Date: 	Sun, 9 Nov 1997 15:22:06 -0500
From: "Robert F. Heeter" 
Subject: W2WT: Complete List of Official Rules Changes

Warlords of the World Tournament - 

[ This was supposed to go out at the start of Round A, but due to  ]
[ various circumstances it was delayed until now.                  ]

Based on our experience with the Practice Round and the Tutorials,
we have officially made a number of (mostly minor) adjustments
to the official tournament rules.  The main changes involve
improvements to make the time limit/vacation/timeout rules more
user-friendly, and adjustments in the way rules violations are handled.
Except for these, all of the changes listed below were incorporated
into the Tutorials that were sent during the Practice Round.

Please read the following information carefully, and contact your
moderator if you have any questions!

**********************************************************************
List of Rules Changes from "Practice Round Version" (20-July-97) to
"Round A Official Version" (1-Nov-97):
**********************************************************************

Following the outline of the Official Rules as found on
http://www.heeter.net/w2home/tournament/Rules.html:

II. Organization:
 C. The First Three Rounds:

   Replaced the sentence describing the first cut:

   >When the first cut occurs, a single pool of players will be chosen for
   >Round D, with each of the Four Groups represented in proportion
   >to the size of the group at the start of Round A.

   with the sentence:

   "When the first cut occurs, a single pool of players will be chosen for
   Round D, based on the rankings at the end of Round C.  (This pool may be
   divided into "Classic" and "Deluxe" groups with cross-platform play within
   each group; this would allow Classic players to play one more round
   before obtaining Deluxe.)"


 E. How to Win:

   Changed the statement:
   >In the early rounds, each of the four groups will be ranked separately.
   to
   "Players in all four flavors of Warlords will be ranked on a single scale."


  F. Prizes and the Final Rounds

   Changed:
   >This game alone will be made "public" on
   >the remailer so that everyone may observe (but not interfere).
   to
   "The Diplomatic History of this game alone will be made "public" on the
   remailer so that everyone may observe (but not interfere)."



III. Game Setup and General Rules
  D. Time Limits -
   This section was extensively rewritten.  The new rules are:
   (sorry for the HTML)

  • Turnaround Time Limits, Timeouts, and Absences:

    In order to minimize the duration of the tournament and make it as fun as possible, players must make their moves reliably in as little time as possible. However, some allowances for vacations and emergencies must be made. The following rules embody this philosophy:

    1. The turnaround time limit is 48 hours, enforced by the Warlords Remailer.
    2. Saturdays do not count in the 48-hour limit. Any event (file receipt or turn deadline) that would fall on Saturday is set to the same time on Sunday. (The "1-day weekend" rule.)
    3. Players may not suspend the game; the moderator controls the flow of the game.
    4. "Vacations": You are allowed up to 2 weeks of vacation per round, but any vacation must be announced in advance. Please give as much advance notice as you can, to avoid inconveniencing others. If need be, you may declare a vacation when it's already your turn. The game will be suspended by the moderator when your turn comes up after you leave, and will be revived when your vacation time expires. If you use up your two weeks of vacation time, the "additional absences" rule (see below) will apply, unless you request beforehand to use timeouts instead (see below).
    5. "Additional Absences:" You can take up to 2 weeks of "additional absences" in addition to the allowed vacation. As with vacations, you must announce the absence before you leave. Unlike vacations, though, during an additional absence the game must continue. For up to 2 weeks your turn will simply be skipped by the next player. In this case it's your responsibility to position your forces for defense (and live with the damage afterwards!). After 2 weeks you start using up timeouts (see below).
    6. You have four 1-day "timeouts" to extend your turn in case of crisis. These do not need to be announced in advance and will be used one at a time automatically by the remailer whenever your move becomes overdue. You do not need to use the whole day; however, once a timeout is started, it is gone. (The number of timeouts per round may change.)
    7. Timeout Replacement: You may replace lost timeouts by asking the moderator to subtract two days from your allowed vacation time for each timeout that is replaced.
    8. If you have a serious real-life crisis, you can announce a brief vacation at any time. If you have vacation time remaining, the game will be suspended, and you'll lose vacation days instead of timeouts. (If you are out of vacation days, the additional absences rule will apply once you run out of timeouts.)
    9. If you are going to run out of timeouts, you MUST contact the moderator before the last timeout expires, so that we know you are still "alive" in the game. Players who run out of timeouts and miss a turn without announcing an absence forfeit the game and are out of the tournament. If this happens the Lost Player rules (see below) will be applied by the moderator.
    10. Moderators may "suspend" the game during discussion of rules issues. Please check the Moderators' Bible before bringing rules questions to the moderators. Players should never suspend the game unless the moderator requests it.
    IV. Taking Your Turn C. Hero Rules Adjusted the gold limits on ruin searches to match the actual distribution of outcomes better and reduce the amount of reverting required: "You may revert as much as you like when receiving gold, but you may not receive more than 1250 from a ruin/sage, or 2500 from a stronghold. We recommend reverting to get 1200-1250 from each ruin/sage and 2400-2500 from each stronghold." E. Rules Violations Adjusted the number of allowed minor errors: "After the Practice Round, each player is allowed 3 Rules Errors per round (5 in Round A), with an overall limit of 12 (subject to change) for the whole Tournament." Then changed the rules error definitions and punishments:
  • Rules Violations (Rules Errors and Cheating):

    1. Rules violations are divided into three types:

      "Simple mistakes":
      These are minor violations, presumably due to a simple accident or misunderstanding of the rules. These are the errors that can be fixed (backing the game up a little if necessary) without affecting the course of the game afterwards. For instance, failure to report a battle(s) or hero action(s) is a rules error, and so is a minor WarBOT mistake. After the Practice Round, each player is allowed 3 Rules Errors per round (5 in Round A), with an overall limit of 12 (subject to change) for the whole Tournament. These Rules Error points are assigned and tracked by the moderator. There is no penalty for an individual error, but once either limit is reached, additional errors are considered cheating.

      "Major mistakes:"
      These are errors which cannot be fixed without affecting the course of the game. The prime example is a player sending a third diplomatic message. Messages cannot be un-sent, so this is a mistake that can't be fixed. Once Round A starts, we will use these rules:
      • A major mistake is counted as a rules arror as in (1).
      • The first major mistake causes your final reported gold and army strength values to be set to zero, causing you to lose out in any ranking tiebreaker.
      • Any subsequent mistakes result in the subtraction (at the *end* of the game) of one city from your final city count, or one turn from the your survival time (if you are wiped out).
      • Any repetition of a previous mistake is a two-city penalty.
      • A third repeat of the same mistake is considered cheating.

      "Cheating":
      These are deliberate rules violations which cannot be explained by ignorance or accident. Examples are editing the gamefile, generating invalid battle reports (fudging the odds), and repeatedly making the same mistake as though one didn't know better. In a case of possible cheating the issue will be decided by all the moderators. Cheating is a serious offense which will result in expulsion from the tournament; in clearcut cases players will be blacklisted and banned from future Warlords PBEM activities.
      F. Sending Gamefiles Added new rules on Gamefile Transmission Errors:

      If you send an invalid gamefile, (wrong turn, wrong game, not compressed right, etc.) the game will be suspended until a valid gamefile is sent, and a rules-error point will be assessed against you for delaying the game, since the delay might have been intentional. When re-sending the gamefile after a transmission error, do not replay your turn. If a turn report was sent with the invalid gamefile, the valid gamefile that is finally sent should match the turn report. (If there are other rules errors that require changes in the turn, then of course the entire turn must be replayed.)

      If you send a valid gamefile, then it should be played. But if you realize that an incorrect file was sent (say a file from before the move was finished), you can say in effect "Oops, I made a gamefile transmission error" and re-send the gamefile if you wish. This is only allowed if (a) the next player hasn't sent their turn through the Remailer yet, (b) no player has sent an "archive" (diplomacy) message since your turn report, and (c) the next player's turnaround time hasn't expired yet. And if you do send the gamefile again you will still be penalized with a rules error - but it might be worth the price! -- The Rules Gurus