********************************************************************** * Round B Prizes and Awards, Part 3: * * * * THE SCROLL OF HONORS - ROUND B * * * * "A compilation of interesting honors and statistics * * derived from the Round B game histories and final gamefiles." * ********************************************************************** As you will discover in the notes that follow, Round B was even more full of Warlords action than Round A! (And our stats spotters may even have missed a few interesting numbers!) For those who want to compare, we have tried to include the corresponding Round A stats for each award... A. Battlefield Exploits (Whole Army): 1. "Blitzkrieg Award" For the fastest takeover of the entire map, the Blitzkrieg Award goes to The Untouchables of B05, who allied with A Friend and defeated King Warren while holding off their nemesis, Celeborn. When A Friend suddenly became a Lost Player, The Untouchables raced against Celeborn to control the cities of their lost ally. In the climactic turn, they routed King Warren (who preserved himself by retreating through Celeborn's rear cities) and set a trap for Celeborn's mightiest hero (see the Ninja award in the War Museum section). When the dust cleared, Celeborn resigned from the game, leaving The Untouchables with nothing to do except clean up some Static Defenses and hunt down King Warren's last forces. By Turn 19 The Untouchables ruled the entire world! (Round A: Falcon, A25, Turn 14.) 2. "Total Carnage Award" For most total casualties in the Triumphs report at game's end. Individual Winner for Round B: RoadRunner (White, B19, with 402) Round B Runners-Up: Dark Lord Pi, White in B12, with 342, and Lord Gumby, Blue in B07 with 273. (Round A winner was Fortissimo in A14 with 416.) Group Winners: Game B13 had 468, and B19 had 460! (Round A winner was A14 with 427+) 3. "Decimation Award" - For killing the most enemy units The winner is Legion of Doom, White in B13 with 260! Runner-up: RoadRunner (B19, White) - 255. (Round A: Fortissimo, 247.) 4. "Efficiency Award" - best kill ratio (kills divided by losses) Winner: Lovesword, Blue in B17, with an incredible 3.61. Wow! Runners-Up: Rorqual of B06 and Untouchables of B05, with 2.15. (It is worth noting that disbanded armies do not count as losses, so someone might end up with inflated statistics if they had many units disbanded rather than lost in combat.) (Round A: Sir Ripper, A27, 2.83.) 5. "War Is Hell" Awards, Part 1 - most casualties in a single battle (A battle is defined as a series of attacks on a single target, and casualties are counted for both sides.) Winners: Kalten, B15, Turn 20, with 69 dead in one battle. Runners-up: Falcon, B20, Turn 20, with 57. Gor Bonecracker, B06, Turn 13, with 55. King Chu vs. Lord Elric in B01 on Turn 18, with 53. (Round A: Game A31, Turn 18, with 63.) 6. "War Is Hell" Awards, Part 2 - most casualties in one player's move (Casualties are counted on both sides.) Winner: Kalten, B15, Turn 20, with 134! (Round A: Guntar, A36, 107.) 7. "Maginot Line" - Strongest Defensive Garrison, including bonuses (Note - maximum possible strength of a garrison is 32 x 14 = 448.) The winner for Round B is Lord Elric of B01, who reached 362 with a fully-loaded city! (See the "Packed Like Sardines" award in the War Museum.) However, Lovesword (Red in B16) deserves equal mention, for he had TWO hugely defended cities, one at 351 and the other at 359! (Round A: Turin Turambar in A29 had 348.) 8. "Mongol Hordes" - Massive attacks: Most attacks on a single target in one turn: Kalten, B15, Turn 20, 8 attacks on one city. (Round A: Lord Lucky, T18, 8.) Most attacks in one turn: Kalten, B15, Turn 20, 12 attacks in turn. (Round A, Lord Lucky, T18, 12.) Most enemy cities captured in 1 turn: Untouchables, B05, took 6 cities with 11 attacks on Turn 16. (Round A: Hunzo and Turin Turambar each took 8 cities.) B. Battlefield Exploits (Heroes): 1. "Jack The Ripper" - for killing the most enemy heroes Winner: The Untouchables of B05, killing 7 of 9 enemy heroes! (But it must be noted that 5 of the 7 were in Static mode at the time they died.) Runners-Up: 4 Warlords had 5 hero kills each - Legion of Doom of B13, Turin Turambar of B24, Hunzo of B11, and Fortissimo of B10, (Round A: King Chu (A02) and Fortissimo (A14) had 5 each, which is impressive in a round with only 6 enemy heroes.) 2. "Jack's Apprentice" - for killing the most enemy allies Winner: Again, The Untouchables of B05, with 18 ally kills! (but again, many were in Static Defense) Runners-up: Legion of Doom of B13, with 10; Hunzo, B11, with 9; Lord Gumby, B06, and Fortissimo, B10, with 8 each. (Interestingly, in B05, *all* of the allies ever to appear in the round were dead at the end of the game - a total of 26!) 3. "Double-Play Awards" - killing 2 heroes in one turn This time around, with 3 heroes per side, there were so many double-plays that we cannot list them all here. But it is worth noting that one side came up with a trio of double plays: The Untouchables of B05 killed pairs of heroes on Turn 12, Turn 17, and Turn 18. (But again, most of the heroes slain were on Static Defense.) However, what we really want to honor is something better than a double play... 4. "A Triple-Play!" For this we honor Lord Gumby of B07 who somehow managed to eliminate three enemy heroes all on Turn 14! (Round A: Falcon, A25, Turn 8.) 5. "Conan the Barbarian" - most hero experience The following heroes accumulated the most glory and experience during Round B. Let their mighty names be remembered forevermore! 46 - Legion of Doom's hero Oden (B13, White) 42 - ShirKhan's hero Famine (B12, Blue) 40 - RoadRunner's hero Dusty (White in B19) 36 - Centurion (The Centurion, B18) (Round A: Steve the Giant's heroine Fat Fanny Fig had 47.) 6. "Conan's Twin Brother and Sister" - most experienced hero team - Legion of Doom's 3 heroes had a total of 97 experience! - In B11, Hunzo's 3 heroes had a total of 91 experience! 7. "Favorites of the Gods" - for completing the most quests This award has to go to Hunzo, Red in B11, who completed 3 quests - one for each hero! Runners-Up: Six players managed to complete 2 quests each - Kamevil of B10, King Chu of B01, Legion of Doom of B13, Lord Gumby of B07, Piglet of B04, and Turin Turambar of B24. 8. "Pilgrims' Piety Award" - most-blessed units Round B saw many players sending units on "Temple Tours". The winner is Legion of Doom's heroine Freja in B13, who became a quadruple-blessed hero! But we should also mention Little Puppy's triple-blessed elemental in B09, and Lord Havell's trio of triple-blessed griffins in B21! C. End of Game Statistics and Situations: 1. "Balance of Power" - most balanced game outcomes. In 3 out of the 24 Round B games, all 4 players survived through Turn 21, Side 1. Of these three, one game came the closest to a full 4-way split of the map (though not too close). So the "Balance of Power" award for Round B goes to Leichenbestatter, Sir Ripper, Dr H, and Ythorm Carstick of B22! The honorable mentions go to B09 and B18. (Out of 36 games in Round A, only in A22 did all four players survive to the end. A22, B22 - what is it about the number 22 that makes for a balance of power?) 2. "Pyromaniacs and Arsonists" Take the matches away from Knight Isc, Wargs, Solomani, and Dragon Lord Gary IV! In B23 they torched 24 out of the 44 cities on the map. By turn 20 only 20 cities were left! (The winner for Round A was A10, with 19 out of 44 cities razed.) 3. "Historical Preservation Society" Some claim "It's better to burn out, than fade away", but it's clear that our PC-Classic players don't thinks so! They put together the only two games of Round B where not a single city was razed (B10 and B12), and only three cities were burned in B11, the other PC-Classic game. So much for the "raze at any time" rules option! (In A25 and A24, some players actually took over the entire map without any cities being razed.) 4. "North Korea" This honor goes to Duncan Macleod of B04, who wound up the game with 175 points of army strength defending just a single city, giving him the highest ratio of army strength to city count! (The Runner-up is Lord Vetinari of B09, with 130 points in 1 city. And honorable mention also goes to Bosquito of B07, with 242 army strength and 2 cities, for a ratio of 121 to 1.) (The highest in Round A was Celeborn of A10, with 122 to 1.) 5. "Le Grande Armee" The strongest army after Round B was Piglet's in B04, with a total unmodified base strength of 930. The Untouchables took 2nd with 895, and Wat Tyler was 3rd with 886. (But none of these came close to Hunzo's total of 1592 from Round A!) 6. "Churchill Award" The famous leader once praised Britain's small, battered, but able Royal Air Force for skillfully defending Britain's skies against the Germans in the Battle of Britain during World War II, saying "Never have so many owed so much to so few." Trebor Melas of B24 earns the Churchill Award for a similar feat: managing to hold 6 cities on Turn 21 with just 54 points of army strength! 7. "Midas Touch" The golden boy this round was Legion of Doom in B13, with the largest final war chest: 7740 gold! This was well ahead of Centurion's 5933, and also far more than Lord Lucky's Round A collection of 6719 in A35! 8. "Bill Gates III" Only 12 of 96 players finished Round B with their war machines running at a profit. For finishing the game with the highest total profits of +244, Legion of Doom of B13 takes the "Bill Gates" award for Round B! (However, Pooh achieved a +1038 in Round A after disbanded virtually all his armies on his last move, and it is doubtful whether anyone will ever match that!) 9. "Going for Broke" Of the 50 players who finished Round B while running a deficit, Wat Tyler gets the record for going for broke the fastest! His final "profits" were a whopping -681! (But in Round A, Sir Ripper finished A27 with a deficit of -799.) D. Game Speed and File Sizes: 1. "Speed Demons" The fastest turnaround was achieved in B18, which finished on April 25 after just 2 months and 1 day! (In Round A, A27 finished after 3 months and 24 days.) 2. "Slowpokes" This dubious distinction goes to B20, the slowest game of Round B, which finished on October 12 after 7 months and 19 days. (In RoundA, A08 finished after 6 months and 21 days.) 3. "James Michener / Isaac Asimov Award" - long-winded and/or prolific Question: "What happens if you put Iceman, Avenger, Gandalf the White, and MadMax together in a game?" Answer: 769K of diplomatic messages, and the Michener Award! We thought the 511K history file from A17 was verbose, but you should see B08! It wasn't just that these guys wrote a lot of role-playing. Apparently none of them trusted the others, and they all engaged in massive amounts of non-stop diplomacy. As a result, the B08 history file is easily 50% larger than any other Round B game history!) And it is no surprise to see why. On turn 8, after 200 lines of text, Iceman -- the short-winded one! -- manages to state: "And this brings me to the crux of the message" An honorable mention for effort must be given to MadMax. By Turn 4, it has become apparent that each turn each player is required by a code of honor to engage in diplomacy with each other player. Horrifically, MadMax finds himself with nothing to say to the player in the opposite corner (Avenger), and is forced to make due simply with: > 2) Avenger: HI. How's it going?" 4. "O Henry Award" The best "short story" game in Round B was B22, whose history file was only 200K. (By comparison, in Round A the smallest was A25 at 164K.) 5. "Moderator's Dream / Where's the Moderator?" The shortest Query Log in Round B was for B19, at only 38,572 bytes. Were the players really angels, or was the moderator delinquent? :) (By comparison, the shortest for Round A was in A34 at 45,876 bytes.) 6. "Moderator's Nightmare" In Round A the longest Query Log was a "mere" 280,488 bytes (A29), and was longer than many game histories! Nonetheless, in Round B two games exceeded that. In B05 the log file hit 308,115 bytes - but B11 blew that away, with 361,894 bytes! That's about 180 pages of printed text, just for the query log. In fact, as in A29, the B11 query log turned out to be longer than the official game history file! We are gratefully indebted to moderators George Hulseman (B05) and Gary Best (B11) for putting up with these very trying games, and seeing them through to the end.