The spreadsheet is intended to be of use to anyone running a tournament of four player games, over a number of rounds, in which no two contestents are intended to meet more than once.
It was constructed with the oxcon settlers tournament in mind; and is optimal for 20-40 players over five or less rounds. The scoring system is relatively easy to modify for any tournament where a players scores is based only on the games they played.
I hope that it will grow in flexibility over time; without ever departing from the "ease of use", and just as importantly the "ease of understanding" that inspired it's creation.
You may wish to randomise the first round; either by drawing names from a hat to determine con number, or by pre-randomizing the first round (see below). At Oxcon 2003, the players signed up in order, 1,2,3, . . . 32, and in (approximately) that order recieved con numbers 1, 17,
2,18, . . . 16, 32.
N.B. If no randomization is used, under many of the sheets, 1 will never play 5, 9, 13 . . ; 2 will never play 6, 10, 14 . . . and so on
After this, you should type player names, down the left hand column under "player names". The spreadsheet should then put these names at various points, to show which board they will be at in each round, and also on the top hand side of the spreadsheet.
It is possible to pre-randomize the "b" column of "con numbers" before typing in names, as they arrive. You can then use the spreadsheets "sort" function, to generate a first round as random as you wish.
If you are playing with the oxcon scoring system, then the only thing to watch for are negative tournament points appearing; this was due to a lazy coder (me!) and can be easily fixed in the top half of the spreadsheet, by replacing "=block" with "=IF(block<=1,1,block)".
For alternative scoring systems; you can alter columns labled "MVP", "TP", and "modifier" without causing too many problems; but be aware that the final score is the sum of his "TP" and "modifier" in the present set-up. Obviously some scoring systems may require rather larger changes (particularly one which gives points to players, based on their opponents positions in other games). I am willing to help (as much as my limited excell knowledge allows me) with any queries you may have.
You may wish to print out all the tables for board set-ups of each round, just before the tournament starts. After each round, you should put scores in the "VP" column (in the bottom half of the spreadsheet) for the relevant round. The scoring system should then sort everything out for you (although obviously if this is your first use, checking for bugs is recommended).
At the end of the tournament, on the right hand side should be the name of each player, their number, and their score - these should not change if you sort them; so you may use (indeed it is recomended) that you sort these three columns based on their score - and Voila! You should have your tournament results in ascending or descending order
Please note the "con number" columns are now virtually exteranneous, except for if something goes wrong; in which case they can be very useful for working out where the mistake is!
If you do produce any similar sheets, I would be very interested to see a copy of the results (particularly if you do the legwork to produce sheets that work for more rounds, or a different number of people). Please e-mail such spreadsheets to me at [email protected]. I'm also happy to field any enquiries you may have.
Thanks go to Chris Dickson, for his help and encouragement on this project.
Am still planning a couple of add ons to the sheet - most obviously a section that will produce an easy print-out of the draw. I am also thinking of putting in some checking code, to ensure that everything is running as it is supposed to.