PACING

Objective:

It is the intention to finish this tournament before end 2012, though we accept that this is may prove over-ambitious. We would at least like to be able to try however.

Timing:

Preliminary rounds will be staggered, but as the game can be of variable length it is planned that the Round 2 games will start while some of the 1st are on-going. As it is possible that the number of players will not be evenly divisible by 3, some players will start with 2 games at once.

30th December 2011 Round 1

1st March 2012 Any Round 2 games that have not already begun.

Round 3 will begin as soon as all round 1 games are complete.

As there have been several players who have expresse a desire to only play one game at a time the schedule above will represent the situation for those willing to play 2 at a time.

Rounds may be completed at WBC in open gaming, conditions permitting and if ALL parties are agreeable. If not the semis will begin as soon as the preliminary rounds are complete.

Vacations:

Players are allowed to take breaks from the game (when e.g. going on a trip or otherwise entering circumstances which will temporarily take them out of e-mail contact), within reason. Players going on vacation must notify their opponents before they depart of the dates they expect to be away – failure to do so may result in penalties for slow play and/or immediate disqualification from the current tournament round. Vacations of more than two weeks in which no e-mail access will be available must be cleared in advance with the GM and one’s fellow opponents. (If any Player feels that one of his opponents is abusing the Vacations provision, please contact the GM.)

One reason for the timing outlined above is the hope that preliminary rounds will be completed before the summer season; if holiday plans are known, please communicate them to the GM team at signup or as soon as you know. We may try to adjust the draw accordingly.

The game starts with 37 cards & reserves on turn 1, but not all will be played and neutrals will go very quickly. The number of real card plays is highly variable, especially with 2E events but the target is for a turn a month with no game taking longer than 6 months.

There is a maximum of 48 hours between moves, the pace should go faster than this with a target of a month per turn as per above.

If you have pre-empt please take responsibility for doing the neutral powers and advising other powers whether they can go or not.

If no one has pre-empt, then neutrals will be the responsibility of whoever played last.

Pacing will be tracked based on a days-per-turn basis, the schedule is deliberately tight as we hope to finish the entire tournament within the year. However, as we get more data this may be revised. The effective measure of pace will be games moving slower than the average, more than one standard deviation slower will be investigated.

If you feel a game is running slowly, please contact the GM team, the most likely possible solution is:

Reduction or Elimination of Reinforcement CPs. While this will not speed the game up per se it will reduce the force/space ratio and make a decision more likely.

Other more tried and tested methods such as an automatic assumption of Europe Exhauasted being played or mandatory discards may also be employed.