Regatta III Schedule and Rules

Welcome to the Regatta!

Thank you for coming to the 2002 ARMADA Regatta, warm up event for next year's World Diplomacy Championships (World DipCon XIII), to be hosted here! This tournament was organized by the Association of Rocky Mountain Area Diplomacy Adversaries (ARMADA) and this is the third year of the Regatta.

We are once again proud to have in attendance quite a few of the most recognizable names in the worldwide Diplomacy hobby, drawing players from both coasts of the continent and from overseas!

This handout covers the event schedule and our unique playing system, one that results in many exciting games.

Merchandise!

ARMADA Regatta T-shirts and mousepads and videotapes of this year's and the previous years' lectures can be ordered from the tournament director to help defray the cost of the Regatta. Your purchases will be greatly appreciated, and the prices are very reasonable.

Schedule

Friday 15 February

6:00 P.M. Welcome and registration for all rounds begins.
6:30 P.M. Orientation for new players.
6:45 P.M. Registration for round 1 ends.
7:00 P.M. Round 1.

Saturday 16 February

8:45 A.M. Registration for round 2 ends.
9:00 A.M. Round 2.
3:00 P.M. Lecturers:

Edi Birsan
Yarden Livnat

4:30 P.M. "State Dinner." (Mass trip to a watering hole.)
6:45 P.M. Registration for round 3 ends.
7:00 P.M. Round 3.

Sunday 17 February

8:45 A.M. Registration for round 4 ends.
9:00 A.M. Round 4.
3:00 P.M. Awards Ceremony.

Regatta Rules

Player Seeding
The tournament director will assign players to specific tables in each round, and will assign each to a specific power.
- Games will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis. If enough players to evenly round out a final board cannot be found, the tournament director will sadly be forced to ask enough ARMADA members to sit out the round.
- Placement in the first round will be random.
- In subsequent rounds, an attempt will be made to minimize the number of players who play against opponents they had faced in earlier rounds.
- Each player will play a different power in each round, and an attempt will be made to ensure that each player plays in as many as possible of four different power "groups" (Austria/Italy, England/France, Russia/Turkey, and Germany).
- In the final round, tables may (or may not) be seeded to assure that those in contention for the championship play against each other.
- The tournament director will publicly announce the table and country assignments of all players before each round. Players are asked to keep noise to a minimum during this announcement.
Scoring Sheets and Order Forms
- Each game will be scored individually.
- A scoring sheet for the game will be provided to each table.
- It shall be the duty of the players at each table to fill out a scoring sheet for the table and submit it to the tournament director at the conclusion of the game.
- Before the scoring sheet is submitted, each player must sign the scoring sheet on the line of the power he played.
- Each player in a game will be given order forms that are to be used to issue all his orders in that game. These forms are to be turned in with the game scoring sheet, so that a complete record of the game can be archived.
Game Format
Each game will terminate:
- In a solo victory if any single player:
  1. controls at least two more centers than each other individual player, and
  2. increased his supply center count in the most-recently completed game-year, and
  3. controls at least a specific number of supply centers (the number required is based on the game-year and is shown in the table below and on the game scoring sheet):
  Game-Year: 1901-1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913+
  
  Centers to Win: 18 17 16 15 14 12 10 8 6
  
  NOTE: Players should be aware that this system does accelerate the arrival of the end-game and take away some of the strategy of stalemate lines. For example, in a normal game, England could set up the Gibraltar stalemate line and guarantee himself a place in the draw as long as no one reached 18 centers. Here at the Regatta, however, an opponent could win with a smaller number of centers, which would make the English stalemate line useless.
- In a solo victory if all players controlling at least one supply center vote (unanimously) to concede the game to a specific single power. Such a vote shall be supervised by the tournament director (who shall be summoned to the table by any player), and shall be conducted in secret.
- In a draw shared equally among all players controlling at least one supply center if all such players vote for such a result. This vote shall be supervised by the tournament director (who shall be summoned to the table by any player), and shall be conducted in secret.

Game-Year:	1901-1905	1906	1907	1908	1909	1910	1911	1912	1913+
Centers to Win:	18	17	16	15	14	12	10	8	6

Version of the Rules
The 1982 edition of the rules of Diplomacy are the ones in use for this event. The Tournament Director will have a copy of these rules which a player may borrow on request. Convoy paradoxes are resolved using the rule that in an otherwise paradoxical situation, fleets issuing support for or against a convoying fleet cannot have their support cut under any circumstance. This resolves the paradox.

Negotiation and Timing
All games will conduct negotiation simultaneously. The Tournament Director will announce when negotiation is to begin and end for each turn. Players are expected to rigidly obey the call of the Tournament Director. The time allowed before orders for a particular movement phase must be submitted is shown in the following table:

	1901-1905	1906-1909	1910+
Spring	20 minutes	15 minutes	10 minutes
Fall	15 minutes	10 minutes	10 minutes

Note that the clock is always running! As soon as the twenty minute period leading up to Spring 1901 is called, the time for Fall 1901 begins. Yes, this means that the time you spend adjudicating a movement phase on the board, and submitting and adjudicating any retreats does indeed eat into the time you have before the orders for the next movement phase must be submitted.

Retreat and Adjustment Phases
Negotiation is prohibited during the retreat and adustment phases. During these phases, if a player has orders to submit, he must write his orders down and reveal them simultaneously with any other players, as during movement phases.

Despite the above rule, during the retreat phase, a player may ask to be told his options for where to retreat. If a player asks for his options, the other players should answer him only by listing the locations to which the unit cannot retreat, and may not make any suggestions about which other option to take. However, it is still considered the individual player's responsibility to know and understand his options. Once a player has submitted his retreat, it may not be changed, even if he was given incorrect information about his options.

After adjudication of a movement phase, players at each board should immediately submit and adjudicate any retreats and then submit and adjudicate adjustment orders. Remember that the clock for negotiation of the next movement phase has already begun!

Any unit in retreat which does not receive a retreat order will be disbanded. Any builds for which a player is eligible but for which no order was received will be waived. Failure to issue the required number of remove orders will result in the tournament director removing the additional unit or units completely at random.

Late Penalty
Any units for which orders are not submitted and in the box on the table at the time the deadline is called will see all their units HOLD (with the ability to receive support). Some leniency will exist, allowing players to submit their order sheet up to one minute late before the penalty is applied, but this is guaranteed only once per game per player -- repeat offenders will be tolerated only as determined by the other players in the game -- if any player requests of the tournament director that a player who has been late before not be allowed to submit orders late again, that player will not be allowed to do so, and his units will all HOLD if his orders are not submitted on time.

Cross Board Negotiations
Players are expected to limit game conversation to those players involved in their own games.

Order Writing

Unit types (army or fleet) need not be included in movement, retreat, or remove orders, but if given in a movement order, must be accurate. For example, if a movement phase order is given to a fleet in a space, but an army actually exists in that space, the order is not issued. However, in a retreat or remove order, the unit type, if given, will be ignored and any unit in the mentioned space will be issued the order. Unit types are required in a build order (except that they may be omitted if the build is occurring in an inland center like Paris or Budapest -- an army can be assumed for such build-sites). Any order to build a fleet in St. Petersburg must specify the coast, or the build order will be ignored as if not written at all, as will be any impossible build order, such as a fleet build in Vienna or any build to be made in a non-home supply center.
Any mention of any unit's nationality in an order will be completely ignored.
Convoy pathing (indicating in the army's order the path to be taken by that army, by listing the location of the fleet or fleets to be used) is encouraged, but not required. If convoy pathing is not used, an order will never be considered a convoy order if it is a move to an adjacent land location. Also, if convoy pathing is not used in an order, and if multiple convoy routes are available, the convoy will succeed as long as least one route is not disrupted.
Proxy orders are not allowed. A player may not indicate that another player may submit with his own sheet orders that are to be issued to any of the first player's units.
The coast of a multi-coast space (such as Spain or Bulgaria) on which a fleet is attempting to land should not be mentioned in any order supporting such a landing. If the coast is mentioned in such a support order, the coast designation is ignored.
Orders given to a fleet to move from the Mid-Atlantic Ocean to Spain, or from Constantinople to Bulgaria must include the destination coast. Failure to specify the coast on which the landing will occur will result in the unit HOLDing without the ability to receive support. In all other fleet movements to a bi-coastal province, specification of the coast is not necessary, but if incorrectly given, the unit will fail to move (for example, if a fleet in Finland is ordered to the north coast of St. Petersburg -- an impossible move -- the fleet will HOLD).
Units receiving impossible move orders will HOLD without the ability to receive support, and units receiving any other impossible or invalid order will HOLD with the ability to receive support.
Any unit receiving two different orders will HOLD with the ability to receive support.
Any order deemed unclear should be submitted to the tournament director for a decision on its meaning and interpretation. The decision of the tournament director is final, and any order the tournament director deems unintelligible is indeed unintelligible.

Scoring System

The following points will be awarded to each player after each game.
- 104 points to a solo victor
- 96 points to a participant in a two-way draw
- 64 points to a participant in a three-way draw
- 56 points to a participant in a four-way draw
- 40 points to a participant in a five-way draw
- 32 points to a participant in a six-way draw
- 24 points to a participant in a seven-way draw
- 8 points to player having one or more supply centers when a reduced-center "solo" victory is achieved by force (but not conceded)
- 0 points
For each solo victory achieved by the player:
- 1 point is added for each supply center held in excess of the number required to win (although no credit is given for SC's in excess of eighteen).
For each solo victory or draw result achieved by the player:
- 1 point is subtracted for each year of game-play in that game.
For each elimination, loss, or concession to another player:
- 1 point is added for each year of game-play by the player before the elimination, loss, or concession.
Players shall be ranked by total score at the conclusion of the tournament, with the player's single lowest score from among the four rounds of play (including any zero point scores for rounds not played) not being considered in the total. Ties will be broken in favor of:
1. the player with the highest score obtained in any game in which the tied players opposed each other,
2. the player with the highest uncounted score (from any thrown-out heat),
3. the player with the highest third-best single-round score
4. the player with the highest second-best single-round score,
If a tie still remains, the players will be declared tied.
Prizes
- El Capitán -- 2002 Regatta Champion
- Second through Seventh Places
- Best Country Awards
- Best Finish by an ARMADA Member
- The 2001 Duke of Medina Sidonia Award (Awarded to the best ARMADA player, as determined by the ARMADA rankings, during the calendar year 2001.)
- Other Awards. Yes, there are other awards. You may remember them from years past, but we don't list them here because we don't want people playing to win them.
Rules of Common Courtesy
Players are asked to bring the expression or commission of any profane, obscene, offensive, or violent language, gestures, or acts to the the attention of the tournament director. Tournament expulsion (after a single warning) is the only penalty for such behavior. This rule applies at all times, not just during play.