- Players take turns on nominating factions they are willing to play (they have to at least nominate one axis and one allied faction). Once a player passes, the other player may nominate any number of factions and the nomination part ends.
Details: - Both players take turns on bidding how quickly they would win. Whoever bids the shortest time now is the "attacker", while the other is the "defender". Top seed starts with a mandatory bid of 60 minutes.
- The attacker picks the map out of the automatch pool; he also choses which faction he will play (from the list he originally nominated) and which the defender will play (from the defender's list). It has to be allies vs. axis. The attacker may use any commanders and bulletins, while the defender might only use common commanders and no bulletins (optional: the defender might not use any commanders).
- The ensueing game is won by the attacker, if he manages to win within the time that he bid initially. Otherwise the defender wins.
So, the defender only has to stall until time runs out for the attacker. Simply winning still works though. In fact, if no player bids (beyong the initial 60 minute bid), the game would be a pretty normal one (well, except for that one of the players would pick the map and both factions...).
Comments:
- Nominating factions is trickier than might seem at first. Nominating a lot of factions will be advantageous when you turn out to be the attacker (you have more factions too chose from) but will tend to weaken you when you end up defending (because the attacker has more choice when picking your faction for you).
- This works well with BO1, but of course it can be used in BO3 rounds. Another advantage for organizers is that the maximum time for a game is limited to 60 minutes (of course a lower default can be chosen as well).
- When bidding for times you have to take into account that there is little incentive for the defender to surrender prematurely. When time runs out we might even see attempts at annihilation victories...
- It should be interesting to see match-ups/commanders/maps that are not used commonly.
So, what do you think, could this work? What factions would you nominate? Which match-ups and maps would you expect to see? How quickly would you expect to win against an equally skilled player in what faction/map combination?