[2022] The Rise of the Tournament Update!

A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.

Hello Polytopians!

Your patience has been rewarded! The Tournament Update prepared by our wonderful friends at Challengermode is finally going into beta testing! Live Games, Lobbies, Replays, and Tournaments are some of the cool, new additions to Polytopia, and we need your help testing them out! Since most of these things (not to mention all the humor) have already been discussed in that link, we'll keep this a nice, short refresher to get you all up to speed.

So, what are these things? Let's break them down, one by one.

Lobbies We're overhauling the normal process that you've used to join games by creating Lobbies! Lobbies are a much more flexible version of the previous idea, as now they're not time restricted and you can invite people through a shareable link! This should hopefully make joining a game with friends a lot easier!

• If the current owner leaves the lobby, and you have at least one more player that accepted the invite, that player will become a new owner
  
• Players also choose their tribe when they first join through the invite
  
• Invite being accepted counts only when you pick a tribe upon invite
  
• In order to promote fairness and do away with the limitations of turn order being determined by join order, turn order will always be randomized when the match starts.

Live Games
Live Games are the new replacement for the 5 Minute Timer, which functions similarly to a Chess Timer. You start with some time in a bank, and every turn you take rolls over any unused time for next turn. The longer you take, the less time you'll have for later, so you'll have to be quick! Don't worry, you'll get more time as you play, so you're hopefully never going to get stuck.

• Anyone who runs out of time gets skipped, and they'll automatically get kicked after 3 skips
  
• Start time: 60 sec, Time per turn: 8 sec, Time per City: 12 sec, Time per Unit: 1 sec

Replays
Online multiplayer games will now be saved to the cloud, and able to be accessed from the new "Replays" tab in the multiplayer menu! You can share links to the replays for everyone to see that particular replay!

• Replays can be favorited, regardless of whether they're yours or someone else's.

In-Game Tournaments
You can now join in-game tournaments hosted by us, Polytopian communities, and even your friends, all from within the app, itself!

• Tournaments will feature only Live games
  
• Keep an eye out for official Polytopia tournaments
  
• Your tournament games will have a Challengermode icon next to the name
  
• Tournament games will not affect your ELO

How do you join a Tournament?

1. Go to the Polytopia Multiplayer menu. Next to "New Game", you will see "Tournaments"; click on it.
   
2. Connect your Polytopia account with Challengermode.
   
3. Then you will see all available tournaments for your device. Find a tournament you like to participate in and click "Sign up".
   
4. 45-60 minutes before the start of the tournament, you will need to confirm your participation. You do that by going to the Tournaments browser, finding the tournament under "Joined Tournaments", and clicking "Confirm".
   
5. After that, when the tournament starts, you will get an invite to your match as you do with a regular game.

Oh Yeah, We Forgot Something! Yes, yes, ingame tournaments and lobbies are cool, but we've added something that many of you have been asking for since the moment Polytopia was added to Steam.

Steam/Mobile Crossplay
Yeah, you heard us right! Steam, Android, and iOS can now all play together!!! Just add your mobile friends like you would anyone else, and get started dukin' it out! Likewise, all Steam players can join tournaments with mobile players, and vice-versa.

• Do note that your mobile and Steam accounts are still separate. There's been no account merging, and it's pretty likely that your friends will have multiple copies of you in their friend lists for each of your accounts. We are looking into ways to differentiate them so you'll know if you're inviting your friend's Steam account instead of their Android one.

Other Notes

• To make it simpler for matchmaking, other turn timers, besides Live Games and 24 Hours, have been removed.
  
• You can now spectate games where you've been defeated. You won't get any more vision over the map, though, to help prevent cheating (e.g. "ghosting").
  
• The new Tribe Skins (Yorthwober, Baergøff, and Cultist) have been added to this version.

Thank you for joining us on this journey as we've added these features to the game!

Since this is an Open Beta, anyone can join! Just use the Beta Access Code: polytopiabetatesters to get access!

Android fans can use: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/air.com.midjiwan.polytopia

iOS fans can use: https://testflight.apple.com/join/gOmMb4DE

Tell us what you think in the comments!
-Zoythrus