Independent Associations Championship Discussion Thread

[Squornshelan Remnant States]

As my participation in the World Cup cycle is done and we all begin to look forward to regionals, I have an announcement to make.

This is difficult to write, but IAC 13 will be my last as SRS. I have decided that Squornshelan Remnant States will join Atlantian Oceania. Because I do very much value the relationships I've built among the Independents, and with recent events very much in mind, I wanted to make an announcement well before the transition actually happens. I've tried to anticipate and answer some questions in this post.

So you're just leaving the Indies?
Yes. Yes but no? SRS is and will continue to be my main nation for the forseeable future, and Squornshelous will cease participation as its own nation after my unification storyline is completed, but I like the IAC, and I have a lot of ideas for puppets that have been on the back burner in some cases for literal years. There will be no Squornshelous or SRS at IAC14, but I'll be there. I'm not sure exactly what my entry will look like, but I'm excited about the possibilities.

Why?
There isn't really a short answer to this one. Joining one of the Big 3 (at the time) was an idea that I considered since I first returned to NS 3 years ago. AO was the obvious choice initially. After all, the vast majority of users that I had pre-hiatus connections with were there. Ultimately, I was concerned at that time that trying to integrate into a region would distract me from the story I wanted to tell about Squornshelous. Looking back on that, I think it was the right decision for the time. I've been able to focus inward and especially recently, I've been really satisfied with where I've been able to bring that story. In that 3 years, I've renewed a lot of old connections, IC and OOC, and forged many new ones. I've developed strong ties with users in the Independent community, but also across regional boundaries with Rushmoris and Esportivans, as well as with AO (and now Anaian) users I hadn't previously met. My move has nothing to do with my perception of the strength of value of my connections with users in any given region. I think it is the right thing for the story of Squornshelous going forward.

How's this going to work, metaphysically, IC?
I don't have all the details ironed out, but the dimensional anomaly handwave that I've used to explain why the technologically superior Imperium remains isolated is going to play a primary role in the transition, as is the dimensional weirdness involved in the resolution of the question of IC geography between AO and Anaia. I plan to explore and iron out this question as part of an AOCAF RP line.

What's your position on the AO/Anaia split?
I really don't want to shoehorn myself into that discussion. I am not a party to that particular situation and as I've said earlier, the relationships I have with people in the NSS community are much more important to me than regional boundaries.

If there are other questions I'll answer them as best I can. The last thing I want to emphasize is that I love the Independent community, and I have no intention of leaving it as a user.

[HUElavia]

Hi everyone!

I figured I'd write this post as a heads up to an idea I have for the IAC 13 I proposed on the NS Sports Discord.

Given that we're having Euro 2020 playing on TV and the matches are held in 11 venues in 11 cities in 11 countries, I had the inspiration to do something similar for the upcoming IAC 13. Given that us in the IAC belong to a wide variety of regions, the idea would be that we could have the IC tournament take place in a variety of nations, with only one venue and city submitted for each nation wanting to participate.

Thus, my proposal is as follows: If you intend on participating in IAC 13 and plan to put a roster, you could submit a stadium and city, along with basic information of your stadium, city and country (just a few sentences) to me (whether through TG on here or a DM on discord), given that I intend on hosting the tournament, should this IC format be supported.

I'm looking for about 12-16 different "hosts" for the tournament, but I would be scorinating the matches (except for any knockout matches I play in, which I will request a third-party to scorinate my games via the NSS Discord on International Sport).

Of course, if you're looking to submit a bid yourself with all matches in your nation, or in a joint bid with someone else (like IAC 12), you're more than welcome to do so.

Just thought we could do this type of Euro 2020-style tournament as a fun edition of the tournament, as a way to celebrate the wide variety of regions that partake in our Regional Tournament.

[Squidroidia]

Personally I would be up for this! Since this would be for IAC 13, perhaps doing 13 stadiums in 13 cities in 13 nations would work, but since it is the number 13 that would make it a bit unlucky.

But I would be up for this nonetheless! I know the then-northeast AO nations (Now Anaia) did something similar for World Cup 75 (And maybe this could be brought up for World Cup 100 whenever we get to that), but this could be something that could really engage our little corner of NSS into giving more detail about what makes the Independent nations different from, say, AO or Rushmore or Esportiva or Anaia. The Independents are independent, after all.

[Eshialand]

I'm fully on-board with this idea (not that my opinion matters ) and I'll definitely be submitting a stadium if HUE's host bid winds up winning.

[Omerica]

*ponders whether to start shovelling bid paperwork into the fireplace*

Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea, but I hate the timing. IAC 13 would have meant more to me than IAC X and as much to me as IAC 7 meant to Drawk if I’m being honest. I get why the timing has happened, but I’m absolutely gutted by it. If it were any other edition, I’d be enthusiastically on board.

[Adab]

This is an interesting idea! I'll see if I can submit a stadium if this actually happens.

[Kohnhead]

Love the idea Hue, I hate how it worked for the Euros (xD) but I would definitely be on board for us doing this. I'll submit something right now

[HUElavia]

So, while this is awkward for me to write, I unfortunately will have to drop out of bidding for hosting duties in IAC 13.

The reason for this is because just as I was planning to put together a formal bid, I got a call from my job that I was awaiting for, and I will be starting training tomorrow for my new tasks I will be doing, which also means my schedule is fully changed (I have longer shifts for my job, but I work less days, get paid more, and I get essentially 3 1/2 days off every week). Plus, the new schedule gives me the proper space and time to deal with health-related things going on in my life at the moment.

Thus, due to this change of routine with work, I feel hosting the IAC would be too much for me at the moment, and I would like to push the Multiversal Tournament to IAC 14 (or even IAC 15 as a ceremonial edition). By the time IAC 14 comes around, I should have a good routine where I can fit hosting the tournament and my health-related things should be resolved by then.

I'm determined to have this proposed edition to be done in the future, and I'm very grateful for the positive feedback I was getting for the idea on here and on the NSS Discord server.

I am looking forward to participating in IAC 13, and I will be RPing in it, as I normally have done for the past five editions, and I hope that whomever is given hosting duties does a fantastic job scorinating the tournament.

Thank you for reading this post and understanding my situation with this.

Here's to a fun and entertaining IAC 13 and best of luck to all the participants for the tournament.

[Kohnhead]

Completely understandable I still love the idea however and think we should definitely use it in the future.

IAC 15 would be most preferable to me just because there's a ceremonial reason for it like the Euro 2020 was to commemorate 60 years of it but I wouldn't mind it next cycle.

[IAC Organising Committee]

Sorry for being behind the bump. IAC-13 is now open for signups.

With Anaia making their new CAFA cup, they have no need to enter the IAC. Anaia entrants will be considered as Big 3 entrants: not allowed.

[PotatoFarmers]

Threw in a host bid. Questions welcomed.

EDIT: I am not sure about what is the perception of a double group stage without elims. I am open to twisting it a bit to eliminate some rankcoasters in the first stage if there is enough comments about it, or changing the double group stage to something even nicer

[Trolleborg]

Having heal wounds from the latest campaign for some extent, I'm seriously consider put host bid for IAC-13. Without casaran format, but with a strong intention to disallow rank-coasting, with a real strong emphasis on RP and a r-e-a-l-l-y generous allocations of points, around 1-4 every matchday. Promise to put into work some new tricks and ideas.

Thinking about putting bid himself, but decide look for a co-host with similar posture. If someone interested, let me know by TG

[Quintessence of Dust]

Reçueçn, TJUN-ia and SRS and everyone, I am incredibly sorry.

Why can't I have luck like this on a nation I actually RP for...

[Kohnhead]

I will start off the discussion about the format with an I really liked it. I had my doubts about the aggregated Group Stage but upon seeing it in use I really thought it fit well, it gives nations a chance to build up their RP before the Group Stage thus helping lower ranked nations who RP out. I've never really been a fan of 4 nations in a group if it's only a single round robin because I feel there's too little games before a big elimination however the four pre-Group stage games change this.

In addition I feel that eliminating some teams after the first stage is entirely necessary to give the four games more stakes than just for seeding purposes. I felt that the way it worked this time was pretty much a perfect use so thanks to Poaf for introducing it and for hosting a great tournament.

Congrats to the winner and commersiations to the loser and again thanks to Poaf for hosting this.

[Quintessence of Dust]

Thanks for hosting, Poaf, good job.

I thought the two-stage approach worked pretty well. Eshialand got unlucky (there may have been one or two others but they were certainly the loudest in complaining). And one or two teams got lucky. But in general it whittled down the teams to 32 contenders pretty quickly without then leading to a brutal knockout round. I think for regionals this is a format worth considering again, despite my misgivings beforehand.

If I had one (minor) criticism it's that I found the prompts a bit inaccessible as they mainly seemed suited to nations with long participation histories in international football; for the erratic QoD or newcomer MVE, I frequently found myself not really able to engage with them. That may be a failure of imagination on my part and hosts are certainly under no obligation to provide prompts anyway.

[PotatoFarmers]

First of all, thanks to Graint and Kohn for their honest feedback!

It has been quite some time, but I haven't really got the opportunity to get onto my computer for a long while and proper type out this thing. But the RP scale summary, for the record, can be found on the IAC spreadsheet. And I will put it down here.

In total, 102 RPs* were received. I graded everything before the final cutoff, including RP posts made by eliminated nations, which is why there might be some anomalies, given that, well, eliminated nations' RP aren't necessarily the finest RPs around. But I must say, some of the RP prompts were pretty rushed out, which is why, as QoD (Graint) pointed out, some of these RP prompts aren't as good for new nations. That is something I will definitely take note of. Will probably give more generic, worldbuilding friendly RP prompts next time. Worldbuilding-ish can't exactly hurt for new nations, such as the ones relating to history of football in your country and all - I was looking at pre-NSS history for new nations, for the record.

As for the RP scale, the following box will give the summary.

Total RPs submitted*: 102
Max RP grade: 3
25th percentile: 1.9
50th percentile: 2.3
75th percentile: 2.6
Average RP bonus: 2.21
Percentage of RPs with more than 50% bonus: 92.16%
Percentage of RPs with more than 80% bonus: 47.06%

As for rosters, a total of 30 rosters were received. 23 of them qualified for the 1.5 times early roster bonus, which means they were posted before the first cutoff. Another 7 came after, but the remaining 14 nations didn't post a roster. Among them, 5 nations made it to the second stage, which meant a roster penalty was supposed to be applied. Only 2 of them had any rank to apply the penalty, one was Juvencus, who effectively had his original coefficient nullifed; the other was Reçueçn, who was also docked quite a significant amount of coefficient.


In review, most nations were well rewarded for spending that time and effort to RP, as seen by the scale of the RPs. I never really discriminated match reports or worldbuilding, in fact, I put both hand in hand in grading.

I think more comments would be about the format as a whole. What I liked about the format is that it gives slightly more variety, while reducing the issues faced in a Casaran format (no group stage previews really suck for a pre-MD1 match report). It is also slightly more straight forward than Casaran, given that the latter has really weird rules when it comes to avoiding rematches. We don't care about rematches here, and it also encourages a build up of RP. Can this be employed elsewhere? I am not so sure. I am starting to hear some ideas of how this is used elsewhere, but as the "inventor" of the format, I must say, I have certain standards of when this will be appropriate. For instance, given that when you have huge pots with over 20 teams, the possibility of a lopsided fixture list increases. But I want to hear feedback about the format as a whole. Whether it might actually solve the issues of too long qualifiers, for instance. Or solve the issues faced in Casaran.

[IAC Organising Committee]

Apologies for being late on this. Napped a little too long, it seems.

Signups for IAC-14 are here.

[Belnegau]

Minor announcement about a dumb thing I did.

The fixture list for the Group Stage as initially published in the Everything thread was wrong. I am editing the post now to correct it.

[Belnegau]

HOST ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING IAC14 SCHEDULE:
It has occurred to me today that I may have been a bit, let's say Americentric in setting the schedule for the IAC. Having an RP cutoff at the end of the day on the 26th or the wee hours of the morning on the 27th depending on time zone may not work well for people who will be spending that day with family or friends, or in any other holiday activity. Accordingly, I am considering amending the schedule for knockout round RP cutoffs to push the quarterfinal and semifinal scorinations back by 24 hours each, and the final/3ppo playoff back by 48 hours to avoid New Years Eve. The remaining schedule after this amendment would look like this:

Group Matchday 5: Wed 12-22 EST/Thu 12-23 UTC
Round of 16: Fri 12-24 EST/Thu 12-25 UTC
Quarterfinals: Mon 12-27 EST/Tue 12-28 UTC
Semifinals: Wed 12-29 EST/Thu 12-30 UTC
Final/3PPO: Sat 1-1 EST/Sun 1-2 UTC

The advantage would be more time to RP in over what is sure to be a busy weekend for many people, while the disadvantage would be postponing the end of an already delayed tournament by a further two days. At present, I think I favor delaying the tournament to allow everyone more time, but I'll wait at least 48 hours to give people a chance to offer their opinions on the proposed change here before making a decision.

[Sajnur]

The new schedule is an improvement to allow extra time to enjoy Christmas

[Adab]

Yeah that sounds good to me.

[Sajnur]

Actually, if you pushed back the Round of 16 another two days and the quarters and semis one more day, no one would have to do any RP over Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, and each knockout round would have two days between them, giving adequate of time for RP anyway

[Saterun]

Just saying, the IAC 14 seems to be entirely rankings-based. Call me salty, but I lost 0-3 to a team that had RP'ed once in the entire tournament (putting a roster after MD2), whilst I had consistently RP'ed after MD1, MD2, and MD4. This hurts even more because it effectively knocked me out. The team that beat me also got guaranteed qualification to the Round of 16 by only posting a roster the entire tournament. My group has another team that is also in the same situation as me: RP consistently, got knocked out.

[Montana Verde]

It's to be expected with the NSFS formula. I think we just got a bit unlucky in our group. Looking across the groups there are higher ranked teams that aren't doing well and RPers that are prospering; disappointing as it is, I don't have too many complaints.

[Drawkland]

Surprisingly, I will actually be posting signups in a timely manner this cycle. Expect them to come imminently.