The Great War

by **Dukasaur** on Sun Jul 26, 2015 12:05 pm

Coming on Tuesday...

show: pelagosa july 28th to august 4th

by **Dukasaur** on Fri Jul 31, 2015 11:28 am

The great August 6th Offensive on Gallipoli will be marked with a barrage of five tournaments. You will need 14 tokens if you intend to join all five. One week's notice given.

by **pamoa** on Tue Aug 04, 2015 7:43 am

Butters1919 wrote:
pamoa wrote:I got one big regret about this event
I planed to participate every battle (tourney)
But as you don't get any recognition for participating
...
I propose you give once per battle a good soldier "helmet" medal and that retroactive
I would partake in more tourneys as well, but rarely have the required great war tokens.
The maps that drop them are too restrictive.
I understand wanting to keep them "WW1 themed", but for many players (like myself), i'm sure they don't play those maps very often.

Dukasaur wrote:... Helmets have been given out in some tournaments, rather inconsistently. In a few cases, like La Première Bataille de la Marne, they were added to the top prizes as a type of sweetener. More recently, like in Battle of Cocos which will launch later today, a helmet prize was randomly assigned to a non-winning position. This is a rather severely modified implementation of pamoa's suggestion. ...

Well I give up
I won't chase cannon tokens any more
Really too painful to get

by **iAmCaffeine** on Tue Aug 04, 2015 8:37 am

Are there any updates on what helmets are going to be used for? I've also found it quite hard to get cannon tokens over the past few weeks, playing several poly(4) games on all the maps listed.

by **waauw** on Tue Aug 04, 2015 10:56 am

Ditto. Any way to increase your chances in getting cannon tokens?

by **iAmCaffeine** on Tue Aug 04, 2015 11:00 am

waauw wrote:Ditto. Any way to increase your chances in getting cannon tokens?

Ideally without having to join 8+ player games which take two weeks to fill and you play a turn every four days.

by **Dukasaur** on Tue Aug 04, 2015 9:26 pm

waauw wrote:Ditto. Any way to increase your chances in getting cannon tokens?

Play larger games. 12-player games on the specified maps drop 100% of the time. The smaller the game, the lower your chances. I have cannon tokens coming out of my ass, because I play a lot of 12-player games.

Unfortunately, I don't have anything to do with the distribution system. The cannon tokens just piggyback on the star-dropping mechanism. I'd like to see that tweaked, but I'd need some time into, first, understanding the star-dropping formula better, second, coming up with a serious proposal for how to change it, and third, selling it to BW. The second part is the hardest of the three, I think. I know the current system excessively rewards people for playing larger games, but I'm not sure what I'd want to reward instead. Something I'd like to change in time, but I have a lot of projects on the go, both in R/L and online, and this is not high on the urgency list.

One thing that is somewhat higher on the urgency list, is coming up with a new list of maps for the cannon drops. Originally I planned to bring a new list of maps every two months to keep it fresh, but it's just one more thing that I would like to do but haven't had time for. Of course, the summer of 1915 is all about Gallipoli, with its whole ANZAC-cultural-awareness vibe, so we may as well leave the current batch up for a few more weeks. But if someone wants to propose a new list of token dropping maps for the end of August, I'm all ears. I think now that the war is worldwide, we could definitely throw World 2.1 in there, which is a very popular map, but I'd also like to have some other people give input on this, so we come up with a list of 8 to 10 mid-to-high popularity maps for the next quarter. Of course, they need to have some kind of a logical tie-in to World War I.

iAmCaffeine wrote:
waauw wrote:Ditto. Any way to increase your chances in getting cannon tokens?

Ideally without having to join 8+ player games which take two weeks to fill and you play a turn every four days.

This complaint I honestly don't understand. It's not like you're a freemium trying to free up a slot. If a game takes a few weeks to fill and a few weeks to play, what's the rush? You know they'll start eventually, and you know your turn will come eventually.

Hell, if I had to take a turn every single day in all of my current 80-something active games, I'd have to quit my job. Thank God that my turn only comes around once every three or four days in some of them!

iAmCaffeine wrote:Are there any updates on what helmets are going to be used for?

I have this vague idea that I'd like to use them for some really exclusive tournaments, with some really cool real-world prizes. I'm thinking stuff like actual World War I insignia that was actually worn, or some real world medals, or maybe a real bayonet that was actually used in combat. Of course, this is all depending on finding some war memorabilia dealer that's willing to donate some prizes in exchange for some exposure here, and I haven't even started exploring the options for that.

Luckily, there's no rush. This is a four-year event, and this is only the first year. For now, stuff like the zeppelins and helmets can build up, and we have plenty of time to refine the ideas. Even if I had all the ideas fleshed out (and I for sure don't!) I wouldn't be announcing all of them in the first year. We have to have some feeling that there's more to look forward to in the future.

by **pamoa** on Wed Aug 05, 2015 12:25 am

playing around at least 30 rounds a day I didn't manage to get enough cannon tokens to be able to play all WWI «battles»
a quick way to «increase» cannon tokens is to lower the asked number to enter from 2 to 1 or 3 to 2
another way is to think you don't need all of us to keep your idea alive

by **iAmCaffeine** on Wed Aug 05, 2015 6:47 am

Dukasaur wrote:
iAmCaffeine wrote:
waauw wrote:Ditto. Any way to increase your chances in getting cannon tokens?

Ideally without having to join 8+ player games which take two weeks to fill and you play a turn every four days.

This complaint I honestly don't understand. It's not like you're a freemium trying to free up a slot. If a game takes a few weeks to fill and a few weeks to play, what's the rush? You know they'll start eventually, and you know your turn will come eventually.

Hell, if I had to take a turn every single day in all of my current 80-something active games, I'd have to quit my job. Thank God that my turn only comes around once every three or four days in some of them!

There is a limited time that tournaments are open for, meaning I have less time to get the tokens required. If a game is going to take longer to fill and complete, that reduces my chances of getting into the tournament.

Dukasaur wrote:I have this vague idea that I'd like to use them for some really exclusive tournaments, with some really cool real-world prizes. I'm thinking stuff like actual World War I insignia that was actually worn, or some real world medals, or maybe a real bayonet that was actually used in combat. Of course, this is all depending on finding some war memorabilia dealer that's willing to donate some prizes in exchange for some exposure here, and I haven't even started exploring the options for that.

Luckily, there's no rush. This is a four-year event, and this is only the first year. For now, stuff like the zeppelins and helmets can build up, and we have plenty of time to refine the ideas. Even if I had all the ideas fleshed out (and I for sure don't!) I wouldn't be announcing all of them in the first year. We have to have some feeling that there's more to look forward to in the future.

Sounds good, and I especially agree with the latter point of waiting.

by **Dukasaur** on Wed Aug 05, 2015 3:02 pm

There's another interesting perspective regarding the autotourneys and the tokens. Starting with the DORA tournament on December 17th, I started adding tokens to the prizing for the tournaments. Typically the top four, but sometimes just the top two or three in really small tournaments or the top five or six in really big tournaments, get some of their entry tokens back. Including DORA (and not counting the Nasiriyeh speed tournaments) there have been 146 autotournaments on 47 templates. 84 of those are still ongoing, or about 57%. There was a real "hump" in the frequency of new tournaments, starting with Worldwide Warfare Week on April 20th, and running to late June. Most of those are still active, something like 65 of 80. Altogether, I'd say something like 600 cannon tokens are tied up in the prizing of tournaments that are still ongoing. A lot of difficulties, both from the organisers' point of view and from the players' point of view, rests in the fact that the war was so "front-loaded" with so much of the action taking place early on. As more and more tourneys wrap up, a lot of players will recoup the cannons the "invested".

Anyway, the raw numbers I looked at this morning:

show: autotourneys from dora to pelagosa

by **Dukasaur** on Wed Aug 05, 2015 9:24 pm

On August 6th we will be commemorating the great August Offensive on the Gallipoli peninsula. This was the last serious attempt by the Allies to break the deadlock on Gallipoli and actually accomplish their objectives. After the failure of the August Offensive, it would be four more months before the Allies would finally admit defeat and evacuate Gallipoli. During those last four months they made no more real attempts to win and were simply stuck in a state something like Limbo or Purgatory -- unable to see a victory, but stubbornly unwilling to admit defeat, they would simply sit in their positions and fight, neither forward, nor back.

The August Offensive centred around a brand new landing of British and French troops at Suvla Bay. Allied Commander-in-Chief Ian Hamilton had a fairly good idea, making diversionary attacks from the old beachheads at Anzac Cove and Cape Hellas to cover the new invasion. Unfortunately, all three were bungled. In the north, the Allies landed almost unopposed and could have scored a spectacular victory. Unfortunately, the Suvla Bay invasion was in the hands of Sir Frederick Stopford, quite possibly the most pacifist general in the history of war, who seized the Bay and then procrastinated for two weeks about moving forward, squandering his initial advantage and giving the Turks all the time in the world to bring up reinforcements. Meanwhile, in the south and centre, the exact opposite was happening. General Street at Cape Hellas and General Birdwood at Anzac Cove were apparently not told that their attacks were just diversionary, and they launched brutal all-out attacks, losing thousands of men for tiny gains of territory.

After this, the Allies would enter four months of Purgatory, but first, they would spend fifteen days in Hell.

(In some sectors the fighting died down in four days or eight days. Only in a few areas did it continue to August 21st. Nonetheless, I've used a bit of poetic license here and expanded the "15 days" idea across the whole Offensive.)

We have five major tournaments here for you. Here's how they break down. First, north to south in terms of command area:

North (General Stopford's Anglo-French landing at Suvla Bay)

Suvla Bay

Centre (General Birdwood's Anzacs)

Chunuk Bair
Battle of the Nek
Battle of Lone Pine

South (General Street's Anglo-Indian forces at Cape Hellas)

Battle of Krithia Vineyard

Second, in terms of Conquer Club gameplay:
All Assassin: Battle of Krithia Vineyard
Terminator and Standard on site-default setting (SoC-style games): Battle of Lone Pine
1v1 bracket on tough maps and settings: Battle of the Nek
All Polymorphic: Chunuk Bair
Multiplayer Standard: Suvla Bay

Suvla Bay and Battle of the Nek are freemium-exemption tournaments. The other three are premium-only.

In terms of authorship, Suvla Bay is by JamesKer1, Chunuk Bair is by waauw, Battle of the Nek is by DoomYoshi, and the final two are by yours truly.

Now, the finer details:

show: Suvla Bay

show: Chunuk Bair

show: battle of the nek

show: battle of lone pine

show: krithia vineyard

by **Dukasaur** on Thu Aug 06, 2015 12:22 am

For those who didn't bother reading all of the spoilers in the previous post, here's the best part:

by **iAmCaffeine** on Thu Aug 06, 2015 4:22 am

So with this onslaught of tournaments about to begin I have a grand total of two cannon tokens and I'm struggling to get more, yay.

by **thetiger** on Thu Aug 06, 2015 7:17 am

is there a open tour to join in great war series ?

by **iAmCaffeine** on Thu Aug 06, 2015 7:20 am

thetiger wrote:is there a open tour to join in great war series ?

On the Central Command page there is a Great War banner above your games. Once you click it you have options for a scoreboard or info. Usually there are also tournaments waiting for players linked below. Currently there aren't any because a whole load will be issued tomorrow, so keep an eye out. You can also find them via the Tournaments tab at the top of every page, as auto-tournaments.

by **biscuit boy** on Thu Aug 06, 2015 9:58 am

iAmCaffeine wrote:So with this onslaught of tournaments about to begin I have a grand total of two cannon tokens and I'm struggling to get more, yay.

I'm down to 1 and play all the time. Last Cannon I received was July 27. I play the required maps all the time.

by **BUDMAN** on Fri Aug 07, 2015 6:30 am

hey Dukasaur
do freemium players need to keep 2 spaces open for Suvla Bay or spaces Battle of the Nek?

by **Dukasaur** on Fri Aug 07, 2015 6:36 am

BUDMAN wrote:hey Dukasaur
do freemium players need to keep 2 spaces open for Suvla Bay ?

No, it's a freemium exemption tournament, so it will put you in your tournament game even if you have no slots available.

You won't be able to join non-tournament games until you're back down to 4, however.