Evaluation of the Tourny.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. This tournament tried to accomplish too many goals in my opinion. It was billed as a tournament, but functioned as a test of AI as well as a "fun" world event.

I think it would have achieved it's goals better if only one of those goals were the focus. I got the impression that the primary goal was the testing of AI for factions in the future. But I can't conclusively say that was the intent, it's obviously speculation.

I really like your idea of employing other aspects of the game, like diplomats. To expand on your idea, it would have been a lot of fun to have to send your scouts to a "Haunted" location, maybe even a graveyard or something similar and get a threat assessment of the kinds of troops you could expect to see rise and attack the standing stones. This could be done with a 48hour advanced warning?

Anyway, as a world event, this tournament was excellent. As a tournament, I am afraid I can't give it the same high praise.

I believe the tournament lasted a full month. This was a good length as it gave me incentive to alter my military production rates. Long enough to have an impact on the world of Illyriad, evidenced by the increased cost of military goods on the global market. 

I do wish we had headsup on what we would be using to win this tournament. My main army consisted of Infantry when the tournament began. As soon as I had a consistent report of the types of foes we were all DEFENDING against, I quickly changed all of my Sov. to increase archer production and began cranking out crossbow dwarves. too little too late tho, as I was unable to keep up with the demands of the undead. 

I eventually came to the conclusion that I could not win this Tournament based on my pre-existing army. So instead I changed my goals from winning it, to killing as many un-dead as possible. 

The inability to leverage alliances was a bit dissapointing. But not nearly as dissapointing as the inability to leverage diplomats. 

The "warning" before the final assault was badly timed in my opinion. I would of preferred the following order of events to occur prior to the final assault: 

- 3 days prior to the final assault I receive a message from one of my commanders telling me enemy forces are amassing a giant horde at location X:X in a last ditch effort to get to the summoning stones. 

- I have the option to send scouts and spies to that location to ascertain the nature of the assault. Scout's would tell me the numbers, and spies would tell me the timing of the attack. 

- 2 days prior to the final assault I receive a message from the Crimson group, saying they will send forces to aid me in the defense

- At this point I have the opportunity to develop a strategy 2 days in advance. In my case, knowing that I am going up against forces I have no way of defeating, I would of requested aid from all military units in my alliance. We would of rallied on my summoning stone and stood strong against the evil army that approached. 

Instead I had a few hours notice that something really bad was going to happen. With no time to take any action with the warning, I did nothing but wait to see what happens... and as we know, dragons happened. 

Mechanics: The basic mechanics were very simple. Occupy a summoning stone and 3 waves of enemy troops will attempt to attack the stone every night. You must defend against them and fight them off. 

Unfortunately this meant that offensive tactics were useless. 

What were your thoughts?