Introducing the Battlezone

[Tacticalwithdrawal]

ok,

what I am proposing is written below, please comment/criticise/rail at/support as you wish. Intention is to set it up and running later this week.

Battlezone - the rules

• There are two battlezones, RTW and BI
• Within each Battlezone there are two leagues, one with 'Normal' difficulty and one with 'Very hard' difficulty
• Each league has a set of battles within it (initially just the Historic battles but we can expand this going forward).
• Battles must be played using vanilla patched to the latest patch (ie. 1.5 for RTW) and on 'Large' size at either 'Normal' or 'VH' difficulty and with time limit switched off. No mods should be used.
• There is no limit to the number of times you submit a result having played a battle, but only your best result will be taken for each league.
• Battle results are scored based upon Number of Victory points + Kill ratio
  
  
  Victory points
• 10 points - Heroic Victory
• 8 points - Clear Victory
• 7 points - Average Victory
• 6 points - Draw
• 5 points - Close Victory
• 4 points - Close Defeat
• 3 points - Average Defeat
• 2 points - Clear Defeat
• 1 point - Crushing Defeat
  
  Kill Ratio = Your number of Kills/(Your Men Deployed-Your Men Remaining), this takes into account kills by friendly fire as well as the number of casualties healed, so be warned, keep those missile troops under control. (and I'll round the result to 1 decimal place, rounding .5 down)

[ckerr094]

Good idea.

[Obi Wan Asterix]

This sounds good Tac. I assume both would only be with Vanilla?

[Tacticalwithdrawal]

This sounds good Tac. I assume both would only be with Vanilla?

yeah, to start with (quickly heads off to make that clearer), but I'd really like to do the 'guest mod' idea, We'll just have to see whether this takes off.

[Hader]

Great idea, I will participate. And help you if you need it.

[infernalbob]

count me in.

[Slimshoom]

Sounds good. I would love to be able to participate. But, sadly I probably wont have enough time to do this, good concept though.

[Libertine]

sounds pretty cool to me, although that said I am infamouisly bad at Histroic battles

[Flogger]

I don't understand, are these multiplayer or single-player games?

[Hader]

I don't understand, are these multiplayer or single-player games?

These are single player games played against the AI, and the goal is to get the best battle outcome.

[infernalbob]

i agree "draw" and "close victory" should be switched. a close victory is still better than a draw.

[Incinerate_IV]

Shouldn't close victory get more points than draw?

[Slimshoom]

in my short history of playing the game, ive been horrid at quick and historical battles...

[Hader]

in my short history of playing the game, ive been horrid at quick and historical battles...

Well with this I don't beleive you have to be quick, although it can help. Well I see this as another way to have fun with RTW.

Yay, post 700!

[Publius]

I like it. I am too lazy to reinstall the vanilla versions of the game right now, but I look forward to the mod specific battle zones of the future.

[MasterAdnin]

Good idea tac, I hope it all works out.

PEace,
Adnan

[NobleNick]

It would be nice to have more than just the top 3 scores for each battle. Doesn't seem like it would be any extra work. Top 5 would be nice. Top 10 would be nicer.

On scoring: I presume people won't be sending in historic battle results unless they actually win or at least draw. (You could make this a ground rule.) In this case, a schedule as below would spread out the pack, so that you don't have to go to the second decimal point to differentiate between the top 3 scores:

Battle results are scored based upon Number of Victory points + Kill ratio

Victory points
20 points - Heroic Victory
15 points - Clear Victory
10 points - Average Victory
5 points - Close Victory
0 points - Draw

On "Kill Ratio," it would theoretically be possible to get an astronomical "Kill Ratio" if you lost very few men. (Kill Ratio = infinity, if you lose no men and kill at least one enemy.) I suggest the following modification to keep the "Kill Ratio" portion of the score reasonable in all cases:

Modified Kill Ratio = (Your number of Kills)/((Your Men Deployed-Your Men Remaining) + (Enemy Deployed/X) ). Where X is the theoretical maximum Kill Ratio for a perfect performance (all enemy killed and none of your men killed). Examples (assuming a 1000 versus 1000 battle and X = 100) :

_ Enemy __ Friendly __ Kill ___ Modified
_ Killed ___ Losses __ Ratio __ Kill_Ratio

___ 0 ____ 1000 ____ 0.0 ____ 0.0
__ 400 ____ 800 ____ 0.5 ____ 0.5
__ 500 ____ 500 ____ 1.0 ____ 1.0
__ 600 ____ 300 ____ 2.0 ____ 1.9
__ 900 ____ 100 ____ 9.0 ____ 8.2
_ 1000 _____ 50 ___ 20.0 ___ 16.7
_ 1000 ______ 5 __ 200.0 ___ 66.7
_ 1000 ______ 1 _ 1000.0 ___ 90.9
_ 1000 ______ 0 _ (infinity) _ 100.0
__ 500 ______ 0 _ (infinity) ___ 5.0
__ 100 ______ 0 _ (infinity) ___ 1.0
___ 10 ______ 0 _ (infinity) ___ 0.1
____ 1 ______ 0 _ (infinity) ___ 0.0

Or you could just keep the kill ratio formula you already have (that would make the math cleaner), but cap it at a maximum of X

Also, if you are taking this out to 1 decimal place, then I assume you wanted the following to read, "...(and I'll round the result to 1 decimal place, rounding .05 down)."

Ermmm... How to keep a video of you battle? I presume it is an intuitive option (never played an historic battle) ?

Oh, yes, forgot to say: Regardless of how the scoring is run, this sounds like a really neat idea; and I would like to participate.

[Bessems]

How would you want to check if people play with the vanilla settings? Because if it is a historical battle (like you propose) cheating is quite easy. First it is impossible to save some sort of replay of the battle (only possible with a custom or quick battle) and how does anyone knows if the stats of the vanilla aren't moddified? You could, for example give your peasantunits the same stats as spartan hoplites.
To make it fair you should add a referee. Play a multiplayer battle (will only work if everyone has the same mod/patch installed) with 3 players: the human player who wants to set a score, his opponent (the CPU player) and the referee (a human player with only one unit, that doesn't take part in the battle). The referee should be allied with the human player,so the battle will be over after the CPU player is defeated.
However, to do it this way will seriously affect the number of people that signup for this 'contest'.

Although it is a good idea, my believe is that their will always be people that cheat to set the highest score.

[Tacticalwithdrawal]

I don't understand, are these multiplayer or single-player games?

single player, multiplayer is too complicated and a lot of people cannot do it due to technical restrictions.

But, if this league takes off then there is no reson we can't add a multiplayer league as well.

TW, how would we give you the replay? Would we open the RTW directory and find the replay in the replay folder, then like upload to the internet and give it to you to download and view?

I think I'd just get people to email them to me, nice and simple.

And if it is OK with you, I can help judge or whatever it is.

if it takes off all help will be gratefully received!

Shouldn't close victory get more points than draw?

oops, thanks for spotting that.

It would be nice to have more than just the top 3 scores for each battle. Doesn't seem like it would be any extra work. Top 5 would be nice. Top 10 would be nicer.

I'll see how the layout works (we can't imbed spreadsheets unfortunately) but yes, it would be good to have as many as possible.

On scoring: I presume people won't be sending in historic battle results unless they actually win or at least draw. (You could make this a ground rule.)

I want to encourage all levels to send in results (and some of them are hard to get a win on). I think I'll just make it that anything below a draw earns you the same number of points. I also want to keep the number of points fairly close and small as then the kill ratio will have an effect (encourages people to play intelligently and look after their men as they'd have to in a campaign). So:

Victory points
12 points - Heroic Victory
9 points - Clear Victory
7 points - Average Victory
5 points - Close Victory
3 points - Draw
1 point - Defeat

On "Kill Ratio," it would theoretically be possible to get an astronomical "Kill Ratio" if you lost very few men. ........

Or you could just keep the kill ratio formula you already have (that would make the math cleaner), but cap it at a maximum of X

good point, with my maths ability ( ) I'd prefer to keep it simple. Plus your comment sparked my little grey cells and I realised I could easily win the league by simply killing a few of his men (and thus getting a high ratio) and then running away resulting in a draw.

So, the new rule will be (changes in bold):

Kill Ratio = Your number of Kills/(Your Men Deployed-Your Men Remaining) with the maximum being capped as = to your victory points (ie. if you get a close victory the maximum kill ratio bonus you can get is + 5), this takes into account kills by friendly fire as well as the number of casualties healed, so be warned, keep those missile troops under control. (and I'll round the result to 1 decimal place, rounding 0.05 down). If we have a points draw then the winner will be decided on Kill ratio taken to as many decimal places as required.

Also, if you are taking this out to 1 decimal place, then I assume you wanted the following to read, "...(and I'll round the result to 1 decimal place, rounding .05 down)."

told you maths wasn't my strong point......

Ermmm... How to keep a video of you battle? I presume it is an intuitive option (never played an historic battle) ?

for custom battles the results screen has a button on it with a camera, push that and it saves. Need to check it is the same for historic battles....

Good idea.

I went and rushed played my first ever Historical battle on very hard. Nice we get a long intro movie at the start. Not nice the tactical position you find yourself in ! Scored 1.4 on LakeT. Got the two end stats screens but no other screen. So I cant comply with the submission rules so cannot submit my result. Damm. That would have been top spot.

Hope all historical battles are not that overwhelming. I will go back to h/h campaign for a bit of confidence building and keep looking in for the real start to this 'battlezone'

hey congrats, you did start with the worst Historic battle IMO (I don;t think I've ever won that one...)

I'm changing the requirements so you only have to post the last 2 screens, that should be enough.

By the by, was there an option to save a replay on the battle?

[Hader]

Would we email you in a similar method?