Below is a guest post from one of our favorite people in the Colonist universe - Treeckosaurus!

Check it out and sign up for his tournament!

-------------------

Dear Colonist Community,

In this blog post you'll learn everything you need to know to know about the upcoming tournament.

My name is Treeckosaurus, I've hosted the 5 Colonist Championships and improved upon this concept with the KOC Championship Series.

The matches will be played on Colonist and the tournament will have a big prize pool! I will also go over why I've chosen this set-up and explain my thought-process.

Keep reading to find out how you can join.

And for those looking for a tl;dr - To participate in the tournament, you want to take four steps:

1. Join the Discord-server
2. Make a colonist.io account.
3. Fill out the sign-up form
4. Pay the tournament entry fee. Links are in the sign-up form.

Three Stage Tournament

The tournament has three stages:

1. the Main Group Stage
2. the Semi-Final Group Stage
3. the Final Four

In the Main Group Stage you play three games on three different tables. The 32 players who perform best, move on to the Semi-Final Group Stage on the second day.

On the second day, these 32 players play three games on three different tables to determine who moves on to The Final Four.

The Final Four (the name gives it away, doesn't it?) is for the four players who performed best in the Semi-Finals. This final game will be played on the same day as the Semi-Finals (June 28th) and it will be live-streamed on Twitch.

I think this format supports skill the best - the strongest players (in most cases) win at least one of the three games and that will put them in the top 32. I also find it important that everyone can play at least three games.

The reason I've spread the format to two days is the following: in the Colonist Championship Series, I've noticed the Semi-Finals were too luck-based. Just one game to determine the strongest players isn't fair, in my opinion.

The final as one game is the best from the viewers-perspective, I believe. One game to win it all!

How To Sign Up

To participate in the tournament, you want to take four steps:

1. Join the Discord-server
2. Make a colonist.io account.
3. Fill out the sign-up form
4. Pay the tournament entry fee. Links are in the sign-up form.

The tournament entry fee is $2. I want to grow online Catan into an E-sport and for that we need to show it's possible to host tournaments with prize pools. There needs to be a great infrastructure for sponsors to step-in. That's why I think the $2 entry fee is a good stepping stone towards larger goals!

There are multiple ways to pay the entry fee: PayPal, Banktransfer and Revolut, so you can choose whatever works best for you. If none of the options works for you, please send a message to my co-host Rayic.

Discord: rayic3#5580
If you'd like to watch a video on how the tournament works, check out the video below. I've explained the whole sign-up process and how the tournament works.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you determine if you're doing well?

I use tie-breakers to determine who moves on to next round. Here they are:

Within the game itself, winning is the goal. So, I believe wins determine how strong of a player you are. If players have the same amount of wins, the most relevant tie-breaker is the amount of victory points you've collected. If that's tied as well, it comes down to the third tie-breaker. This can potentially tie as well (although I haven't seen it happen yet), so the 4th tie-breaker cannot tie.

Where will the matches be hosted?

The matches will be hosted in the Discord-server I designed for this championship series. You can find and join the Discord-server.

In the server you can find the table-chats. Here you can post/find the links to play your games on Colonist.

Discord is the easiest and the most user-friendly way of communicating with each other, in my opinion. I've also considered Instagram, but I think the Voice Channels add enough value to prefer Discord.

The reason I go with colonist.io as the website-to-play-on, is because it's free-to-play, so newer players can try without having to commit to buying the game and because I think colonist.io has a good gaming set-up. Another really important factor for me is streamability. The spectate function on colonist.io allows me to stream games I'm not a part of.

What are the match settings?

Some thing you want to know, before going into the matches, are the match settings. As you see below, the game speed is normal as it allows for good decision-making with an on-pace tournament.

I know the "fast" match-making is used a lot on colonist.io. The reason I choose to go with normal, is because it allows for better negotiations, which are a key aspect of the game.  

• Private Game: Yes
• Hide Bank Card: Yes
• Friendly Robber: No
• Map: Base Map
• Players: 4
• Card Discard Limit: 7
• Victory Points for Win: 10
• Game Speed: Normal
• Bot Speed: Normal

What happens if someone gets disconnected? Can we trade with bots?

Another rule that's different from online game-play is the rules around trading with the A.I.-players. A.I.-players generally make terrible trade decisions and therefore I've decided to "motivate" players to not trade with the A.I.-players.

We’ll start all games with 4 players. If you have a missing player, contact us and we will find you one :)

If a player is disconnected at the beginning of the game, the match could restart only if 4 players agree to it.

If a player(s) is replaced with an A.I. the following rules are applied:

• Players are not allowed to trade with the A.I.
• If a player trades with an A.I., the player receives -3 VPs and a potential win doesn’t count.

How do Back-up players Work?

To prevent matches with 3 players to happen, there are back-up players. Back-up players will be called upon if we have a number of players that can't be divided by 4. Back-up players don't need to pay the tournament entry fee, but they have the guarantee to participate either.

How Do you Start & End Games?

To start  a game:

• The link is shared in your table-chat
• All players join and the hosts selects the right settings
• You play the game

After the game is over:

• All players submit their own VP total in the form.
• The winner also needs to submit the screenshot in the discord channel #results-submission

What's the Schedule?

Terms and conditions:

• You are not allowed to join with more than one account
• If a player disconnects or leaves the game, he/she can connect and continue the game;
• The game starts when the map has loaded;
• Being abusive by spamming, harassing, threatening or insulting other players in chat on colonist.io or in Discord is not a tolerated behaviour and will result in (but is not limited to) the following: warnings, disqualifications, getting banned from future tournaments. If you encounter any breach of these rules while taking part in this tournament, take screenshots and contact the tournament host in Direct Messages;
• You are responsible for all the actions taken on your account and only you are allowed to play on your account.
• Abusing different glitches, cheats or non intended bugs in-game will disqualify you instantly.
• All actions that are in "bad faith," that is, not in the friendly, polite spirit of this tournament are prohibited. The host reserves the right to judge whether actions are taken in "bad faith" and assign consequences accordingly.

I hope to greet you the 27th of June in the tournament's Discord-server! And hopefully the 28th as well :)

Cheers!
Henk / Treeckosaurus (and from my co-host Rayic)