Simdemocracy Games Act

SimDem Games Act

Preamble:

In the interest of Community participation and engagement, The SimDemocracy Games shall be established under this Act.

Article 1: Competition Structure and Participation Rules

§1. The SimDemocracy Games (henceforth referred to as “the Games” or the “tournament” within this act) shall be run under the foreign portfolio, with the relevant departments (henceforth referred to as “Officials” within this act) in charge of carrying out the responsibilities listed under this act;

§1.1. The relevant departments may create internal guidelines pertaining to the carrying out of this bill, so long as they do not conflict with the text of this bill itself.

§2. The Games shall be free and fair; in other words:

§2.1. Individuals who participate in the Games (henceforth referred to as “athletes” within this act) shall be allowed to participate, and shall not be barred from participating, so long as they:

§2.1.1. Are citizens of SimDemocracy, are part of the SimDemocracy Discord server (to ensure the smooth operation of the Games), and are not currently banned from SimDemocracy; or,

§2.1.2. Are part of a nation invited by the President to participate in the Games.

§3. The President is allowed to invite other nations to participate in the Games, with these nations able to determine a list of their participating athletes in each category, who shall be participating under their own nations’ banners, subject to the following rules:

§3.1. A non-SimDemocracy nation may not send more than 1.5x the amount of SimDemocracy athletes in any given category.

§3.2. The number of athletes from a non-SimDemocracy nation may not constitute more than half of the total athletes in any given category.

§4. Officials may not act, adjudicate, or create legislation that would favor one athlete over another, or that would favor one group of athletes over another based on their protected characteristics,

Article 2: Competition Schedules and Categories

§1. The Games shall take place once every 8 weeks, with each edition of the Games not taking more than 2 weeks to complete.

§1.1. The Officials shall be responsible for ensuring these conditions are met.

§2. The format for each competition category shall be either a Swiss wheel or single elimination, with the former being the preferred format.

§3. Each round of a competition shall take no longer than 48 hours to complete, with the standings (or, in the case of a single elimination format, brackets) being updated timely. It shall be the collective responsibility of the two participants in a fixture and the Officials to ensure that these deadlines are met.

§4. 5 days before the start of a tournament, the Officials shall make a Reddit post asking for suggestions for categories.

§4.1. Officials are able to suggest categories themselves, but they also must post these suggestions on the suggestion thread.

§4.2. Any citizen of SimDemocracy shall be allowed to make suggestions.

§4.3. Only 1-versus-1 (for example, chess) game categories are allowed.

§4.3.1. The specific format and platform is recommended to be included in any suggestion (for example, time format for chess, game format for FPS games, best out of x, chess.com for platform, etc). If not included, the Officials are allowed to choose the format.

§5. 3 days before the start of a tournament, the Officials shall close the suggestions thread and pick suggestions that will be used as categories in the Games.

§5.1. The Officials shall take into consideration popularity and practicality when choosing categories.

§5.2. Only suggested categories may be chosen.

§5.3. The number of categories that may be chosen shall be at the Officials’ discretion, though they are urged to take into consideration potential participation levels.

§6. Once the categories are announced, which shall be no later than 24 hours after the suggestions thread is closed, a signup thread shall be opened in which any citizen or foreign

nation may sign up for the various categories.

Article 3: Miscellaneous Rules

§1. In the event of a tie in a single elimination competition, a rematch shall immediately be held.

§2. In any competition where the sides taken by each athlete needs to be decided (for example, black or white in chess), any randomized method of determining the side may be used at

the agreement of both sides; in the case of the two sides being unable to come to an agreement, a randomizer shall be used, with the winner (the name that comes first) choosing the side. §3. The two athletes in a fixture must inform the Officials of their agreed-upon time within the first 24 hours of the 48-hour window allocated for their fixture.

§4. In the event of the two athletes being unable to decide on a time, a winner shall be decided through the following process:

§4.1. Once the athletes are unable to reach an agreement, they must inform the Officials. The Officials shall get involved if they are informed of such a problem, or if the 24-hour

period allocated to determining game time has elapsed with no agreement in place.

§4.2. The Officials shall create a When2meet poll and ask the two sides to fill the form.

§4.3. If there are times during which both parties are available, the earliest such time shall be chosen for the fixture.

§4.4. If no such times exist, the athlete with more free time shall be deemed the winner.

§4.5. If both athletes have the same amount of time available, the athlete with the earlier available time slot shall be deemed the winner.

§5. Admins shall assist athletes to the best of their ability in scheduling difficulties.

§6. If an athlete does not show up to a game within 5 minutes of the agreed-upon time, their opponent shall be deemed the winner.

§7. If neither athlete shows up to a game within 5 minutes of the agreed-upon time, both athletes are considered to have lost the fixture.

§8. In any situation not covered by this Act, the Officials shall decide on a method of choosing the winner. This method must be fair, and such methods must have consistency throughout tournaments.

§9. If an athlete is caught cheating, bribing Officials, or conducting any unsportsmanship actions, they may be subject to removal from the tournament, with all their subsequent opponents automatically gaining a victory at the time of the fixture. The athlete may then be subject to a ban from up to 2 future tournaments.

§9.1. Such bans shall be subject to judicial review.

§10. In a single elimination competition, a complete bracket shall be created ahead of the start of the competition; if an athlete is removed from the bracket for any reason (resignation, removal due to cheating, missing a game, etc.), their opponent shall advance automatically; if both athletes in a fixture are removed from the bracket for any reason (resignation, removal due to cheating, missing a game, etc.), their next opponent shall have no opponent and receive a bye round.

§11. In the event of a tie in a swiss wheel competition, the method for deciding the winner shall be as follows:

§12. Each athlete in the tie’s opponents’ final scores are added up, with repeat encounters counting again each time they meet; the athlete in the tie with the lower such score wins the tie.

§13. In the case of a tie, the athlete whose strongest opponent, by final score, has the higher score, wins the tie.

§14. In the case of a tie, the athlete whose second strongest opponent, by final score, has the higher score, wins the tie.

§15. This method is used recursively until a winner is determined.

§16. In the case of a tie after an exhaustive use of this method, a tie shall be declared.

Article 4: Initiation

§1. The suggestions period of the first edition of the Games shall begin within 3 days of the passing of the bill.