Introduction: The ladder is a ranked list of players. Each
player engages in a match against an 'adjacent' player. Winners advance
halfway up the list while defeated players drop halfway down the list.
The person at the top is the "King of the Ladder".
History: The TRC ladder is the longest continuous organized
event associated with The Russian Campaign. Rounds used to last
several years but the advent of EMail and play-by-email aides has allowed
competitors to complete campaign games in less than a year.
Administration: Gamemaster (GM): Gary Dickson
Assistant GM's:
Tom Gregorio, Jim Eliason. These individuals volunteer their time to run
this event and have the authority to address and resolve any issues that come
up regarding the ladder.
Objective: The first and foremost objective of this ladder is to
promote playing TRC in a competitive but friendly manner. Gentlemanly
behavior and good manners are expected at all times.
Administration: The Gamemaster is responsible for
administering the event and addressing issues that come up in individual
matches. (He will have two assistants to address issues that come up in
his own match.)
Format
The top rung of the ladder will match the defending ladder champion and
the next player on the ladder list.
Each round lasts one year and new players may join in at any time.
All ladder matches must have an outcome reported before the start of the
next ladder round.
A loser moves half way down the ladder. For example, in a ladder
round with 20 competitors, the loser of the championship match will begin the
round as number 11.
New participants will be added to the bottom of the ladder in the order in
which the Gamemaster receives their request to join the ladder.
The ladder position table details the rankings, opponent matchups, and
match outcomes.
A participant may withdraw at the end of a round in which case all other
participants below the vacated spot move up one position on the ladder chart.
Any participant who drops out or otherwise doesn't start their match at
the appointed time will be seeded at the bottom of the ladder. Seeding
is as follows: Winners, Losers, New Entries, Late Start Winners, Late
Start Losers.
Format
Overview: "The Russian Campaign, 4th
Edition" by L2 Design Group is the default version of the game to be played.
The campaign game is the default scenario. The ATF playing aide -
downloadable for free from this website - is the default playing aide.
To support players making the transition from the 3rd Edition,here
is a summary of the rule changes.
Determining Victory: The victory
conditions for the campaign game as described in the TRC4 rule book are being
used.
Rules: Each pair of TRC players is free to adopt whatever
playing conditions, victory conditions, optional rules, combat resolution
and/or error correction conventions, they wish as long as both players
agree in advance. (They may even agree to use 3rd edition rules.)
Choosing Sides:
Players bid to play their desired side. The lower
seeded player bids first.
The first bid must include the desired side as well as the
extra replacement factors being given to the Russian over the course of the
game. Bidding continues until a player
declines to bid at which point his opponent has the desired side at the stated
bid. The extra replacements will be evenly distributed across the number
of turns available with earlier turns having priority. Negative bids are
allowed; if the final bid is negative, remove replacements to satisfy the bid
by starting with the first turn and moving backwards.
Example bidding session #1: Assuming the campaign
game is being played (25 turns), Phil bids 25 for the Germans.
Forrest mulls this over and then bids 26. Phil then decides that he want
to play the Russians and declines to bid. Forrest will now play the
Germans giving Phil's Russians two extra replacements on the first turn and one
extra replacement on each of the subsequent twenty-four game turns.
Example bidding session #2: Gary wants to play the
Russian side. He bids -2 for the Russians. Doug mulls this
over and then bids -3. Gary doesn't want to play the Russians while having
to 'give away' that many replacements and declines to outbid Doug. Doug
will now play the Russians and will forgo one Russian replacement on the first
three turns of the campaign game.
Time Allotment: Each player is allocated 170 days to complete their
match.
Time Usage: Players 'use' their time when doing their moves.
(As measured from the time that the opponents turn is complete until the time
that a valid move is received by his opponent. Time spent determining
the validity of a turn is assigned against the receiving player. Time
spent correcting the turn is assigned against the erring player. If a
turn is determined to be 'invalid', up to three of the days spent reviewing
the move are assigned back to the erring player.
Any disputes will be resolved by the Gamemaster and will heavily depend on
copies of players' correspondence: It is in both parties interest to
keep accurate records with time stamps. The first player to exhaust his
allotted time is automatically the loser without regard to his actual
situation in the game.
Match Reporting
Reporting Game Results:All matches
are worth one AREA victory claim.
The Gamemaster will report all match results at the
end of each ladder round; individual players should
not report to AREA the results of their ladder matches.
