The Quizbowl Resource Center

This is the official announcement for the mirror of Age of Empires at Chicago Open. This tournament will be run the Sunday after the main Chicago Open tournament, in some order with Scattergories.

More details about this tournament can be found at this link. For those who may be hesitant about playing an "ancient world tournament" I will offer this - though the difficulty and feel is "similar to 2015 CO Visual Arts / Jordaens," there's a lot of very accessible answers and a pretty wide range of subject material across a ton of world cultures, and a non-zero number of clues exploring more recent interactions with the ancient world. That said, staff are also highly appreciated!

The signup sheet may be found here. For now, there is no field cap. Please note that I will be assigning team names based on various cheat codes / taunts from Age of Empires II, unless you would like to request a specific team name. If you'd like to request a specific one, feel free to ask! Here are lists of cheats and taunts that you can pick from.

I'm happy to staff unless you have a surplus of staffers, and then will join a team that needs someone who knows nothing.

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2019 5:59 pm If you'd like to request a specific one, feel free to ask! Here are lists of cheats and taunts that you can pick from.

can we be "to smithereens" please

Kindly requesting that people go ahead and form teams, otherwise I'll be assigning all free agents to teams next Thursday.

If there's a hole on a team when all the free agents are assigned, I'll join, but otherwise I'll just staff.

One more thing - given the planned festivities for the night after CO, I've been thinking of starting this event later than normal CO Sunday fare. Would people be amenable to starting at 10 AM sharp? I don't expect it to last more than 3 hours, since there are reasonable length caps and no bonuses. This means that, after a lunch break, Scattergories could start around 2.

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote: ↑Fri Jul 26, 2019 4:01 pm One more thing - given the planned festivities for the night after CO, I've been thinking of starting this event later than normal CO Sunday fare. Would people be amenable to starting at 10 AM sharp? I don't expect it to last more than 3 hours, since there are reasonable length caps and no bonuses. This means that, after a lunch break, Scattergories could start around 2.

While I would appreciate sleeping in after festivities, this would make it hard for myself and other with late afternoon flights to play Scattergories. I'm not sure how many people that is, though.

settlej wrote: ↑Fri Jul 26, 2019 6:33 pm

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote: ↑Fri Jul 26, 2019 4:01 pm One more thing - given the planned festivities for the night after CO, I've been thinking of starting this event later than normal CO Sunday fare. Would people be amenable to starting at 10 AM sharp? I don't expect it to last more than 3 hours, since there are reasonable length caps and no bonuses. This means that, after a lunch break, Scattergories could start around 2.

While I would appreciate sleeping in after festivities, this would make it hard for myself and other with late afternoon flights to play Scattergories. I'm not sure how many people that is, though.

I agree with Jonathen and would prefer an earlier start time for AoE for flight timing considerations

After speaking with Alex Damisch, we've decided to shoot for a hard 9:30 AM start time. However, I'd like to request that teams show up by 9 to help assist with setup, pay before the event, and make sure all the ducks are in a row. I don't estimate that the event will take any more than three hours in total, meaning that with a one hour lunch break, which hould be feasible since we're coordinating a lunch order*. Assuming Scattergories takes about the same amount of time, this means we should finish around 4:20 4:30 PM.

In the interest of making sure we have enough packets to play the tournament out fully, I'm going to cap the field at twelve teams, and state that free agents will be assigned to teams in a manner that ensures we have twelve teams. This will allow for two 6-team prelim brackets, followed by a 3/3 playoff split and crossover games, then a final, which should exactly use the 9 packets we have available.

The final will only be played if two teams have an identical playoff record; otherwise, one will be declared the outright winner. However, since I'd like to use all the packets, I'll plan on having some sort of game on the finals packet in any case - maybe an all-star game, top scorer shootout, second place game, or something of the like.

Finally, I'd like to strongly encourage people to play this event if they're on the fence about it! A lot of people who aren't really into ancient stuff have told me that they still found the set highly engaging and interesting.

* Additional details to follow, but tentatively we're planning on placing a large lunch order, which staffers for either Age of Empires or Scattergories will have access to for free. The buy-in will be $10, with the "profits" going to pay the staffers' lunch.

Yeah, can confirm that this tournament was much more enjoyable than any previous classics tournament I've played before.

In the interest of keeping things moving smoothly this weekend, please fill out this lunch order form if you're attending the tournament and want to have tacos. The goal is to keep lunch as short as reasonable so we can move on to Scattergories quickly and make sure people aren't missing flights. Please fill out the form by 12PM CDT tomorrow.

Are we shooting for a hour lunch break between Age of Empires and Scattergories? (i.e., you'll have a hour to go get your own food if you don't want to order the tacos)

Alex and I are planning for a 45 minute lunch break to keep things moving quickly. There should be nearby food options if you don't want to order.

I've added free agents to teams - the field is closed at 12 teams.

EDIT: Please add your emails to the signup sheet so I can send out logistics info. Thanks!

In lieu of an email, I'm going to post here to say we have rooms and buzzers secured. I will post a schedule in the sign-up sheet either tonight or tomorrow morning. Format will be two RR brackets of six followed by three crossover playoff games.

Meet in 2343

EDIT: 2415 for player meeting

Live Stats.

Full stats can be found here.

Congratulations to Charles Hang, Rohan Rai, Tamara Vardomskaya, and Jay Misuk for winning in a thrilling final, 120-90