Spring Struggle PGIE Tournament

Events

Tourney scores

Registered players

Time zones have been updated on April 4th 2009. Additionally, check for DST variations on http://www.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/.

List of agreed scenarios

Rules of the tournament

The registered players are listed with their local time zone and their level of experience with PGIE. They have chosen "newbie" if they have never played PGIE online before. They have chosen "moderate" if they have played a few games against human opponents or reliably beat the computer player on level 3. They have chosen "expert" if they consider themselves an experienced online player.

Once registered, the players were assigned to groups according to their level of experience. Now, the fun part begins:

Phase 1

Everybody in a group plays round-robin every other player in that group. The player who is lower in experience gets to choose the scenario from the list of agreed scenarios. If you are on the same level agree amicably. The screen of the end round evaluations and the match evaluation of each match must be sent by email to me and will be posted as evidence on this webpage. (See below the instructions for taking screenshots.) You get 3 points for winning and 1 point for losing a match (and 2 points in the very unlikely case of a stand-off).

Phase 2

The two players of each group with highest scores will then be put into one of the two semifinal groups. (In case of ties, the better ranks of the past matches decide, or the players may decide mutually to play a tie breaking match.) Note that the scores in the semifinal groups will start from zero once more. The players will again play with the same rules as in phase 1.

Phase 3

The two best players of both semifinal groups will finally advance to the final group. The player with the highest score in the final group is declared the winner of the tourney.

NOTE:The members of the final group have decided to lift the penalty for more experienced players. Instead of letting the less experienced player choose the scenario, every player prepares a list of his 13 most preferred scenarios in descending order. About three days before each match, the contestants exchange their lists. The ranks of those scenarios which appear on both lists are summed to a score for the respective scenario. The scenario with the lowest score is the one to be played. (In case of equal scores, the scenario with least difference in ranks on both lists is to be chosen.)

Dropout players and consolation group

All players who do not get to advance to a higher group can optionally choose to join the consolation group. The group is played with the same rules as all other groups. In the first phase, if a player has to drop out of the tournament the remaining matches for that player will be resolved by awarding his opponent(s) 2 points per unplayed match. In the other phases, the dropout will be replaced by the highest ranking player of the consolation group.

Setup notes

In order to setup an online game, the players should have an instant messenger installed. It always needs some immediate communication to connect to your opponent, in particular if you do not use the connection service of Killerbeesoftware. Since we all have a login for the Yahoo!-group PGIE we should just agree on using the Yahoo-messenger with the same login. If you have a problem with the setup contact one of the experienced players to help you out.

If you need to contact other contestants you can use our mailing list. Just send an eMail to tourney@coralnet.de and put the prefix '[tourney]' in front of the subject. E-Mails will immediately be bounced to the other players.

For taking screenshots, press ALT-PRINT to copy the active window to the clipboard. Then open "Paint" and paste the clipboard into the picture. Save it and send it by email to me. Try this before your first game! (Alternatively, you can use any convenient helper tool for taking screenshots, e.g. screengrab from the files section of our Yahoo!Group)

Keep all settings in your PGIE in default! Other settings may drastically prolong games. If you have messed around your settings see the default settings here and reset yours.

Some of the proposed scenarios have to be downloaded from the Yahoo!Group. Alternatively, you can download all the non-copyrighted tourney scenarios here and unzip the archive into your PGIE directory. All other scenarios are either included in your PGIE edition or have to be obtained at Killerbeesoftware.

Technical notes

Playing online games with PGIE requires a few technical necesseties:

• You must have a non-shared IP address for the duration of the game. This depends on your provider and there is little you can do if you only get shared IP addresses. See the "legacy" solution below for a possible workaround, or try the Hamachi tool for emulating a network with static IP addresses.
• If you use a hardware firewall you have to clear port 45000 for inbound and outbound traffic. See your firewall's manual for attaining knowledge on how to do this. Software firewalls usually ask for permission of internet access for PGIE. If you permit this it will work.
• If you use a router you have to route inbound traffic on port 45000 to your local IP address. If you seem to have this problem -and this is the most common problem in online gaming- here are some ideas of what you can try:
  • First, attempt both directions of connecting: Retrieve your IP address from http://www.whatismyip.com/ (Note that 'ipconfig' does not give your WAN address if you are behind a router.) Exchange IP addresses through instant messaging and try connecting to the other player. If it does not work have him try to connect to you.
  • Another solution worth a try: Use the connection server of Killerbeesoftware instead of directly connecting through IP addresses. (If this works your router was not the problem.)
  • The "clean" solution: You configure your router to forward Port 45000 to your local IP address. Then you retrieve your external IP address from the router's configuration page (or from http://www.whatismyip.com) and give it to the other player. You can't get the external IP address with 'ipconfig' if you are behind a router.
  • The "brute" hardware solution: You bypass your router by disconnecting it and connect your computer directly to your modem (cable, DSL, ISDN or whatever type of internet access you use). Afterwards, you need to have your internet provider's access data at hand in order to establish a direct internet connection.
  • The "fairly clean" solution: Some routers allow to configure a pass-through of PPPoE connections. This has the same effect as the "brute" hardware solution but you save yourself the rewiring of your hardware.
  • The "quick and dirty" solution: You open your router for all ports and forward them to all local addresses. Many configuration pages of routers offer this as a 1-click-solution. (Note that you must not let any other user hook up to your local network while you're playing this way!)
  • The "legacy" solution: Dig out your old analogue modem (many computers still have a built-in one) and hook up to a call-by-call internet service provider. PGIE works well with low band-width. (Make sure you don't get anybody mad at you for blocking the telephone line while you are playing, and try not to have your system download tons of updates while you are connected this way!)

Evidence of the matches

To see your screenshots click here.