Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 12:17:11 +0000
From: Tournament Headquarters 
Subject: W2WT: Round B Update / Registration Completed!

Warlords of the World -

The results of the Round B Player Signup Survey are in!

94 Warlords will be competing in 24 games in Round B!  The distribution:
   16 Mac-Classic players in  4 games
   19 Mac-Deluxe  players in  5 games
   12 PC-Classic  players in  3 games
   47 PC-Deluxe   players in 12 games

Thanks to everyone for replying!

In Round A we had 132 players.  Nearly 3/4 of these are continuing
in Round B.  Of the remainder, 8 didn't answer the survey, 12 have
other commitments and chose not to continue, and 19 have become
Lost Players during the course of Round A (mostly after being defeated
in battle and giving up).  Still, we *are* losing a few excellent
Warlords, which is sad.  But only a few!  I think the Round A stats will
show that the vast majority of those who dropped out were not doing
very well.  (Winning isn't everything, but it does seem to be more fun
than losing.)  With most of the good players from Round A continuing
in Round B, the games will be getting more challenging - as they should! :)

Congratulations to all of you for surviving!  We should have an
excellent round ahead!

Over the next week or so we will be frantically fine-tuning the
scenario and starting gamefiles, polishing up some new rules
(and clarifications of old rules), and making the game assignments for
Round B.  In general the Tournament game-assignment computer program
does its best to give you a new color and a new set of opponents,
while keeping the overall assignments random.  But undoubtedly some
of you will see familiar faces, particularly in the smaller groups.


Comments on the Round B Signup Survey:

I really appreciated getting lots of answers to the question in
the survey asking if there was anything we could do better for Round B.
It seems everyone has been having a fun time in Round A, but there
were a few good concerns raised.

Several players were concerned about the theme of the Round B scenario,
particularly having Yahweh as one of the sides.  Others wanted more
opportunity for creative role-playing, particularly the ability to
rename the cities.  We have put these two ideas together and we are
now making a number of changes to the scenario that will allow
each player to decide the nature of his/her own side, and to rename
cities at any time.  Those of you who find yourself short on
fantasy inspirations can still use the old "Designers' Edition"
of the scenario as a guide, but those who want to be creative should
have a lot more flexibility now!

A few players also expressed concern about allowing razing to be on.
Obviously allowing razing at any time changes the strategic nature
of the game quite a bit.  The biggest concern was that players who
are losing may get bitter and raze many cities.  But razing is one
of the main features of the game, and it has been a staple of many
good play-by-email Warlords games in the past.  And we think that
since we have many rounds in the Tournament, we should vary the
game settings and the nature of the scenarios as much as possible
to make sure that whoever emerges as "The Greatest" is truly
the greatest overall, and not just good with certain rules settings.
In particular, during the three "open" rounds (A, B, and C),
we wanted to try one with razing anytime, one with razing on capture,
and one with razing off entirely.  So we will give razing anytime
a try this round, and see how it goes!  (If it doesn't work out,
well, you can all blame me and destroy my kingdom in Round C... :)  )

Another concern was raised about the flight items and the navies
in the game.  These increase the strategic complexity of the
game, which we think is very important for making the scenario
challenging and giving players a chance to prove their strategic
and tactical skills in ways that were not possible in Round A.
On the other hand, Warlords is quirky and buggy, and there may
be a lot of strange and surprising things happening in this Round.
As with razing, we think that flight items and navies are important
game options in Warlords, and we think it's worth trying them out
for at least one round, despite the risk of negative side effects.

On the topic of heroes:
  We'll only allow one ally (dragon or archon) for each quest.
  Meanwhile, we've come up with a 3-hero rule!  Here's how it works:

The 3rd hero may only arrive on Turn 7 (to make things even more
interesting in the middle of the game, after the basic expansion is over).
The 3rd hero may *not* come with an ally (this eliminates 7/8 of the
reverting, so getting the 3rd hero will be easier than getting the 2nd).
The 3rd hero must cost at least 1000 gold (as usual), unless both of
the original heroes are dead (in which case the regular hero-replacement
rules will apply instead).

All of this and more will be explained in an official ReadMe
sometime next week.  For now I just wanted to let everyone know
the results of the Round B Signup Survey, and how things were
evolving!  :)

-- Headquarters