+1

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Friday, November 14, 2025 - 05:01 pm: Edit

I'm in favor of an EAF timeline, but suggest 15 minutes. Some situations get hairy and need a bit more thought.

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Friday, November 14, 2025 - 06:03 pm: Edit

I think there is real concern that soon we will not be able to get 16 players to sign up. We barely got 16 this time and it took a couple months if I remember correctly. Need a plan for that I think.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, November 14, 2025 - 09:30 pm: Edit

I agree, Jack, and while I am not the guy who will have to solve that, I will bring it up at the board meeting.

By Geoffrey Clark (Spartan) on Sunday, November 16, 2025 - 04:29 am: Edit

My understanding is that there are currently no limits on EAF, is this correct? NO IT IS NOT.—SVC

If we plan to put limits on EAF, such as an absolute time limit, or a relative limit (e.g. 10 or 15 minutes after your opponent finishes), then i think we just need to be careful to give what we feel is a reasonsble time, even for someone who is not a veteran of SFBOL.

For plasma vs plasma, I'm in favor of both ships giving up PPTs, vs the other options.

By Seth Shimansky (Kingzila) on Sunday, November 16, 2025 - 07:04 am: Edit

this is the current rule in the Tournament rule book

time limits
Player will have a maximum of five minutes (or one minute longer than your opponent, which is more) to complete their Energy Allocation form each turn.

Out of the Tournament handbook its the 1st rule in the book. Online everyone is very flexable with that rules because the other player never knows what the opponent is dealing with at home. Wife - kids - pets - drink - bathroom.

Some players use time as one of their weapons and can be very strong tactic.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, November 16, 2025 - 10:30 am: Edit

3.1 bakija (GRN) vs Spartan (ISC)

Thursday, 6:00 pm my time (ET), Friday, 8:00 am Tokyo time.

Yaa. Another ISC :-/

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, November 16, 2025 - 12:44 pm: Edit

Seth, I can only assume you had not found that time limit at the time or you would have contacted the judge.

Peter, I hope you and Geoff can find mutually agreeable times to play. If not, the Marshal will have to impose time frames based on US time zones. You don’t want us to do that.

By Dana Madsen (Madman) on Sunday, November 16, 2025 - 12:50 pm: Edit

FWIW when you discuss options Steve I think flexibility should be prioritized over hard/firm rules. However flexibility needs to come with communication.

For example, round 1 of tourney is supposed to be 3 weeks, round 2+ are supposed to be 2 weeks. When we are signing up for the tournament, no one really knows when we will get 16 players or when the start date will be. If it takes longer to start then expected I may have a vacation planned. I may need to say to the group, I can't make round 2 work in 2 weeks, please extend the second round timeline a week. I'd like to think in the interests of keeping 16 people playing the judge would allow a week extension, provided it's requested early and comes with a reason. If you put hard rules in, no extension, then maybe I decide I need to drop from the tournament as I can't play with the new start date, and now there aren't 16 players to even start.

I am in favour of the judge dropping a player though from a match that has fallen off schedule, and either going to alternates (maybe a reentry or someone knocked out in a previous round) or advancing by default the player who was trying to organize the game if communication is lost, or if a specific time frame can't be committed to. For ex: player B in a game says, I'm having issues, I can't play in the next 2 weeks, and I'm not sure if I can play in the next 3 or 4 weeks. Or worse, they don't answer emails for a week. Well, if they can't communicate and commit to a timeline, replace them. We don't need to be rude about it, it can come with a message that we'd like you to re-enter next tourney if timing works better for you, but in the interests of keeping this tourney moving, we are going to move on.

I apply the same principle to EA. I don't agree with a hard no excuses timeline where EA must be done in 5 min, or +1 min after the other player. Allow some flexibility. I may say at the end of T2, I need 20 min, I need a bio break, and my kid has a math question for homework that I need to give him a quick hand with. Can you take a 20 min break. If I do that every EA, I would understand if my opponent gets annoyed, and maybe he should give a gentle warning, "I would appreciate for my time if you could speed up your EA allocation". If it continues all the time, send an email to the judge explaining EA is consistently taking long and asking them to intervene, and the judge says I'm going to implement a rule, every min after 10min is an internal, or something like that.

Personally I don't think EA is at all the reason for long games, it's often in the movement or IA phase. People who haven't played for 4 months need to lookup a rule. Sometimes a turn can go really quick, everyone moves within 10 or 15 seconds and there is no shooting. Sometimes a single impulse can take 5 or 10 min with thinking about multiple activity decisions (unplotted speed change, seeking weapons, labs, tractors, do I shoot, count hexes until the plasma hits, etc). Then the next impulse takes 10 min, then the next, etc. I'll admit that I often feel I'm slow here. I don't play enough, and I get into decision paralysis. This is the part of the game that makes it long, not an extra 5 or 10 min at EA 2 or 3 times a night.

Maybe it's not always easy, but hard/firm rules with no flexibility will cause us to lose players faster in my opinion.

On timezones, if we want 16 players and not to turn people away, everyone needs to be a little accommodating. If I play Carl in Sweden and we're 8 hours apart, I may offer to play a session where I get up at 4am (it doesn't hurt me, I wake up early anyways). Carl may need to offer to play one session at an uncomfortable time for him to make it work. Even though I'm CST I do not think there should be a hard rule that everyone has to offer to play between 6pm and 10pm Texas time on a weekday. We'll lose players.

Flexibility and communication. If one side refuses to be flexible, that is a reason to replace them. If one side stops communicating, judges, either advance the player who is communicating, or put a quick email out saying asking for a replacement player who guarantees they have 3 options to play in the next 4 or 5 days.

Thanks, Dana

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, November 16, 2025 - 04:55 pm: Edit

We have always tried to be flexible, and it has been abused, often flagrantly, deliberately, and as a meta gaming tactic to win the game.

Certainly two players can agree to extend the EA deadline, but when one player does it in five minutes and the other never takes less than 25, that is chargeable as abuse (I.e., the opponent is within his rights to demand judicial intervention), and players need to know “it’s not my gut feeling, it’s in the rules.” Also, a judge needs a line in the sand to judge by. We cannot have a given judge on a given day say 25 minutes is not a problem while another judge on a different day says ten minutes is forfeiture of the game. As a courtesy, I would warn my opponent the first two times he took too long but the third time I would halt the game and call a judge. I would probably tell my opponent with the second warning that there won’t be a third waning. A judge would probably give the slow EA player a single warning to not repeat the delay and then would be within his duty to end the game with the slow player forfeiting. I was thinking to give the judge the option to strike hull boxes instead of ending the game. Maybe there should be a limit to how many strikes the judge can impose before just calling the game. This subject came up because one player was taking half an hour EVERY SINGLE TIME, not once or twice. I am okay with ten minutes, but not eleven.

Certainly you can agree to play at 4am, but no one should force you to do so. One player in Sweden or China doesn’t get to force a 4am start time on three others. He can start at 11pm. It has already been proven that we would lose more players by slow schedules and people demanding to be exempted from the rules than by enforcing the rules.

I know as well as anyone that getting sixteen is tough, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for one player to rewrite the rules for fifteen others. For everyone who says “it took two months to get sixteen and you ran into my vacation” there are two who say “you let that guy delay the tournament and ran into MY vacation.” We have had people say (properly so) that the tournament finally kicked off too close to his vacation and dropped out. It has been proven that tournaments would be over if we allowed delays as before.

Flexibility is great, but we have strict deadlines now BECAUSE there were too many people abusing flexibile guidelines.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, November 16, 2025 - 06:01 pm: Edit

I have some ideas about the “difficulty of getting sixteen” issue but it would be best to discuss them with the Board of Directors, not to spitball them in public. Certainly anyone with an idea there should get it to me here or by email.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, November 16, 2025 - 06:20 pm: Edit

Another way to say it is that flexibility is a courtesy to be granted, not a privilege to be demanded. If a player demands endless flexibility in his favor, he is going to cost us a LOT of players.

By Gregg Dieckhaus (Gdieck) on Sunday, November 16, 2025 - 07:11 pm: Edit

Wow lots of controversy here ... too bad it cant be solved by the simple just play nice to each other.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, November 16, 2025 - 08:14 pm: Edit

Unfortunately, playing nice goes out the window when trying to win.

Controvery? Yes. But the company, judges, and I did not create it. We're just trying to control the worst of it and make players happy. At least the most we can. Some have quit playing because we enforce the deadlines; several times as many would have quit if we did not.

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Monday, November 17, 2025 - 11:44 am: Edit

Speaking of which, what is the deadline for R3 of this tournament? Does anyone know?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, November 17, 2025 - 02:33 pm: Edit

I would like to know the answer to that.

The board will meet to discuss judicial issues including the question of what to do about Seth's resignation. We don't want to delay things any more but there are those who feel that we should have Geoff play a wildcard before moving forward. I should have the answer to that tomorrow.

By Seth Shimansky (Kingzila) on Monday, November 17, 2025 - 03:36 pm: Edit

My thought process on my resignation was that Spartan was winning the game and that he would move on. I have no issue with that. If judgement from above thinks he needs to play a wildcard than I will enter my name for a fresh new game with Spartan as the wildcard. If you pick someone else Im cool with that too.

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Monday, November 17, 2025 - 04:25 pm: Edit

The R3 of the tournament deadline is pushed to after Thanksgiving. I have been in contact with Bill going on vacation on Thursday so will not be available until after Thanksgiving.

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Monday, November 17, 2025 - 05:09 pm: Edit

I would be happy to step in if you need someone who isn't Seth. I could play that game at any time.

By Daniel Bitseff (Cadet_Stimpy) on Monday, November 17, 2025 - 09:24 pm: Edit

Why would you start a fresh game? If you two can get scheduled, just finish the one you started, eh?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, November 17, 2025 - 09:39 pm: Edit

Daniel, the matter is being reviewed. Seth asked to start over due to the conditions of play. I haven't said anything about supporting or agreeing to that, partly because it's not my call to make. I am not sure Seth would want to play if they didn't start over. All I have been doing since I got dragged in here was gathering info for the judges. This has gone to a three-judge panel, and not for the usual reasons. (They are not reviewing winner/loser but fairness, protocol issues, and rules.)

By Daniel Bitseff (Cadet_Stimpy) on Monday, November 17, 2025 - 11:13 pm: Edit

-deleted-by-author-not-helpful

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, November 17, 2025 - 11:18 pm: Edit

To be clear, I am not the one who raised the issue, nor am I the one who will decide it, but I'm sure all of that is already on their mind. I have a feeling about which way I would go, but it would be inappropriate for me to post it.

I might comment that Seth, and only Seth, has proposed letting him start over. No judge has said anything of the kind, but I'm sure they will consider every alternative.

By Daniel Bitseff (Cadet_Stimpy) on Monday, November 17, 2025 - 11:20 pm: Edit

yep, thanks Steve!

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Tuesday, November 18, 2025 - 04:32 pm: Edit

3.1 bakija (GRN) vs Spartan (ISC)

Rescheduled to Friday, 5:00 pm my time (ET), 7:00 am Tokyo time.

(I accidentally double booked Thursday, and Geof was gracious enough to reschedule).

I'm a little confused as there seems to be some discussion of starting over Seth and Geof's previous game? The winner of which I am playing in my game that is scheduled for Friday?