Stabbeurfou site is proud to invite you to pre register (by email or on site) for its next tournament, standard game with negotiations, starting in September 2008, and which hopes to achieve the same quality standards as the DNWC.


NAME OF TOURNAMENT

The tournament is named "Wonderful Mansion", as it is a social experience on the internet for which the Diplomacy games will serve as an excuse. It is intended to help mixing the broadest possible set of different technological cultures and language cultures (at least English, French, Chinese, Russian).

As in the Interzines tournament, players are encouraged to team up according to the community they come from (website, face to face association, etc...)

To summarize, Wonderful Mansion :


TIME AND ADVANCEMENT

Tournament will have four1 consecutive rounds, all played between September and June.

(Overview) Round one will have at least 42 boards; round two will have at least 28 boards, round three will have exactly 7 boards and round four will have exactly one board. If round one has less than 42 teams then round one and two will merge.

(1 to 2) The 2/3 (rounded upwards) best individual players from round one will advance to round two (but this may not lead to more than 49 boards for round 2, so extra players will not advance.

(2 to 3) The 49 best players from round two will advance to round three (round three = semi final).

(3 to 4) The 7 winners of the 7 boards of round three will advance to round four (round four = final).

(4 to title) The winner of the final wins the title.

Only result in current round determines advancement or game victory (except advancement towards semi final that takes sum of second round result and half of first round result).


REGISTRATION AND TECHNOLOGY SKILLS

Games will be played in two modes : automatic and manual, at player's discretion. Some games will be automatic, some games will be manual. Players will be requested to tell tournament organizer in which mode they wish to play (if they mind) at registration.

First round games will be set to gather separately technology confident players in automatic games, and technophobic players in manual games.

Other rounds as well, unless other matching considerations make it impossible.

=> It will never be imposed to any player to play in automatic mode.


* Automatic mode

This is the standard mode for all games played on the stabbeurfou site (DNWC and Interzines).

Players have an account that they must have created themselves (quick operation).

Orders are submitted on site and checked (there can not be mis-orders), and password is required to enter the orders.

Human game master simply clicks to adjudicate.

Players have access to all usual site facilities.


* Manual mode

This is a special mode for players not confident in technology (specifically designed for this very event.)

Registration (and account creation) is handled directly by human tournament director (email).

Players automatically receive an email with a link to a page they must use to drop orders (link will be changed after every adjudication for security reasons.)

Orders are dropped on site but not checked (so there can be mis-orders), and no password is required.

Human game master will correct any non ambiguous mistakes (according to a certain defined set of rules) in the orders and click to adjudicate with orders as dropped by players. A very large set of geographical codes and syntax is tolerated (as if sent to human Game Master)

Players have access to limited site facilities.


* Common to both mode

All game maps and all tournament rating will be available to anyone (on the stabbeurfou site). Dynamic information is also available about games on site, typically the reason why the deadline has just been postponed.

Note: since manual mode gives more work to tournament directing staff, automatic mode is encouraged (but not enforced).


SCORING SYSTEM

The scoring system will award 63 points for a solo, and none for the others.

Other configuration will offer 32 points bonus for a first place, 16 points for a second, 8 points for a third an so on (as well as as many points as centres owned). These bonuses are shareable.


TEAMS

Players are supposed to register within a team (7 players) but players that are not in any team may be put in any team by tournament organizer.

During the games of team round, team captain will be allowed to change players at any time from within the team, and to have any player at one moment involved in up to three games (but not at start nor at the end where there must be 7 actual players). Players of leading teams will get small scoring bonuses (10 for first team, 9 for second and so on until 1 for 10th team)..

Team considerations will not apply any more after first round (since not all teams then will have the seven required players).


GAMES


* Game style

This is standard negotiations play (this is no gunboat). Negotiations either use the site or private emails (automatic games), either use private emails only (manual games).


* Complaints

Complaints about private messages content (messages from a player of a game to one or more players of a game) will never be accepted, no matter what the content is.

Complaints about public messages content (like messages posted on forum on site) may only be addressed by removing the offending message (or part of) from the site (when applicable).


* Secrecy of identities (will not apply unless voted at tournament start)

(a) Identity of players (only for first round) will not be available to players, but providing this information (true or false) will never be illegal. This will serve the purpose of protecting famous players from being attacked only for considerations of reputation.

(b) So finding out who plays what and where will be part of this new experience. Pretending to be any other player as well.

(c) Overall list of all players involved somewhere in the tournament will still be available, without any clue on who players where.

(d) Therefore players for manual mode are strongly encouraged (but not compelled) to provide at registration a specific email address in order to avoid forsaking anonymity (since negotiations is performed with emails in manual games).

(e) All identities will be revealed at the end of the round.


* Game duration

All games will end before adjustments for year 1911 (or even before if a vote to stop is agreed - the game then stops as is.)


SPECIAL AWARDS AND REWARDS


* awards

Players will be requested to suggest name (and description) of awards to tournament organizer with orders for Autumn 1901. Then a list of these awards will be selected by tournament organizer team and made public. All players will be asked to vote for attribution of these awards to other players in their games with orders for Spring of last year played.


* rewards

According to the number of player that registered to the event, best players qualified for the final will be rewarded a game from Hasbro company2 :


PRESS

Press is information made public by players on the site on a special page (one per game).

Players from automatic mode may issue press using their account (they will be required not to press on game they do not play on).

Players from manual mode (not using any account) may do so for they game they play in (asking the Game master to relay message on site).

(will not apply unless voted at tournament start)

On this tournament, all press is anonymous, except press from Game Masters.


CROSS GAMING

Cross gaming is not forbidden, but every effort will be made to discourage it (but it will never be sanctioned).


SPECIAL FEATURE

  • A specific mailing list will be set as a very convenient way to provide last minute information to all players (only tournament officials will be allowed to post).

  • A specific FAQ for the tournament is available on the site and will be enriched until the actual beginning of the event.

  • A little test will be set in order to rate players after registration. It will be some sort of quiz with the aim to detect and possibly select players with best Diplomacy tactical skills.

  • Several polls will be set up and used to detect players preferences before tournament start, if necessary, as an effort to match player's tastes as closely as possible

  • There will be several dummy games running a couple of months before the event so that people uneasy with technology may have a go and try the interface (especially the simplified interface "manual mode"). These games will be gunboat and potential players may only play a few seasons to have an opinion if they can handle it and either confirm or cancel their registration. For these short dummy games, AI software may be used to play some of the orders to complete the game.


YES!

This tournament is the best opportunity you will get to bring together players from all backgrounds, traditional mail, traditional email, electronic judge and web adjudication worlds and to allow you to play the best of them.


=> If you wish to register, please EITHER :

(aa) send an email to jeremie.lefrancois@gmail.com (with First Name, Last name, email address, sex, and (not compulsory) year of birth (only if male) and possibly team name (manual mode).


(bb) register on the www.stabbeurfou.org site (if not done already) and affiliate yourself to the "Wonderful Mansion" tournament (use the « My registration » page.) (automatic mode)

1(or, if fewer players than expected, only three)

2Boxes available are : 3 Diplomacy, 3 « Axes and Allies » and a futurist Risk.