Rugby Union World Cup 30 - (Signups)

[Natanians and Nosts]

Overtasking!

[Baggieland]

In!

[Arjunnagar]

I signed up but my name is not on ze signups

Please stop spamming the signup thread. You need only post once to signup and your name will be added (as it already has been) when a member of the NSRB Executive Council gets around to it.

Ok sorry I just got a little bit excited

[Barunia]

We promise we'll RP more than the 7s tourney. In.

[Barunia]

EDIT: That's odd. I only hit the post button once.

[Kelssek]

I'm in

[Nova Anglicana]

We sign up!

[Hebitaka]

Hebitaka will Play

[The Licentian Isles]

Sure, the Isles are in.

[Ingla Terra]

In-gla terra

[Desotania]

The rise from the ashes

Desotania signs up

[Lisander]

Preconfirming Alice Bay.

[Alice Bay]

Preconfirming Alice Bay.

Ditto. We're a Top 10 nation, isn't like we would lose our spot to a lesser-known Imperan League nation.

[NS Rugby Board Executive Council]

Sign-ups updated to Alice Bay. There's over a week left before the host bid deadline but I'd still recommend getting bids up ASAP.

- EJM

[NS Rugby Board Executive Council]

As the deadline for host bids has passed and we have not yet received a bid, a new deadline of 24 hours after a first bid is submitted is being set.

-Darmen

[Malandrin]

In

[Kelssek]

I'd be able to host in early July, but before making an official bid I'd encourage any newer hosts to take a shot. This is a good way to build experience of a major tournament.

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

Rugby Union World Cup 30 Bid - Ko-oren and Quebec & Shingoryeo

In renewing the long vows of friendship standing between the two Anaian nations, Rugby Quebec and Ko-orenini Zhesameimidhinth Rugbí Union, present the following bid to host the 30th Rugby Union World Cup:

Format

We currently have 30 signups by our count. 30 signups do work fine, but we would prefer to wait for aiming for 32/36/40/42 signups, assuming there will be more signups over the next few days. As with past few RUWCs, we would like to include a Round of 16. With that said, our preference would go towards a 30 or 32 team format, with 24 hour windows between cutoffs under 30 team format, and 48 hour windows under 32 team format.

The knockout rounds will be single elimination with a Third Place playoff, though whether there will be a 1-16 seeding or more conventional, football-styled format, will most likely depend on the number of signups. If done under former in terms of seeding, group stage rematches will be avoided for the Round of 16.

So, we have the following possibilities:

32 teams -> 8 groups of 4 teams -> Best 2 for each group advance
36 teams -> 6 groups of 6 teams -> Best two of each group advance + four best 3rd placed teams
40 teams -> 8 groups of 5 teams -> Best two of each group advance
42 teams -> 7 groups of 6 teams -> Best two of each group advance + two best 3rd placed teams

Tiebreakers

1. Overall points (win = 4, draw = 2, loss = 0. There will be 1 bonus point for losing by 7 points or fewer & 1 bonus point for scoring more than 31 points)
2. Point differential
3. Head To Head
4. Head To Head Point Differential
5. Coin toss

Scorination

Xkoranate 0.3.3., with SQIS Rugby Union formula, will be used. RP bonus will be cumulative for the entire tournament. The Xkoranate-style Modifiers between -5 and +5 are allowed.

About Ko-oren

Ten percent environmental policies, twenty percent sports, fifteen percent meritocracy and bureaucratic reports. Five percent islands, fifty percent obsession with flying insects, and a hundred percent different languages and dialects.

Led by Prime Minister Laurderinthen a huge collection of appointed officials, Ko-oren is a well-oiled machine with gorgeous landscapes, modern cities, and full of equal, yet diverse, population. Visitors to our archipelago in Anaia's west will have almost endless choices for activities, day trips, and can find everything for an unforgettable getaway. Except drugs, guns, and most forms of alcohol.

Rugby union is immensely popular in Ko-oren's southwest. We have it all: a lively, solid domestic scene, several interregional rivalries, and a successful national team. It was only a matter of time until the KZRU would be allowed to bid for a second Rugby Union World Cup - something the Ministry for Science, Culture, and Sports only gives permission for sporadically.

The user behind Ko-oren has successfully hosted a World Bowl, a T20 World Cup, a previous Rugby Union World Cup, and a Field Hockey World Cup, as well as being a co-host of a World Cup of (Ice) Hockey.

About Quebec and Shingoryeo

Located in Northwestern Anaia, Quebec and Shingoryeo is a nation known for its environment, rich cultural diversity and claims one of its region's most educated and cultured population. Led by Her Imperial Majesty, Christine II, the country is a semi-constitutional monarchy, with both the royalty and the democracy playing a huge role in Quebecois politics. With a high HDI rating and affluent economy, Quebec and Shingoryeo is an advanced nation with long years of peace and stability within the nation, while still allowing for societal and economic progress over the course of its history. With a beautiful environment, advanced economy, state-of-art infrastructure and love of association football, Quebec and Shingoryeo is your place to go for your once-in-a-lifetime voyage that welcomes every traveler with smile and cheer.

Rugby, as a sport, held consistent popularity in Quebec and Shingoryeo, where both union and league have been played for centuries with small semi-professional and professional leagues. In spite of their long history with the sport, the Quebecois held inconsistent participation in international rugby due to administrative issues self-generated by Rugby Quebec, and its own financial challenges. However, with the rejuvenation of media interests and the competent leadership at helm, the Rugby Quebec sees great opportunity to grow the public interest in the sport and hopes it will be able to seize the opportunity by bidding for the hosting rights of the bid.

The user behind Quebec and Shingoryeo has hosted or cohosted a wide range of competitions including 2 World Cups, 2 BoFs, 2 CoHs, 3 IBCs, 5 WCoHs, 2 World Bowls, sections of qualification rounds of Aeropag Summer Games, an AOCAF and a CR, as well as many other tournaments over past few years. In the past year, he has successfully hosted or cohosted the World Cup of Hockey 40, Volleyball World Expo XI, and several conferences of the NSCF and NSCAA competitions.

[Quintessence of Dust]

What, if any, ranks will you be using for scorination? (I ask because the current rankings incorporate results from 2019; there are few other sport rankings that date back so far.)

Are you using the vanilla SQIS file? (I ask because it, and the NSFS version, both produce incredibly unrealistic scores.)

[Kelssek]

As I intend to bid with SQIS as well, would you think forcing all modifiers to the +3 and +5 could help? My experience with RWC28 was it made it too low-scoring.

[Quintessence of Dust]

A bit better but still way short of realism, to be honest. That's how I did my domestic league the first time around and the scores are still very low. For example here's a 20 round robin, ranks and modifiers in team names:

                          Pld     W    D    L     PF    PA    PD    Pts 
 1 20+3                   180   140    7   33   3537  1952 +1585    287
 2 20+5                   180   127    8   45   3309  1945 +1364    262
 3 15+5                   180   121   13   46   3149  2008 +1141    255
 4 15+3                   180   120    2   58   3120  2166  +954    242
 5 10+3                   180    98    4   78   2714  2310  +404    200
 6 10+5                   180    95    7   78   2857  2413  +444    197
 7 5+5                    180    66    9  105   2409  2892  −483    141
 8 5+3                    180    65    6  109   2349  2932  −583    136
 9 0+5                    180    18    5  157   1491  3917 −2426     41
10 0+3                    180    16    7  157   1495  3895 −2400     39

The highest ranked team with the highest modifier, playing against other teams with very high modifiers, is still scoring fewer than 20 points per game!

Here are some scores:

On MD1, 10+3 3–0 20+5
On MD2, 20+5 6–0 10+5
On MD3, 15+3 10–10 20+5

And so on...

Just on a bare eyeball test, this is averaging under 30 points per game. Compared to RL that'd be like running the World T20 with teams averaging under 100 runs.

[Ko-oren]

What, if any, ranks will you be using for scorination? (I ask because the current rankings incorporate results from 2019; there are few other sport rankings that date back so far.)

Not only do the ranks go back quite a while, the top two are also a bit far ahead of the rest. For that reason, we want to provide enough roster and RP bonuses to neutralise such rank differences by MD3 or MD4. What I mean by that: if you earn max Roster and RP bonus for MD1, MD2, and MD3, you'd already have as much xkoranate skill points as a (hypothetical) non-RPing #1 team.

Are you using the vanilla SQIS file? (I ask because it, and the NSFS version, both produce incredibly unrealistic scores.)

As I intend to bid with SQIS as well, would you think forcing all modifiers to the +3 and +5 could help? My experience with RWC28 was it made it too low-scoring.

For my league, I use a changed version of NSFS. I can do the same thing for SQIS and post the results here.



I see two quick ways of doing this. Either I up the default amount of attacks (default: 12). Pros: higher scoring. Cons: skill gap widens (because if one team scores 20% of all chances and the other team scores 80%, giving both teams more attacks just makes the score even more lopsided).

Or I up the Score coefficient. This also brings up the score. Normally, a -5 team scores about 8-9 points per game, and a +5 team scores 13-14. If I up the score coefficient from 1 to 1.5, this goes to 12 points for a -5 team to 19 points for a +5 team. To 1.9, and -5 scores 17 and +5 scores 24. This was tested like so:

with all unranked teams.

I couldn't tell you the ramifications of these changes, and they're somewhat unproven (therefore I posted some of these questions in xkoranate-and-tech on the discord). I'm still willing to use them and push "attackcoeffs" up to 2.0 as it allows the full range of style mods -5 to +5 to be used. From testing, it does not seem like positive or negative style mods do disproportionally well, so at least it's balanced. I think there's merit in pushing the attackcoeffs up rather than increase the number of attacks. I can show my work, of course. I think -5 teams scoring about 17 points and +5 teams scoring about 24 is acceptable - again, all coming from 0 rank teams in the above test.

[Kelssek]

Kelssek bid for RWC30

Experience
Kelssek has a well-established track record of successfully hosting the multiverse’s largest sports events. Kelssek has hosted the Summer Olympics twice and the Winter Olympics twice, both events of greater complexity than the World Cup. Kelssek also co-hosted World Cup 46, as well as the World Cup of Hockey and Rugby World Cup on multiple occasions.

Format
Assuming 30 teams, the group phase will consist of 6 groups of 5 with top two of each group and best third-place teams advancing to knockout rounds in a conventional tournament format.

Standings points system: 4 points for a win, 2 for a draw, 0 for a loss. Teams will be awarded a bonus point for losses of 7 points or less, or if they score 28 points or more (this aims to emulate the system in use at the real RWC which awards a BP for scoring four tries (20 points), given that the types of scoring are not specified). Group stage standings will be decided by, in order: a) standings points, b) the winner of the match between the two teams, c) points difference, d) points scored, e) drawing of lots (OOC: scorinated match/round robin between the teams with RP bonus but skills set to zero).

Technical
Ranks as posted in the OP of this thread will be used. RP bonus effect will be set at 33% and relative. This is on the very high side (default is 15%) but given concerns about the rankings I believe it makes sense to devalue them somewhat.
I've done the method of directly adding RP bonus to rank before but I consider this problematic as it gives hosts too much temptation and latitude to juice the skill ratings of teams. I trust myself, but maybe you don't.

xkoranate with a modified SQIS file will be used. Results of a test follow; I am happy to discuss and tweak.
Ten +2 means a team with max skill and +2 style modifier, where the skill range is 0-10. The SQIS file does nothing for values beyond +2 or -2 so putting a number beyond that range doesn't do anything.

                          Pld     W    D    L     PF    PA    PD    Pts
 1 Ten +2                 800   661    3  136  31205 14062 +17143   2650
 2 Ten 0                  800   656    6  138  28740 12714 +16026   2636
 3 Ten -2                 800   642   10  148  27040 11003 +16037   2588
 4 Five -2                800   441    8  351  21162 15609 +5553    1780
 5 Five +2                800   433    2  365  24821 19343 +5478    1736
 6 Five 0                 800   426    6  368  23059 18034 +5025    1716
 7 Zero 0                 800   109    7  684  10151 32108 −21957    450
 8 Zero +2                800   105    5  690  11640 33685 −22045    430
 9 Zero -2                800   100    7  693   8533 29793 −21260    414

The average points per match is 51.8

For reference, the most recent complete seasons of some major rugby competitions:
2019 Super Rugby: average 56.6 points per match
2021 Six Nations: average of 49.6 points per match
2018-19 France Top 14: average 45.5 per match

Edit: to add, the change to the file is to set attacks to 22, and the coefficients to 1.4 (tries) and 1 (pens/drop goals). This doesn't exactly correspond to RL statistics of course, but I'm not too worried as the scores produced are fairly realistic.

[Quintessence of Dust]

Thank you both. Kelssek, that looks much more realistic.

I think -5 teams scoring about 17 points and +5 teams scoring about 24 is acceptable

Why? It's still substantially lower than RL. RL data is a bit skewed because many RL competitions have bonus point criteria. That means the concept of a "-5" team doesn't really exist IRL as even a losing team is still going to try to score tries to get the bonus point. (I'd argue style mods don't make that much sense for rugby anyway, but perhaps that's a thought for another day.) That said 50 points per game is a good approx: it's about what the last World Cup averaged, and it's in the ballpark for Southern and Northern Hemisphere domestic rugby (the former tending to be a bit higher, the latter a bit lower). If two +5 teams are averaging 48, then that doesn't really seem to align.

[Ko-oren]

Why? It's still substantially lower than RL. RL data is a bit skewed because many RL competitions have bonus point criteria. That means the concept of a "-5" team doesn't really exist IRL as even a losing team is still going to try to score tries to get the bonus point. (I'd argue style mods don't make that much sense for rugby anyway, but perhaps that's a thought for another day.) That said 50 points per game is a good approx: it's about what the last World Cup averaged, and it's in the ballpark for Southern and Northern Hemisphere domestic rugby (the former tending to be a bit higher, the latter a bit lower). If two +5 teams are averaging 48, then that doesn't really seem to align.

I can further up the AttackCoeffs to approach 50 points per game.

As for style mods, this is what I said on Discord yesterday (now for all to read): "I think style mods do have a place in rugby union: not so much as attack vs defence, but rather as a, well, actual style of play. Teams that go for long possessions with many phases, and are willing to settle for kicks rather than tries will definitely produce lower scores than teams that focus on quick back play, line breaks, and speed." In my final (1.9 AttackCoeffs) example, the -5 teams saw 27 points per game, the +5 teams saw 41 points per game. I can make that higher.

I'm glad we're having this discussion, given the somewhat unrealistic results of RUWCs past.

I personally don't believe in changing the 'Attacks' number: it'll widen the gap between the worse and the better teams.