply buildup.

Also, how would you like us to do future tournaments:
How often can people commit to playing? We lost a lot of players who were unable to finish games - what's a reasonable timeframe in which to schedule and complete a match?
--I can commit to playing the tournaments because they are turned based...and thus easy to complete. A match should be kept to a weeks time. The bigger the tournament the shorter time for each match. Losing players is more because of a lack of commitment than because of any problem with the tournament.

How do you feel about leagues? We could divide up players based on how often they can commit to play, hold league tournaments, then hold big championships between leagues. What do you think?
--I like the idea of creating leagues, league tournaments, and grand championship battles!

Did you like the way we ran the tournament this time (play the same map twice, alternating sides)? Do you have any suggestions for how else we could run it?
--I liked the tournament, changing both sides was good. Though, I would prefer to play a battle I have never seen before...that is very scary indeed! I would pay for new scenarios. Charge $5 bucks to play...you might get enough money to pay someone a little bit for their time to design a battle.

If you could create a point system that follows the player through every game they play online would be a good way to attract consistent online players who seek to increase their point rank.

Just my suggestions. A great game indeed.

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Tomislav Uzelac
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Re: Official Tournament Rules Thread

Unread postby Tomislav Uzelac » Wed Apr 29, 2015 10:51 pm

Matt is working on a longer post about the tournament, but I want to comment on one issue because it's relevant to the new game design.

Kampfgruppe wrote:
Please consider depicting that the more a unit is moved the more attrition that unit will see and the more the unit stays in place the greater its defense capability and supply buildup.


I have looked at these many times and they're still on the menu (so to speak). Certainly we could do with a simulation of mechanical wear and tear on tank units, for example.

The problem is that too many "small rules", ones that provide only a small modifier, make the game hard to read. You'd still have interesting decision making, but I suspect it would take much longer to plot a turn and the game would be much less fun. An example of such a rule, that I don't like, would be "armor units have 10% chance of 1sup for every hex travelled".

I'm still looking for an alternative. For example, we could have lower suppression recovery by default, and then add extra recovery for units that stay in place. We could also make armor units extra sensitive to this effect.

Note though, that everything that gets added to the game needs to click together with a bunch of other stuff. As you add more and more, it gets real difficult to make changes without inadvertently breaking something else.

I guess my point is, I don't really know what will be possible at this time. We'll see...