The Tsw World Cup: Season Three

Ladies and Gentlemen.
The first ever TSW (Loco) world cup has ended and the results have been handed to me.

3rd Place - Acela express - 8 Votes (total in competition 108 )
Bit of a surprise but unfortunately Acela express fell very short of winning but it should still be praised for being the best American Loco
2nd Place - DB br class 101 + cab car - 24 Votes (total in competition 199)
It was a very close competition between this loco and the winner with only a slight difference however the 101 has been excellent in this competition and deserves a honorable mention.

1st Place - Blackpool Branches - 31 Votes (total in competition 265)
Ladies and Gentlemen of the TSW Forum, it is with great pleasure that I announce that the winner of the TSW (Loco) World Cup, is...... Just train's class 87

Which received the most votes in this competition and thx to Just trains has now received first place making Just Trains having the honor of receiving both TSW world cups which is a feat in it's self so congrats.
Thank you to everyone who has participated in this fun little festive-season contest. Me and trainsimplayer do hope it was fun and we can't wait for next year's world cup.

 

A deserved double for Just Trains' newest entry and I do hope everyone enjoyed this year's World Cup, both the route one and the slightly disrupted Loco version. A huge thanks to gwrfan#3416 for stepping in to see the Loco World Cup through to it's conclusion and I'd be more than happy to see you involved in the same tournament next year, if you wish.

Until then, it's time to fade back into the darkness and wait for the winter to come.

Take care folks, and thanks for playing.

 

Brrr. It's getting cold out there.
It's almost like the annual TSW World Cup is just around the corner...

 

Yes!! Looking forward to it!

 

First speculation: since the previous World Cup, I have seen no serious new contenders for the trophy. The next JT release will probably be too late to compete this time round.

Edit: maybe Mittenwaldbahn for a spot in the final.

 

Woohoo!! Great stuff! JT better hurry up and release Preston-Crewe lol ….will be interesting to see who / what ends up on top. Riviera is a candidate for sure. Let’s see!

 

Looking forward to this very much. A year's worth of new DLCs, plus whatever natural forum turnover has occurred, should add enough freshness to keep things interesting. The last one was also a good source of recommendations for future sales.

 

A question as I begin to prepare the competition: Would the typical set-up (endless forum threads with a poll each, because we still aren't allowed multiple in one thread) be preferred or would a third-party thing (i.e. Google Docs) be preferred?

I've made a Google Doc for the UK Groups (using last year's) just to see what it looks like and it seems like it could be optimal. It would also let us keep everything in this thread so the conversation isn't split up all over the forum.

 

Typical set up is probably preferable. Paging candacedtg - please may you investigate with the community team to see if multiple polls in one thread can be introduced?

 

Dunno, multiple polls in a thread would mean having to find the poll you want buried in all the messages. Much easier to have the one poll at the top IMO. It's also much easier to find a particular recent thread than a particular post in a popular and quickly expanding thread.

 

With a field this deep, it would be better I think to start with group round robins like the FWC, before the bracketed knockouts start.

 

If we have a new contest this year it will be harder to vote as there’s an increasing number of DLC I simply haven’t bothered buying.

 

Surely it'll make voting easier, less to choose from!

 

How about a World Cup for Bugs?

We could all submit the ones that we are most annoyed about. Then we can have the knock-out competition as normal.
Then, when the Winner is crowned, DTG commit to fixing both finalists and both semi-finalists within a month.

Now that sounds like a "Win, Win".

 

Better than my idea for "the best route with no bugs", where no route would be eligible!

 

IIRC from when the forum had multiple polls they'd all sit at the top. Or, if it wasn't this forum and i'm mistaken, that's how most forums are set up.

The issue this year is that a poll's limit is 25, the UK alone has 29 routes (haven't checked EU/NA yet) meaning that even as it stands I'd have to do most likely five, if not six, group stage threads.

Perhaps I could still do the traditional three threads but with multiple polls within, if the DTG team could facilitate that.

 

Well, like/helpful poll for the format then:
Like this post if you'd prefer to see the old format (albeit with 5/6 Group Stage threads)
OR
'Helpful' this post if you'd prefer to use Google Forms.

My 2c would be the first option but I think the sheer number of threads needed may require a little chat with DTG, so to avoid a ban for spam

 

Thank you for checking anyway

 

Keep on the forum, don't really want to have to use Google if at all posiible, please.

 

Agreed. Might not be ideal, but it still works.

 

Forum, definitely. IIRC, some DTG staff also posted that they enjoyed the tournament last time, so I imagine they'll cut you some slack.

I'm sure it won't be too hard to come up with divisions, like geographical (East vs West, North vs South), alphabetical, diesel vs electric, or however you want.

Only suggestion I would have is to reshuffle the seedings from last time to avoid repeating the same matchups.

 

I think for Europe I may split it along the best division of Europe possible; Aldi Süd vs Aldi Nord...

France, Northern Germany, Netherlands in Nord,
Southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland (+ Italy) in the south.

Majority of routes appear to be in the South so I'll manipulate the boundaries to include Köln to help it out a little.

UK I may just divide at random.

US might get away with one, if not we'll do the typical Freight / Passenger split.

 

Up to you of course, but I would encourage you to split North America between freight and passenger. Audiences are rather different. I would not want to choose between, say, Morristown and SPG.

 

I'll be splitting the votes as in the previous comps, it's just a question of the thread.

(2023's 'Mixed' Group ended up more about Passenger v Freight than the routes so I'd like to avoid that if I can.

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the European Group Stage Draw, Sponsored by ALDI!

I wish I was sponsored for this but I'm afraid that'll remain a dream. ALDI are, however, involved by providing the dividing line for the European draw, mainly in Germany.

France and Netherlands have Aldi Nord, Austria and Switzerland have Aldi Süd.
Forget Culture, Ethnicity or Religion. THIS is how you truly divide Europe.

Why divide it to begin with, you ask?
Well, if you're just joining us in this year's competition, we now have too many routes to condense it into one thread so, we've got to split.
The little strawpoll above seems conclusively in favour of using the forums, so if I get banned for spamming then it's on you guys .

Anyway, let's get into the fun stuff.

Warning: Incredibly Dry Humour Incoming

ALDI No- I mean... Northern Conference
There's nothing really Northern about this as it includes the Southernmost European route (LGV).
12 routes in here.
It could be 13 because Dresden-Riesa is still a distict route in TSW6 but DRA has always been a strong performer in these world cups so I think it's best to let it retire while it's ahead.

Three groups here - I'll explain the format more later.

Group A
Rapid Transit
Dresden - Leipzig (Debut!)
SFS Köln - Aachen
Rhein Ruhr Osten

Köln - Aachen, a veteran player from Team ICE up against it's much younger teammate, Dresden-Leipzig.
Dresden-Leipzig grew up with Rapid Transit although secured a sponsorship with TSW6 Standard Edition, propelling it's career forwards.

Spoiler: Americans look away

In this current political climate "Team ICE" may not be the best thing to call the ICE routes collectively. Suggestions welcome.

Anyway...
Group B
Ruhr Sieg Nord
LGV Méditerranée
Tharandter Rampe
Bremen - Oldenburg

The French representative comes in to take on quite a wide variety of routes. Tharandter Rampe and Bremen - Oldenburg have performed well historically while Ruhr Sieg Nord has become something of a play-off regular.

Group C
Hauptstrecke Rhein-Ruhr
Hamburg - Lübeck
Spoorlijn Zwolle - Groningen
SFS Kassel - Würzburg

Do these routes have anything in common or this just a straight shootout of what type of route you prefer.
I'm not sure if KWG falls into the North or if it's on the border, but it gives the conference a divisible number, so that's a fair move.

ALDI Süd™ Southern Conference
We now have a bit more to play with here as we bring in Bavaria and the Frankfurt/Rhein routes into the fold as well as Austria and Switzerland!

Seeding
I have seeded Frankfurt - Fulda and Frankfurt S-Bahn and Niddertalbahn and Linke Rheinstrecke away from one another. Just to spice things up.

Group A
Semmeringbahn (AT)
Bernina Line (CH)
S-Bahn Zentralschweiz (Luzern - Sursee) (CH)
Maintalbahn
München - Augsburg

It's a good day to be a Swiss voter in Group A as you have two routes to choose from here. If you're just a fan generally of this part of Europe then you're also in for a treat!

Group B
Mittenwaldbahn (Debut... I think.) (AT*)
Pfälzische Ludwigsbahn
Frankfurt - Fulda
Niddertalbahn
Salzburg-Rosenheim (AT*)

This is probably the strongest group of the lot. I would imagine the play-offs will see a third route from here going through.

Group C
Frankfurt S-Bahn (Debut!)
Linke Rheinstrecke
Main Spessart Bahn
S-Bahn Vorarlberg (AT)
Arosa Linie (CH)

That is a very hard group to call.
Vorarlberg seems to always threaten doing well and ends up shafted by it's competition. It will be interesting to see if Frankfurt S-Bahn holds up against the competition here.

Format
So it's a bit South-heavy here and I do need to balance that.

It would neither be fair to give 2 qualification spots to the North (meaning that half of the routes would go through), nor would it be fair to give one to the south (meaning that only 1/5 go through).

Ideally we also get a nice number to work a bracket from. Unfortunately we are looking at a minimum of Nine routes here so straight to 8 isn't going to work. And 16 (from a pool of 26) is quite high, so that's not happening.

Here's my plan:
North
Winners of Groups progress
Best Runner-Up (by votes) progesses
Other runners-up go to Play-Off
South
Winners of Groups progress
Runners-up of Groups progress
3rd Places go to Play-off


This means that 10 Routes qualify for the next round. 5 Routes go to the Play-Offs, from which 2 would progress into the next proper round, leaving a total of 12.

In that round, the 12 Routes will be split into two, unseeded groups of 6.
The bottom two routes in each are then eliminated, leaving 8.

After that, the 8 routes will be split into 1v1 clashes (amongst each other) and enter a bracket with the other regions, until there are two routes left which will enter the Semi-Finals, going up against a UK/US route.

>>Subject to Change/Feedback<<

 

agree