Event

BPA Through the Ages Tournament 2021

Results
This is the home page for the 2021 Boardgame Players Association “Play By Email”  tournament for Through the Ages. It is open only to members of the Boardgame Players Association (BPA). If you attend the World Boardgaming Championship (WBC), and are up to date on your registration fees for 2021, then you are already a member. If not, you can purchase an “Associate Membership” (PBEM only) for $10 from this website: www.boardgamers.org. This tournament will award laurels and contribute to the annual Caesar award, all of which is tracked through that same website.
 

GM: Allan Jiang

AGMs: Randy Buehler and Galen Loram

Tournament Format

This tournament will be played on the TTA app by Czech Games that launched in 2017 for iOS, Android, and Steam. You must own the app AND the New Leaders and Wonders expansion in order to participate in the tournament.
 
The GM will attempt to run this tournament using the TTA app Tournament feature, which will require an extra confirmation step by participants. The Tournament feature will automatically create games, balance seat order in the final round (and possibly also in the semifinals), record finished games, and automatically calculate standings.
 
Games will be 4-player, use “Random Mix” for the card set, “Rules: Digital”, and “Default Async” timing (which means you have 24 hours to make a move once it is your turn, plus a time extension bank that refills whenever a new age begins … if you run out of time you will be dropped from the game and replaced by a bot).

Stages: There will be 3 stages in the tournament: heats, semifinals, and finals. In each stage, all players will play in 4 simultaneous asynchronous games.
 
Advancement: Advancement will depend on number of participants. Details on semifinal matchups are subject to change depending on the capabilities of the TTA app Tournament feature.
  • 26-31 participants: Top 13 in heat standings will advance to the semifinals where each semifinalist will play all others once. Top 5 in semifinal standings will advance to the finals where each finalist will play the others three times each.
  • 32-47 participants: Top 16 in heat standings will advance to the semifinals where each semifinalist will play all others once, except those in their quartile (i.e. top 4 in heat standings will not play each other). Top 7 in semifinal standings will advance to the finals where each finalist will play the others twice each.
  • 48+ participants: Top 20 in heat standings will advance to the semifinals where each semifinalist will play 12 different opponents; seeds 1-4 will not play each other, seeds 5-8 will face exactly one top 8 player in each game, and seeds 9-20 will face either one or two top 8 players in each game. Top 7 in semifinal standings will advance to the finals where each finalist will play the others twice each.
Standings: Each stage will have its own standings. You will be awarded 10 points for winning a game, 6 for finishing 2nd, 3 for 3rd, and 1 for 4th. Points for tied positions in games will be divided evenly among the tied players.
 
Standings Tiebreakers:
  1. Points in the semifinals (if applicable)
  2. Points in the heats (if applicable)
  3. Average % of winner’s score in current stage
  4. Head to head record in current stages, then in previous stage(s)
  5. Average points of opponents played in current stage (strength of schedule)
  6. Later average seat order in current stage, then in previous stage(s)
  7. Random

Resignation: Players may resign as their political action prior to age IV, by clicking on ‘Game Menu’, ‘Forfeit the Game’, and ‘More about resigning”. A player who resigns will place last among the players currently in a game, and will still earn tournament points accordingly.

Bot Alert: When a player runs out of time or abandons a game, the app replaces that player with a bot. This is generally unpleasant for all parties involved, so please resign on your political action if you will not be finishing the game. You will not receive any points for games in which you were replaced by a bot, while the remaining players will receive points according to their finish rank including the bot.
 
If a player is replaced by a bot in age I and in the first two weeks of a stage, then the game is to be restarted as a 3-player game unless all players agree to continue playing with the bot. If a player is replaced by a bot at any other point, then the game may be restarted as a 3-player game if all players agree and the GM approves, on the basis that this restart will not prolong the stage.
 

Pace of Play: You are expected to check your games and take your turns (at least) once per day. It’s OK to have an occasional break of a couple of days, but we expect most games to finish in less than two months. Games that haven’t finished in 8 weeks are likely to be adjudicated, and the adjudication will include demoting slow players to lower finish positions.

Sportsmanship: Please be respectful to your opponents. Each player is entitled to make their own decisions in the game. However, it is not permitted to discuss pacts before offering them, to reveal any hidden information, or to intentionally help another player without any personal benefit in game. If you have any concerns, please contact the GM team.

Schedule

Registration Opens: June 13, 2021

Registration Closes: July 25, 2021

Heat Stage Starts: ~August 4, 2021

Semifinals Start: September/October 2021
 
Finals Start: November/December 2021

Results

Thirty-eight participants played 61 games in this year’s TTA PBEM tournament, which was run using CzechGames’s tournament interface for the first time. The CGE interface allowed for balanced seating in the latter rounds, automatic game creation, easy checks on tournament progress, and automated results into standings. Also new this year were a consistent format throughout all rounds (4 games each, weighted 10-6-3-1), a strict 16 players in the seeded semifinals, and new rules when players are replaced by bots.

In the heats, Mike Turian lead the way with three wins and a second, while Ryan Feathers, Jason Leggett, and Steve LeWinter each had two wins and two seconds and rounded out the top 4. Kevin Warrender set the high score with 375 culture, and finished the round with 23 tournament points, taking the 16th and final spot in the semifinals on tiebreaker over the GM, who managed to sabotage himself with all the new rules introduced in this year’s tournament.

In the semifinals, everyone faced all the other semifinalists except for those in their quartile in the heats standings. Steve LeWinter was the star of this semis, with three outright wins and a tie for 1st/2nd, and the high score of the round with 273 culture. Jason Leggett was just behind with three wins and a second. Joining them in the finals were Galen Loram, Randy Buehler, Eric Freeman, Michael Thiessen, and Mike Turian, who made it in with 20 tournament points plus tiebreaker over Sceadeau d’Tela.

Finals report by Galen:

The finals of the Through The Ages tournament featured a whole range of exciting games that somehow all turned out okay for me. In one of them, only knight tactics were played and despite desperate attempts to stay within strength range, aggression after aggression landed. I finally was lucky enough to give up my sovereignty to Randy and be a bit sheltered from attacks and safe from wars; Watt flipped an early oil which let me build up which, when combined with a Mech ag, let me stabilize and grab wonders while not being part of the wars flying left and right, and sneak out a win. Another one featured a random early printing press and Jan Zizka to get a nice culture lead early and endure some abuse later on; Mike and I had symbiotic civilizations and a big enough culture gap between us that our impacts together took him from fourth to third and me from second to first. One other game featured a nice military and Jason realizing that I was in the driver’s seat, and that playing for second was his best play – sending a military alliance my way to direct my hostilities other ways. The other game was just a “first seat doing first seat” things – the built in advantage of going first was enough to make the game go reasonably smoothly.

The CGE tournament system was a huge boon. We could see where we were relative to other games in terms of progress and everyone in the last game was sweet enough to speed up play in order to ensure that we could finish the tournament on time. Beyond that, having seat order balanced and a bit of seeding in the semis based on the heats was really great – definitely things that I hope to see in the future! Thanks to all the participants and organizer for a great tournament, and I hope to give defending my crown for a three-peat next year a try!

Congratulations to Galen Loram for winning both of his first two BPA TTA tournaments! Will anyone be able to challenge him? Next tournament will start in spring 2022.

The final standings were:

  1. Galen Loram
  2. Michael Thiessen
  3. Michael Turian
  4. Steven LeWinter
  5. Jason Leggett
  6. Eric Freeman

Egizia Online Tournament

Egizia Online Season 7

Season 7 Standings

As games end the standings are updated. See how each Group is doing and check on your friends and rivals. You can see lifetime standings HERE.

Game Assignments

Our Egizia tournaments use the online implementation at www.yucata.de. We use the original version of the game with the following two variants:

  • Game without Nile card “Draw + 2 sphinx cards”
  • Game without Sphinx card “For each 10 p. you scored take 1 p. more”

Players are sorted into leagues of 7 players based on previous results.  In a season, each player plays in 4 games. Each other member of your league will be in 2 games against you. See scoring rules below.

Divisions are based on previous Season results. New players enter at the bottom level for their first season.

One note on the Yucata implementation: Both the “You can place a ship on a full building site” and the “You can build first wherever you have a ship” must be activated during the Nile (boat placement) phase.  They cannot be activated after the building phase begins.  This is different from how they are often played in person.

If you have trouble viewing the list below, click here to see just the listing.

Season 7 Matches

Report Season 7 Results

Game results are now reported on meepleleague.club. Login and go to the information about the table that is finished.

Only the winner of each game should record the results. Use the form below. Be sure to add the seat number of the player who triggered the game end.

Last Season Results

Chris Wildes won Division 1 for the first time in Season 6.  Andrew Emerick and Mike Turian each won three games in their respective divisions to earn promotions to the top flight for Season 7.

Lifetime standings can be found HERE.

If the frame below is hard to read on your device try viewing the spreadsheet HERE.

A

Egizia on Yucata FAQ

The implementation of Egizia on Yucata.de has a few interactions that are different from how the game is often played in person.  I have listed some of the notable differences and reminders below and I recommend reading the full game rules on the site here: https://www.yucata.de/en/Rules/Egizia

  • Both the “You can place a ship on a full building site” and the “You can build first wherever you have a ship” must be activated during the Nile (boat placement) phase. They cannot be activated after the building phase begins.
  • The “You can place a ship on a full building site” card can only be applied to one building site. You must have already placed a speculative boat at this location.
  • The “You can sell up to 10 stones” and “Add 6 stone” cards must be activated on your turn. They can be activated during the Nile phase or the Building phase. However, you will not be prompted to activate these cards in between phases, or at the end of the game.
  • The two once-per-round crew upgrade permanent cards can be used during the Building phase (after feeding), but only if you have a ship at a building location.  If you do not have a ship at a building location, you will not be prompted to use these cards.  If you have only speculative ships, you will only be given an opportunity to use these cards if one of those speculations succeeds.
  • No cards may be used during final scoring.  All cards must be used, if desired, on your turn.  Therefore if your last build is speculative and that speculation fails to allow you to build, then you will not be given an opportunity to use these cards.  This is primarily relevant to the “You can sell up to 10 stones”, “Add 6 stone”, and “Field Upgrade” cards.

Registration Closed for Season 6

Registration is now closed for Season 6 at meepleleague.club.

If you haven’t already, create an account for yourself:

  • Go to meepleleague.club.
  • Login  OR
  • Create an account (Register on the menu), if you do not already have one. Then activate it. If you do not receive an email quickly, please check your spam folder for the activation email.
  • Under Manage Account, select Game Names and enter your game name ids. You only need to do this once for each id. Check the spelling, as some game platforms are case-sensitive.
  • Register on the Home page or use the Play! menu, select Register for Tournament.
  • You should receive a confirmation email. If you do not, check your spam folder.

Questions?

Feel free to email the GM with any questions you might have.

BPA Brass Online Tournament 2020

Game Assignments
Standings
Tournament Report

This is the home page for a Boardgame Players Association “Play By Email” tournament for Brass. It is open only to members of the Boardgame Players Association (BPA). If you attend the World Boardgaming Championship (WBC), and are up to date on your registration fees for 2020, then you are already a member. If not, you can purchase an “Associate Membership” (PBEM only) for $10 from this website: www.boardgamers.org. This tournament will award laurels and contribute to the annual Caesar award, all of which is tracked through that same website.

GM: Allan Jiang

AGM: Rob Murray

Format

Please note that the format is different from the WBC tournament. All games in this tournament will have 4 players, and players will be randomly be assigned a starting position in each game.

We will use the implementation of the original Brass: Lancashire game at brass.orderofthehammer.com. Rules for this version of the game are available here. This implementation does not include the minor changes made in the more recent Roxley version.

For new users to OrderOfTheHammer, please note that accounts will have to be manually activated by the webmaster here. Please sign up below once you have created an account, even if it hasn’t been activated yet.

Ties: We will use the in-game tiebreakers for finish positions. The 1st tiebreaker is income space, the 2nd tiebreaker is cash on hand, and the 3rd tiebreaker is hypothetical turn order in rail turn 9.

Standings: In each stage, you will be awarded 10 points for winning a game, 6 for finishing 2nd, 3 for 3rd, and 1 for 4th. Any ties in the standings will be broken by average % of winner’s score. Standings will not carry over between stages, although semifinal games will be seeded based on heat standings.

Heat Stage: You will play in 4 simultaneous asynchronous games, all against different participants as determined by a roll of the dice. If we have at least 32 participants, then the top 16 in the heat standings will advance to the semifinals. If we have less than 32 participants, the top half (rounded down) in the heat standings will advance to the semifinals.
 

Semifinal Stage: All qualifiers will play in 4 simultaneous asynch games. The first priority for these assignments would be to minimize the number of repeat matchups, and the second priority would be to minimize the number of matchups between the top 4 players in the heat standings. The top 7 in the semifinal standings will advance to the finals.

Final Stage: The 7 qualifiers will play in 4 simultaneous asynch games. Each of the other finalists will be in 2 of them. The top 6 finishers will be awarded BPA laurels.

Pace of Play: You are expected to check your games and take your turns (at least) once per day. It’s OK to have an occasional break of a couple of days, but we expect most games to finish in less than two months. Games that haven’t finished in 8 weeks are likely to be adjudicated, and the adjudication will include demoting slow players to lower finish positions.

Schedule

Registration Opened: January 3, 2020

Registration Closed: February 23, 2020

Heat Stage Started: April 3, 2020

Semifinals Started: May 14, 2020
 
Finals Started: June 9, 2020

 

Game Assignments

Click here to see just the game assignments.

Standings

Click here to go directly to the standings.

Tournament Report

28 BPA members entered the second Brass PBEM tournament. 49 games of Brass: Lancashire were played over three rounds, and in every round each participant played four games. The tournament cut to 14 players in the semifinals and 7 players in the finals, and followed the same format as last year’s tournament.

In the heats, Eric Freeman achieved the tournament’s high score of 185, in a game where he scored all four of his iron works, a port and a shipyard in the canal era. Jason Pytka achieved the largest margin of victory with a 42-point win. Two games were decided by a tiebreaker, with John Emery and Paul Sampson both prevailing over Jack Jung by virtue of higher final income. Defending champion Rob Murray had the best record with three wins and a second, and the other seeds went to Jay Spencer, DJ Borton, and Rob Kircher. There was a four-way tie for the last two spots in the semifinals, and past WBC champions Philip Shea and Bruce Hodgins both barely missed the cut according to the standings tiebreaker, average % of winner’s score.

The semifinals were competitive, with all players achieving at least one second place finish. Ben Scholl won one of his games by 42 points, matching the tournament’s largest margin of victory. Another game was decided by a tiebreaker, with DJ Borton prevailing over Andrew Emerick. Ben Scholl led the pack this round with three wins and a second, and was joined in the finals by DJ Borton, Allan Jiang, Rob Murray, Jason Pytka, Jay Spencer, and Jay Matthews.

The finals were the fastest stage, taking just 16 days to complete. In three games, two players used a cotton strategy, one player used a port strategy, and one player used neither. In another three games, two players went cotton and two players went ports. And in one game, three players chose cotton while one player chose ports, which unsurprisingly resulted in the port player winning. Overall, there was a good balance as cotton strategies won four games and port strategies won three games.

In a repeat from last year, there were three double-winners in the finals. And in a repeat from last year, Rob Murray’s other finishes were the best, with a second and a third in addition to his two wins to defend his championship. Interestingly, Rob’s winning path saw him go for cotton in all of his games.

Final Standings:
1. Rob Murray
2. Allan Jiang
3. DJ Borton
4. Jason Pytka
5. Ben Scholl
6. Jay Matthews

BPA Agricola PBEM Tournament 2020

Sign Up
Player List
Game Assignments
Report Results
Standings

This is the home page for a Boardgame Players Association “Play By Email” tournament for Agricola for 2019-2020. It is open only to members of the Boardgame Players Association (BPA). It you attend the World Boardgaming Championship (WBC), and are up to date on your registration fees, then you are already a member. If not, you can purchase a “PBEM Membership” for $10 from this website: www.boardgamers.org. This tournament will award laurels and contribute to the annual Caesar award, all of which are tracked through that same website.

GM: Randy Buehler

Format

All games will be 4-player games using the tournament mode and draft 7 settings on boiteajeux.net (which uses the original version of the game, minus a few tricky-to-program EIK cards).

Heat Stage: Everyone who joins the event will play in 3 asynch games, which will launch simultaneously. They will be paired randomly within the constraint that we will do our best to avoid putting people into multiple games together. If you win any of your games, you advance to the playoffs.

Quarterfinal Stage: If more than 50 people enter the event then single winners from the heat stage will be entered into two quarterfinal matches each. Winning either earns advancement to the semifinals along with the double winners from the heat stage.

Semifinal Stage: You will be placed in 4 simultaneous asynch games. They will be seeded based on the results from the Heat Stage as much as possible (details will depend on the number of semifinalists who qualify). In addition, we will avoid giving anyone repeat opponents if possible.

You will be awarded 10 points for winning a game, 6 for finishing 2nd, 3 for 3rd, and 1 for 4th. The top 7 point-earners will advance to the finals, with heat performance serving as the first tiebreaker and percentage of winner’s score in the semifinals as the second tiebreaker (and from the heats as the 3rd tiebreaker).

(This stage will be eliminated if there are 7 or fewer heat winners.)

Final Stage: You will be placed into 4 simultaneous games and each of the other finalists will be in 2 of them. We use the same scale of points for each finish position as in the semifinals and the final standings go by these points. (Ties in the overall standings will be broken by semifinal points, then heat points, then % of winner’s scores in the finals, then semis, then heats.)

Note on Ties: We will not use the in-game tiebreakers for finish positions. In the heats and quarterfinals, anyone tied for 1st gets credit for a win. In the semis and finals the points for tied positions will be divided evenly among the tied players.

Pace of Play: You are expected to check your games and take your turns (at least) once per day. It’s OK to have an occasional break of a couple of days, but we expect most games to finish in less than six weeks. Games that haven’t finished in 2 months are likely to be adjudicated, and the adjudication will include demoting slow players to lower finish positions.

Platform

Games will be played on Boiteajeux.net using the Tournament Mode (aka, there is the usual banned list) and Draft 7 settings.

Schedule

Registration Opens: 9-13-2019

Registration Closes: 12-1-2019 

Heat Stage Began: December 13

(No Quarterfinal Stage)

Semifinals Began: April 15, 2020

Finals Begin: August 2, 2020

Game Results

As games end the standings are updated. See how each player is doing and check on your friends and rivals.

If the frame below is hard to read on your device follow the link:

Tournament Results

BPA Agricola Tournament
Report Results

The winner of each game should record the results, unless otherwise arranged. Use the form below.

If you have problems using the form on this page CLICK HERE TO SEE JUST THE FORM.

Game Assignments

BPA Through the Ages PBEM Tournament 2019

Sign Up
Player List
Game Assignments
Report Results
Standings

This is the home page for the 2019 Boardgame Players Association “Play By Email” tournament for Through The Ages. It is open only to members of the Boardgame Players Association (BPA). It you attend the World Boardgaming Championship (WBC), and are up to date on your registration fees, then you are already a member. If not, you can purchase a “PBEM Membership” for $10 from this website: www.boardgamers.org. This tournament will award laurels and contribute to the annual Caesar award, all of which is tracked through that same website.

GM: Randy Buehler

Format

Games will be 4-player games whenever possible, using the app that launched in 2017 for iOS, Android, and Steam. You must own the app in order to participate in the tournament. Games will use “Rules: Digital” (which, yes, is slightly different from the tabletop version of the game but the massive quality of life gains are worth it) and “Default Asynch” timing (which means you have 24 hours to make a move once it is your turn, plus a time extension bank that refills whenever a new age begins … if you run out of time you will be dropped from the game and replaced by a bot). 

Heat Stage: Everyone who joins the event will play in 3 asynch games, which will launch simultaneously. They will be paired randomly within the constraint that we will do our best to avoid putting people into multiple games together. If you win any of your games, you advance to the semifinal.

(Quarterfinal Stage: If more than 50 people enter the event then single winners from the heat stage will be entered into two quarterfinal matches each. Winning either earns advancement to the semifinals along with the double winners from the heat stage.)

Semifinal Stage: You will be placed in 4 simultaneous asynch games. They will be seeded based on the results from the Heat Stage as much as possible (details will depend on the number of semifinalists who qualify). In addition, we will avoid giving anyone repeat opponents if possible.

You will be awarded 10 points for winning a game, 6 for finishing 2nd, 3 for 3rd, and 1 for 4th. The top 7 point-earners will advance to the finals, with heat performance serving as the first tiebreaker and percentage of winner’s score in the semifinals as the second tiebreaker (and from the heats as the 3rd tiebreaker).

(This stage will be eliminated if there are 7 or fewer heat winners.)

Final Stage: You will be placed into 4 simultaneous games. Each of the other finalists will be in 2 of them. We use the same scale of points for each finish position as in the semifinals and the final standings go by these points. (Ties in the overall standings will be broken by semifinal points, then heat points, then % of winner’s scores in the finals, then semis, then heats.)

Note on Ties: We will not use the in-game tiebreakers for finish positions. In the heats, anyone tied for 1st gets credit for a win. In the semis and finals the points for tied positions will be divided evenly among the tied players.

Pace of Play: You are expected to check your games and take your turns (at least) once per day. It’s OK to have an occasional break of a couple of days, but we expect most games to finish in less than two months. Games that haven’t finished in 2 months are likely to be adjudicated, and the adjudication will include demoting slow players to lower finish positions.

Platform

Games will be played exclusively on the (awesome) app from Czech Games.

Schedule

Registration Opened: October 2018

Registration Closed: January 13, 2019

Heat Stage Began: January 15, 2019

There was no Quarterfinal stage 

Semifinals Begin: March 27, 2019

Finals Began: May 13, 2019

Game Assignments

Matches should be created inside the app using “Rules: Digital” and “Default Asynch” timing.

Click Here to See Just the Assignments

Game Results

If the frame below is hard to read on your device follow the link:

Tournament Results

BPA Through the Ages Tournament
Report Results

The winner of each game should record the results, unless otherwise arranged. Use the form below.

If you have problems using the form on this page CLICK HERE TO SEE JUST THE FORM.

Sign Ups Are Closed

The tournament has started.

Players in BPA Through the Ages PBeM Tournament

These people are signed up for the tournament:

Players will be listed here as they sign up.

2018 Online Player of the Year is Allan Jiang

The final standings are in and Allan Jiang is the first-ever Meeple League Online Player of the Year. Allan crushed the field, finishing with a very impressive 36% more points than runner-up Randy Buehler. Fully 355 players played at least 1 season of 1 game in 2018. You can see the full standings here, but here’s a look at the Top 25:

1. Allan Jiang – 617.5
2. Randy Buehler – 454
3. Rob Murray – 419
4. Rob Kircher – 357.5
5. DJ Borton – 324.5
6. Nick Henning – 323
7. Richard M. Shay – 277.5
8. Stephen Voland – 262.5
9. Steven LeWinter – 259.5
10. Matthew Vienneau – 256
11. Sky Winslow Roy – 255
12. Haim Hochboim – 247
13. Mike Turian – 246
14. Chris Bert – 231
15. Andy Schwarz – 227
16. Antero Kuusi – 225.33
17. Gilbert Quinonez – 220.5
18. Andrew Norgren – 216
19. Alexandre Fafard – 209.5
20. Aaron Buchanan – 209
21. Sceadeau d’Tela – 208
22. Eric Freeman – 203
23. Ray Wolff – 201.5
24. Andrew Emerick – 197
25. Alex Bove – 189.5

For 2019 we’re going to tweak the formula slightly, but the basics will be the same: only your best 3 seasons of any given game count and you get credit for all the league points you earn plus bonuses for winning games and winning your group (where the bonuses scale up depending on how difficult your division is). We feel this worked pretty well (especially for a first attempt), but the one tweak we want to make is to reward folks for maintaining their position in the higher divisions: 2nd place – 5th place in Division 1 will now receive 5 bonus points and 2nd – 5th in each Division 2 Group will earn 2 bonus points.

We don’t have separate official awards for each of our 5 online games, but that’s not going to stop me from pointing out who our highest scorers were. I’ll be looking at aggregate scores here (aka, the sum of your best 3 seasons) since that’s what counts toward Player of the Year. 

Allan scored 144 of his points in Brass, which was tops. Jon Wilcox pipped Maciek Dud 136-135 for the second best Brass year. Brass has proven to be our fastest game, by the way, with 7 different seasons happening during 2018. Andrew Emerick and Scott Rothstein rounded out the top 5 with 115 and 111.

Eric Freeman had the best year in Castles of Burgundy, winning Division 1 in 2 of the 4 seasons that happened in 2018 to take home 135 points. Allan had to settle for 2nd here, with 119.5 points as he worked his way up the ladder, while Andrew Norgren was 3rd with 117, Ming Wei Liem was 4th at 112, and Chris Bert was 5th at 111.

Switching to the app for Through The Ages helped us get in 5 seasons over the course of 2018. Allan spent all 5 in Division 1, winning it twice, but his 142 points was actually 1 less than Eric Krasnauskas (aka Kolo), who only played 3 seasons but won all 3 of them, climbing from Division 3 up to Division 1 (which he won last season). Eugene Harvey was 3rd with 122. Only 2 others broke 100 points: Luis Leitao (104) and Ray Fernandez (103).

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Kyle Smith earned the most points in Thurn & Taxis (with 124). No one else has won Division 1 more than once, but Kyle has won it *5* times, including in 2 of the 4 seasons that happened in 2018. Other games have had 3-time winners (Eric Freeman in Castles and Petri Savola in Agricola), but Kyle’s dominance of Thurn & Taxis is the most complete of any online Meeple League game. Rob Kircher’s 112 was 2nd for 2018 while my own 102 was 3rd. Alex Bove was 4th on 99, meanwhile with 98 points and 5th place overall this is apparently Allan’s worst game!

Agricola seasons are our longest and there were only 3 in 2018, so there was no opportunity to ignore a bad season. Manpanzee was the clear winner with 139.5 points. Having won his Division 4 group in late 2017, Elliot started 2018 by winning his Div 3 group, then won his Div 2 group, then won Division 1! Allan was 2nd with 114 as he also completed his own rise up the ladder into Division 1. 3rd place for the year was a tie between William Francis and ecotone at 105.5, with Terry Borer being the only other players to break 100 (which he did half half a point).

All in all 2018 was a very successful year for us – lots of people got to play lots of board games. Here’s hoping 2019 is even better!

BPA Brass Tournament 2019

Sign Up
Game Assignments
Standings
Tournament Report

This is the home page for a Boardgame Players Association “Play By Email” tournament for Brass. It is open only to members of the Boardgame Players Association (BPA). If you attend the World Boardgaming Championship (WBC), and are up to date on your registration fees for 2019, then you are already a member. If not, you can purchase a “Associate Membership” for $10 from this website: www.boardgamers.org. This tournament will award laurels and contribute to the annual Caesar award, all of which is tracked through that same website.

GM: Allan Jiang

AGMs: Bruce Hodgins and Rob Murray

Format

Please note that the format is different from the WBC tournament. All games in this tournament will have 4 players, and players will be randomly be assigned a starting position in each game.

We will use the implementation of the original Brass: Lancashire game at brass.orderofthehammer.com. Rules for this version of the game are available here. This implementation does not include the minor changes made in the more recent Roxley version.

For new users to OrderOfTheHammer, please note that accounts will have to be manually activated by the webmaster here. You may sign up below once you have created an account, even if it hasn’t been activated yet.

Ties: We will use the in-game tiebreakers for finish positions. The 1st tiebreaker is income space, the 2nd tiebreaker is cash on hand, and the 3rd tiebreaker is hypothetical turn order in rail turn 9.

Standings: In each stage, you will be awarded 10 points for winning a game, 6 for finishing 2nd, 3 for 3rd, and 1 for 4th. Any ties in the standings will be broken by average % of winner’s score. Standings will not carry over between stages, although semifinal games will be seeded based on heat standings.

Heat Stage: You will play in 4 simultaneous asynchronous games, all against different participants as determined by a roll of the dice. If we have at least 32 participants, then the top 16 in the heat standings will advance to the semifinals.
 
3/5 Update: We have 30 participants confirmed, so the top 15 in the heat standings will advance to the semifinals.
 

Semifinal Stage: All qualifiers will play in 4 simultaneous asynch games. If we have at least 32 participants, then the 16 qualifiers will be divided into quartiles based on the heat standings. You will play every semifinalist not in your quartile exactly once, according to the game assignments below. The top 7 in the semifinal standings will advance to the finals.

[If we have less than 32 participants, the top half (rounded down) in the heat standings will advance to the semifinals. This is to comply with BPA regulations. In this case, the semifinal game assignments will be adjusted at the start of the tournament. The first priority for these assignments would be to minimize the number of repeat matchups, and the second priority would be to minimize the number of matchups between the top 4 players in the heat standings. The top 7 in the semifinal standings will still advance to the finals.]

3/5 Update: The top 15 in the heat standings will advance to the semifinals. Each of the qualifiers will play all the other semifinalists except for 2 with similar records. Each of the top 4 from the heat standings will play no more than 2 of the other top 4 players.

Final Stage: The 7 qualifiers will play in 4 simultaneous asynch games. Each of the other finalists will be in 2 of them. The top 6 finishers will be awarded BPA laurels.

Pace of Play: You are expected to check your games and take your turns (at least) once per day. It’s OK to have an occasional break of a couple of days, but we expect most games to finish in less than two months. Games that haven’t finished in 8 weeks are likely to be adjudicated, and the adjudication will include demoting slow players to lower finish positions.

Schedule

Registration Opened: January 2, 2019

Registration Closed: March 5, 2019

Heats Began: March 7, 2019

Semifinals Began: April 14, 2019

Finals Began: May 27, 2019

Signups are now closed

Game Assignments

Click here to see just the assignments.

Standings

Click here to see just the standings.

Tournament Report

30 BPA members entered the first Brass PBEM tournament, including 8 of the top 10 laurelists in the event’s history. In total, 52 games of Brass: Lancashire were played over three rounds. In each round, each participant played 4 games and earned 10 points for a win, 6 points for second place, 3 points for third place, and 1 point for fourth place. The top 15 in the heat standings advanced to the semifinals, which were somewhat seeded; each participant played once against all of the other semifinalists except for two with similar records to themselves. The top 7 in the semifinals then advanced to the finals, where they played all of the other finalists twice. The laurelists were determined by the standings in the finals only.

Highlights of the heat stage included a win by tiebreaker by Antero Kuusi over John Corrado, and the largest margin of victory in the tournament: a 53-point win by Andrew Emerick. DJ Borton topped the heat standings with 3 wins and a second, and the other “seeds” went to Nick Henning, Mike Turian, and Andrew Emerick.

In the semifinals, DJ Borton set the high score for the tournament; he flipped 3 advanced ports and 3 advanced iron works in the canal era en route to 190 points. But it was Andrew Emerick who had the most dominant round, winning all four of his games! Rob Murray, DJ Borton, Rob Flowers, Allan Jiang, Jack Jung, and John Corrado also qualified for the finals.

The finals were well played by all contestants. In four games, two players used a cotton strategy, one player used a port strategy, and one player used neither. And in the other three games, two players used a cotton strategy and two players used a port strategy. In the opinion of the GM, these are the two most optimal balances between the strategies, and make for games in which all of the strategies are highly competitive. And indeed, the finals did deliver the closest game from first to last in the tournament. Andrew Emerick, using a cotton strategy scored 149 points, to Rob Murray’s 148 (port), Jack Jung’s 147 (cotton), and DJ Borton’s 142 (port).

In the end, there were three double-winners in the finals. All three happened to use a cotton strategy twice and a port strategy twice. So it was the non-win finishes that determined the order at the top of the final standings. By virtue of two second-place finishes in addition to two wins, Rob Murray took home the championship.

Final Standings:

  1. Rob Murray
  2. Andrew Emerick
  3. Allan Jiang
  4. DJ Borton
  5. John Corrado
  6. Rob Flowers

Thank you to Jack Jung and AGMs Bruce Hodgins and Rob Murray for their help in planning and running  the tournament, Randy Buehler for online templates and inspiration for the tournament format, Rich Shay for providing us with a website, and Philip Eve for the implementation of Brass at brass.orderofthehammer.com.

NEW: Online Player of the Year in 2018

The Meeple League is proud to announce that we’re adding a new plaque to next year’s awards:

Online Player of the Year

We will keep track of everyone’s performance across all of our online leagues using the following point system:

  1. You get points equal to the league points you accumulate in every game you play, so the usual 10 points for 1st place in a game, 6 for 2nd, 3 for 3rd, and 1 point for finishing in 4th place.
  2. You get bonus points for each game you win
    1. 1-point bonus for winning a game in Division 3
    2. 2-point bonus for winning a game in Division 2
    3. 3-point bonus for winning a game in Division 1
  3. You also get bonus points for winning your group
    1. 2-point bonus for winning a Group in Division 3
    2. 5-point bonus for winning a Group in Division 2
    3. 10-point bonus for winning a Group in Division 1

One of our goals was to acknowledge the (much) tougher strength of schedule and accomplishment of winning the top divisions, while also making sure you didn’t need to be playing in the top Divisions to win this. Using the points above it works out that crushing a Division 3 Group 4-0-0-0 is worth about the same amount of points as winning 2 games and narrowly taking the Group in Division 1. This is our first year doing an Online Player of the Year, so there’s no guarantee we got all weights tuned correctly, but we feel pretty good about this as a starting point. Meanwhile, it is pure point accumulation, so the more leagues you play in, the more points you can get.
We currently run leagues for 5 games: Agricola, Brass, Castles of Burgundy, Through the Ages, and Thurn and Taxis. If we add any new games during 2018, they will count, too. For whatever it’s worth, we started our first two leagues in January and over the course of 2017 we ran 5 seasons of Thurn and Taxis and 4 seasons of Agricola (counting the two seasons that are currently in progress). We expect to open up at least two seasons for registration in December (Through The Ages season 2 and Castles of Burgundy Season 4) and those will count as the first events of the 2018 year.
Good luck and have fun!

Agricola Online Season 1 Report

Agricola Season 1 Wrap-Up

by Randy Buehler

Season 1 of the Agricola league was a smashing success, with the Meeple League’s largest turn-out for an online event so far and some great matches up and down the ladder. 77 players signed up to play, which meant 11 leagues spread across four divisions. I was the biggest winner, but by the narrowest of margins as I defeated Sceadeau d’Tela for the Division 1-A crown *on tiebreakers* (3 match wins to 2). Congratulations are also due to Bernt Nodland and Steven LeWinter, who won the two leagues in Division 2 and thus earned spots in the top division for season 2. (Steve’s win was particularly close with only 3 league points separating 1st from 4th in his league.) You can see all the standings HERE.

Season 2 is about to start, and the field has expanded to 96 competitors. That means there will be 7 leagues in division 4 and 14 leagues in total. Good luck to everyone as they try to win promotion, and have fun playing.

With season 1 in the books, I thought it would be interesting to see how accurate the initial seeds were. As you may recall, I did the initial player sort first by looking at BPA laurels and then at Elo ratings on boiteajeux. There has been some debate (bordering on trash talk) about how accurate Elo ratings are, and I saved a copy of everyone’s rating before the season began. I then looked at the absolute value of how far each player’s finish position was from the position that would be predicted by Elo or laurels. (In other words, if you had the 5th highest Elo in your league but finished 1st then you were 4 spots away from where you were predicted to be.)

Laurels did a significantly better job of predicting division 1 than Elo did (8 spots off in total versus 18), but in Division 2-A it was the other way around (20 spots off versus just 4). Meanwhile Division 2-B was close to a wash (12 off for laurels versus 10 off for Elo). If you add up all 3 leagues that included at least some players with laurels, Elo comes out looking a little better at 32 to 40 (or an average of 1.5 spots off per player versus 1.9). Meanwhile in Division 3 there were some major upsets, including division wins from each of the two lowest rated competitors, but Elo was a quite reasonable predictor if you ignore those two players (1.7 spots off per player, or 1.1 spots off per player if you ignore the two outliers).

One surprising fact about season 1 is that only one player managed to collect exactly a first, a second, a third, and also a 4th place finish. Ed Fear is apparently the Epitome of Average. Meanwhile the triple winners club included only 3 people and exactly one person managed to win all four of their games: William F, aka wsefranc, from league 4-D.

There were, unfortunately, some players who played too slowly in season 1. The vast majority of games were done by the end of March and I think that two-month timeline is what folks should see as acceptable (we started in the last few days of January). The truly unfortunate part of having a slow player is that they impact four different games. My only real recourse to deal with this problem is to tell those players they aren’t allowed to play in future Meeple League events, and while most of the slowpokes from season 1 did not choose to sign up again, I did decline one registration attempt for season 2. For the handful of matches which haven’t finished, I treated them as 4-way ties when determining promotion and relegation and I will add the real points to the lifetime standings page once they finally do complete.

All of which brings us to season 2, which has quite a few interesting storylines to follow. A few more well-known WBC ringers have entered the league now (Jon Senn, Eric Wrobel, Josh Cooper, Rob Kircher), but they will have to fight their way up from the bottom. Turambar will be the champion of the pro-Elo crowd as he joins Division 1 and is the only player there without a WBC pedigree. Rob Murray and Petri Savola barely missed getting themselves promoted to division 1 and will be trying to finish the job. Meanwhile Daniel Eppolito will have something to prove as he was a consensus pick to finish in the top 2 of division 1 according to the fantasy league participants, but instead got himself relegated to division 2. In my own case, Agricola has not historically been one of my best game but I have invested a lot of time in the last 18 months or so trying to bring my game up to a world class level. I don’t know if I’m there yet, but I will do my best to claim back-to-back titles.

I’m confident there are many other interesting stories around the players I’m not yet familiar with, but that’s the beauty of a league like this. As the seasons go by we’ll get to see who rises and who falls. Good luck to everyone, and have fun in season 2!

PrezCon Winter Nationals Trip Report

By Marcy Morelli

This was my second year attending PrezCon. It’s a bit of a hike from Suburban Philly – especially in the winter. But Amtrak runs right into Charlottesville and that’s a great way to travel. Charlottesville is the home of the University of Virginia and offers some good sightseeing opportunities for those who are interested in Presidential history.

I arrived Monday evening and the Doubletree shuttle picked me up at the train station. It ended up being too late to pick up my badge, but I was able to catch up with some friends.
The Doubletree Charlottesville is a really great spot for a convention the size of PrezCon. The hotel staff are very well organized and seem appreciative of the convention’s presence. A few employees even seemed interested in learning some games.
Besides the shuttle, a pool with hot tub, and the ubiquitous cookie, the hotel also runs a great restaurant. Breakfast offers a large buffet with made-to-order omelets. Lunch and dinner have a tasty menu and you can call in an order and pick it up at the restaurant. There is also a special stand outside the ballroom that offers drinks, sandwiches, pizza, and some special meals throughout the day. In the late evening, 4 or 5 different pies are available. If you have a car at hand, there are plenty of local eating establishments nearby as well as a Walmart.

I’m primarily a EuroGames tournament gamer, and the conference room layout works well for that. Most tournaments are held in either the large Ballroom, or a few steps away in the Gallery Rooms. The food stand is just outside the Ballroom which makes it easy to catch a quick bite if you don’t have many breaks. The vendors set up in-between while open gaming has a large room downstairs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The convention registration desk is organized and well-staffed for the long hours of the convention. Convention Director Justin Thompson is generally floating around keeping tabs on things, but is easy to find if you need him. PrezCon players are friendly and welcoming to newcomers.

Tournaments at PrezCon award plaques to the final table based on the total numbers of players who participated in the game.

Besides the regular tournament line-up PrezCon also holds several mini-cons during the convention: ColumbiaCon, RevCon, and a EuroGames sampler event. The Agricola and Catan tournaments are both regional championships with winners advancing to a National Championship.

PrezCon will also hold a Summer Nationals event in June. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to attend – you’ll have a great time!