Penguins, fire, don't mention the tax evasion (WC101 Bid)

by **Paradystopia** » Wed Mar 18, 2026 10:22 am

Addendum 1.1:
'New' and 'Improved' Logo

Farfadingus wrote:WORLD CUP QUALIFIERS
FARFADILLIS, PARADYSTOPIA, but not Wight (but maybe stay tuned for a plot twist)

WORLD CUP FINALS
FARFADILLIS, PARADYSTOPIA, but not Taxhavn ICly because of legal loopholes (but maybe stay tuned for a plot twist)
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Hear ye, hear ye!
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Sound the trumpets, drums, vuvuzelas and assorted ethnographically appropriate nose-flutes, for here be the only sensible* choice for the hosting of the most prestigious, …

Addendum 3.1:
One hundred and first

Farfadingus wrote: … NationStates World Cup. That choice, being Bizarro.
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Bizarro is the joint trio bid by the nations of Farfadillis (not Wight), Paradystopia (not Wight), and Wight (not Wight), except without Wight (not Wight?) who will be taking no part in the hosting beyond being an appointed Bizarro advisor and financial backer (which the respective committees of Farfadingus and Paradystopia believe may actually be some sort of front for Taxhavn to siphon a great deal of money into the bid under the guise of charitable donations but no-one’s really questioning it.)

*Please be advised that sensibility is not included.

WC Bizarro-ish Qualification
Despite initial plans to include golden tickets in randomly selected export shipments from Lithico™ and see which lucky countries happened upon qualification, we decided that the fairest course of action was one that included a competition based upon sporting merit.

Addendum 4.1:
The only golden ticket available will be the one awarded to the Baptism of Fire champion, who will gain automatic qualification to the World Cup proper in addition to a years supply of lithium and a crate of out-of-date penguin plushy merchandise from the failed WC100 campaign.
Addendum 5.1:
Actually, there will be no golden ticket for the Baptism of Fire champion, nor a years supply of lithium. They will however still receive a crate of out-of-date penguin plushy merchandise from the failed WC100 campaign.

Farfadingus wrote:Thus, there will be a group stage, and some playoffs. Now, whittling down over [you already know this is a very large number that keeps getting larger] teams to a final 48 is no easy task so what we propose is this.

Lots of smaller groups, winner goes through to the finals, second, third, and maybe even fourth placers get to play some brutal rounds of knockouts for everyone else’s amusement.

Addendum 2.1:
Updated Potential Formats

Addendum 4.2:
Updated Updated Potential Formats

Addendum 5.2:
Qualification not to include Baptism of Fire champion, and to be 'gravitational' - see HERE

Farfadingus wrote:WC Bizarro-ish Finals
Everyone knows that the group stage is the most entertaining part of an international cup. With that in mind, we’ve got two of them.
12g4 - 2 advance
6g4 - 2 advance + 4 best 3rds, and after that...
Round of 16, and probably more rounds after that (hopefully!)

Paradystopia Hosting CV
Events regularly hosted by Paradystopia include, but are not limited to, the annual meet-up of the society for the stubbornly reclusive (Last year saw a record turn-out of 2), and the multiversal association for the procrastinatorial arts (Still waiting on RSVP’s to gauge numbers).

Aside from this, Paradystopia has hosted the third World Badminton Championships, the seventh Campionato Esportiva (though under the guise of being a puppet), and the fifty-fifth Baptism of Fire competition alongside the Naughty Sunshine Islands (or was it Northern Sunrise Islands?)

They also had stewardship of the Rugby League Challenge Cup for several cycles.

Addendum 1.2:
Also, Paradystopia is the current steward of the Rugby Union Champions Trophy, and was host of the Rugby Union World Cup 38.

Farfadingus wrote:Farf insists the relative lack of hosting experience is not really a problem so long as you can actually sit down and read a trillion match reports et al with enough focus to properly grade them.
Farfadillis Hosting CV
Two WCs, three BoFs and some other things. Blame the community.

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Wight Hosting CV
Entirely irrelevant as he is not a part of the bid, but if it were relevant, he’s hosted the WC twice before, too. But never again! Not in any official capacity at least.
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Scorination
LISA. Farfadingus insists on it. Exact parameters have not been decided yet. ARC V served as experimentation but was still a little too small a sample size. It does seem to produce massive blow-outs more often than SQIS and most NSFS set-ups, though.

RP Bonus
Very important! You will live and die by your RP bonus. Full roster penalty. Cumulative RP bonus will be moderately important, but we also want you to focus on writing good RPs, so your best RP will also play an important role. But we also care about whether you’ve been RPing lately. So your most recent RPs will receive heavier weighting. Rosters are also very important. The exact percentages might not match, but this point is very similar to the West Pavola bid. Also, BoF nations will get RP bonus carryover. Also also, qualifiers RP bonus carryover to the finals will be very large (on the order of 60%-ish, but focused on your cumulative bonus and your single best RP about equally). RP bonus will also be semi-public: you will be able to ask about yours, but only yours, privately, and you can also ask for advice if you believe we know anything about writing that you don't. Please do not ask for "advice" only to argue over what you consider to be a low RP bonus, though. I mean, you can, but it's kinda rude.

AI Policy
#1 AI Generated images: AI generated images are fine as long as they are explicitly labeled as such.
#2 AI Generated text: AI generated text is explicitly prohibited, and any instance thereof allows the hosts to levy any punishment as they see fit, including but not limited to zeroing out both rank and any prior earned RP bonus. Exceptions might be made for explicitly labeled text serving some specific purpose, but don’t count on exceptions being made, and communicate with the hosts first before trying anything that might merit a ruling. The rule of thumb is that if it feels like generating a picture, then it might be fine, and if it feels like actually writing, it might be very not fine. As this is a WC with an enormous number of very new users, we might be more lenient than under usual circumstances (but not with puppets or old users who should know better).
#3 AI Translation: AI translation services into English are also fine. However, the original language text should be posted in a spoiler for transparency purposes. Or the other way around.
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Tiebreakers
Points
Goal Difference
H2H Results
H2H Goal Difference
Wins
Coinflip (not an actual coinflip)

Miscellaneous
There will probably be two graders for every RP (we will at least aim for that), and also the BoF winner will be placed in the top pot for qualifiers. Wight will mostly be grading, but might have to take up on some scorinating duties during qualifiers. Or not. Think of Wight as more of an RP Czar. He's in charge of making sure the RPs flow fluidly. RP prompts, cool visuals, collaborations with newbies, proper writing critique on offer, anything RP related we'll probably be more liable to delegate to Wight. Which is not to say Para and Farf can't or won't try to shake things up and make them fun for a given definition of fun, but the RP Czar is Wight.

Scrapped Ideas
[Farf: Let's not get into that, we'll scare them away]

Addendum 6.1 & 6.2:
Further Apparently Scrapped Ideas

Farfadingus displaying any decent sense of punctuality
Wight

Addendum 7:

by **Farfadillis** » Wed Mar 18, 2026 10:23 am

To be clear, this is not in fact the same bid as last time. Wherever this post and the previous one contradict each other, this one is the one that's right. Feel free to ask clarifying questions regarding this. Without further ado:

We're aware the likely number of sign-ups has changed, we have these calculations instead for how the play-offs would play out, for different likely scenarios, where I have excluded options with groups I consider to be too small (refer back to when I said whenever the posts contradict each other, this one is right):

As last time, we hope to have a lot of teams still fighting tooth-and-nail for a World Cup berth late into qualifiers, spurred on by the not-as-clunky-as-you'd-think play-off system. The race for top two, though, is also vital, so it's not just "get into the top 6" or whatever. You do want to avoid the play-offs, after all! To say nothing of the fact that the further down you finish, the steeper the way back into contention. But we digress, this part is very much still the same as last time.

As last time, RP bonus will be generous. Pretty much all of that section still applies. However, with the actual World Cup closer to Actually Happening in Real Life, it seems like a bad idea to stray from the official format, at least as far as the group stage itself is concerned. 12 groups of 4 it is. So that part from the OP also gets corrected. We understand this is not the optimal way to communicate information, but do bear in mind this is a bid that features Paradystopia and Farfadillis, and possibly (hopefully not!) Wight. So, uh, yeah. Ask us about seeding if you've been paying attention and following along, please! Knock-out seeding is very important and people rarely ask about that stuff in bid threads.

Anyway, for the new new part: regional qualifiers. Except not really. Audio, who's thought about how to implement regional qualifiers far more than I have, came up with a system he dubbed 'gravitational'. Basically:

Please ignore the last part in which Audio, after very careful consideration, has started having second thoughts about the viability of regional qualifiers. Now, to further help convince you we know what we're doing, let us explicitly copy an idea from our competitors:

Drawkland wrote:Banija and I have decided that the top 4 or 5 pots will remain intact, and we will do our best to make sure each conference features fair distribution at the top. While watching two Top 10 teams go at it in a conference matchup is cool in real life, it’s impractical for a format such as World Cup Qualifying. After about 5 or 6 pots we generally dip into the triple digits in the rankings. The differences between teams is mathematically not that high, and is more dependent on RP bonus than rank. Therefore, any team lower than pot 5 or 6 (depending on our final number of conferences) will be placed into a general mass of participants I’m fondly referring to as the “slush nations” or “slush pot.”

See, in the RL NCAA, conferences are mostly based upon geographical locations and cultural similarities. Because of this, we’ve decided that we want to try our best to align at least a few conferences based on regional membership. No conference will be perfect, of course. Members of sporting regions are more likely to be higher ranked, while bottomfeeders in the slush pot are more likely to be from any arbitrary region. Still, we will try to align nations into somewhat region-based groups. This is where the slush pot comes in handy, it enables us to have a little lee-way to make conferences more regionally cohesive without having to worry about those pesky pots on the bottom end where they’re basically completely irrelevant.

This is a great insight, and it can actually be translated decently well to the idea of a gravitational draw. However, we will be using a slush pot (pots 5 and 6) and a slushier pot (pot 7 onwards), rather than just the one slush pot. Do note we veer off slightly from Audio's original idea here, since we will be drawing more than one nation from the slush (and the slushier) pot, but the core principles all still apply anyway. A problem arises: the slush potS really are the slush pots. You're much worse off facing an unranked high-quality RPer than a no-show pot 6 team, as far as actually making the World Cup is concerned. The advantage of the slush pots is that using them allows us to create more coherently regional groups. The disadvantage is that if the slush pot nations you face are all in a sporting region, chances that you're facing a good RPer go up considerably. With that in mind, I've decided (Para will be waking up to the news, don't you worry):

What we'll be doing is what we'll be calling a maybe-sorta-gravitational* draw, with three options for you nations (players may choose different options for their main nations and their puppets):
Opt out: You will be treated as if you were a regionless nation. This is the default for Independents.
Opt in: You will be treated as a nation belonging to the sporting region assigned to you according to the KPB+ ranking's standards at the time this is being edited into the post. This is the default for non-Independents.

To change away from your default option, you will have to TG me, Farfadillis, specifically, informing me of your decision.

Veering away from Audio's original idea, if enough nations from a region opt in, we could have more than just one group belonging to said region (or none, even). Specifically, if there's a viable way for n groups to feature non-slush pot nations exclusively from the same region (who have opted into the system, as they are otherwise considered to be regionless), then there will be n groups associated to that region. All groups not associated to a specific region will be 'regionless' groups, so to speak, and filled out acccording to gravitational procedure. Note that this could very well mean we, in fact, end up with a completely standard group draw (this happens if no region meets the criteria for at least one group to be associated with them). Do also note that it's possible, possibly even very likely, that you opt into this system and end up in a 'regionless' group anyway. What cannot happen is that you opt out and still end up in a group belonging to a specific region, unless you're in the slush, in which case the damage is minimal because higher-ranked nations already RP at similar rates, regardless of region asssociation. To put things more simply: in a way, we're letting the community decide just how regional the qualifiers will really be.

*: No, despite having had to study tons of General Relativity OOCly, I could not be bothered to come up with a smarter name.

Also, yes, we will be using the updated version of LISA. The scorinator was updated for a good reason. We do not want to artificially inflate the chances of scorigamis occurring. Also, no, BoF winners will get no advantage in qualifiers beyond the ones already provided by the rankings [EDIT, thanks Qusmo for pointing this out: and RP bonus carryover].

by **Wight** » Wed Mar 18, 2026 10:24 am

by **The Martian Independent Republic** » Wed Mar 18, 2026 10:54 am

[MIR]

Throuple of questions.
1. There will definitely be a lower turnout this World Cup, what are the formats for less entries?
2. LISA with the anti-blowout patch or without?
3. Will you, at any point, be making an executive decision to exclude teams that finished in qualifying spots by your metrics in favor of teams that barely didn't?

[/MIR]

by **The Sernetian Empire** » Wed Mar 18, 2026 1:11 pm

this looks interesting! first paradystopia knock us out of wc100 now this! I do like this bid though, hope it goes ahead

by **Paradystopia** » Thu Mar 19, 2026 6:52 am

"Master, Master!"

"What is it, Igor?"

"Master, ze Martians are here and they vish ... to know thinks!"

"They want to 'know things'? Whatever are you on about, Igor? If they're looking for the Grand Casaran of Chess, tell them that's miles away to the east in Zygnusgrad. Also, it doesn't start for a few weeks yet either."

"No Master. Ze thinks they vish to know ... zey concern football!"

"Oh."

"'Oh'? Does this displease you, Master? Shall I subject zem to a barrage of boiling oil and choice derogatory inzults? Hmm?"

"No no, Igor, that won't be necessary. I would assume these queries are pertaining to our World Cup bid alongside Farfadillis."

"And Wig..."

"Igor! What have I told you about mentioning them?!"

"My apologies, Master. It vill not be happenink again. I do swear it."

"Anyway, what is it the Martians are asking?

"Well, firstly, Master ..."

The Martian Independent Republic wrote:There will definitely be a lower turnout this World Cup, what are the formats for less entries?

"Less entries? Really?"

"Oh yes, Master. Ve vere accommodatink for at least two hundred and vorty teams from across ze multiverses but alas, zere are but only von hundred and forty sign-ups thus far. Vell, von hundred and thirty nine actually given ze decision of ze Cassadaiguans to align zemselves solely vith Eeevil!"

"Ah, well, that is awkward. We'll have to get that sorted. Get some of the admin penguins to work out the numbers. Remember, we want epic playoff options; at least two or three rounds of playoffs. Giving more or less anyone who finishes towards the top half of their group a chance of battling their way to the main event via the playoffs."

"Very good, Master. Am I right to assume zat all zese playoffs vill be drawn completely randomly to unleash the maximum amount of chaos upon ze unsuspectink footballink community? Mwhahahaha!"

"Actually no, Igor. They will be seeded. I've yet to hear from the Farf contingent exactly how, but yes, seeded playoffs."

"Very vell, Master. There vas another query ..."

The Martian Independent Republic wrote:LISA with the anti-blowout patch or without?

"LISA? You may have to direct them towards the Farf office for that sort of detailing. They are scheduled to make an announcement at some point soon, yes?"

"Zey are, Master. If I might be so bold, Master, perhaps ve should not include an anti-blow-up patch, zen ve can destroy our enemies outright! Mwhahahaha!"

"'Anti-blowout' patch, Igor. As far as I'm aware, I believe we will be using one, but again, all that nonsense is in the hands of the Farfs. Think they've got plans for some pseudo-regional qualification to announce also. *sigh* Sometimes I do wonder why they even need us."

"Graphic design, Master. Have you zeen a typical Farvian logo? Zey possess all ze artistic nuance of a dyspraxic chimp. Zey need us for ze branding."

"A bit harsh, Igor. Though, I guess that is true."

"Zere vas but von further qvestion of ze Martians, Master. Which was ..."

The Martian Independent Republic wrote:Will you, at any point, be making an executive decision to exclude teams that finished in qualifying spots by your metrics in favor of teams that barely didn't?

"Excluding teams?"

"Oh please, Master, let us be excludink of teams, please! Ve can have no Squornshelous Remnant States, no Dreamed Realm inhabitants, no Audioslavia, no Valanora, no Ko-oren. Just think, ve could also banish the Aphrilians for zeir eliminatinks of us last time, ve could banish ze Tumbrans for eliminatink us in ze Campionato Esportiva, ve could banish everyone! Mwhahaha!"

"Come on, Igor. That's not exactly sporting, is it? To be honest, I'm not sure I understand the question really. If a team qualifies, or wins through their playoff route, they're in? Right? Isn't that how it's supposed to work? Also, I doubt the Tumbrans will be participating, so we wouldn't be able to banish them anyway."

"But Master, not even von little banishment? Not even ze smallest, most inconsequential of banishinks?"

"We're running on the Bizarro ticket, Igor. 'Weird, but fair', remember?"

"Very vell, Master. If zis is what you decree. Vill that be all?"

"One more thing, Igor ..."

"Yes, Master."

"What's the deal with the stupid accent, and all the 'yes, master', 'no, master' nonsense?"

"Oh, that ... ermm ... sorry sir, I just thought that if evil was, like, 'in vogue' or something that maybe we should try it?"

"No, Igor. I don't think we should."

OOC: Format options to be updated momentarily.

by **Andso Mangis** » Thu Mar 19, 2026 8:16 am

I’m tired of humongous groups boss

by **Andso Mangis** » Thu Mar 19, 2026 8:16 am

I’m tired of humongous groups boss

by **Paradystopia** » Sat Mar 21, 2026 2:47 am

"For the love of ... Gaarrghh!"

"Vot is it, Master?"

"Don't start that again, Igor. I'm not in the mood."

"Sorry sir. So what's the problem?"

"Those accursed Wig... I mean, the entities-who-for-legal-reasons-shall-not-be-named!"

"What have they done, or not done because they're not involved, now?"

"Long story short, we need to recalculate the groups, again .. I'd assume that there is some sort of tax loophole that can be achieved on the proviso that the World Cup features a newly fledged footballing nation given that none of the proposed group formats take into consideration that the Baptism of Fire champion auto-qualifies for the World Cup under our proposed bid."

"Do they?"

"Apparently so. So yes, and as no one can currently get in contact with the Lithico^TM board on Farfadillis at this time, and that the Wig... I mean, and those-who-for-legal-reasons-cannot-not-be-named are, from a legal standpoint, not involved, it falls upon us to issue a statement. I'm tired of Paradystopia being made to look foolish on the international stage!"

Andso Mangis wrote:I’m tired of humongous groups boss

"I don't see what that has to do with anything, Igor ..."

"I didn't say anything, sir ... I believe that that was the mathematician from Andso Mangis you hired to attempt to make a breakthrough in set theory by defining an actual integer value to countable infinity."

"Well get them out of here, and helping the penguins calculate the new playoff structures."

"Ok sir. Also, so how is that supposed to work, the automatic qualification of the Baptism of Fire champ?"

"You ask as though I have an answer ... if only the infernal company; Lithico^TM would answer their damn e-mails! We're still waiting on their blasted press conference ... Anyway, as far as I understand it, they would still go through the qualifying procedure and any playoff berths they may happen to obtain would pass on to the next team in their group."

"Wouldn't that just give them a pass to coast through qualifying? Because it wouldn't actually mean anything to them?"

"They could, 'tis true. Though, if they want to hit the ground running in the World Cup proper, they'd do well to keep themselves in form throughout the qualifying procedure. Enter the main event with the best possible ranking, and keep up their RP bonus."

"RP bonus? What's that?"

"Damned if I know. Something the Wig... I mean, something those-who-for-legal-reasons-cannot-not-be-named mentioned. Probably 'Revenue Partioning' or something like that; some capitalistic nonsense."

"Ok sir. I assume we've no updates to give regarding LISA?"

"What? No? That was a one-time thing, we ended things amicably, we ..."

"No sir, not that. L.I.S.A."

"Oh, well, no. That's all in the hands of Lithico^TM and the rest of the Farvian contingent. To be honest, I'm getting rather tired of waiting around and trying to cover for the inhabitants of that blasted island."

Andso Mangis wrote:I’m tired of humongous groups boss

"Is that mathematician back again?! I heard them the first time!"

"No sir. That was the spokesperson for the tour guides' union."

"Since when did my private office become a local hot spot. Anyone else here I should know about, Igor?"

The Sernetian Empire wrote:this looks interesting! first paradystopia knock us out of wc100 now this! I do like this bid though, hope it goes ahead

"Just a Sernetian diplomat, sir."

"Well, if they're going to be appreciative, I guess they can stay for now."

"Very well, sir. Will there be anything else?"

"Get someone to put in an order for several tons of lithium. It might open a channel of contact with the Farfs if they think someone's wanting to buy a bulk load of their flammable guano."

by **Legalese** » Sun Mar 22, 2026 5:57 pm

What's the thinking behind why it makes sense (IYO) to give the BoF champ a golden ticket?

by **Farfadillis** » Sun Mar 22, 2026 7:58 pm

Legalese wrote:What's the thinking behind why it makes sense (IYO) to give the BoF champ a golden ticket?

Sorry that's on me, I forgot to play my part here, give me a few minutes.

by **Farfadillis** » Sun Mar 22, 2026 8:09 pm

"Oh, right, the spam folder." Tuskoles muttered to himself as he remembered he'd blocked the Paradystopi the last time around because they didn't seem to really 'get' that there just isn't much to figure out. You submit a bid to the WCC, which doesn't even check whether you're a political entity, and off to the races you go.

"Ah, uh-huh, I see. Same as last time. No," he said to himself as he quietly deleted the e-mail from the Paradystopis suggesting the BoF champions get some kind of advantage in qualifiers. "Obviously not. I'm sure if there were any tax evasion involved in this bid it would be vehemently intertwined with this Margaret-forsaken idea, though."

He kept reading some of the e-mails. The Paradystopis had saved him some time with the number crunching. Quite a bit of it, in fact. A final held in Taxhavn, but technically not, seemed like stretching the definition of nationstate. Intuitively, for Tuskoles, this seemed like a very eponymously natural thing to do. He wasn't quite sure why eponymous was the word that came to mind, of all possible words.

He'd just taken one of his idea-showers. He'd come up with a fresh idea. Just copy the Drawkians and the Banijans, but stick to the good parts. Yeah. Bold-faced stealing. As the leader of a corporate-state looking to bring numerous nations to infrastructural ruin in order to turn profit, this made a lot of sense to Tuskoles.

He quietly added a few more stipulations to the format, without his Paradystopi counterparts ever noticing. He was sure they'd just complain about the BoF berth thing, none-the-wiser to the new changes. "Regional qualifiers it is," he thought, "sort of. Not really. And also optional." Sort of, not really, and also optional was precisely how he thought about tax evasion, incidentally, and it fit exactly into the plans regarding the unincluded third entity in the host bid. How very appropriate.

"Right, the deadline's sooner than I thought," he thought to himself, finally. "I'd better get people actually discussing this sooner rather than later."

by **Farfadillis** » Sun Mar 22, 2026 9:46 pm

Alright, we are now fully open to questions. Please refer to the first two posts in this thread (both, yes) to fully understand the proposed bid. We apologize profusely if any of our ideas have been obfuscated by our penchant for unorthodox presentation.

by **Paradystopia** » Mon Mar 23, 2026 12:34 am

"THEY'VE DONE WHAT?!?!"

"Well sir, the Farfs made their statement and ..."

"CLAIMING EXECUTIVE POWERS AND INSTITUTING 'GRAVITIONAL' QUALIFYING?!?!"

"Yes sir, that."

"THE 'IMMEDIATE ABANDONMENT OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE AUTO-QUALIFICATION CONCEPT'?!?!"

"Yes sir, that also."

"GET TUSKOLES ON THE PHONE! NOW!!"

"Certainly sir. Dialling now, sir"

<< *Bee-bee-beep* "The number you have dialled is non recognised. Please ensure you have entered the correct number and try again. Thank you" >>

"Sorry sir, let me just try that again ..."

<< *Bee-bee-beep* "The number you have dialled is non recognised. Please ensure you have entered the correct number and try again. Thank you" >>

"That's strange ... third time's the charm, yes?"

<< *Bee-bee-beep* "The number you have dialled is non recognised. Please ensure you have entered the correct number and try again. Thank you" >>

"The number doesn't appear to be working, sir."

"ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT THAT FARVIAN BUFFOON DELIBERATELY GAVE US THE WRONG BLASTED NUMBER?!?!?"

"That would seem to be the case, sir."

Farfadillis wrote:Alright, we are now fully open to questions ...

"I'VE GOT A BLOODY QUESTION FOR YOU, TUSKOLES. WHERE IN THIS DAMNED MULTIVERSE DO YOU SERIOUSLY FIND THE NERVE TO ..."

*click*

"They ended the call, sir."

"YES IGOR, I GATHERED THAT!!"

by **Qusmo** » Mon Mar 23, 2026 2:27 am

Hey, I mostly just want to make sure I understand everything correctly after all the addendums.

Baptism of Fire: It will happen (as long as someone bids for it [and beats out RoN]). BoF teams' RP bonus will carry over to Qualifiers and, due to the carryover from Qualifiers to the finals, would also carry over all the way to the finals if they qualify for it. However, the BoF champion will not auto-qualify to the main tournament. What would be the rough equivalent, in KPB+ points, to the maximum possible BoF-to-WCQ carryover?

Qualifying format: Anywhere from fifteen to eighteen groups of anywhere from nine to twelve teams. All top-two teams qualify, plus (the only) two host nations, with every other slot up for grabs in a two- or three-round playoff system, where, generally, third-placed teams advance directly to the final playoff round, fourth-placed teams advance directly to the penultimate playoff round, other roughly top-half nations also participate in the first playoff round to make the numbers work, and neither the BoF champion nor any other team but Farfadillis and Paradystopia auto-qual to the main tournament.

Qualifying draw: each group has one team from each of pots one through five, two teams from the slushy pot, and the remainder from the slushiest pot, determined by a maybe-sorta-gravitational draw. For any particular region, let p_x represent the number of opted-in nations from that particular region in pot x. Find the greatest number n such that p₁≥n, p₂≥n, p₃≥n, p₄≥n, and p₅≥n. Neither slush pot has any effect on n. That region will have n dedicated pots, where every team drawn from the top five pots will be from that same region. This applies for any specific region: both major sporting regions, like Rushmore, or independent regions, like Sonnel, but not to All Independent Regions Combined Generally.

Qualifying playoffs: Will the draw for each playoff round have a seeded pot and an unseeded pot, with each playoff fixture contested by one team from each pot? Will it be fully seeded, with the top-seeded participant playing the lowest-seeded participant, and so on? (If so, will there be reseeding between rounds, or will it be a fixed bracket?) Will it be random, with any participating nation eligible to play any other participating nation? Within that, will there be carveouts, such as no two teams from the same group or the same user may play each other in the playoffs, &c.? How many legs will each playoff round have? Will home field advantage in the playoffs be neutral, determined by the higher seed, or random?

Finals: A bit on the nose for me of all folks to ask about seeding, but you did ask for someone to ask. Twelve groups of four in the single and only group stage, and then how will the knockouts be seeded? Also, what LISA scorinator settings would you plan to use?

Thanks in advance, Farfadillis and Paradystopia and not Taxhavn.

by **New Montreal States** » Mon Mar 23, 2026 3:55 pm

With the caveat that I think it's "good in theory, probably works out ok in real life but let's poke at it a bit to make sure," I have a couple more questions about the BoF RP bonus carryover:

- How would it mesh with weighting more recent RPs more heavily (which I also think is a good idea)?
- Qusmo already asked about the relative KPB bonus boost (which would decline over time), and I would like to second that.

by **Farfadillis** » Wed Mar 25, 2026 6:32 am

Very sorry for answering so late, and truth be told it's likely I won't be able to answer many questions (if any) until tomorrow night. I'm very busy and family isssues hit fairly unexpectedly.

With that out of the way:

Qusmo wrote:Hey, I mostly just want to make sure I understand everything correctly after all the addendums.

Baptism of Fire: It will happen (as long as someone bids for it [and beats out RoN]). BoF teams' RP bonus will carry over to Qualifiers and, due to the carryover from Qualifiers to the finals, would also carry over all the way to the finals if they qualify for it. However, the BoF champion will not auto-qualify to the main tournament. What would be the rough equivalent, in KPB+ points, to the maximum possible BoF-to-WCQ carryover?

We've decided to land a best-possible-BoF campaign somewhere around the top ~10% of the slush pots [EDIT: after taking into account the post-BoF KPB+ update, to be clear, so no nation would be able to escape the slush pots, by design] (exact numbers to be ironed out, not least because we don't know the actual size of the slush pots, but that's the idea). Basically, a good head start, but nothing that artificially changes their pot, and also nothing dramatic. If they want to actually qualify, chances are they'll have to keep up the good work.

Qusmo wrote:Qualifying format: Anywhere from fifteen to eighteen groups of anywhere from nine to twelve teams. All top-two teams qualify, plus (the only) two host nations, with every other slot up for grabs in a two- or three-round playoff system, where, generally, third-placed teams advance directly to the final playoff round, fourth-placed teams advance directly to the penultimate playoff round, other roughly top-half nations also participate in the first playoff round to make the numbers work, and neither the BoF champion nor any other team but Farfadillis and Paradystopia auto-qual to the main tournament.

Qualifying draw: each group has one team from each of pots one through five, two teams from the slushy pot, and the remainder from the slushiest pot, determined by a maybe-sorta-gravitational draw. For any particular region, let p_x represent the number of opted-in nations from that particular region in pot x. Find the greatest number n such that p₁≥n, p₂≥n, p₃≥n, p₄≥n, and p₅≥n. Neither slush pot has any effect on n. That region will have n dedicated pots, where every team drawn from the top five pots will be from that same region. This applies for any specific region: both major sporting regions, like Rushmore, or independent regions, like Sonnel, but not to All Independent Regions Combined Generally.

You understood almost everything perfectly regarding the maybe-sorta-gravitational draw, or at least that's the impression I get. The only correction I'd make is we're sticking to KPB+ recognized regions, which means All Independent Regions Combined is an option (treated a little differently by default, but otherwise indistinguishable from Arrosia/Anaia/Rushmore/Esportiva). Something I forgot to mention, but should clarify, is that the slush pots become normal pots if we somehow end up with 0 regional groups at all (because at that point the slush pots serve zero purpose).

Qusmo wrote:Qualifying playoffs: Will the draw for each playoff round have a seeded pot and an unseeded pot, with each playoff fixture contested by one team from each pot? Will it be fully seeded, with the top-seeded participant playing the lowest-seeded participant, and so on? (If so, will there be reseeding between rounds, or will it be a fixed bracket?) Will it be random, with any participating nation eligible to play any other participating nation? Within that, will there be carveouts, such as no two teams from the same group or the same user may play each other in the playoffs, &c.? How many legs will each playoff round have? Will home field advantage in the playoffs be neutral, determined by the higher seed, or random?

Fully-seeded, round after round, no carve-outs. A massive play-off system already introduces enough randomness as is, even if we can alleviate that with our choices of LISA parameters. Within those constraints, we think/know this is what minimizes randomness. Obviously, we can't seed by Rank+RP bonus since RP bonus is not public, which is what would truly minimize randomness, but this is as close as we can get to fair given that.

Qusmo wrote:Finals: A bit on the nose for me of all folks to ask about seeding, but you did ask for someone to ask. Twelve groups of four in the single and only group stage, and then how will the knockouts be seeded? Also, what LISA scorinator settings would you plan to use?

Thanks in advance, Farfadillis and Paradystopia and not Taxhavn.

I was actually hoping you would ask. Thanks for the alley-up. Qusma seeding. Uh... I know you don't need an explanation regarding how it works, and I'm hoping enough of the community is familiar with it by now to know it's "good". I was hoping to get to use the spreadsheet that takes forever to seed things. I take it it still works?

Re: LISA. If you're asking about exact LISA parameters, I'd rather keep that private, but the idea is to minimize randomness a fair bit, compensating for it by having substantial RP bonus relative to KPB+ ranks (or, at least, relative to what we perceive to be the typical relationship between the two; the reality is WC hosts tend to be very secretive about their RP bonus systems, so it's hard to compare). If you're asking about the version, the bid states (correctly) that we'll be using the updated one, because we don't like artificial scorigamis.

New Montreal States wrote:With the caveat that I think it's "good in theory, probably works out ok in real life but let's poke at it a bit to make sure," I have a couple more questions about the BoF RP bonus carryover:

- How would it mesh with weighting more recent RPs more heavily (which I also think is a good idea)?
- Qusmo already asked about the relative KPB bonus boost (which would decline over time), and I would like to second that.

Thanks for the questions because I now appreciate we were not clear even one cycle back regarding this. BoF carryover should be thought of as separately, since BoF carryover won't degrade. The same goes for WCQ RP bonus carryover. The RP bonus system described works on top of those two.

The reasoning is 1) we want to be friendlier to new users, 2) the BoF is extra effort on top of WCQ RPing and 3) as I previously mentioned in this post, the bonus itself is capped at a number that's not high to begin with, at least for the vast majority of participants. BoF and WCQ carryovers will also work the same way: 50/50 regarding cumulative and best RP. Recency won't be taken into account for carryovers, since we're looking back at your RPing "performance" as a whole, and in that sense there really isn't a difference between MD1 and MD700; you turned up for both (or neither, but you get the idea).

I'm not fully sure I'm parsing your second question correctly, but my reading is you're asking about the carryover BoF bonus (which would not decline over time, as described above), in which case the answer is, to reiterate, "the theoretical maximum tops out at about ~top 10% of the slush pot in terms of KPB+-points-equivalent [EDIT: after having already gotten their BoF-associated KPB+ bonus]".

by **Paradystopia** » Wed Mar 25, 2026 6:48 am

"Yes, that'll show Tuskoles for not responding to recent queries pertaining to the bid."

"Actually sir, they just responded ..."

"Hang on. So you're telling me that this newly commissioned artwork, at great personal expense, is now totally redundant?"

"In a word, yes. Sorry sir."

"Those infernal Farfs! Back to Plan B then."

"Which was ... ?"

"'Accidentally' printing most of our promotional material with 'Farfadillis' corrected to 'Farfadingus'"

"Might I suggest, sir, with all due respect, that we should actually be working together with the Farvian contingent to provide the best possible bid for such a prestigious tournament, and not devolve simply into childish bickering?"

"Sod that! They started it!"

by **Legalese** » Wed Mar 25, 2026 7:40 am

Best wishes as you deal with family stuff, Farf. Now to react to your reply

Farfadillis wrote:Re: LISA. If you're asking about exact LISA parameters, I'd rather keep that private

So if I'm reading you correctly here, you're not disclosing the scorination formula parameters, which has been the norm for years at this point. It seems like an odd choice given you've generally been on the side of more transparency versus less, and it's not like RP Bonus in terms of effect on how people may RP. Why borrow Margaret's cloak all of a sudden?

by **Farfadillis** » Wed Mar 25, 2026 9:13 am

Legalese wrote:Best wishes as you deal with family stuff, Farf. Now to react to your reply

Farfadillis wrote:Re: LISA. If you're asking about exact LISA parameters, I'd rather keep that private

So if I'm reading you correctly here, you're not disclosing the scorination formula parameters, which has been the norm for years at this point. It seems like an odd choice given you've generally been on the side of more transparency versus less, and it's not like RP Bonus in terms of effect on how people may RP. Why borrow Margaret's cloak all of a sudden?

If that's the norm, I'd oblige and tell you my plan for the parameters (Para is none the wiser, I'm the assigned math guy), but you do have to convince me first (this is an invitation to do so, not snark). How often have people revealed minute specifics regarding, say, NSFS max rank? I know for a fact I've hosted WCs without mentioning those specifics... unless my memory is failing me terribly, which could be the case.

For the record, I'd have no qualms revealing the parameters after the World Cup's over. I'm just not terribly comfortable with people being able to quantify with relative precision just how much their RPs affect results, especially given we will be weighing more recent RPs more heavily.

by **Paradystopia** » Wed Mar 25, 2026 10:35 am

Farfadingus wrote:(Para is none the wiser, I'm the assigned math guy)

Can confirm ...

by **Legalese** » Thu Mar 26, 2026 7:21 am

Farfadillis wrote: Snip

So (as I know you know, Farf -- this is also for the benefit of everyone wondering why I'm asking about this) every scorinator has their own set of variables that can be fiddled with to achieve the outcome probabilities you want. In NSFS, this is typically the Max Score variable; in SQIS -- and really here the variants, like SGIS and some other one -- it's two variables -- one that sets the base threshold for scoring, and another that sets the range for how high/low you can go. These aren't the only things one can change, but they're the most common, and it's typcially incumbent on a host to disclose this info -- see here for what I think is the last time I've asked it in the forum -- and received a satisfactory response in return. It might have been the most recent, but this is a pretty typical question.

In LISA, there's four variables that matter, all of which affect the win/draw probabilities in their own ways: PowerScalar, Reference Rank, REAR, and Margin Divisor. All affect the outcome in certain ways, and not disclosing them is tantamount to refusing to tell people if you're using SQIS, SGIS, SLIS, or your own SFIS. That said, I'll give you that Reference Rank may be partially dependent on RP bonus, and if you're planning to adjust it each scorination as a result, it's fair (IMO) to disclose it similar to how NSFS's Max Score is typically disclosed (that is, "Max Score will be set to the Max possible KPB+ value (42), plus the maximum RP bonus that day").

So, with all that, what parameters will your bid use with LISA?

by **Farfadillis** » Thu Mar 26, 2026 5:02 pm

Legalese wrote:
Farfadillis wrote: Snip

So (as I know you know, Farf -- this is also for the benefit of everyone wondering why I'm asking about this) every scorinator has their own set of variables that can be fiddled with to achieve the outcome probabilities you want. In NSFS, this is typically the Max Score variable; in SQIS -- and really here the variants, like SGIS and some other one -- it's two variables -- one that sets the base threshold for scoring, and another that sets the range for how high/low you can go. These aren't the only things one can change, but they're the most common, and it's typcially incumbent on a host to disclose this info -- see here for what I think is the last time I've asked it in the forum -- and received a satisfactory response in return. It might have been the most recent, but this is a pretty typical question.

In LISA, there's four variables that matter, all of which affect the win/draw probabilities in their own ways: PowerScalar, Reference Rank, REAR, and Margin Divisor. All affect the outcome in certain ways, and not disclosing them is tantamount to refusing to tell people if you're using SQIS, SGIS, SLIS, or your own SFIS. That said, I'll give you that Reference Rank may be partially dependent on RP bonus, and if you're planning to adjust it each scorination as a result, it's fair (IMO) to disclose it similar to how NSFS's Max Score is typically disclosed (that is, "Max Score will be set to the Max possible KPB+ value (42), plus the maximum RP bonus that day").

So, with all that, what parameters will your bid use with LISA?

I asked Qusmo and apparently there's a chance I'm the only person (alongside EQS, who tagged along as co-host) who's hosted a tournament with LISA without revealing parameters. That's on me, my bad! You're roughly right with your last observation, in that I have two problems regarding revealing parameters beyond the ones outlined. Number one is that depending on sign-ups, we could wind up with a more (or a less) random format (as with every World Cup), and I'd want to adjust the parameters to normalize for that. A corollary of this is that I don't yet know the parameters (you'll notice I carefully chose my words in my previous post if you look back), so if it's really important I suppose I could force myself into what I believe is the best choice on average and commit to that, but it doens't strike me as ideal. I'd much rather talk about how I plan to go about figuring out the parameters appropriate for our format, number of entrants and plans for balancing the three R's than specific scorinator inputs. Because at the end of the day the parameters are just a proxy for what really matters. On that note, I'd be more than happy to tell you my guiding principles when tweaking for parameters (along the lines of "a team with 80% max RP bonus and average rank should beat a team with no RP bonus and high rank X% of the time", if that helps paint a picture), which would hopefully give you a good enough idea of where they're likely to land once the format's been settled. I can always just reveal them once they're actually set in stone, of course, but that'd be past the voting deadline if that's something you or others are weighing heavily when deciding whether to smite us or not (please just smite Wight).

As a general rule of thumb, for example, and it's probably plenty noticeable throughout the bid, we want people who take the time write well and consistently to do very well, even if their rank is low. Not something like a UR going blow for blow with a mediocre but consistently RPing top 10 KPB+ player (on average, of course, Maggie's whims are beyond us mere mortals), but likely well above what's the norm for the World Cup, at least whenever I'm not hosting. This is a bit of a different combo, mind: how the scale works (which is almost always kept secret and is also very important) plus how the parameters adjust to balance RP against the other two R's.

Also, for the record, the point regarding people being able to quantify the impact of their RPs quite well is because part of the bid includes semi-public RP bonus (ie you can TG us to ask how you've been faring). I'd usually not be as worried about that stuff with fully private RP bonus.

Sorry if this was all a bit too rambly and long-winded. I'm slightly sleep-deprived.

by **Paradystopia** » Fri Mar 27, 2026 1:45 am

Farfadingus wrote:[...]A corollary of this is that I don't yet know the parameters [...]

Joking and irreverent memes aside, it is something we are presently working on, something that has been affected by RL circumstances, and something I will keeping bugging Farf about.

by **The Sernetian Empire** » Mon Mar 30, 2026 5:12 am

ayyy the bid won!

Penguins, fire, don't mention the tax evasion (WC101 Bid)

Penguins, fire, don't mention the tax evasion (WC101 Bid)

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