One may make a fuss over the gingerbread house or the Excelsior in TSO, but first of all this game is the TSO not the classic Settlers and second of all the world keeps moving forward and so should we. Let's get to the point. I suggest we should combine olympic games (and all other major events) with PvP. And this is how this can be done (roughly speaking): a building, recources and sports units for the duration of such an event.
What we need:
A barrack shaped building intended to train sportsmen who can be obtained and used only during the event and who, after the event, would dismiss to their houses. The thing is that everyone should have even chances, start at the same time, similar number of special collectibles, the same timing. In order to train sportsmen one would have to gather event collectibles on the main island and during the adventures. The number of sportsmen would be the number of disciplines in our olympic games, say maximum of six, not to overdo. For instance a wrestler, a boxer, a javelin thrower, a jumper, a runner, and a horse rider.
Now for the disciplines. What's most important – the competition between real players. But not AndremilCoro versus Graubart or Amaris, but AndremilCoro versus Player 1, Player 2, Player 3, so to have the feeling of competing against a living person on one hand and not to have the reasons for a quarrel on the other. Of course both the chat and other forms of communication between the players would have to be disabled to avoid the impersonating other players. The disciplines, to avoid losing 5 years on compiling another combat mechanics, could use the ones which a standard adventure combat is based upon, among them could be obtaining the flag, defending the flag and others straight from the classic arenas. A certain number of sportsmen could be sent for a skirmish, but the sum of the Hitpoints or Damage would be the limit. Or the sum of both factors. After each skirmish a player would acquire points for defeating other player's unit and additional points for reaching the goal of a skirmish. During the event, just like in expeditions, players could see a scoring table with their results as well as other 10 best players' (with nicknames). In order to search for a skirmish explorers could be equipped with appropriate skills. The searching process could look the same way as the expedition search. Important: in skirmish/olympic game only those players who want it would participate. Of course the competition would only be between the players sitting at their computers, who could accept or decline the „invitation” to the skirmish, which would appear directly on the screen. A player would have about 30 seconds to accept of decline the invitation. The prizes for collecting a certain number of points I imagine could be really superb (@BB: I do not mean a basket of exotic fruits, but those one would want to compete for, such as a building or a general, which would not be available in any other way). That would be it. This is an initial thought.
