KLONDIKE, CP Army Headquarters – CP Army Network formed on May 31st, 2021, following the controversial March Madness tournament and disagreements within the CP Army Headquarters administration around a Top Ten. Ever since, the community has been split and has created huge problems for organising community wide events.
DISCLAIMER: Everything in this post is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of CP Army Headquarters, the administration, or the wider community. Please note that, whilst this post will attempt to consider all sides of view, it is not required to be impartial or balanced.
March Madness & Judging Systems
Before we get to the present day, we need to go back and consider why CP Army Network formed in the first place. CPAN formed for two primary reasons. The main reason was that the Ice Warriors, Rebel Penguin Federation and Help Force were extremely mad with the handling of the March Madness tournament. The Ice Warriors would go on to actually win the tournament, but both Semi-Finals were reviewed and the result of the Rebel Penguin Federation vs the Army of CP was overturned in ACP’s favour. In all honesty, the handling of the Semi-Finals was abysmal, and CP Army HQ took full responsibility for what had happened in this tournament. However, it is worth considering that some of the issues that took place (particularly surrounding the lag of judges) had not been seen before in any tournament, and could not have been foreseen. CPAHQ was still in its early stages, the judging system had just been set up and there was no time for a judging guide, and this was the first major tournament in the post-flash era.
CP Army Headquarters responded to the problems of March Madness by creating a judging guide, which including detailed guidance for judges on how to judge battles based on the five key criteria. It also had a very detailed description on how the review process works, to avoid a situation like March Madness happening again. Ever since this moment, CP Army HQ has had very few issues with judging, ran by an incredible, independent and impartial head judging team. Our judging system has been incredibly effective, but we are still judged by some based on judging that has taken place in the first two months of our existence. Ever since the battles were reviewed, Help Force, Ice Warriors and the Rebel Penguin Federation did not give us a second chance, and withdrew support to CPAHQ.
It is ironic that we are not given a second chance for our judging system, whilst CP Army Network’s judging system completely failed to support and judge the latest world war on their map. They lacked judges throughout the war, whilst the administration failed to step in to facilitate judging these battles. This led to numerous battles being canceled purely as a result of CPAN, which Help Force cited as a reason for their war not finishing sooner. Armies were preparing for hours to battle, only to find that CPAN could not facilitate judging their battle.
This is not all CPAN’s fault, there are a lack of judges around our community. When there is a large volume of battles at the same time it can be hard to make sure they are all covered. This is a problem that CPAHQ faces, but we have made sure that they have been covered by a judge to avoid battles being canceled. However, CPAHQ did propose that the judging system was united to an independent organisation. This was not to benefit us at all, in-fact we would lose a large element of our organisation. We proposed that the judging system was united into one independent organisation to ensure that we would have enough judges for each battle, and also that if an organisation collapses the judging system can still run. CP Army Network did not even respond to our messages to say they weren’t interested, or respond to our open letter. As a result, we are now in a situation where we have two maps, two judging systems and zero unity. In my opinion, this proposal was ignored because the administration of CP Army Network would lose a large chunk of control over something.
–
Christmas Chaos & Major Tournaments
As you may be aware, CP Army Headquarters announced last weekend that it would be hosting the Christmas Chaos tournament for this year. However, when this was announced we were soon told by the leadership of Help Force that this would be run by the leadership board, similar to the Legends Cup. The Legends Cup was in essence run by CP Army Network by proxy, using the disguise of the ‘leader board’, but actually being run by F6 and Iceyfeet, of course two army leaders but also the whole CPAN administration. CP Army HQ were not being given information during the Legends Cup tournament, meaning that CP Army Network attempted to dominate the coverage and not inform us of anything that was happening. This doesnt seem very independent to me at all, rather a chance for these two army leaders to run the tournament themselves.
The Christmas Chaos tournament this year will be run by the same team, and again CP Army HQ has been given very limited access to the decisions that are being made. Simply put, we are being kept out of the loop so CPAN can dominate coverage again. CP Army HQ has been forced to let the army leader board run the tournament, as it has obviously garnered more support as it has three major armies backing it. We are happy to support the army leader board, but not if it is being used again for CPAN to dominate coverage and run the tournament by proxy – for example all the graphics in the Legends Cup had ‘CP Army Network’ plastered all over it. Another thing to add is how slow this board is being, the tournament should be starting this weekend in order to be completed by Christmas – yet we have heard nothing.
Luckily, no armies needed to be disqualified in the Legends Cup. However, imagine a situation where one army has broken the rules and this needs to be reviewed. Who is reviewing this process? It does not seem like a good or ideal situation that the people reviewing the process would not be impartial, it would be the leaders of the armies that are also in the same tournament that review whether that army should go through or not.
–
“Ghost Organisation”
On the whole, CP Army Network are a strange organisation. Their activity is incredibly low, with few posts now being put out apart from the Top Ten. They are doing just enough to keep the organisation ticking over and running, without actually doing anything to innovate, or anything to spark or interest the community. They have no interesting content, and in my opinion are only really open so F6 and Iceyfeet can continue to be administrators of their organisation.
The organisation were remarkably slow to respond to some key accusations against their own administration and judging system. Df44 and Amber were accused of multilogging whilst judging a CP Army Network battle, and CP Army Network took over a week to release a very short statement saying they were doing nothing about what had happened. This was not even CP Army HQ’s issue, but due to the nature of Df and Amber’s position in our organisation, we quickly put out a very detailed respond outlining what we are doing and our reasonings why. This has highlighted how slow CPAN have been to respond to important issues, again showing why they are not fit to run an organisation.
I would also like to highlight the second reason why CP Army Network formed. They formed when Iceyfeet was removed from the administration following his attempt to edit the Top Ten to move Ice Warriors to first. He felt that this was totally acceptable behaviour, and is now running an organisation himself. Whilst he may not have agreed with the counting, and could have raised this with the rest of the team, he took the action himself to move his own army up the Top Ten. While we have moved on from this, and were ready to forgive, it did highlight the need to remove the ‘advisor’ role, which essentially was an army board role to keep army leaders on board. It was not impartial, and created problems both in this organisation, and the previous organisation CP Army Hub.
CP Army Network have now gone down the route of having a ‘board’ which includes one leader from the majority of major armies. This can be a good idea, as it gives armies the chance to have a say. However, CPAN and CPAHQ do already have the army representative system, which already gives armies a say – is there a need for army leaders to have an advanced administrative say? Again, the board system to me seems like a way for CPAN to keep other armies outside of BIA on board and happy, meaning they keep support from who they need. This is rather than giving people the position of ‘board’ based on their league and news experience.
–
Conclusion
Before I come to an end of my post, I would like to make one thing very clear. I am not writing this because I fear competition from another organisation. When CP Army Outreach was launched, I was actually quite supportive of some aspects of their organisation. Whilst they were far from perfect, they attempted to innovate and interest the community, and also wanted to unite armies together and were not made in the vested interested of a couple of armies. Competition can be a good thing, and has definitely pushed us to try and do better and more. However, competition is not good when one side refuses to accept any form of unity, or coming together, resulting in a huge split down the middle of our community. The Ice Warriors and Rebel Penguin Federation, whilst they can do what they please, have refused to partake in almost anything this year on the premise that they only support CP Army Network, which is ironically run by their two leaders.
I do not expect anything to change as a result of this post, but I wanted people to be aware of the problems that CPAN are causing to our community, and how a lack of unity is causing frustration among many. We have attempted to address all of the issues that armies were concerned about, we have prioritised moving forward and innovating. However, everything and anything we have tried to do has been stopped by some major armies who still cite issues with a tournament that took place nearly a year ago.
This needs to change, but I’m afraid it never will.