WML for tournament settings

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demario
Posts: 131
Joined: July 3rd, 2019, 1:05 pm

WML for tournament settings

Post by demario »

HI, I am defining some WML for tournament setting. I am wondering if the structure or the keywords could be improved.
Maybe some past tournament organizers for wesnoth or elsewhere have some ideas to share. Here is an example:

Code: Select all

[tournament]
    version="v0.4"
    id=16p_dembot_qualification
    name=_"16p Qualification tournament"
    game_title="[16p-QT] [player1] vs [player2] ([round#]/[game#])"
    era=default
    teams=16
    team_size=1
    rounds=4
    [round]
        id=1
        pairing=direct
        qualified=8
        [bracket]
            name=utc_brackets
            division=2
            criteria=utc
            split_alike=no
        [/bracket]
        map_selection=forced
        games=1
        map_pool=2p_Caves_of_the_Basilisk.cfg
    [/round]
    [round]
        id=2
        pairing=direct
        qualified=4
        [bracket]
            name=utc_brackets
        [/bracket]
        map_selection=picked
        games=1
        map_pool=2p_Hamlets.cfg,2p_The_Freelands.cfg,2p_Weldyn_Channel.cfg,2p_Swamp_of_Dread.cfg,2p_Howling_Ghost_Badlands.cfg
    [/round]
    [round]
        id=3
        pairing=direct
        qualified=2
        map_selection=random
        games=2
        map_pool=2p_Clearing_Gushes.cfg,2p_Silverhead_Crossing.cfg,2p_Sullas_Ruins.cfg,2p_Ruined_Passage.cfg,2p_Elensefar_Courtyard.cfg,2p_Thousand_Stings_Garrison.cfg
    [/round]
    [round]
        id=4
        pairing=direct
        qualified=1
        map_selection=forced
        games=3
        map_pool=2p_The_Walls_of_Pyrennis.cfg,2p_Tombs_of_Kesorak.cfg,2p_Clearing_Gushes.cfg,2p_Hellhole.cfg,2p_Hornshark_Island.cfg
    [/round]
[/tournament]
Let me describe the cryptic keywords:
[tournament]
  • team_size: number of player per team (1 for 1v1 games)
  • game_title: template for tournament game title (don't use curly bracket)
[round]
  • games: number of game to win ("best of (2*games -1) series")
  • pairing: direct elimination or later round-robin
  • qualified: number of people to qualify (across all brackets)
  • map selection: how the map is selected from the pool
    - forced: map forced based on game order
    - picked: players can skip unwanted maps until one is left (based on wesnoth-life fastbot)
    - random: map is randomly selected (based on ladder-era random map picker)
[brackets]
  • division: players will be split into brakets based on this number
  • criteria: split can be done based on timezones (split_alike=no) or later rating (split_alike=yes)
Last edited by demario on October 13th, 2020, 1:05 am, edited 2 times in total.
"simply put, it's an old game"T — Cackfiend
Soliton
Site Administrator
Posts: 1680
Joined: April 5th, 2005, 3:25 pm
Location: #wesnoth-mp

Re: WML for tournament settings

Post by Soliton »

I would suggest another pairing called "mirror" or so. With that players would play the same map twice with sides and factions reversed. The winner would be the player that won in less turns and if turns are equal the one with the highest total value of killed units for all/both games. "games" would be half the number of games to play since each map is played twice. So if games=2 you'd play 4 games with the winner determined as above.

I think such a pairing is very nice to ensure a fair setup and especially fun for deliberately unbalanced maps. You get more dynamic games since on unbalanced maps there is no stand-off but it's still fair since players play each side.

I've experienced such a tournament system in the game Uniwar and thought it was quite cleverly set up. In Uniwar additionally you play original and mirror game "at the same time". It's also a turn based strategy game so this just means taking one turn in the normal and one in the mirrored game and then it's the other players turn. This is a little fairer still but even without that I think it'd be nice to try in wesnoth. (And one could also make a scenario that contains two regions with the original and mirrored maps so that simultaneous play in wesnoth could be done as well...)

Here you can see the complete rules for their championship tournament.
"If gameplay requires it, they can be made to live on Venus." -- scott
demario
Posts: 131
Joined: July 3rd, 2019, 1:05 pm

Re: WML for tournament settings

Post by demario »

Thanks Soliton, a fair system that allows a tournament to use less balanced map would be great indeed.
I know nothing about Uniwar and it is quite useful to hear from a different background.
They seems do have a stronger tournament history than wesnoth (with ladder :mrgreen: ).
This is how they describe the structure of their tournament setting:
- format (single elimination/round robin/other)
- order (random/by score)
- rated/unrated
- duration of each turn and round
- mirror/single games
- maps
- races (chosen/fixed/random)
- prerequisite to join
- IAP ? [/me thinks it might correspond to wesnoth mods]
- prizes
It seems most their games are played with a timer of 12 hours per side turn (kind of play-by-email) so that playing 2 games simultaneously would not be a problem. Maybe the server is able to load the savegame when one player logs in. Not sure if they play with fog-of-war so that knowing the opponent's race on first turn is not a problem. Their losing a base seems quite a fatal blow compared to wesnoth villages, and is turned into a criteria for getting a win.
Definitely some good food for thought. Cheers!
"simply put, it's an old game"T — Cackfiend
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Celtic_Minstrel
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Posts: 2166
Joined: August 3rd, 2012, 11:26 pm
Location: Canada
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Re: WML for tournament settings

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

I think it might make more sense to reference maps by ID rather than filename. For the built-in MP scenarios I believe these are essentially the same, so just dropping ".cfg" would make the difference.

I'm also kinda curious, where would this WML even be used? Is this a feature proposal or what?
Author of The Black Cross of Aleron campaign and Default++ era.
Former maintainer of Steelhive.
demario
Posts: 131
Joined: July 3rd, 2019, 1:05 pm

Re: WML for tournament settings

Post by demario »

I made an update of the first post to suggest the v0.4 of the WML schema. Biggest change is that brackets are now defined at the round level.
Later rounds can also reference to a previously defined bracket name to keep the bracket for the round. This change is to support a UEFA champions league-like tournament (where groups are dissolved before the finals).
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: October 11th, 2020, 2:59 pm I think it might make more sense to reference maps by ID rather than filename.
It makes sense. You might want to refer to any version of The freelands (default or from ladder era) without having to change the tournament definition though. They will probably have the same file name but different ids.
I'm also kinda curious, where would this WML even be used? Is this a feature proposal or what?
Free to use, man 8) .
"simply put, it's an old game"T — Cackfiend
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