Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 23:05:37 +0100 From: Tournament Headquarters(by way of Robert F. Heeter) Subject: W2WT: Tutorial #3A - Heroes and their Heroics (B) Rules Tutorial #3: Heroes and Hero Activities This is an important tutorial, because Heroes are critical to winning, and the Tournament Rules for Heroes are a little tricky to understand. There is also a common WarBOT mistake involving hero bonuses which has led to a number of deaths (of heroes, not players!). This is explained in Part B, along with many useful survival tips. Please read both parts of this tutorial carefully! The philosophy behind the Hero rules is that we have to allow players to revert, since we can't enforce a "no-reverts" rule. This means all hero activities have to be regulated, so that reverting doesn't give any player an advantage. Also, the rules are designed to minimize the amount of reverting needed to stay competitive, since reverting is boring and not fun. Therefore: * You are limited to at most one living hero at any time, except in "Multiple Hero" rounds (which will be announced in advance). Otherwise, some players would cheat by reverting to get a lot of heroes. You're not allowed to accept any heroes except using a special procedure after your last hero is dead. * There are no quests. Otherwise some players would revert for hours to get easy quests, and then revert after completing the quest to get the best reward. That wouldn't be fair or fun. * When you visit a ruin, you can receive at most 1800 gold or 1 ally. When you visit a stronghold, you can get up to 3600 gold or 2 allies. When you visit an item ruin, you can revert until you survive and get the item it contains. These rules are also designed to limit reverting and prevent cheating. In practice the most time is spent reverting to get gold, but it's not bad, and gold is very useful! * If your hero dies, you use a special procedure to replace him/her. Similar to normal Warlords, the number of turns you must wait to get a new hero depends on how much gold you have. You can keep at most 1 ally with a replacement hero, and the type of ally may be restricted to keep the game in balance. (These restrictions will be announced at the start of the game. The 1-ally limit is so players don't feel they must revert extra to get 2 or 3 allies.) The exact rules are available via http://www.heeter.net/w2wt/index.html Should you lose your hero, ask your Moderator to explain the replacement procedure in more detail because it is confusing the first time through. But pray that it happens to someone else first! :) When it comes time to get a new hero, you may wish to plan ahead to spend up to two hours reverting, because you are allowed to revert until you get a hero in the city you want, with the ally you want. This is the least enjoyable part of the Tournament, but our playtesters were willing to go through it to have just the right ally in just the right city. The other aspect of the Hero rules involves reporting the activites of your hero. There are three reasons for reporting things: (1) The game becomes more fun and the Remailer history is more interesting. (2) By tracking the actions of all heroes, it's easier to catch cheaters. (3) If you declare what you've done, it's easier to find and fix mistakes. For instance, if you visit a stronghold and forget that you can only get two allies, you'll report 3-5 allies, and everyone will immediately inform you that you have to disband some of them (and possibly replay your turn to do so). Also, if you don't report that a hero has gone up a level, other players may miscalculate your bonus, leading to battle-odds errors. The specific things you have to report are listed in the Turn Report Template discussed in Tutorial #1: ( See http://www.heeter.net/w2home/tournament/RptTempl.html ) Some of the reporting requirements have to do with the hero-replacement rules, and are designed to keep everyone in the game aware of your hero replacement status. You don't need to worry about them unless you're going through the process of replacing a dead hero. If anything is confusing, remember the Tenth Commandment: Ask thy Moderator! A number of very useful tips follow in Part B, read it carefully! -- Tournament Headquarters