The Smulm Cup Tournament

Welcome thieves and conquerors, princes and noble champions of Neptune’s Pride. This is the Official Smulm Cup Tournament forum thread. Please post here for any questions or suggestions from now on.

This Tournament, so as to be easily implemented, is NOT in bracketed formatting, but is instead a free-for-all melee within a custom map crafted by the skillful hands of xjhdexter.

Game Link: Smulm Cup Round 1: Ouroboros Melee

This 32 player round will continue until someone reaches the allotted star count, as usual, and wins the game. However, this is not the end for those who only get into second, third, fourth, etc. Besides the victor, fifteen players with the next highest star count will be selected to continue. Those who are KO’d or AFK will not be included, and those who Quit but somehow ended up on the list anyway will receive an invite. If a Quit player does not respond in time, the invitation will be annulled and offered to a player who was KO’d while remaining active. It is highly encouraged that players not quiet or AFK during this tournament if they want a chance among the top 16.

Upon the completion of Round 1, Ouroboros, the top 16 players selected will progress on to Round 2. After the completion of Round 2, the top 8 will progress to the final round. The winner of the Final Round will receive an Official Neptune’s Pride Trophy badge, either through yours truly, Smulm, or through Jay Kyburz.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: All surviving 16 players who reach the end of Round 1 will receive an invitation to join Round 2 through PM in the game itself, unless otherwise specified here under this notice. The names of R2 Invitational winners will be posted here to avoid any confusion. If your name is posted here in the future and yet you didn’t receive an invite, please join the forum if you haven’t already and inform me, please.

1 Like

I’m in! :slight_smile:

Great to have you. I hope everyone else visits the forum in time to see it. I think I’ll wait until after the weakened, then I’ll advertise on the 64 player games.

I’ve joined as well ^^

Joining and I posted elsewhere to let others know.

7 positions left but you haven’t joined yet @jaykyburz!

SWIGGITY SWOOTY, TIME TO SPANK SOME BOOTY =]

Also, this: Neptune's Pride

We await the coming of IHG, Jay!

After consuming several Margarita’s tonight, I made the serious, serious, serious mistake of signing up for this game!!! :wink:

I say that because I have not played real-time for probably a couple of years (it totally screws up your sleep) and I’m traveling this coming week, so won’t be able to check in too often.

But since Green Square was open, the Jolly Green Giant decided to be cannon fodder for you guys! :wink:

P.S. If by chance I’m somehow lucky enough to make it to the top-16, can I suggest that we be able to “nominate” someone to take our place? As mentioned in the other forum thread, I’m a turn-based guy (the real-time countdown clock looks bizarre to me!) so if someone is deserving but if for some reason does not advance, I’d like to give them a chance.

PPS. Nice job putting “Trade Scan Enabled” in there - this is a great leveler and prevents buddies on opposite ends of the galaxies from colluding. Means you have to do some serious diplomacy to be friendly with your neighbors … who are your route to expansion - D’OH! :wink:

Also appreciate the 20 ticks for production (fair to rotate things for various timezones) … but I would have suggested enabled Dark Galaxy and Formal Alliances.

@HULK you made the right decision to join, and now you have to stay the distance. :smile:

@HOUSEBOAT_THANGS you are going down! Damn, you’re on the other side of the galaxy, just wait 'til I get there! Someone hold me back…

Aw yeah. Let the party begin.

Is it necessary that we get to the end star count condition, if 16 players get eliminated? At that point, any remaining players would be the ones moving on — even if we continue, those players would rank higher (even if they eventually lost all their stars) , than everyone else previously eliminated

I can’t remember seeing a game where someone hit winning star count and there were still more than 16 players alive

It could easily go like you say, JayCee. But there is a chance for fifteen lesser empires to survive, assuming they are very small.

Oh, certainly … in fact, i think we may see some interesting dynamics in this tournament. Especially as a few players do get eliminated … at that point just surviving becomes a goal, and players may be more defensive than usual.
Will be interesting to see

Since I love it whenever games are recorded here, I’ll start the official record for Smulm’s Tournament.
Current map with current top 16, almost at cycle 6:

No one’s running away with it yet, a few players are getting crushed, and I can see a few obvious alliances emerging hint hint, hulk and karmadrome, brand and killdozer :smirk:

Thanks for posting the map @Omnimal and hope you can keep doing to see how it progresses. Appreciate 'ya calling out a couple of alliances … but clearly there are a number of other ones.

@JayCee makes a real good point about the dynamics will be a bit different here since you just need to survive, not win. Ideally, there should be some sort of “bonus” if you win that you could carry over to the next game to reward those players that go for it.

P.S. Already regretting signing up for a real-time game as my hangover from those margarita’s has persisted since the game started! :wink:

Oh, I like that idea of giving some sort of bonus or strategic advantage to the top three positions, to encourage more competition after the initial ‘culling’ of players down to 16 contenders. Nothing too dramatic, but enough to entice some players to seriously compete for it

Hey Jaycee. Given that you and Onnimal are totally destroying me I think you are seeing my desperate attempts to survive.

I agree with the top three players getting something but a reward in the next round might cause the top three now to be the top three next round and than one of them to win the tournament. It seems kinda unfair that way. Does anyone have any ideas that are not in game?

Existor, I’m afraid I don’t understand your point.
The thought was, right now everyone is simply going to play for survival … once there are 16 clearly eliminated players, it doesn’t really matter who comes in first place. Every one of the top 16 moves on, and the stage is set for next game.

Agree that giving some sort of ‘bonus’ or advantage to the top three players would give them a better chance to win the next round … but that’s the point. Gives the players an incentive to do more than just ‘survive’ the round, and would likely incentivize certain teams to push to take the top spot, or eliminate the player in the top spot.

This would actually work in the FAVOR of players like yourself who have been reduced to just a few stars … as long as you aren’t eliminated, there is still the possibility that you could survive, since there might be a reason for the bigger teams to actually keep competing. Meaning that players in a ‘safe’ spot at 15th place may actually get eliminated

Re-reading your post … I see your point, a ‘reward’ that doesn’t affect the status of the game, but something they still would work towards.
First thing that comes to mind would be a new Badge — any other thoughts on what sort of reward would give people incentive to really work towards a first place win?