Extended Battle Report: Doritos vs Ice Warriors, March Madness Final Four

KLONDIKE, CPOAL HQ – After probably the biggest army in CP Army history happened and the chaos ensued afterwards, I have been delegated to write a battle report on it. This post will contain an analysis of what happened and also be focusing on what the judges were thinking and discussing during the battle to provide transparency during it.

Disclaimer: Both armies have advanced to the finals after a community meeting and discussion between the Board of Directors. A further announcement regarding when the battle will be and further details will be announced at a later date.

Introduction

The judges for this battle was Popcorny5555, Harout and Epic101. None of us were fully prepared for the absolute war that was about to take place and I can honestly say it was one of the best battles the community has ever seen. The sheer amount of lockouts was insane and it’s a battle that is seriously going to have to make us rethink how we go about these sorts of battles. Before the battle started, the idea of a two room battle was coined and we ultimately decided against this as we felt there wasn’t enough time for the leaders of the armies to really prepare for this so we didn’t do it. Whether you’re IW, DCP or neutral, I hope I can provide some good clarification about what happened here and give you an understanding about what made the judges say what they said for each room. The puffle party made also made this harder to judge as two main rooms, the Cove and Snow Forts, were out of action. To anyone who fully reads this, I hope you can appreciate what is being said here and find a consensus.

Room 1: Mine

During the battle, I called this room ‘the definition of a tie’ and I really think after rewatching it I was accurate here. Sizes here are pretty much equal with I believe the count being told to us in the judges chat had DCP 2 penguins up so no real advantage in terms of size. A point I’d like to bring up is the use of Jokes. During this room IW made a ‘Jokes Again’ word tactic after Doritos had used a Jokes tactic for the 3rd time. Personally I mark down slightly if an army goes over 2 uses of Jokes per room. With from the judges perspective word tactics and their wordplay being all but equal, what made tactics here a tie was the good use of stacking and flicker tactics from DCP. Near the end DCP had a really clean E+C to E+D flicker tactic. These tactics are liked by the judges a lot as one of the judging guidelines talks about tactic diversity and DCP won this room in terms of tactic diversity. Finally we must discuss formations in this room. This room saw DCP use 4 different formations and IW use 3. Judges discussed how that IW had used less formations in this room however they were better executed and the X performed by IW was of high quality. Although DCP did perform one more formation, we felt the V performed was not of high standard and Doritos recognised this quite quickly and switched formations back to a traditional +. Taking in all of these factors, I can confidently say this room really was a definition of a tie and no army can really claim to come out on top.

Ice Warriors performing an X formation with Doritos performing a +.

Room 2: Forest

Before we get into this room it’s important to note that this room had 3 IW enter early, this was mentioned in the judge chat however we decided to take no action and account it into the room sizes when discussing a winner. I would also like to take this oppurtunity to shoutout the Ice Warriors penguin September, who in the Mine and Forest, was the first entrant into the room. In a battle where each room was insanely difficult to call, I think I can call this room was an Ice Warriors win. In our count IW had a size advantage of around 6, which in this battle I must point out is significant. Back to Jokes and once again Doritos used it on 3 separate occasions and once again Doritos used stacking and waterfall tactics really well, using some well done flicker tactics as well, such as a E+6 to E+7 near the start. Wordplay here was pretty good, with ‘OUR DOCKS ARE BIGGER THAN YOURS’  being quite well received in this room. Tactics here were a tie with DCP perhaps having a slight edge. Formations here was a tough call but I think consensus was that similarly to the Mine, IW just had cleaner formations in terms of spacing and shape with IW having the cleaner X when both armies matched up formations except for perhaps the bottom left with both armies clustering down there. Taking all this into account we believe Ice Warriors did enough to win this room, giving them the first victory of the match.

A battle of word tactics. Ice Warriors and Doritos battle for the win in wordplay.

Room 3: Gift Shop

I’d like to first and foremost say this was not the initial room we expected to go to. Sources had told us the Town was free and we were about to declare Town as the room however due to a IW leaders presence in the room, we made a late switch to the Gift Shop. Initially during this room we thought IW had a size advantage, however the count showed DCP were up by 5 penguins in this room. As per usual, DCP used 3 Jokes in this room however like usual performed more stacks than IW in this room equalling out the score. Both armies tactics can be complimented here, with IW performing some good word tactics such as ‘PUT ON IW CLOTHES’ and DCP having a very solid E+5 when surrounding the room. We declared tactics a tie here, taking in previous rooms, this was actually the best room for tactics and definitely felt like a stepup from both sides. Formations wise DCP were sloppy at the start and struggled to get into a formation quickly, they held a very strong E+9 at the beginning of the room however it highlighted the lack of structure in their formation. This room is definitely unfamiliar to both armies and it showed with formations not being the best they had been in this room, however what was consistent throughout this entire battle was IW definitely had the upper hand with formations. This left the room at the end with an advantage in size for DCP, a tactics tie and a win for IW in forms. After deliberation we decided to call this room as a DCP victory and have a final room to decide the winner of the battle.

Lots of regards being sent today!

Room 4: Stadium

I’m sure there are people reading this who are skipping right to this bit as they want to see what happened here. What I am going to do is try and give the full situation as I saw it and try to explain why things went as they did. The judges made a mistake here and this has been acknowledged. As the video shows we were having difficulty picking a clean room, I was moving around looking at potential places but we eventually decide on Stadium.

The Stadium before the room was announced. Showing 9 IW and 6 DCP.

Ice Warriors stomped the room entry, simple as that. At :40, one judge made a call saying that IW perhaps knew the room. My current thought process was this. IW had had leaders in the two rooms previous, one which was changed due to it, and had not gained any stastical advantage. All rooms before this had been insanely close and for this to be such a big IW win came as a big shock to me and given the position us judges were in, we didn’t know. This made me think it could have potentially happened and IW knew exactly where to go, a reason I considered this was because this was about a 20 second pause whilst Epic declared that room that might have been used to IW’s advantage. What should have happened is that we deducted the advantage that IW had from the amount of troops that entered the room, however we voted on the next room, and it was specifically made a room nobody would be at to try and preserve what we thought was integrity and take the better safe than sorry approach. I think this highlights the issue that if an army genuinely wins a room, that they will be accused of entering early, when in actual fact they did win the room.

Room 5: Pizza Parlour

In what was an intentionally unexpected final room, the Pizza Parlour was declared and this room similar to the Mine was a stalemate. Counts had armies practically even but I’m sure anyone with any knowledge of the Pizza Parlour know that place is hell to count but due to the amount of lockouts spread around the map and this puffle party making some rooms unusable, we were forced into an unconventional choice. As well as talking about the battle, the judges discussed how whichever way the room was called, there would be complete uproar and everyone would start screaming rigged. I’m sure in this room if two people were to talk about it they could go back and forth in terms of who won this room on tactics. IW can say they performed a good stack ‘UNDERSTAND’ x5 bomb but DCP could say well you used that tactic in the Gift Shop. DCP can say you used the same amount of jokes as us, 2 for the record, and IW can say what happened to your entry, why was their no tactics? Doritos could say where were your flicker tactics and IW can say we beat you with our E+I bomb. It really goes on and on doesn’t it. We spent a long time counting here and we had DCP up by about 2-3 penguins but everytime we counted we’d be like you missed a penguin there or did you count that one there? Formations wise I think IW once again has the upper hand. In terms of the most unique formation in this room, the winner would be IW’s upside down T, with Doritos doing 1 less formation than the Ice Warriors however performing multiple more stack formations. I think Doritos knew by this point in the battle that IW had the edge in traditional formations and really put emphasis on stacks here with IW even matching them at one point.

At the end of the battle we had a lot of time to sit there and discuss the battle. I knew whatever way I voted this would be a chaotic ending in the discord. At the end of the deliberation we all knew that size could not determine this battle and I posed this question. What do you value more? Formations or Tactics. The answer we gave was tactics and throughout this battle, despite overusing the J bomb in early rooms, we felt Doritos had been the better force when it came to tactics in large part due to their constant use of stack bombs and flicker tactics. However I can totally understand why people will say IW won this battle.

Surrender for some Pizza?

Conclusion

Mistakes were made during this battle. However I think this battle and last Thursdays have really shown that armies nowadays are getting bigger and bigger and we need to adapt. I’m sure the board will be currently discussing this issue my the proposals I put forward would be to make large army battles span across two rooms. I’m sure there were a lot of lockouts today who are new to armies and didn’t get the oppurtunity to enter any rooms as they lockedout so fast. Spanning across two rooms would require more judges and mean that battles would be out of /6 and likely would be a deciding 7th if necessary but I think this battle is a perfect example of why it is needed. Secondly, a few days ago it was that armies have specific rooms to send lockouts. This battle was hindered by having armies everywhere and forcing us into using rooms like the Pizza Parlour. Obviously the puffle party is attributing to the problem but with the amount of people logging on for these battles, choosing a fair room is becoming increasingly difficult.

I’d finally like to thank the people who asked if I could judge in this battle. None of us were expecting a battle of this magnitude but I feel confident in saying I judged to the best of my ability, and I feel Epic and Harout feel the same way and if we were switched for 3 different judges, problems still would have occured. Also shoutout to dpro7 for helping us out during the battle by moving from room to room scouting which rooms could be used and which couldn’t.

To anyone who read all 2200 words of this. Thanks, not all battle reports will be like this however I felt giving some insight on how the judges were viewing it in a battle of this size is quite important for judging transparency.

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Popcorny5555

CPOAL Judge/Reporter