"Settlers of Catan" OxCon Tournament Rules

        Just so you know in advance, and so I know you knew in advance, here
are the version 0.9 rules for the OxCon Settlers Tournament, as it probably
will be known. I say version 0.9 as it's entirely possible I could have
missed something obvious which I will change on the day. Feel free to get in
touch with me in case there's something so heinous you'll refuse to play in
the tournament because of it; argue your case well enough and I'll change
the errant item. These are adapted (with no major changes) from the 1996 UK
Intergame tournament rules.

a) The desert is not automatically placed in the middle of the board, but
   drawn randomly as with any other land tile.
b) A win cannot be claimed on another player's turn. If you claim a legal
   win then you beat even people with more VPs than you.
c) You can play a Knight/Ritter card either before or after rolling the dice.
d) Only one (1) development card may be played in a player's turn, and it
   may not be one he/she has bought that turn.
e) Building occurs after trading in the turn. If you build to a port, you
   cannot use it in the same turn.
f) Roads are not blocked by settlements; it is legal to build a road through
   another player's settlement, or to build a settlement to interrupt another
   player's road, if all other legality criteria are met. However, the
   presence of a rival settlement does affect the length of a road, with
   regard to the "Longest Road" card.
g) 4-player games may be played with either German or English language sets;
   if a 6-player final is needed, it will be played with a German set using
   the expansion set. No player can build more than two cities and building
   may take place on any player's turn, as dictated by the rules.

The tournament structure will be, should there be 24 players or less, as in
issue 2 of GIT. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if we got rather more than
24 players, though, especially with the help of arcane, so here are the
contingency plans for if we get 32 or more players:

The tournament will be run over three rounds and not two (which will almost
certainly make it impossible to join if you take part in the Diplomacy
tournament first, unless you get eliminated from the Dip very early indeed).
All players will be guaranteed at least two games as part of the tournament.
One round will be held before lunch, and two after; it may prove necessary
to put some time constraints on these games. Should we get between 24 and 32
players, or any other number unhelpfully falling between numbers making the
tournament organisation inconvenient, we will either restrict tournament
size (though anyone who has travelled some way specifically for the Settlers
tournament will be guaranteed a game) and run a smaller tournament, or sort
out reserves from DipSoc, the Dip tournament (as last resort) and the like,
and run a larger one. We would aim to let all games contain four players;
5- and 6- player games will become a vague possibility with inferior 3-player
games a very last resort. Numbers will dictate the precise format.

If we get 32 or 64 players, we will split them up into 4 pools, and use the
first round to split to 4 players left in each pool. (Two or four first
round games in each pool, the first two or one players in each game making
the cut.) The second round is between the 4 players left in each pool, and
the final between the winners of the four pools.
If we get 36, 48 or 72 players, we will split them up into 3, 4 or 6 pools
of 12. The first round separates the top 4 players in each pool, by means
of three games (the winners and the best second place qualifying). The
second round in each pool is between those four players. The final has
the winners of each pool; if there are only three pools, the best player to
come second overall in a pool will qualify as well.

For those not winning their first matches, we will hold nominal bowl/plate/
vase competitions as well. We split each pool up into 4s in the second round
based on the results of the first round and hold pool bowl/plate/vase finals
just like the pool's main finan. There will be overall bowl/plate/vase finals
as well as the overall grand finan - though probably not prizev for them.