For the crib notes of this long post, please just read the summary.
If you want to see the rules written out, read the bold text.
Finally, if you have lots of time, you can read my italicised notes.
Summary
To do well in this event, under the Kings of Herts Scoring System:
First, try to win.
Winning or loosing, go for as many victory points as possible, it will effect your placement at the end.
When victory points are no longer up for contesting, kill your opponents units, even if you loose yours. It will stand you in better stead as kills are far far more likely to impact your rank than losses.
Finally, obviously, don’t throw away a unit for absolutely no gain. It probably won’t effect the final results, but it just might.
As we enter round two of the online tournament, I thought it was worth just spelling out the scoring system we use and why we use it. Our system is not new, it is almost two years old and has been tested in ten tournaments so far, including two rather large ones as part of Mantic FrantiCon and has been through many many hours of discussion in the South East TO group. Not everyone playing in the current online event has been to all our events and there have been slight changes over the years (and rightly so), meaning there is a small possibility that not everyone who has been to our events has memorised the packs.
Now before I go any further, this is not a criticism of any other system. I like other systems, in particular the outstanding Northern Kings one. However, I believe that no system, ours included, could ever suit everyone and every event perfectly. What follows is the system that we use, and will continue to use at our events, because it suits us and the way we run our events. We have put a lot of work and though into it. If you have, or will play in one of our events, I would like you to know exactly how your results will be used, so you know if that will have any impact on the tactical decisions you make in game.
Aims
Firstly, I would like to set out the aims of this system and how we hope they impact on people's play style.
It is our assertion that no draw, no matter how ‘good’ should ever rank above a win, no matter how ‘bad’.
We felt it important in our events that we (try to) make everything relaxed. In that vein, we were conscious that even a tired out brain should be able to quickly judge where it thinks it is in the day's rankings at any point. It is important to note here that we generally have quite small numbers of rounds.
Games need to be enjoyable to the end for both players, even when scenario victory becomes impossible (or improbable). To this end we knew that capturing some VP and maintaining good kills had to be important, so you always had something to play for.
How our system works
In effect it works as a series of sorts, and subsorts to break ties. I feel I should emphasise that what follows are not all rolled together and then ordered. If there are no draws, then the metric bellow will not be used. For example, if only one person won all their games, they win the tournament, no matter how well a two win one draw player did.
This is one of the main differences between our system and others, although I suspect in practice it has little effect on how any of our final rankings have turned out.
Metric 1
The outcome (win, loss or draw) is the primary factor. At the end of the day, we play games to win, and to avoid a loss. You are awarded 5 points for a win, 3 for a draw and 1 for a loss. These were chosen so that two draws is equivalent to a win and a loss. With these, players or teams are then sorted, like in a football league.
This helps us address Aims 1 and 2. This will always, since we generally only have 3 or 4 rounds, result in a large number of ties. This is good, since it gives us the opportunity to bring in more metrics to break those draws, giving players something else to play for, i.e. Aim 3
Metric 2
How many victory points you achieved during the games is then used to break any ties (a ‘then sort by’). How many points your opponent achieved has no impact on your score (it did that in metric 1). This ALWAYS has an effect, so should be kept in mind, even if you believe you have lost. This, with limited VPs, still results in a number of draws so (happily for Aim 3) metric 3 always needs to be considered.
This one has changed over time and is debatable. From a historical point of view (slippery slope I know) it could be argued that the next metric should be kill points, after all, if you secured that code book, who cares if you have three copies, if you lost most of your army in the process? Also, it has been suggested that VPs determine victory, so in effect we are ‘double dipping’ before moving on to a different metric. Both are good points and in fact, that’s how we did it early on. HOWEVER, that does not make for a fun game, and while it’s nice to maintain a veneer of realism, it should never be detrimental to enjoyment. Having someone run away and hide, or entering into suicidal charges is not as fun as playing for objectives until the end, so for the sake of Aim 3, and like most of our favourite systems out there, VPs comes next.
Something worth noting here is our recent move to choose and adapt scenarios to limit the available to equivalent amounts for each mission, in general 6 or 7. Previously we had assumed that it didn’t matter if available points differed between rounds, as everyone was on an even footing, but it was rightly pointed out to us that while it’s impossible to get more than 4 points in Raze, a high unit strength army can get far higher in Invade. This in turn advantages anyone with easier matchup in missions with lots of available points. We toyed with the idea of just putting a cap on points that count (say max 4, as that’s what Raze can get you), but we still felt it’s easier to get those 4 points in a game with lots of points available. If you see a mission where we have modified VPs, this is why, not because we felt there was something wrong with the original, or that we can improve on it. We are TOs not game designers, we’re not in any way qualified to design, but instead make decisions for our tournaments.
Metric 3
Any remaining draws will be broken by how many points of enemy models you have routed.
As with the other metrics, this is rightfully open for debate. It can be argued that how many units you loose is far more important than how many you kill. Just ask Pyrrhus of Epirus (or anyone who plays total war campaigns). Winning a battle, but having no troops left to finish the war is a hollow victory. In the past we have used attrition (difference between total kill points scored less total kill points conceded) as our main ‘kill’ metric, however, we changed that for this tournament. Other scoring system designers pointed out, and rightly so, that this makes people hide units and play defensively, even trying to prematurely bring games to an end. In this situation, once again ‘fun’ needs to trump ‘realism’. It has led to the odd situation, in our online tournaments, where each player has to submit their opponents kill points, as they are in a better position to remember what’s died.
Historically we stopped there. The odds of still having a draw, when full numbers of kill points (not banded points) have been used is minutely small. However it has still happened and could happen again, especially early in a tournament when two people ‘tabelled’ their opponents. Additionally, the necessity to provide distinct places to the rankings page means we have to be prepared to break any draws. That brings us on to sort metrics 4 and 5.
Metrics 4 and 5
Finally losses (kills against you) and then strength of schedule will be used. We don’t like either of these metrics, but it’s good to have a backup plan and frankly we don’t expect them to be used.
Finally
If there is still a draw, the two players are locked in a room and only one comes out. They are the winner. Or we’d toss a coin. Actually it’s the coin thing.
As I said before, this system is not perfect, I don’t think any is. There are some systems that are more laser accurate in determining the best players at an event, and I applaud them for that. Other systems certainly suit events with larger round numbers, where our aim to keep things calculable in an average persons head breaks down. Our system may also not suit some players, but we sincerely hope that is very few. However, if you play in one of our events and have a suggestion, please give it to us (not ‘abandon it and use X system’, we’ve put a lot of work into this). Most of the changes so far have been based on player feedback and discussions with other TOs.