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So Germany proved to be worthy Nations Cup 2013 champions in the end. Congratulations to them and their players. They were not expected by many to go the whole way but they proved well organised and talented, growing stronger as the tournament progressed. They were welcome, fair and sporting participants, exemplified by Rodin who did fantastically to lead them to their final victory.
On to Turkey, whom I wish to both congratulate and sympathise with. They were amazing throughout the tournament, showing individual skill and fantastic tactics. Whilst you and many others expected to win, you can be proud of your incredibly strong performances from the very start of the tournament.
Finally congratulations to Poland. You had a few difficulties at the start of the tournament but overcame them. You should be proud of your repeatedly strong performances and the fact you've consistently been around the top of the international scene for years.
So now some time to say my thankyous. First and foremost i'd like to thank my fellow admins NoVa and Fehnor. They were really fantastic to work with and their opinions and help is much appreciated. Next i'd like to say thanks to the server hosts. I know I mention this a lot but their contribution is wonderful and everyone should display gratitude. So thanks to ReneKB for all the German servers, they really were vital. Thanks to CoR and Barny for the Hungarian server, you've consistently donated servers to competitions and you've done this community such a service in doing so. Thanks to Balion for allowing use of their American battle server, once again the tournament would have really struggled without your generosity. Finally thanks to the Kingdom of Swadia for allowing us to use their UK server which proved very handy for dealing with transatlantic matchups. Honestly without the generosity of these people the Warband scene would long ago have died it's death. Some of these have repeatedly and consistently donated servers to numerous tournaments, so I urge you all to express your gratitude.
So that's servers done but there are more people i'd like to thank! Firstly thanks to Tomy for doing the bannerpack again. I really feel you excelled yourself this time, the flags were all beautiful but in particular the combined country ones such as Scandinavia were fantastic. Your hardwork is much appreciated.
Next i'd like to thank everyone who ran the previous Nations Cups, particularly Alexander whose words I repeatedly stole wholesale. You also ran several other tournaments successfully and we're all grateful.
So some graphic design thankyous next. Firstly Goliath for making the wonderful Nations Cup 2013 banner images. You consistently make lovely banners and sigs for the community, thank you for your help. Next i'd like to thank Alene for making the above Bronze, Silver and Gold cups.
Would like to thank Scar for his help with the Team Information page. It looked a complete mess once i'd added a few teams and you were extremely thorough and helpful, making my life much easier. Would also like to thank Tallie as he helped tidy up a few of the pages aswell. You were both helpful.
Finally I guess I would like to thank all the captains and those who participated in the tournament. I hope everyone enjoyed it and in general everyone was pretty well behaved.
So finally I guess it's important to look to the future and discuss anything I thought went particularly wrong. First i'd like to express my disappointment at some of the behaviour during the tournament. I'd like to see stricter rules regarding the behaviour of teams, particularly ingame. I do not see why people deserve a warning for being offensive to other teams, everyone knows it's childish and stupid so it should immediately be met with a 1 match ban for the player involved.
So next the elephant in the room, forced draws. I must admit this problem took me by surprise a little bit and I am now relatively convinced it is one that needs fixing. It is unfortunate that it became such an issue and that is something I regret. My suggestion and the one that we will be using for the WNL can be found here:
http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,256987.0.html
This would solve the problem of forced draws, whilst also perhaps pushing the game to a less campy place.
Next I think the issue of having R/D relevent in a transatlantic tournament is most pressing. Canada in particular were hard done by. Being the single N/A team in a stacked European group means that it is much more difficult to get a winning R/D because of the inability to soundly beat teams when playing with high ping. I think of all the issues this is the one that most urgently needs solving and would recommend anyone running the next NC to take preventative measures.
Finally, thanks to you all for bearing with me whilst I muddled through. I hope you enjoyed the Nations Cup 2013. See you around!