Military History Side Event

[... and the chaos of Mexican modernity]

Me and George Stevens have agreed to collaborate on writing a set based entirely off of military history to be played near the end of the season, and I am looking at Chicago Open 2010 and ACF Nationals as possibilities. The set will be tu's only, and there will be no powers or superpowers. It will be at the range of nationals to post nationals difficulty, and the length of each question will be about 7-9 lines each with 20 questions in each packet.

Following Chris Ray's suggestion The new distribution is looking something like this (Tu's only listed)

4 Medieval Military History (1100-1700)
4 Ancient and Pre-Medieval Military History (3000 B.C-1099 A.D)
4 Age of Revolution Military History (1701-1900)
4 Age of Anxiety Military History (1901-1980)
3 Modern Military History (1981-2008)
2 Miscellaneous (Branches of military for historical states, Weapons, Tactics in battle)

The first 5 will include wars, battles, military figures as answers.

I need about 3 more writers who are willing to contribute and 1 editor to get to the final equaivalent of about 5 packets.

Thank You, and I hope this side-event novelty tournament can be a success.

[DumbJaques]

about 5 packets.

Presumably if you're announcing this over one year in advance you could come up with more than 5 rounds? Also the distribution seems silly in a way I don't really feel like expanding on right now, but you'd probably be best off with a hard distribution based on area/era, and try to make sure you cover a good balance of topics on your own. I mean, again, you've got a year. It shouldn't be that tough.

If this tournament causes me to spend a year getting blissfully reacquainted with the Battle of Cerignola only to witness the event mysteriously dissolve at the last minute, let me just go on record that I will feed each and every person connected with it to Shantanu's panda.

[... and the chaos of Mexican modernity]

about 5 packets.

Presumably if you're announcing this over one year in advance you could come up with more than 5 rounds? Also the distribution seems silly in a way I don't really feel like expanding on right now, but you'd probably be best off with a hard distribution based on area/era, and try to make sure you cover a good balance of topics on your own. I mean, again, you've got a year. It shouldn't be that tough.

Thank you for the input Chris, I will take your consideration and change the distribution around a little. I want to know if you are in as a writer or editor for this tournament? because having you on the staff would definately be a valuable asset. I will maybe switch it to 7-8 rounds then, I cannot gurantee more than 9 packets because it is indeed very hard to write 180 excellent tu's on military history.

[grapesmoker]

I'll play any number of packets of this tournament; I don't think you owe anyone more than you care to do, but I do suggest distributing your questions by time period and geographical regions.

[Mechanical Beasts]

Yeah, a principal reason to do this is that it's quite easy to convince anyone--others, when they consider going to your event, or yourself, when you're writing those fifteen last tossups the night before--that Northern Europe deserves two questions (or whatever you decide) per packet. But it doesn't follow so easily that you will be able to find ten tossups on a historical military branch that doesn't get annoying after a while, that distribute across place and time well... those things are primary; types of questions can follow.

[Important Bird Area]

I need about 3 more writers who are willing to contribute and 1 editor to get to the final equaivalent of about 5 packets.

I'd be happy to help out with this.

I don't think it's a problem to write very many packets, either, assuming of course that there is plenty of answer space in the "post-nationals" part of the difficulty scale.

[Captain Sinico]

I love quizbowl! I'd like to suggest that you not run this as a side to ACF Nationals, as I think I'm not alone in wanting to be able to focus only on Nationals itself that weekend.

MaS

[ClemsonQB]

IMO, your distribution is way too heavily weighted towards the 20th century (it will probably be pretty difficult to write that many questions on it). As others have suggested, you should also have a set geographical distribution. And another thing: Since when did the middle ages end in 1700?

Also, I’m not entirely sure how me agreeing to contribute a paltry sum of ridiculously difficult questions that I’ll never be able to write for any other event constitutes the event being labeled as a collaboration between myself and Zach, but I digress.

[grapesmoker]

Your historical divisions are suspect. I don't understand by what logic pre-WWI military history belongs in the same category as Vietnam (say). There are some plausible divisions in military history (I'm sure Jeff Hoppes will have a bone to pick with my proposals) such as the Napoleon Wars, World War I, the development of gunpowder, the arrival of mounted warfare, and so on. These would be my candidates for how to chop up your timeline, rather than the arbitrary divisions you seem to have chosen.

[... and the chaos of Mexican modernity]

I would like to point out that each packet will have a fair and equal geographic distribution that I have not listed, but I will gurantee that all 6 continents will be represented in some way or form within the distrobution I have given. For example the Battle of Gettysburg could represent American military history in the age of revolution whereas the Battle of Borodino will represent Europe. Do not fret as I will gurantee an equal distribution of continents.

Actually let me do this, and keep in mind that each geographic region will be represented randomly within time periods, such as war in 1700's New Zealand or war in West Africa in 500 A.D

5 Europe
4 North America (Includes Carribean and Central America)
4 Asia
3 Africa
3 South America
1 Oceania

[Important Bird Area]

(I'm sure Jeff Hoppes will have a bone to pick with my proposals

I like periodizing things almost as much as Sorice likes quizbowl!

Here's how I'd distribute a tournament like this:

Ancient (<500): 3

Medieval (500-1450): 3

Early Modern (1450-1789): 3

Long 19th century (1789-1914): 3

Short 20th century (1914-1989): 3

Modern militaries (1989-present): 2

Your choice: 3

At least four tossups (but no more than six) on American military history in four different categories.

At least two tossups (but no more than three) on naval history.

[Mike Bentley]

I think 5 rounds of tossups only will be more than enough military history for everyone unless you're extremely clever. Even playing Bruce's history tournaments, which had a lot of non-military history (although maybe less than they should have, especially in 2007), by the later rounds tossups beginning "Before this battle, the armies fought at X and Y" started to get pretty same-y.

Anyways, I would be up for playing this assuming I'm at an event where this happens.

[No Rules Westbrook]

Hey, my advice is not to get bogged down in tediously precise distributions. If you have good ideas that work as tossups, write them...and just generally try to be fair across time periods and geography. Don't try to force in one tossup per round on Oceania (!) or a set number on "branches of the military" or "weapons". Just start writing and see how it goes. I know people bicker like crazy about precise distributions in here - but, almost universally, people prefer just hearing good questions (at whatever difficulty) as opposed to forced questions trying to comply with some ideal distro.

Anyway, I will gladly play this if it occurs at any event I happen to attend. If it doesn't, I may be willing to contribute some writing or editing. As for the number of packets, that's your decision...might be best to feel it out as you go.

Like Sorice, I'm generally opposed to having any side events to ACF Nats...certainly not on Friday or Saturday. Since the current plan is for this year's Nats to be a one-day affair, I guess I wouldn't be totally against having some cool-down side event on Sunday for people who want to stick around - although, honestly, if we were to have such an event - I'd prefer it be an event of more general interest than a military history tourney. As for Chi Open, that gets packed with traditional side events every year - though you could possibly sneak this one in somewhere, maybe five packets Sunday night or something.

[ClemsonQB]

Since “Zach and George Stevens” are in the habit of making claims without any conference whatsoever, I’ll post the changes to details listed above which I believe will make this a much more enjoyable experience for everybody.

The event can be held at any event in the latter half of the 2009-2010 season, and I’m open to suggestions here. There will be powers and superpowers. As to how many rounds there will be, I’ll see what seems like a logical number after writing some questions for the event, but I can promise at least five rounds.

The distribution will be very similar to what Jeff has proposed:

Any and all contributions from willing writers would be much appreciated, however, this event will still happen if no one else does contribute simply because it’s not happening for almost a year (and their won’t be that many packets…)

Thanks,
George

[... and the chaos of Mexican modernity]

Any word on the distribution change yet George? I would really like to see this new distribution since I have already started writing some questions, and I don't want to progress too far without knowing the newer distribution.