West Saintland and Frenline Delpha's Bid for CoH 69

[Saintland]

West Saintland and Frenline Delpha's Bid for CoH 69

The Kingdom of Saintland and the Sporting Democracy of Frenline Delpha present the following host bid for the consideration of the World Cup Committee:

About West Saintland

The Kingdom of Saintland (commonly known as West Saintland) is an island nation of around 360 thousand souls located in northern Atlas. West Saintland has participated, in some form or another, in 14 consecutive World Cup cycles (including the present one) and has qualified for 8 World Cups. West Saintland has modernized under the leadership of King Petrus XX, embracing constitutional monarchy and feminism. However, the modernization efforts of King Petrus XX led to hardline elements within the Sanctii government, led by the king's younger brother Andreas, seeking the assistance of the Free Republics to overthrow the king. The war ended in a stalemate, with the eastern half of Saintland now under the control of King Andreas. In the nearly 3 decades since, the two Saintlands have greatly diverged under the two brothers as the East has turned into a totalitarian police state while the West has become a feminist democracy with a state Church led by a Matriarch that worships the Goddess and the Virgin Savior Maria Christus.

About Frenline Delpha

The Sporting Democracy of Frenline Delpha is, as one would expect from a nation with such a subtle title, is a democracy with a keen interest in sports. With the nation still in a giddy mood after their domination of the most recent World Baseball Classic in Newmanistan, the nation has decided to dip its feet into the most prestigious pool in all the multiverse.

Frenline Delpha has a population somewhat large, reaching as many as 2.54 trillion people. It’s also quite big, with a total area of 3.6 million miles of land under its government. Population is evenly distributed between all areas. The five areas of Frenline Delpha are the Northern Mountains, the Western Valley, the Eastern Grasslands, the Southern Tropics, and the Urban Jungle, the center of the country, where the capitol, Bloodbenderopolis, lies.

Frenline Delpha was originally founded by bloodbender pilgrims from the tyrannical Heartopia and its fierce anti-bloodbender stance. There, along with thousands of normal citizens tired of living under a tyrannical regime, formed the Democratic Republic of Frenline Delpha. The name came from the bloodbender’s native tongue, where Frenli means free and ine was usually used like “-ly” is used today in modern English. Then, Delpha comes from Delti, which meant powerful. Therefore, Frenline Delpha actually translates to Freely Powerful.

Frenlenians value freedom over anything else, so much so that any restriction of speech, from Nazis to Social Justice, is immediately protested by millions and hundreds of millions of citizens. Even though certain ideals might not be popular, the people of Frenline Delpha believe that is no excuse for censoring ideas. All ideas are welcome, so long as no one commits violence.

Format and Tiebreakers

We have plans for a range of potential nations deserving of a spot, so we’ve created three different ranges in order to accommodate as many realistic numbers as possible. They are:

32: 8 groups of 4, with the top two from each group making it onto the round of sixteen, where it will be single elimination until we have a winner
36: 6 groups of 6, with the top two of each group plus next best four making it into the round of sixteen, single elimination
40: 8 groups of 5, same as 32 teams

All options are single round robin, with sixteen advancing past the group stage.

Also, in order to settle ties, we have decided on a set of tiebreakers. They are:

Points
H2H Record
H2H Goal Difference
H2H Goals For
Goal Difference
Goals For

Scorinator & RP Bonus

We will be using the latest version of xkoranate with the SQIS formula and the full range of additive (xkoranate) style modifiers. As the CoH is traditionally a tournament that is intended to reward roleplay, there will be a roleplay bonus and a roster bonus which will be cumulative, somewhat generous and based on quality over quantity while remaining fair to all roleplay styles. In the event that either host (or a puppet of either host) is invited, the other host would grade all of their RPs and scorinate all of their matches.

Experience

The OOC user behind West Saintland has previously hosted or co-hosted Cup of Harmony 58 (with Falcus), World Cup 68 (with Legalese), Baptism of Fire 59 (with Star United States), the X Winter Olympics, the I Olympia Games, the King Paulus XV Memorial Games, 3 editions of the WBC (one with Maklohi Vai and another with Frenline Delpha), an International Baseball Slam, 2 World Bowls, a WCoH, an IBC (with Royal Kingdom of Quebec), a CR, a CE and countless other tournaments.

Frenline Delpha has hosted or scorinated the following events:

Frenline Delpha Baseball League
Frenline Delpha Domestic Water Polo League
Various Soccer Friendlies
NSCF 12 Mineral Conference
Gaelic Football World Championships II
2nd United Valhaven Track Championship
NSCF 14 Zephyr Conference
IBS 10 (with Schiltzberg)
World Bowl 29 (with Drawkland)
World Baseball Classic 37 (with Ilyseum)

We welcome your questions.

[Gregoryisgodistan]

I'm guessing (though I could be wrong) that in either of the 8 group formats, you'd use the conventional knockout stage format A1 vs. B2, C1 vs. D2, etc. or some variant thereof. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, though. Anyway, my real question is that for the 6 groups of 6 format, that obviously won't be possible, so how would you handle that? Would you use the same relatively fixed format used in the last RL Women's World Cup and Euro Championship? Or would you just seed them based on the given tiebreakers? If the latter, will position in group be the first "tiebreaker" such that a group winner with six points would be seeded higher than a runner-up with seven points?

[Frenline Delpha]

I'm guessing (though I could be wrong) that in either of the 8 group formats, you'd use the conventional knockout stage format A1 vs. B2, C1 vs. D2, etc. or some variant thereof. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, though.

That'd be correct.

Anyway, my real question is that for the 6 groups of 6 format, that obviously won't be possible, so how would you handle that? Would you use the same relatively fixed format used in the last RL Women's World Cup and Euro Championship? Or would you just seed them based on the given tiebreakers? If the latter, will position in group be the first "tiebreaker" such that a group winner with six points would be seeded higher than a runner-up with seven points?

Seeding based upon given tiebreakers with priority given to group winners over non group winners, so yes, a team that won their group with six points would be ranked higher than a team that got second in their group with seven points. That means the six group winners would be seeded 1-6, and everyone else would be ranked based on their points.

[Gregoryisgodistan]

I'm guessing (though I could be wrong) that in either of the 8 group formats, you'd use the conventional knockout stage format A1 vs. B2, C1 vs. D2, etc. or some variant thereof. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, though.

That'd be correct.

Anyway, my real question is that for the 6 groups of 6 format, that obviously won't be possible, so how would you handle that? Would you use the same relatively fixed format used in the last RL Women's World Cup and Euro Championship? Or would you just seed them based on the given tiebreakers? If the latter, will position in group be the first "tiebreaker" such that a group winner with six points would be seeded higher than a runner-up with seven points?

Seeding based upon given tiebreakers with priority given to group winners over non group winners, so yes, a team that won their group with six points would be ranked higher than a team that got second in their group with seven points. That means the six group winners would be seeded 1-6, and everyone else would be ranked based on their points.

So could a third-place team be ranked higher than a second-place team, or would the same principle of group rank apply there?

[Frenline Delpha]

That'd be correct.

Seeding based upon given tiebreakers with priority given to group winners over non group winners, so yes, a team that won their group with six points would be ranked higher than a team that got second in their group with seven points. That means the six group winners would be seeded 1-6, and everyone else would be ranked based on their points.

So could a third-place team be ranked higher than a second-place team, or would the same principle of group rank apply there?

Same principle applies because it is the most consistent with the rest of the format.

So: 1-6: Group Winners
7-12: Ground 2nd Place
13-16: Next best four based on tiebreakers

[95X]

As of this moment, a quick forum search reveals both prospective hosts have posted rosters yet no RPs during the current World Cup 77 Qualifying. (Source: here and here.)

Therefore, questions designed to be answered by both prospective hosts:

1. Do the prospective hosts believe it is appropriate forum decorum to offer to host an invitational roleplay tournament designed for active roleplayers in a particular event, but have not been active themselves?

2. As a recent tournament host who thought they had a grading system designed to encourage roleplaying that instead allowed a signup to rankcoast all the way to the tournament final, will there be a tested mechanism designed to discourage rankcoasting?

3. Last year, one prospective host canceled an event they were elected to host and caused its organizing body to find a substitute host capable of assuming duties on short notice; why should the overall community trust the prospective hosts to run this tournament?

Thank you in advance for your responses.

[Farfadillis]

I'll be blunt: Why should the community trust someone who recently used one of the community's most important competitons as leverage for petty revenge?

[Saintland]

I'll be blunt: Why should the community trust someone who recently used one of the community's most important competitons as leverage for petty revenge?

3. Last year, one prospective host canceled an event they were elected to host and caused its organizing body to find a substitute host capable of assuming duties on short notice; why should the overall community trust the prospective hosts to run this tournament?

I had hoped to leave that ugly incident in the past. That happened on a night when most people's emotions were running wild due to an unexpected and highly significant news event. I shouldn't have lost control of my own emotions over a political argument on IRC but what happened has happened and is now in the past.

I can guarantee that nothing like that will ever happen again. In 4 and a half years here, I've hosted every other tournament, for which I won the host vote, to a conclusion, including a number of tournaments since that incident.

I'd prefer to talk about my bid rather than rehash events that happened months ago in a moment of anger.

1. Do the prospective hosts believe it is appropriate forum decorum to offer to host an invitational roleplay tournament designed for active roleplayers in a particular event, but have not been active themselves?

2. As a recent tournament host who thought they had a grading system designed to encourage roleplaying that instead allowed a signup to rankcoast all the way to the tournament final, will there be a tested mechanism designed to discourage rankcoasting?

Regarding your first question, I actively RPed in the recent BoF with my puppet (Nordernious), where I RPed my way to a 2nd place finish, and had intended to be actively RPing both nations during World Cup Qualifying but the past week or so has been a busy time for me in RL so that hasn't happened but I'm hoping to start RPing during the second half of qualifying. As for the question of whether it is appropriate for somebody to bid for a CoH when they aren't RPing, I don't believe that has ever come up before and there have been CoH hosts who didn't RP during World Cup Qualifying.

Regarding the obviously related, but unasked, question of invites to host nations and/or puppets (assuming eligibility), that would only happen if the nation in question had earned a spot on its own merit or if it was needed in an emergency where tossing in one of our nations was required to make the numbers work (during the invite process for CoH 58, Falcus and I had a similar contingency plan that went unused involving one of his nations which was technically eligible but not really deserving of an invite).

As for the second question, we aren't going to be revealing our scale but yes, that is a concern that we've already discussed and will be seeking to address. That was actually one of the reasons why we elected to go with SQIS (more random at the top and less at the bottom) as opposed to NSFS (less random at the top, more at the bottom).

[Frenline Delpha]

3. Last year, one prospective host canceled an event they were elected to host and caused its organizing body to find a substitute host capable of assuming duties on short notice; why should the overall community trust the prospective hosts to run this tournament?

Saintland's already answered the first two questions suffeciently, but I do want to add a bit to this third one. While what Saintland did was wrong, this isn't the first time I've done something with him before (WBC 37), and I feel absolutely confident that Saintland will host this to the best of his ability. During our tournament, he was a very good co-host, and I would not for a second think he'd do anything different in this tournament.

And I guess I'll take a second to explain why I haven't RP'd in the World Cup, yet. It's has to do with a vice of mine. Specifically, my pride in my writing. Right now, I have no inspirations for particular RPs, and I don't want to just throw up some random bullshit up on the RP thread because that would end up driving me crazy. I don't really want to do an RP unless I am 100% certain I think it'll be good, and nothing like that has hit me yet for the WC.

[Frenline Delpha]

We would be happy to answer anymore questions anyone has before voting ends.