Welcome Comrades to the 82nd edition of the Dispatch
Our thoughts and prayers go out to all the victims of Hurricane Sandy. May you keep safe and look after each other. Sure humans can be vile to each other (and our hearts go out to those hot spots too) but no-one expects mother nature to upset the apple cart in such a spectacular fashion! The Dispatch's current turmoil pales into comparison but I can assure you that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel and the train has begun moving again. Watch this space and be ready for some more great things from our dedicated team!
Halloween is upon us (along with Allantide, Abaidas, Quentin, Wolfgang of Regensburg, Eastern Orthodox Liturgics, Reformation Day, Shamhain, Brythonic Calan Gaeaf, Kalan Gwav, Kalan Goañv or even Parentalia and as we move into Día de los Angelitos and Día de los Muertos or Día de los Difuntos). Are you Trick or Treating, flying a kite, feasting, celebrating the opening of Lieben University (1587), remembering the resumption of the Maori wars in the Waikato (1863), commemorating Nevada's admision as the 36th state (1864), holding a torch for the 200,000 souls lost in the great cyclone in India (1876), marvelling at the last successful cavalry charge in history in World War One's Battle of Beersheba (1917), gasping at the stunning losses of the propane tank explosion at the Indiana State Fair (76 dead and 400 injured in 1963), or those as a result of Ghandi's death (10,000+ sikhs killed in riots in 1984), being inspired by the Soyuz TM-31's launch allowing for the continuous manning thereafter of the International Space Station (2000) or just putting your feet up!
[player]Safariguy[/player] updates our Mafia world with flair. No interview this issue, but we hope to get back to those from next issue onwards!! Mr reliable, [player]Dukasaur[/player], updates the tournament world with both Tournament Tips and TPA Wrap up from [player]DaveH[/player] and Join this? Or not! from [player]WorldCup4James[/player]. It is my turn to bring you the Strategy section - in which I ask whether we need Strategy Guides and I introduce a new series of articles on Collective Wisdon and this time we look at [player]skychaser[/player]'s views on how to deal with cooks. The Foundry section is as busy as ever so much so that I thought it was a circus. In keeping with the circus theme, [player]Qyu[/player] looks at Circus Maximus while [player]Koontz1973[/player] is as busy as ever - updating maps, talking about Halloween and ... drum roll ... another competition. Finally, [player]Icepack[/player]wraps up what is happening in the clans - and there is a lot happening! Well, for being thin on the ground, it's impressive to see that the Dispatch keeps on trucking!
Enjoy the fruit of our labouring fingers!
[player]thehippo8[/player] Foundry Executive
If you would like to apply to join the news team, please visit the thread below for more details!
Hello again Freestylers. The twin evils of school and work could not keep me from my duty. The Masli interview fell down between the desk and the wall and no matter what we try it cannot be shifted so we have to publish without it. Never mind, I still get to talk a bit more on mafia setups for this issue. You Stay Classy, CC.
Time to sharpen your pencils and sit up straight. It's time to learn something. I can't remember if it was Barry, Maurice or Robin which said:
Strategy When the spoil's are gone and you can't go on It's strategy When the dice are crap and you don't know why It's hard to bear With no wins to turn to you're goin' nowhere Strategy When you lose control and you got no cards It's strategy When the stacks vanish and you don't know why It's hard to bear With losing conditions you're out of here When the team-mate's gone and and it's all gone wrong Strategy
Maybe I heard them wrong? Anyway, time for the Strategy section to return to Dispatch. In this issue I have a look at Strategy Guides - do we really need them? I also have a look at [player]skychaser[/player]'s brilliant exposition on how to deal with cooks. Although I kept butting it, I did learn something and hope you do too. Alternatively, if you know better then please speak up! Better still, get yourself on the Dispatch team and tell it like it is - we need the help!
Hello again my friends, and welcome to your favorite part of the Newsletter, "War Games", where you can find information about CC Tournaments!
"What are we going to read tonight, Brain?"
"Same thing we read every night! Join This? Or Not! by [player]WorldCup4James[/player], TPA Wrap by [player]DaveH[/player], and Tournament Tips by [player]DaveH[/player]!"
"Good idea!"
Today I have had the honour of awarding GC medals to Dave and James for the fourth consecutive quarter. They have both now served (slightly more than) one full year at the Dispatch, and been very highly productive during that time. I'm very, very delighted to have these guys on my team!
Tournament Tipsby DaveH [spoiler=Tournament Rescue and Round Robins.]As you probably have guessed, I get great satisfaction from using Excel in organising tournaments. However, I have not had any new/different tournament ideas recently so I looked at some of the tournaments that needed rescuing and picked up three that were part of the TPA series of tournaments.
You quickly realise just how inventive others are in their tournament design and it certainly made me think about different ways of managing them using Excel. As an example there is one that started with 100 players playing 100 games on 100 different maps - fantastic!
At the stage that I picked it up the remaining 39 players needed to complete 47 more sets of games. 38 of these is by every player playing everyone else - a Round Robin of 39 players. To do any round robin, irrespective of the number of players there is a simple way of designing it. For instance, with 14 players the match up in Round 1 would be:
1 vs 14 2 vs 13 3 vs 12 4 vs 11 5 vs 10 6 vs 9 7 vs 8
For the remaining rounds you leave player 1 in first place and "rotate" the rest of the players. i.e.
Round 2 1 vs 13 14 vs 12 2 vs 11 3 vs 10 4 vs 9 5 vs 8 6 vs 7
and so on;
Round 3 1 vs 12 13 vs11 14 vs 10 2 vs 9 3 vs 8 4 vs 7 5 vs 6
To translate these into sets of players, the numbers are written into the spreadsheet in two columns and the second set can be coded by referencing the appropriate position in the first set (according to the above sequence). When all positions in the second set are complete, the whole table can be copied sequentially to complete the number of rounds.
Part of the table therefore looks like: The round numbers are on top. (The players reference numbers are not sequentially as they are from a previous list that was not ordered alphabetically)
The maths for the round robin types of tournament are as follows. For n players , if n is even, there will be n-1 rounds with n/2 games each round (for 1 vs 1 type games of course!). If n is odd then you have to use(n+1) as the "n" value.
OK, so for my tournament I have 38 rounds and, in my spreadsheet, I have a table of 38 sets of two columns of the 39 player match-ups. I have to assign players' names to this and, as in previous articles, I use the Excel VLOOKUP function.
Firstly all the 39 players' names are in a vertical column with 1-39 copied next to them. I highlight the table and, using Insert/Name/Define, I define them as a table called, say, "Players". In the columns next to my two sets of numbers I use Vlookup to assign the appropriate player name - as "=VLOOKUP(player number position, Players, 2, FALSE)" which brings the player name from column 2 of the table "Players" where the number in column 1 matches exactly the player number position specified in my list of match-ups.
I copy the function to every row and so have a double list of players names matching the numbers. I can then create the 19 games and list their numbers next to the two players names. For instance I have 1___Player Number 1_____Player Number 20____20____Game Number in 5 columns on my spreadsheet.
This looks like (for Round 64 on Europe 1914 map: With 39 players, of course the odd number means that the round robin is designed for 40 players and each turn a different player will miss a game. For each round, 19 games are created and the first challenge is to get 39 players assigned to their correct game. The easiest way is to send a list of all the games to all the players involved and allow them to join their correct game. This may be difficult if you have novices or player who do not look at their private messages very frequently, though I expect that a tournasment that has already had 53 rounds would, by now, only contain the battle-hardened tournament professionals!
In the next column on my spreadsheet I therefore create the joining information for the two players and the game number and the "to" CC function.
Round 54; Player 1 vs Player 2 View Game 123456 (Auto-Join Game)
All I need to do is to add a message for the one person who will not get a game due to the odd number of players. To do this I use an IF function; IF(condition, Do this if correct, Otherwise do this) i.e. IF(GameNumber<>"",Player game information as above,"Player X does not have a game this round"). The condition is that the game number ="" (i.e. blank)
and looks like: Player 1 vs Player 2 Game 11702170. This is used to publish the information to the players to keep them informed every round without taking up much time to do. I think it is always important to publish as much information for your players as possible, but if you can do it with a few lines of Excel code, all the better!
In the next issue I will show you how to automate the above sequence.
(These "tips" are ones that I have tried to make it a bit easier in managing my own tournaments. I am sure there are different and better methods than these, so please let me know. Any queries on the above I'll be glad to respond to! Please note that I use Excel 2003, so there may be variation in the menu instructions if you have other versions of Excel)[/spoiler]
Welcome one and all to the Foundry portion of the Dispatch. Roll up, roll up, come one come all. We have clowns, and horses and a roaring crowd. Pay a penny, pay a pound, listen to the songs, listen to the sounds! Did you come for good, or to make me frown? Does your mother know or are you underground? Roll up, roll up and here we go again!
[player]koontz1973[/player] brings us updates on which maps are making their way through the Foundry. Is your favourite map there? Do you even know what your favourite map looks like? And in keeping with the current circus theme, [player]Qyu[/player] brings us a historical revisionist introspective on, what else, but Circus Maximus - the map itself! The only clowns are the ones on the other side of the computer - you know who you are! Sqeek sqeek! And being the second most important holiday in the Satanic calendar, Halloween is upon us. A chance for my favourite map, Knights, to get a facelift by it's maker - himself who is rejiggied to become [player]Killerkoontz1973[/player] - and he even writes about it! Finally, there's a chance for you to shoot the duckies, hoop the bottles, catch the balls and do whatever else is required to win this weeks Foundry Dispatch Competition.
And the last laugh goes to Carl Sagan who said:
But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
For those in the know, this is the single most important part of the Dispatch. Sure Freestyle is entertaining, Strategy is interesting theoretically, Foundry provides a glimpse for the future and opportunity for creative outlet, Tournaments is a warm up but it is Clans where it all comes together.
And by jingos has a lot happened in clans since the last update! Thankfully [player]Icepack[/player] is on hand to bring us a thorough update of what's what and where's where. It takes a dedicated adherent to bring such a depth of understanding so cheers [player]Icepack[/player]
[player]thehippo8[/player] Foundry Executive
Updatesby [player]Icepack[/player] (The Fallen)
[spoiler=CC3]Dako recently took over the CC3 Leadership Role, and has done a fantastic job! Currently Conquer Cup 3 is in the quarter finals, and we are down to eight clans. Here are the match ups!
KORT vs OSA - OSA is the underdog here, but is the only clan outside the top 10 to make it into the Quarter Final match ups! Early gains in the match show OSA is still strongly contending to upset yet another clan, but KORT won both CC1 vs THOTA and CC2 vs TSM!
TOFU vs PACK - One of the most exciting recent match ups I can think of, this promises to be a great war to watch. These two clans have traded 2nd and 3rd spots recently in the F400, so the war might settle which clan rightfully deserves the #2 spot! PACK has had some RL issues as of late, but has never lost a clan war to date. TOFU was slightly favored (19 to 12) on the CC3 Bracket Prediction to win it all.
TSM vs AFOS - These two clans faced one another Round 2 of the CC2, and TSM came out the winner. AFOS gets its chance at revenge this year in the quarters, but so far TSM has stayed strong. TSM went onto place #2 overall in last years finals, to KORT.
EMP vs AOC - A fairly even match up, where the winner will move onto face either TSM or AFOS. Last year in CC2, Empire beat TOFU in the Quarter Finals where they went onto meet KORT, which later went onto win it all. Don't count either EMP or AOC as contenders.
Currently Emmdizzle and snake242 enjoys the lead for the CC3 Prediction Challenge hosted by the Entertainment Team! Emmdizzle has predicted AFOS will win vs PACK in the finals, whilst snake242 predicts KORT and TSM will have a rematch, and KORT will again win it all.[/spoiler] [spoiler=Newcomers Cup 3]Newcomers Cup 3 link
Benga's NC3 is currently in the semi-final round! RET dropped out, leaving AKA, RotS, and HH all to make valiant attempts to move on only to be defeated by the likes of TNC, IGNI, FALL, and 1RFG.
TNC recently defeated IGNI for the right to move into the NC3 Finals! They await the other match up, FALL vs 1RFG which just recently started Round 1. The winner will move onto face TNC, likely in the new year.[/spoiler] [spoiler=2nd Annual 1 vs 1 Challenge]2nd Annual 1 vs 1 Challenge link
17 Clans signed up for the 2nd edition of the 1 vs 1 Clan Challenge! The second round is beginning to wrap up, with KORT besting OSA and ID edging out TNC for the rights to move into the semi finals.
EMP vs MD - EMP has a healthy lead over MD going into the 2nd Round after playing EMP Home Sets. Now MD is poised to play its Home Set, which should make this an interesting match to the finish as EMP tries to hold onto its lead on MD's turf!
FOED vs TFFS - This match up will come down to a final antartica set! These 5 games will decide who moves onto face the winner of EMP/MD![/spoiler] [spoiler=CL4 Event]CL4 is wrapping up its Phase 3 Division 1 series, while Divisions 2-5 have moved onto Phase 4.
Division 1: PHASE 3 KORT, EMP, AOC and the PACK are all facing off in 3 Round Robins of 18 games each. The top 2 clans will progress to Phase 4. So far KORT, EMP, and AOC have secured themselves at least one win. A up to date status of this division can be found here: viewtopic.php?f=441&t=176594#p3855565
Division 2: PHASE 4 OSA vs MYTH In a very close match up, MYTH overtook OSA 23-18 to win the Phase 4 Division Championship! Details to be found here: viewtopic.php?f=441&t=177626#p3878760
Division 3: PHASE 4 WAR vs BotFM It looks like WAR recently completed its 21st win over BotFM on the 22nd of Oct in a match that might come down to 1-2 games. Very interesting match up You can see details here: viewtopic.php?f=441&t=178018#p3887654
Division 5: PHASE 4 MM vs SOH MM has beaten SOH in this Division championship. Current score 21-14. viewtopic.php?f=441&t=178021&start=0#p3887681[/spoiler] [spoiler=Regular Clan Wars]FALL vs LOW: Fresh off a painful 20-21 loss vs 9th ranked FOED, FALL is looking to establish itself within the top echelon of CC's clans by taking on another top 12 clan with 11th ranked LOW.
Set up to complete before the holidays, the first round has 2 dubs, 4 trips, 6 quads each clan / round. Currently the score is very close, with 6-4 in Fallen's favor. It looks like it will remain close to the end of Round 1!
AQOH vs LOTZ: AQOH is a fresh face in the clan scene, with kuma32478 leading the group. They won their first challenge vs MB 25-15, upsetting most people who predicted MB's victory over the new clan.
Their next challenge is vs kuma's former clan, LOTZ. The current score is 10-5 in AQOH's favor. He is confident they will continue to get results. Both HH and TNC have expeessed interest in facing this new clan.[/spoiler]
Stay Tuned for the next issue of the ConquerClub Dispatch for an interrogation of [player]interviewee[/player]. Post any questions you may have for them here --> Interrogation with TheCrown
Submitting Your Own Articles
If you have a story you think the ConquerClub Community would find interesting, you can submit your articles to [player]Victor Sullivan[/player] and you may just see your article published in the Newsletter!
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The 3 maps in the "Foundry Dispatch Competition" are Field of Gettysburg, Tribal War - Ancient Israel and 4 Star Meats. All 3 have had maps of their concept attempted previously. Additionally they all contain Illustrations of 4 legged animals.
Indeed you did, but considering that we Clowns on the Dispatch made such a bad show of this comp I see no reason why you should not also receive a medal for your sterling efforts. After all, you were "more correct" than [player]x-raider[/player] so we will chalk this up to experience and provide you with a shiny new medal too.
But that's it folks - lolly-scramble is over! On behalf of the entertainment team - thanks for playing and let's see who gets in first next issue!!
Indeed you did, but considering that we Clowns on the Dispatch made such a bad show of this comp I see no reason why you should not also receive a medal for your sterling efforts. After all, you were "more correct" than [player]x-raider[/player] so we will chalk this up to experience and provide you with a shiny new medal too.
But that's it folks - lolly-scramble is over! On behalf of the entertainment team - thanks for playing and let's see who gets in first next issue!!
I like that decision . Very fair imo. Thanks again guys... it was fun.
10:16:35 ‹Ace Rimmer› haven't looked at work in ages 10:42:43 ‹Sackett58› fine, I'll take my panties elsewhere
by koontz1973
