NationStates

Background
Mriin
The Merchant Republic of Mriin is a group of three islands east of the Calanian Wastelands in Atlantian Oceania. The nation is most notable for the three races that call it home, in descending order of uniqueness: Dryads, humanoid beings seemingly made of wood; Satyrs, humanoids that are easily recognizable for their colorful hues, tall stature, and goatlike features; and dragons, who are dragons.

Other points of interest include: the troubled past it has had as a base of operations for pirates! The pervasive system of daily referenda! And dazzling bazaars full of all tat you could possibly waste money on! Football has become an increasingly big deal over the past decade, growing from a hobby for young athletes to a commercial juggernaut spearheaded by the nigh-instantly successful national team. The Mrii National League has easily secured funding for a great many projects, including building up a proper infrastructure for the sport that was put to use hosting a Cup of Harmony and AOCAF.

Pasarga
Pasarga was formed by the refugees of the fallen Persian empire following the invasion of Huns. They traveled for several months before they came upon a pair of uninhabited islands in the northwest of what they would later found out to be the region of Rushmore. Wishing to cast aside their failures, the citizens abandoned the majority of their Persian culture, including a hard line adaption of European names, though they retained their old religious practice of Zoroastrianism.

Following their settlement, the citizens decided to call themselves Pasargans after a fashion of those that they encountered on their sojourn calling them the Pariis. It was a tribute to what they had endured but also the promise of what could be rebuilt again. Rather than returning to a warlike people, they turned towards a cultural and spiritual way of life, keeping themselves mostly isolated from the outside world, apart from participation in the events like the World Cup.

Even as the years have passed, Pasarga still stays mostly an isolationist and peaceful pair of nations, relying notably upon the regional alliance of Eura and Polar Islandstates. They have turned to trade and sport as a way of measuring success, branching out of their shell if ever so slightly. The rural regions of the nation still strongly are mistrustful of foreigners and believe that little good can come them, with cities a necessary evil to conduct business.

Experience
Mriin: The user behind Mriin has recently hosted AOCAF LVII and Cup of Harmony 74, as well as several tourneys in years past.
Pasarga: The user behind Pasarga has hosted no less than twenty-six major footballing tournaments (World Cup, Cup of Harmony, and regional tournaments) under the guise of: Valanora, Pasarga, and Demot, as well as numerous WCoHs, caretaker of the DBC, caretaker of the CdC, host of the HCL, host of the AOCL, as well as conference hosting for multiple NSCAA and NSCF tournaments.

Format
As there is no way of currently knowing the signup numbers, our preferred format which would be that there are no playoffs to be used, with 15 groups of X being ideal, with group winners going through automatically as well as second place teams. Should we win the bid, Mriin would scorinate the first half of qualifiers and Pasarga would scorinate the second half of qualifiers.

RP Bonus
RP bonus will be cumulative and up to one matchdays worth of RP bonus will carry over to the World Cup finals. RPs will be judged on a fairly rigid scale to minimize the subjective views of the various hosts (there will be a scale in incremental steps on which RP will be judged such as 0.5, 1, 1.5 for example). RP will be judged on creativity and effort, with quality carrying weight over quantity. That being said, while you don't need to write a novella to gain a high bonus, two lines of RP along the lines of “my team won today and my best player scored both goals; this makes me happy” will clearly not achieve much of a bonus.

Scorinator
We would use the most recent version of Xkoranate, with the NSFS formula. We would be using a full range of additive styles modifiers ranging from -5 to +5.

Tiebreakers
Goal Difference
Head to head results
Head to head Goal Difference
Wins
Goals For

We welcome any questions you might have over the specifics of this bid.

I realize I've been quite outspoken about format and such the past few tournaments. I have zero issues/concerns with this bid.

In the interest of making sure both bids get asked equivalent questions:

Why did you go with goal difference instead of head to head for the first tiebreaker?

95X wrote:I realize I've been quite outspoken about format and such the past few tournaments. I have zero issues/concerns with this bid.

my fault i ain’t seen they bid

Free Republics wrote:In the interest of making sure both bids get asked equivalent questions:

Why did you go with goal difference instead of head to head for the first tiebreaker?

We feel it better represents a nation's performance over the entirety of qualifiers, rather than one or two matches making or breaking the entire thing. Plus I feel it leads to more interesting qualifying scenarios in the last few MDs.

There's also a 'lil IC tidbit that both Pasarga and Mriin use GD as the first breaker domestically.

Posting this in both bid threads for the sake of fairness; apologies for cross-posting.


In RL I prefer goal difference.

However, in the NSWC, goal difference potentially penalises teams that choose a defensive scorination modifier and therefore score fewer goals.

Does either bid know of any statistical modelling on this point?

Alasdair I Frosticus wrote:Posting this in both bid threads for the sake of fairness; apologies for cross-posting.


In RL I prefer goal difference.

However, in the NSWC, goal difference potentially penalises teams that choose a defensive scorination modifier and therefore score fewer goals.

Does either bid know of any statistical modelling on this point?

As Zwang stated in the other bid, this problem is largely dealt with by using additive multipliers that work to keep the margins of victory consistent regardless of positive or negative modifiers. South Covello historically doesn't struggle to keep pace with the pack in GD despite adopting a hyper-defensive stance that often leaves them with under 5 goals allowed in all of qualifying.