First, we ought to keep in mind the Tournament Philosophy:
>From http://www.heeter.net/w2home/tournament/Philosophy.html:
>The Tournament philosophy can be boiled down to one overall statement:
>Design the tournament to select the best Warlord!
>
>Based on this, we have five decision criteria to assess ideas:
>
> 1.Prevent the possibility of undiscoverable cheating.
> 2.Keep the game as much like traditional Warlords as possible.
> 3.Make the tournament as balanced and fair as possible.
> 4.Keep the rules/overhead as simple as possible.
> 5.Make the tournament as enjoyable as possible for as many
> people as possible, within the above constraints.
[ N.B., this includes keeping it from taking too long. ]
Diplomatic Rules Variants: (roughly from most to least diplomacy allowed)
(1) Secret diplomacy: anything goes, secret diplomacy allowed.
(Not for use in the tournament.)
(2) Unlimited: Anything goes, but only via the Remailer.
(3) Limited (2-messages): 2 messages per turn, freedom of speech
(4) Messenger Units: Diplomatic messages to another player may only
be carried by designated "diplomat" units, which must end the turn
adjacent to a diplomat unit or city belonging to another player.
(Diplomats in the Tournament army set could be Orcish Mobs and Heroes.)
Diplomatic messages may be sent at any time to any side with which
you have such a diplomatic "embassy", within the overall limits on
the number of messages per turn (e.g., 2.) Aside from these messages,
you may also send your usual fully descriptive narrative about your
own turn, but it may not contain comments addressed to other players.
All messages must still be sent via the Remailer.
(5) Range-of-Influence / Fog of War: 2 messages, but you can only refer to
units/cities/ruins/map locations/etc within some range of influence
(say 5,10, or 20 spaces from the position of your nearest unit or city
at the end of your current/most recent move). Other discussion
must be general only, with no references to game objects, unit types,
etc., or even types of units or types of terrain.
(6) No-Specifics Rules, Version 2.1:
These rules are designed to prevent the giving of explicit tactical advice,
though indirect or non-explicit advice may still be given.
In your turn report, make separate sections for roleplaying,
diplomacy, and event reporting (the turn report template).
Your role-playing may only refer to events since your last move,
following the Touch Rules (below.)
In the diplomatic section of your turn report, and in other diplomatic
archive messages, you may direct comments to the other players, subject
to these "No Specifics" rules:
0) You may refer to stacks, cities, ruins, temples, and other map locations.
1) You cannot refer to specific armies, unit types or army attributes.
2) You cannot refer to Fight Order.
3) You cannot refer to Hero Items.
4) You cannot refer to City Production/Vectoring/Defense Level.
(7) Limited (1-message): 1 message per turn, but with freedom of speech.
(8) Range-of-Influence / Fog of War, as in (5), but 1 message only
(9) End-of-Turn Messengers: As in (4), diplomatic messages to another
player may only be carried by designated "diplomat" units, which
must end the turn adjacent to a (diplomat?) unit or city belonging
to another player. Diplomatic messages may only be sent at the
end of your own turn. Other than these messages, nothing else
may be sent except the standard turn report. All messages must still
be sent via the Remailer.
(10) "Blind Kings" ("Touch" Diplomacy), Version 4.0 :) -
These rules support role-playing while limiting the power of alliances,
diplomacy, and advice-giving to produce unfair game results.
Each player's forces can be thought of as a group of "objects"
(units, cities, items, etc.) inside the "game world" (neutral cities,
ruins, terrain, etc.). As players move, objects and parts of the
game world are "touched" (moved, attacked, searched, picked up,
moved across, etc.).
Each player gets one turn report role-playing message per move.
Turn reports may only discuss those events since that player's
previous turn report which directly involved their forces.
So, you can only refer to your own forces, the parts
of the game world that you touched, and the parts of other
players' forces which you touched or touched you.
You can say anything you like about how these were
part of your latest move, but you may not refer to anything
else inside the gamefile. You can always talk generally
about the game, make alliances, and carry out diplomacy,
provided all references to objects within the game are
allowed as above.
Here's a Warlords-style sort of rationalization:
A long time ago, before the present times of war and strife,
all kings sought to be good, powerful kings, the kind who would
lead their people to greatness. The high priests of the land
came one day to each of the four kings and said:
"Sire, as you are well aware, in order to be a good king,
one must be just. Do you agree?"
And each king said, "Of course!"
And the priests said:
"It is also well known that Justice is blind.
We have all seen the image of the blindfolded woman holding
the scales of Justice. Is this not true?"
And the king said: "Indeed, Justice is blind."
And the priests said:
"Sire, it follows that in order for a king to be good,
he must be just, and therefore he must be blind,
from birth in fact, so that he does not know what sight even is.
In that way, he shall consider all things with his mind only,
unbiased by the evidence of his sight, which is often false
and misleading. And lacking sight, he shall be forced to
engage in philosophical pursuits and the quest to understand
Justice in its pure form. So we have come to give
you a potion that will make sure that all your descendants
shall be blind philosopher-kings. Will you take it?"
And the king said:
"Priests, this is a hard thing that you ask me to do,
but my duty is to the future of my kingdom,
and I shall do what you ask."
And so it came to pass that now, throughout the land, all
the kings these days are blind from birth, and know only about
that which they can hear, touch, taste and smell.
Their generals and soldiers can see and fight as usual, but as the
kings themselves do not even understand the concept of sight,
they must only communicate about the things that they can touch.
Thus, the Kings have evolved as their Court Etiquette the
"Touch Rules" for carrying out their diplomacy and writing
their history.
Unfortunately, the priests were not entirely correct, and today's
Blind Kings are not necessarily any more wise or just than their
ancestors - they are still Warlords seeking to conquer the world!
(11) No-Advice Rules: You may not try to give any player any ideas about
what to do on their own turn. As used in Round C of the Tournament,
it was stated like this:
Play for yourself, without suggesting
actions or moves to the other players in your game. You can still
direct general diplomatic comments to the other players,
and discuss your own moves and plans in your role-playing.
Just don't tell others what they might, can, or cannot do - let
everyone think up their own moves. Keep your diplomacy vague and
general, so that the other players must use their own skill to
figure out what you mean, and to decide what to do each move.
(We find that this happens naturally in most games, particularly if
players create characters for their actual Warlords, and role-play
their diplomacy as well as their turn report narratives.)
Finally, the "Doves and Swords" diplomacy system will be *on*.
Everyone starts out at peace, and can use the traditional system
for declaring neutrality and war. (In a game with no computer players,
Doves and Swords is mostly just a simple way of communicating your
diplomatic state to the other players, and can be used in place of
any diplomatic emails if you wish.)
Hopefully this is clear, but examples are given below. In case of
doubt, or if you feel there's a problem, ask your moderator.
And as always, if you are unhappy with the moderator's ruling you
can appeal to the entire group of moderators and Rules Gurus.
Let's all work together to make Round C the most fun and exciting
round of the Tournament! Remember that the overall Tournament
rankings are supposed to reflect each player's individual ability
(both tactical and diplomatic), as determined in fair combat.
For reference, here are some examples:
(1) Your ally's ruin is about to be searched by an enemy hero,
and you want him to protect it. Instead of saying:
(Not Allowed)
"Ally, send your speedy elemental to protect the ruin from
the enemy hero; he can't attack it with the ruin defense bonus,"
You should limit yourself to something vague and general that the
player has to interpret, like:
(Allowed)
"Ally, protect your ruins! We can't afford letting our
mutual enemies get free stuff without a fight!"
(2) Instead of this:
(Not Allowed)
"Ally, in your upcoming battle for City 49,
why don't you change your fight order to keep your valuable
but weaker dwarf units alive, since the griffins can easily win
without any losses?"
You could say this:
(Allowed)
"Ally! Don't use peons when attacking cities, if you don't
have to! You and I can defeat our mutual enemies without
breaking a sweat!"
(3) Allowed: "Player 2, I think we should join our forces and fight
against the two nations in the south."
(4) Not Allowed: "Player 2, move your hero to the South Temple,
to keep Red from getting a blessing there."
(5) Allowed: "Player 2, I am planning to move my elemental stack to
the western front to add pressure to our mutual enemies."
(6) Not allowed: "Player 2, I am planning to move my elemental
stack to the western front to add pressure to our
mutual enemies. I suggest that your Devil stack
join us for the festivities."
(12) Telegraph Diplomacy: Standard turn report form only, plus up to
(60, 120, 240, etc.) characters of "telegraph"
text. Standard shorthand notation available to all.
* Not good for Tournament, since it's not fair to those
who haven't used the shorthand yet; but good for WW2L *
(13) Signposts Only: Standard turn report form only, plus signposts
and city names. If signposts or city names changed,
paste old and new text into turn report. (Signposts
and cities will all be numbered for reference.)
Standard shorthand notation available to all.
* Not good for Tournament, since it's not fair to those
who haven't used the shorthand yet; but good for WW2L *
(14) Doves & Swords: Standard turn report form only, diplomacy via
the "doves & swords" system within the game.
(i.e., the "Diplomacy" game option is turned on.)
(15) Every Warlord Stands Alone: Standard turn report form only,
no diplomacy or role-playing.
In this variant, players are not allowed to make alliances of any sort
with one another, but must instead fight only for their own country without
diplomatic negotiation of any sort. The premise could be that it's
a world in which the different nations have become civilized in complete
isolation, and they have such different customs and dialects that they can't
communicate at all. A shared genetic tendency to xenophobia could be involved,
too. This variant is a reaction against an observed tendency for PBEM games
to end rapidly when two powerful players make a secret treaty which upsets
the balance of power and quickly ends the game.
(16) Phases of the Game: Different rules can be used at different
stages of a game. For instance, one might say that no diplomacy
is to be used in the first few turns, while each player gets
established. (This was used in Round C of the Tournament.)
===== Official Shorthand Notation of the World Warlords II League =====
[ For use in Telegraph and Signpost diplomacy variants. ]
- Version 1.0, 21-June-1998 -
- Mike Leung and Bob Heeter -
Turn and Player References:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
c = cycle (turn) Txx = turn #xx Sx = side #x
Map Objects: (First letter capitalized)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ct = city Cxx = city #xx FtCt = Free Trade City*
Pt = port Rn = ruin Rxx = ruin #xx
Sg = sign post Sgxx = sign post #xx Tp = temple
Tw = tower
Units: (First letter capitalized; using unit names of default set)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ag = angel Al = ally Bt = bat
Dr = dragon Dm = demon Dv = devil
El = elemental Ep = elephant Hr = hero
Nv = navy Pn = peon unit* Sc = scout
St = stack Un = Unicorn Ut = unit
Actions:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ak = attack db = disband ex = exchange
mv = move re = reinforce rt = retreat
rz = raze sc = scout sk = sack
pi = pillage
Terrain:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
fr = forest hl = hills ms = marsh
mt = mountain pl = plain rd = road
sh = shore wt = water
Diplomacy:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
al = alliance Dg! = Danger gl = good luck
sry = sorry thx = thanks ms = message
Other Game References:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
mp = movement points xp = exp. points v = visible (see)
Language Shorthand:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
dn = do not tf = too far $ = gold pieces
/ = with & = and - = not
) = item number . = seperator > = to or go to
t = yes (true) f = no (false)
Directions:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
n = north s = south e = east w = west
* notes:
FtCt (Free Trade City) is a city which warlords agreed to allow others to
take it over in order to gain experience points for heroes as long as no
one stays overnight.
Pn (Peon Unit) is a throw away unit (bat, scout) that an ally use to
attack your hero to increase his/her experience point or used to block roads.
The World Warlords II League (WW2L):