For more information on Titan see my Titan Home Page.
51 players participated in 36 preliminary round matches.
The following is pretty much what I have submitted to the BPA for inclusion in the Multi-player Titan Yearbook entry.
This year David desJardins became the first player to win both the Multiplayer Titan tournament and the Two player Titan tournament in the same year.
Changing to have scheduled start times seemed to help get participation back up from last year, but we were still below two years ago. This year we had 51 different people participate in 36 preliminary round games. 27 of these games were 4 player games and 9 were three player games. We didn't need to set up any five player games (which generally don't work as well).
We had a couple complaints related to scheduled starts that I want to try to address next year. One is that 4 hours apart is a bit too long. And the other was that a couple of times several people got eliminated from games just after a round of games were started up.
What I am thinking of doing next year is cutting the time between games to 3 hours except for between the first and second rounds on Thursday and Friday where I will keep it at a four hour gap. For the first round of the day I think without overlap from a previous round a four hour gap will work better. I also want to allow for additional games to be set up at my discretion not less than two hours before the start of the next round. That way if some people become available shortly after a round starts, I can get them into a game. However it is important to not do this too close to the start of a new round, because I want to make sure there are enough players at each scheduled start to start up games. Otherwise we will be back to were we were last year.
I also want to make another tweak to the semifinal seeding. A few years ago we switched to random seeding (with cliques to split up friends) in order to avoid situations where people made decisions about whether or not to play (or worse whether or not to throw a game) in a round based on who they would be matched up against in the semifinals. However this system has the disadvantage in that the semifinal games may not be balanced. So next year I will be grouping the top sixteen people in groups of four (based on their ranking) and splitting each of these groups across the semifinal games, but still randomly putting them at each table. Cliques and splitting up teammates will take precedence over over this if there is an otherwise unresolvable conflict allocating people to games.
This year we had both a semifinal game and the finals run so long that they needed to be adjudicated. While adjudication seemed to work well, we really could use some mechanism to keep play moving. I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has tried to use chess clocks or egg timers to keep either masterboard or battleboard play moving. I doubt I will put in a system for next year, but I do expect to discuss possibilities with the players.
On the sportsmanship front we had some good and bad things happen.
Cliff Ackman made a classier variation on the classic winner says to loser "Good game" remark by making it before make a key role that was going to effectively eliminate him or Rich Atwater from a game. Rich appreciated this and used it himself after Mutualling with David desJardins in one of the semifinal games before making the roll off roll to determine who would end up advancing to the finals. While players won't always be in a position to do this, but keep in mind when you have played a good game with someone, that it comes off as more sincere to let your opponent(s) know before the game has been decided.
Also on the good front was the cooperation of the players involved with the adjudicated games. Despite these being critical games, the players involved were all very cooperative and accepted the results gracefully.
On the not so good front we had a couple of incidences of conflicting opinions on how the game should be played with respect to it being a multiplayer game. While it is common and reasonable for gaming groups to put extra limits on what is OK to do in order to make the game more fun for them, it is unreasonable to expect all gaming groups to impose the same limitations. I would appreciated it if players would be more open to (or at least tolerant of) other ways of playing and not get upset at some other player who does something that would be frowned upon in your gaming group, but that isn't against the rules or universally regarded as unsporting.
Some specific examples follow.
Players are allowed to make nonbinding deals with each other. If you get out by yourself while some other players get tangled up, don't count on them not making a temporary truce to allow them to disengage from each other without falling too far behind.
Players (still in the game) are allowed to give advice to other players, both on the masterboard and on the battleboards. So be aware, that if you attack a weaker player hoping they will misfight a battle, that other players may advise them in order to hurt your position.
Players are allowed to pull their stacks at certain points in the game. So be aware that if you spend a lot of effort trapping someone's Titan, they may get a chance to (and) pull their stacks denying you the points for eliminating them.
If on turn one you teleport into a tower next to another player's stacks, don't be surprised if they make a suicide attack on you in retaliation.
While I have my own opinion about what extra constraints make multiplayer games more fun, when we all get together I think we need to go by what is allowed by the rules and be tolerant of how other players play.
I hope to see you all again next year.
Fin Sem Pre Opp Opp Opp Opp Opp Opp Game
Name Ran Ran Ran 1st 2nd 3rd 4th Kil 1st 2nd 3rd 4th Kil Gam Gam Numbers
desJardins, David 1 1 4 3 0 0 0 9 11 9 6 0 37 34 4 7 13 23 36
Gubbay, David 2 4 16 1 1 0 0 3 3 10 8 0 17 27 3 9 17 34
Ley, Jason 3 2 6 2 1 0 0 6 12 16 11 0 44 51 5 11 12 15 25 29
Wines, Art 4 3 7 2 0 2 0 6 15 12 9 0 51 47 4 21 23 28 31
Hillock, Kevin 5 5 1 3 1 2 0 8 16 17 11 0 60 63 6 1 11 16 18 28 32
Atwater, Rich 6 6 10 1 3 0 0 5 19 12 17 0 64 61 6 1 7 12 18 26 31
Johnston, Tom 7 7 11 1 2 2 0 6 14 15 9 0 51 55 5 6 9 22 24 31
Simmons, Ted 8 8 15 1 1 0 0 6 8 4 6 0 25 29 2 2 35
Strock, Dan 9 9 2 3 0 1 0 10 10 18 15 0 43 60 5 2 8 20 27 32
Boyland, Dan 10 10 5 2 3 0 0 7 13 8 10 0 50 44 5 3 21 24 29 36
Owens, Steve 11 11 8 2 0 1 0 4 16 15 14 0 63 60 6 5 16 22 23 26 35
Pustilnik, Michael 12 12 13 1 1 1 0 5 15 9 10 0 50 48 4 8 23 27 34
Sutton, Brian 13 13 3 3 0 1 0 9 11 9 10 0 38 43 4 5 11 13 14
Fuegi, Aaron 14 14 9 2 0 0 0 8 5 10 6 0 25 27 2 6 24
Northey, Rick 15 15 12 1 2 2 0 3 17 15 12 0 69 65 6 2 20 25 30 31 34
Lingle, Larry 16 16 14 1 1 1 0 5 7 8 7 0 25 32 3 1 14 19
Nicholson, David 17 17 17 1 0 1 0 4 11 13 11 0 43 44 4 2 10 21 30
Effinger, Robb 18 18 18 1 0 1 0 4 8 11 7 0 34 38 3 6 10 29
Smith, Clifford 19 19 19 1 0 0 0 4 0 3 1 0 0 5 1 4
Czyrca, Chris 20 20 20 1 0 0 0 4 0 2 2 0 0 5 1 33
Cannon, Michael 21 21 21 1 0 0 0 2 9 6 6 0 30 28 2 32 35
Norman, David 22 22 22 1 0 0 0 2 3 4 1 0 12 13 1 12
Koleszar, Steve 23 23 23 1 0 0 0 2 2 4 1 0 9 9 1 3
Harrison, Joe 24 24 24 0 2 1 0 2 24 15 14 0 84 69 6 8 10 16 18 24 35
Ticola, Peter 25 25 25 0 2 1 0 2 11 6 6 0 33 32 3 11 17 30
Meyer, Jeff 26 26 26 0 2 1 0 0 12 4 5 0 40 28 3 4 27 32
Hughes, Howard 27 27 27 0 1 2 0 1 20 13 11 0 68 57 5 5 9 14 20 29
Sharp III, John 28 28 28 0 1 1 0 2 9 8 3 0 32 28 3 3 8 15
Lange, Ted 29 29 29 0 1 1 0 0 4 5 5 0 19 22 3 10 19 33
Ackman, Cliff 30 30 30 0 1 0 0 2 3 3 2 0 9 13 1 26
Betz, Joseph 31 31 31 0 1 0 0 1 12 8 12 0 44 40 3 14 20 27
Burkey, David 32 32 32 0 1 0 0 1 6 0 1 0 18 9 1 13
Woodson, Robert 33 33 33 0 1 0 0 1 4 6 3 0 15 18 1 18
Platnick, David 34 34 34 0 1 0 0 0 10 8 8 0 37 35 3 6 22 25
Foy, Ben 35 35 35 0 1 0 0 0 5 9 5 0 19 26 3 17 19 25
Wolff III, Bruno 36 36 36 0 1 0 0 0 5 3 0 0 16 9 1 36
Liberman, Joe 37 37 37 0 1 0 0 0 2 4 4 0 10 13 1 9
Rothenheber, Ed 38 38 38 0 1 0 0 0 2 2 1 0 8 8 1 15
Lientz, Gerald 39 39 39 0 1 0 0 0 1 2 1 0 4 5 1 4
Czyrca, Ernest 40 40 40 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 2 0 4 5 1 33
Pinder, Kenneth 41 41 41 0 0 1 0 1 9 9 3 0 31 27 2 1 12
Kreger, Wesley 42 42 42 0 0 1 0 0 5 1 4 0 14 15 1 5
Pounder, Geoffrey 43 43 43 0 0 1 0 0 4 3 0 0 14 11 1 7
Shambeda, Jed 44 44 44 0 0 1 0 0 3 4 1 0 11 13 1 26
Czyrca, Kelly 45 45 45 0 0 1 0 0 1 2 1 0 4 5 1 33
Calkins, Matt 46 46 46 0 0 0 0 0 6 1 1 0 19 9 1 13
Shambeda, Steve 47 47 47 0 0 0 0 0 5 1 4 0 14 10 1 28
Fishkin, Jim 48 48 48 0 0 0 0 0 4 3 1 0 14 11 1 7
Anner, Nicholas 49 49 49 0 0 0 0 0 3 4 1 0 11 9 1 3
Minard, Frederick 50 50 50 0 0 0 0 0 2 4 4 0 9 13 1 30
Smith, Mark 51 51 51 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 1 0 4 5 1 4