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Intimate Diplomacy Tournament

Tournament Rules

Written by Carl Hanich - Web Designed by Ally Bain

Introduction

This Tournament consists of a 7 Round Robin consisting of 8 players. Each player plays each other once in the Tournament and must choose a different home power in each round.

Section A: Rules

  1. Everybody puts in their preferences for home powers as normal with the following restrictions.

  2. You can't play the same power twice. So in Round 2 you would only put down 6 powers on your preference list, and so on, so for Round 6 two powers and for Round 7 you would know what home power you would have. A player must put down all powers on his preference list that he hasn't yet played in the Tournament with the exception of those powers that are temporarily restricted until Round 6 by way of application of Rules 5 and 6, or unless Rule 7 applies.

  3. The problem arises when in Round 7 two opponents are left with the same Home Powers. The solution is as follows.

  4. The 8 players are broken into two groups; the "Home or Left" Group and the "Away or Right" Group. 4 players are in the "Left" group for Round 6 and Round 7 and the other 4 are in the "Right" group of the draw. In other words, the players in the "Left" group can't play each other in the last two rounds and the same applies to the "Right" Group.

  5. The Tournament Director will declare which three powers are in the Left Group and which three powers are in the Right group and which power is the Free Power. The players in the "Left" group must leave two Left Group powers to be played in the last two rounds. That is, in the first 5 rounds, they must play the Right group powers plus the Free Power, in addition to one of the Left group powers. Once they have played one of the Left group powers in the first 5 rounds, they cannot put the other 2 powers in their preference list until Round 6.

  6. The players in the "Right" group must leave two Right Group powers be played in the last two rounds. That is, in the first 5 rounds, they must play the Left group powers plus the Free Power, in addition to one of Right group powers. Once they have played one of the Right group powers in the first 5 rounds, they cannot put the other 2 powers in their preference list until Round 6. [By way of explanation, the Left Group are on the Left side of the Draw for Rounds 6 and 7 and must keep two of the Left Powers until these rounds. In fact, from Rounds 4 to 7, they are on the Left side of the draw and play the 4 players from the Right side of the Draw. In the first three rounds each player in each group only plays the other three members from his group and therefore can be on either the Left or Right side of the Draw. Therefore in Rounds 6 and 7 there can never be a clash (where the two opponents have the same powers left to choose) as the player from the Left side can only select from England, France, and Italy and are playing against players who can only select from Russia, Austria, and Turkey.]

  7. If in Rounds 2 to 5, one player has a potential preference list which is longer than his opponent (by way of application of Rule 5 or 6) that player need only submit the same number of powers on his preference list as the player with the less number of powers available to him, although he may still submit all his available powers if he wishes to do so.

  8. If the two preference lists are of different lengths and are identical up to the end of the player with the shorter preference list; the player with the longer preference list will get his next preference whilst the player with the shorter preference list will get his first preference.

  9. If the preference lists are identical, the Tournament Director will put the names of the two players in a hat. The first name he draws will get his first preference and the other player his second preference as per the normal Intimate Diplomacy Rule No 2. If it is though Round 5 and only one power has been chosen by each player and due to Rule 7 one player had more powers available to choose from, the other player will get his preference and the first player must choose a power from his other remaining powers available to him.

  10. The exception to Rules 5 and 6 occurs if in Round 5, the players would otherwise have to both play the same power. (eg both are from the "Right" Group and both have not played Italy yet.) In this case, they must include their other two powers that they haven't played yet in their preference list and may choose their order from their 3 remaining powers. In addition, any power that should have been played by the end of Round 5 must be put first on their preference list for Round 6.

  11. If in Round 6, two players have the same first preference, the player that was forced to put a power as his first preference must have that power for Round 6.

  12. If in Round 6, both players have been forced to put the same power as his first preference, the player from the "Right" group will play that power. (This will only occur if both have been forced to choose the Free power as their first preference, as with any other power one of the players could not have been forced to play that power as each player in Round 6 must come from a separate group. See Rules 4, 5, & 6 above.)

  13. Where a player has played against the same power at least twice already, you may not put that power as your first preference when playing that player unless you have to by way of the other rules above.

  14. Failing the above, the Advisory and Disputes Board has the final say to resolve any problems that may arise from players having the same home powers and will use its judgement to resolve the issue including the use of a coin or hat.

  15. No Deadlines. A GM may impose deadlines if he feels the game is being dragged on.

  16. If a player drops out of this competition or is evicted, all of his games are scored as draws including completed games. Opponents for all his completed games must nominate a power that is then notionally "used" for that game – it can be the same power actually used or a different one, but if a different one it can't obviously be a power that has been used already. When players reach a Round where they would have played against the player who dropped out of this competition or was evicted, they must nominate a power that is then notionally "used". Notionally "used" powers cannot be used in subsequent games. The player that dropped out of this competition or was evicted though scores 0 points for all seven games.

  17. The Tournament may randomly or otherwise change the order of Rounds 1 to 5 in Section D at the start of the Tournament, but only before each player is assigned a Player Number.

  18. If a player submits a Preference List which is invalid, the Tournament Director may adjust the player's Preference List to make it valid as follows:
    • Remove any power that the player has already played.
    • Remove any power that the player is restricted from playing by way of application of Rule 5 or 6.
    • Include any missing powers at the end of the player's Preference List in alphabetical order.
    • If the first preference is invalid, select the next preference that is valid as a first preference and move it to the first position on the preference list. The invalid first preference then becomes the second preference and so on.

  19. If a player fails to submit a Preference List within two weeks of the due date, the player will forfeit that round and his opponent will be declared the winner for that game. In this event, the Tournament Director will randomly select a valid power for the player (excluding the first preference of his opponent) to be the deemed power the player used in that round.

Section B: HouseRules

  1. The Rules we are playing under are as follows. If in conflict, the Rules higher up the order take precedence over those lower down.
    • These ID Tournament Rules.
    • The ID Rules.
    • The ALB & GSB HouseRules. (Generally there to cater for the fact that we PBEM and not FtF.)
    • The normal Diplomacy Rules. (These are the 4th Edition 2000 Diplomacy Box Rules.)

  2. Unless there is a clear instruction to the contrary "Remove A (Pie)" means 'remove the army that is in Piedmont now after this season irrespective of whether it may have been there before'. For instance if a player ordered A (Pie) – Mar and "Disbands A (Pie), F (GoL), A (Mar)" and had one disband, the GM would remove A (Pie) if the move did not succeed and remove F (GoL) if the move did succeed.

  3. If the player ordered "Disbands A (Pie), A (Mar)", he wants the army removed whether or not the move succeeded. If the player ordered "Disbands A (Pie)", he wants the army removed only if the move did not succeed. If the player ordered "Disbands A (Mar)", he wants the army removed only if the move succeeded.

  4. Failure to submit a vote on a proposal is deemed to be a vote against and EGP (End Game Proposal).

  5. Players may appeal to ADB if they are not happy with the GM.

  6. Proxies are not allowed.

Section C: The Advisory and Disputes Board

Any disputes with the rules of the Tournament, the rules of Intimate Diplomacy, and the rules of Diplomacy for this Tournament shall be referred to the Advisory and Disputes Board. A majority verdict of the three person Board shall be final.

The three person Advisory and Disputes Board for IDV shall consist of:

If one or more of the players in a dispute is on the Board, that player will be replaced on the Board for that dispute by an Alternate. Alternates:

Section D: The Draw

Players 1 to 4 shall be the Left group
Players 5 to 8 shall be the Right group

Section E: Play-offs

The winner of the Tournament will be the player highest on the League Table after the 7 Rounds. Should there be more than one player in equal first position, then play-offs will be held.

Section F: Divisions

There are two divisions with Promotion and Relegation after each season.

After each season the 7th and 8th ranked player in Division 1 is relegated to Division 2. The top two ranked players in Division 2 are promoted to Division 1. Note:

  1. If one player in the top six players of Division 1 doesn't continue onto the new season, the top three players in Division 2 are promoted.

  2. If two players in the top six players of Division 1 didn't continue onto the new season, the top four players in Division 2 are promoted.

  3. If three players in the top six players of Division 1 didn't continue onto the new season, the top four players in Division 2 are promoted and only the 8th ranked player in Division 1 is relegated.

  4. If four players in the top six players of Division 1 didn't continue onto the new season, the top five players in Division 2 are promoted and only the 8th ranked player in Division 1 is relegated.

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