King's 2nd Tournament - Bloodthirst For Knowledge

Attila the Hun wrote: If I may inset my person in to this discussion. While the tournament in nice, and I and some members are participating, those with larger armies, the players who have been in the game longer will be the ones winning.  They have the ability to train hundreds of soldiers as the weeks go by, mass produce equipment, have proper taxation for said soldiers. The only  "Win" i and my members will receive from this, is a few levels to our commanders, from attacking all the npc's.

It seems to me so far that for anyone with decent (~1000 unit) armies and a few leveled 20+ commanders--or even the ability to build such soon--the limit won't be based on the size of their military machinations but rather the time they have to grind through all the farming.

Anyone who can be online enough to launch the most attacks and spot new NPC spawns the quickest has a very high chance of winning even the "most stuff" category.  I think active producers with at least one well-developed city will be hard-pressed to lose troops faster than they can replace them, provided they make smart choices when attacking and don't try to spread themselves too thin.

Tournament has once again got me MUCH more active. Outside of tournament I normally log in once every 3-4 day max. No one is forcing me to participate and I'm competing more for the sake of competition than for the rewards.

IMO this tournament doesn't go against the spirit of Illyriad, it is totally in keeping with the spirit of Illyriad. Nobody is forced to participate in this competition and anyone who choses not to, or is forced not to by time constraints, will not find themselves at a big disadvantage. They will lose out on a chance at some Prestige and some temporary 1 off units, not game-changing rewards. Prestige is specifically designed by the dev team to be a nice perk, but not essential for players to enjoy the game. Infact I reckon a top player who avoided this competition might suddenly find themselves tens of thousands of troops stronger than their nearest enemies/allies in a month from now, a potentially much bigger advantage than anything the tourny rewards could achieve.

I say a big thumbs up to the team, who have once again delivered an exceptionally well timed, well designed and unique piece of gameplay.

Beengalas wrote: But there is also one that is for each category, eg. spiders and bears? If so, cool.

Yes, very much so:

GM Stormcrow wrote: INDIVIDUAL PRIZES - GREATEST HUNTERS Each individual who retrieves the greatest number of creature anatomical specimens from each different type of creature (eg Rats, Scritchers, Bears etc) will receive the following reward: Each 1st place winner: 100 Prestige and 10 Praetorian Guard units. This category means that there is an individual winner for wolves, a winner for rats, a winner for mammoths etc - based on the total number of anatomical specimens you collect.

Regards,

SC

Beengalas wrote: On the contrary, this design will make it harder for the lower populated players to participate in the tournament. Consider the current design: it gives you more to zerging low populated npcs. And therefore the larger players will avoid the huge NPCs armies out there. Lets take my area and see how much of a chance the low pop villages around me have: I am a paying player (prestige) and at the current moment I got, even after the loss, 13k tier 2 cavalry splitted in two cities. And now I use 5 armies in both, meaning I got 10 quick armies to hunt down NPCs. And I go for the low pop. Also, I started training 10k tier 2 infantry, and I expect having 20-25 armies fully equipped for dealing with most NPCs in this area within the week and it will grow bigger the further in the tournament. This is zerging and it will leave very little room for the low-pop players to actually be able to get NPCs they can deal with. And it ruins the low-pop players chance of enjoying the tournament, just because their target is more rewarding than what would be seen as my target. Bigger target should really equals bigger awards. And if you want to give the non-paying players a chance of actually getting something: split the tournament into divisions. One division for 1-500 pop, one for 501-1500 and so on. Same goes for alliances. This will create competition between equals instead of ScottFitz that is ranked 6 in pop and only a handful can compete with him.

I'm not suggesting that a small player is likely to win against a larger player in the total or unique categories - but isn't that an entirely natural situation?

I do think, however, that smaller players have a good chance of winning the individual Hunter categories if they concentrate on one type of animal - or especially are located in an area where unusual animal types spawn.  I mean, there are animals out there still that not one player has killed yet, and it is in these categories that I believe smaller individual players can shine. 

At the end of the day, the player (army speed inclusive) closest to the spawn that they want who is quickest off the mark will get the kill and the drop - not the largest player.

Most large players have grouped their cities into certain parts of the world, and they are therefore - by nature of distance - going to have trouble winning many of the Hunter categories for beasts that aren't in biomes near them.  Geographic location will certainly have an advantage in the Hunting categories, and a small player has an advantage over a large player in this once we re-allow moving capital cities (which will be back shortly) if they choose to relocate.

In regards to other suggestions, thank you - they're noted for future tournaments.

Regards,

SC

Hora wrote: I have one account out of the alliance atm. If I move it in again, will those parts be lost to the alliance? As it is only clarified for switching allies...

Hi Hora,

Items collected always count to your player (individual) total
Items collected whilst you are in an alliance count towards that alliances' total
Items collected whist you are not in an alliance do not count toward that alliances' total
Moving into or out of alliances does not move your Individual total-to-date into or out of that alliance

Regards,

SC