Chaos:

Thank you, Chaos, for proposing me as a moderator of this board. But, I'm by far not the most active member of this community. In fact, I quit playing here and I finished my last game a couple of month ago.

Dear sabotage fellows, I wish you all the best. Take care!

Dear participants,

I'm happy to announce the finish of the first Espionage Masters Tournament. Hooray!

The challenge started on:
5. September 2011, 20:05:11

And the final move was made on:
19. October 2015, 20:05:03

Hence, it took us just around 4 years to finish this beast. :-))

My congrats to SL-Bosse for winning the Espionage tourney!

Nothingness, my congrats for your victory in the Small Espionage tourney!

And last but not least, congratulations to SL-Mark for actually winning 2 tourneys of the Espionage Masters I: Open Fast Espionage and Small Fast Espionage. You really kicked our a****!
However, in the Fast Espionage tourney you lost miserably.

Thanks to everyone for taking part in this event.

Currently, I'm preparing for the Espionage Masters II.
So stay tuned guys ...!

Cheers,
Michael

And here is the link:
Espionage Masters I

SL-Mark:
An incredible idea, Mark!

And a great way to complete an impressive sabotage career.

Do I have to become a member again to join the Retirement Tournament?

rod03801:
thank you, Rod. But, the tournament I was talking about started in 2011 or 2012, hehe

Nothingness:
Don't know if it's possible to change the game speed after a tournament started but I doubt it.

Anyway, I make a move at least once per day

Even without reading the book, I managed to win my latest Championship game against Mark.
Is Mark on the downgrade?
And more importantly: who received the book?

Well, I came here because most of you league guys switched to bk due to the deactivation of the discussion boards on IYT. Since then it has become very "unchallenging" on IYT. It took me some time to ease into the purely technical interface here, as well.
Meanwhile, I see no reason to switch back anymore neither to play on both sites.

That said, let's see IYT as kind of a bootcamp!
And if a new talent is ready to challenge the 20 world champs, BK is the place to be. ;-)

SL-Mark:
What are you taking about? The real world championship in espionage is over.
And the world champ has already been determined:

BrainKing World All Games Champion Ship Tournament

:-E)

SL-Mark:
Well, that corresponds to the speed of some espionage games. :-))

rod03801:
Great. Thank you Rod!

Currently I play 12 games in about 5 to 6 different tournaments. What happens if my memberships runs out in a couple of days? Will most of the tournament games be considered as a loss? Due to the fact that as a non-paying menber I'm not allowed to play more than one tournament at a time. Or will I be able to finish those tournament games as a non-paying member? Does anyone know? Thanks for your replies.

SL-Mark:
soon you will know.

What about moonhippie? Is he playing here as well?

SL-Mark: hahaha. If you've bluffed me with your last move in our current game I'll put you on my red list, man!

Chaos: Oh yes, that's right. Nice that you remember my stone old nick. We had quite a good time over there. :-) But, after my sabotage break I used to play as Sandoz a couple of years on iyt as well.
I don't think that I will go back to iyt for moonhippie's tourney, though.

Celticjim: no

Last call for players:
Only 3 days left to sign up for a big Espionage-Battle!
Many players already signed up:

Espionage: 7 players
Small Espionage: 11 players
Fast Espionage: 10 players
Open Fast Espionage: 15 players
Small Fast Espionage: 12 players

Espionage Masters I

Celticjim: Howdy, that's great! :-)

Only 10 days left to sign up for a big Espionage-Battle! All variants covered! Many great players taking part.

Espionage Masters I

Chaos:
I agree with your proposal on the draw rule.

Only 19 days left to sign up for a big Espionage-Battle! Now, all variants covered!

Espionage Masters I

Celticjim:

What a pity!

I've just become a paying member.

Giddy up, Jim! ;-)

I've just discovered a cool tournament. ;-)

Espionage Masters I

I promise to accept every draw offer after 50 moves without capturing any piece on the big board - and after 35 moves on the small board respectively.

cookie monster:

I promise the same. :-)

SL-Mark:

Absolutely true ;-)

Hi Mikong,

good to see a new member in the espionage community!

I'm currently taking part in an older tourney: the SL-SFE#2, where, thanks to Mark, I LOST MY FIRST GAME in the second round! Grmpf***§$F#!!!! ... well, that's another topic.

Thus, as a non-member I won't be able to join a second one.

But, as a warm-up I'm happy to send you an invite for small espionage ...

cheers, Sandoz

Chaos: Maybe with the new espionage players who joined the beginner's tournament and with players like you signing up for a paid membership we could get a good tournament going! (/quote)

=> yep, that's the background of my question: Is it worth becoming a paying member? At the moment, I see no reason.
Playing more games simultaneously? Not really
Joining more tournaments simultaneously? Hmm, there aren't many interesting espionage tournaments
Playing other games than espionage? Hmm, for battleboats, poker etc. I would prefer realtime-versions
Perhaps, cool espionage team-tournaments ... :-)

are you guys playing a lot of espionage team tournaments?
Is there anything going on?

Nothingness:
I am looking forward to your proposal.
Didn't know that the SL commitee still exists :-)

Just want to come back to our poll, which I haven't forgotten, of course. I think 8 weeks is a proper poll-period for guys who play games and tournaments which often last months or even years. ;-)

Well, according to our poll the most preferred variant is extinction espionage. 4 out of 6 participants voted for this.

For the results in detail please have a look here:
http://www.doodle.com/xcxzd4iidcrz6m2k

Chaos: ah okay, thanks.
I saw that as well including his huge amount of vacation days shrinking to zero. and now he's close to timing out in at least 150 games including our little espionage battle :-(

What happened to happy hermit?
Any information?

dAGGER:
yep, it might not be easy to implement this variant.
But, on the other hand it's "just" the implementation of the three-round-logic and the pieces-logic. As the rules of the game itself remain basically unchanged. But, I'm not a programmer.

The economical decision whether it's worth developing this game/variant in terms of potenzial no. of players etc. ... that has to be made by brainking. May be, Fencer strives this board and could simply leave a statement like "forget it guys,. Never ever!" or "great idea guys, please go ahead with the concept!".

Well, I wouldn't mind if we first start with the atomic or extinction version. But, honestly, if I understood the rules right, I'm not sure if this would fit with the basic concept behind the game espionage. In other words: these two variants won't have much in common with the original game dynamics/concepts. Feels more like a quick-shoot-version. This does not mean that I won't like it, ;-)

Here comes my proposal for the 3-game-match-variant:

The Winner:
The winner of the match is the player who first wins two games. Thus, the match lasts 3 games max.

Number of pieces:
Each player has a total of 39 pieces for all of the 2-3 games. A headquarter will be added for each game.

Size of the board:
8x8

The mechanic:

First round: White places at least 10 pieces (plus hq) out of the 39 pieces on the board. Then black places at least 10 pieces out of his 39 pieces on the board. The number of pieces set on the board does not have to be equal. I think, this gives this variant an extra strategic edge.

Second round: Colours change, White places again at least 10 pieces on the board. Then black decides on at least ten pieces, ... see above

Third round:
All remaining pieces have to be placed on the board.

A headquarter is added with each round/game.

The pieces in detail:
- 4x5er
- 4x4er
- 4x3er
- 7xrecon
- 6xsab
- 4x2er
- 4x1er
- 6xbomb
plus the hq, which will be added with each round.

I guees this variant offers a whole new range for strategic thinking.

What do you think about this?

For Espionage, when it says "There is no check or checkmate", does that mean in this variants we play without headquaters?

SL-Mark: grinch! this is how my dictionary translates the German word "Spielverderber" ;-)
not every system is meant to become crushed, if you know what I mean. well, but I see, things aren't that easy, lol.
I suggest, we then change the rule in that way, that everyone may choose more than one favorite. But no multiple identities, Mark!

Alternatively, we switch to a site with a radio-button-poll-tool.

Or, we discuss the whole thing here at the board.

How does the Atomic and the Extinction thing work, anyway?

SL-Mark: hehe, in that case your vote would not influence the outcome pretty much ;-)

Nothingness: yes, you are right. I'll come up with an explanation of the 3-game-match idea, soon

Heck, (I like this word :-)
to keep things going I've set up a poll.
May be we can first figure out, on which variant to put our further focus. And then we bring up a concrete proposal to those guys running this platform.

Here comes the link:
http://www.doodle.com/xcxzd4iidcrz6m2k

SL-Mark: yes, and don't waste all your big guys in the first round! :)

SL-Mark: in that case, it should allways be a 2-game-match. This makes it more interesting from the choosing-point of view.

Different idea: how about a 3-games-match with a fixed set of pieces you choose from in game no 1 and no 2. The third game then is an all-in game (all remaining pieces have to be placed on the board) ?

SL-Mark: I would simply try to trade one of my 4 + sab against one of your 5ers. And then: I'm king of the board!

SL-Mark: well, with your setup you would probabely loose our game, hehe

okay, Mark, here comes my real choice:
- hq
- 2xbomb
- 1xrecon
- 2x5er
- 2x4er
- 1x3er
- 1xsab

total: 10

SL-Mark:
To me this sounds like an interesting idea, Mark!
We first should check out if there will be a greater strategic variety for choosing pieces. It should not end up everybody choosing 2x5, 2x4, 2x3 and so on plus the hq as a default

Celticjim: undoubtedly this is a BIG BUG

Sandoz:
slight correction: this should of course only work if you move your piece between your own bombs and not if you move a piece between your oppenent's bombs.

And now I stop spamming ... :-)

Celticjim: on the other hand, I know realize that I probabely could have beaten you by this cheap trick, lol

Celticjim:
and as you know from our latest game, the whole forced movement thing sucks at all!! ;-)

Celticjim:
As far as I know from iyt, it works like this:
If you have less than 6 moveable pieces on a board of open fast espionage (i.e. excl. hq and bombs) and you move one of them between two bombs of your opponent placed on the bottom line, then, within the next turn, you should be able to move your piece back to field it came from. For example: your opponent has a bomb/or hq on b10 and on d10 and you move your piece from c9 to c10. In that case, due to the forced movement thing, you should be able to move your piece back to c9 in your next turn.

Unfortunately, I can't have a look at your posted game in the bug list, as it's obviously still running.
But, in the bug reported by pauloaguia it seems to be the case like I desribed above.

Hope that helps.
Greets, Michael