Superpolo
Superpolo™ is the ultimate in team sports. It combines aspects of soccer, handball, water polo and rugby into one fast paced, action-packed extravaganza. The field changes constantly between ice, land, water, underwater and air. The aim of the game is to get the ball into the back of the net. Its played in a giant plastic rectangular prism, set in the middle of a stadium.
Contents
Rules
The Court
The court size is constant and given as 80m x 40m x 5m (or 80m x 40m x 3m depending on medium) with a goal in the centre of the dimensions 0.75m x 2m. While the court does not change, the medium played in by the Marmadukes does. Each quarter, a randomly selected medium is chosen to play in. This means that the first quarter may be aerial, using AG (anti-gravity) packs attached to the Marmadukes, but the second quarter may be underwater with the Marmadukes using standard issue Oxygenators®. There is no standard order and once a medium is used, it may be used again in the same match - its random. The key to success is getting your Marmadukes to cope with the changes in setting, however, no team can excel in all areas and normally teams have a speciality. It should also be noted that ice quarters aren't played in ice but on it, as is the same with land quarters. Water quarters are played on the surface, like standard water polo.
Gameplay
To score a goal, a Marmaduke must get the ball in the back of the net, past the goalkeeper. Team with the most goals wins. They can carry the ball as far as they can and can use whatever body part they wish to propel the ball but must not use any other instruments. Not that they should have any, given that all the Marmaduke players are allowed to take onto the court is their jersey, the Oxygenator/AG pack (if necessary) and the ball. There are only a few limits on contact: no biting, no scratching and no gouging but otherwise, anything goes. The game is divided into four twenty minute quarters where six players (one of which is a goalkeeper) are fielded.
Tactics
The ball acts differently in different mediums. Underwater, the ball is equipped with a device that decreases its buoyancy so that, if thrown from the top of the court, it will naturally begin to curve down to the floor. Underwater quarters are difficult to play because of that and when combined with the constant swimming, it usually takes it toll on Marmadukes that aren't well trained. In aero quarters, the ball is also equipped with an AG pack, this means that it will not follow the laws of gravity and so if the ball is hit, it will keep going, until air resistance stops it or someone changes its direction. The aero quarter is similar to the underwater quarter, in that they are both more like chess games than a contact sport and to get momentum, Marmadukes use their claws to move along the walls and their strong legs to push off them, but unlike underwater quarters, it is very difficult to start moving in the middle of the court without a push. In ice, land and water quarters (these three quarters are known as the 2-D quarters, as opposed to the 3-D aspects of the underwater and aero quarters), the ball follows the normal laws of physics. Marmadukes find the ice quarter a bit difficult with the lack of traction but a smart and well trained one will be able to run and use his (or her) claws to find grip, that is unless they are tackled into a wall by a defending Marmaduke that's set itself on a collision course. Land quarters are probably the most familiar to people. Here the game takes on aspects of rugby as the defending team tries to smack the living crap out of the attackers. By comparison the other quarters are fairly passive and, as such, a passive team will be crushed. Finally, there is the water quarter, very closing resembling water polo, except that the violence tends to be far more open. Swimming is important but so is dolphin-like jumping out of the water. In all the 2D quarters a goal range is activated. Its a semicircle in front of the goal that no player may enter. An attacking player may jump into the range but must get clear of the medium and release the ball before they hit the ground/ice/water, similar to handball. The Marmaduke ability to form giant shapes is also of an advantage to teams. On land, teams can form effective rolling mauls, like in rugby or in the air, Marmadukes can form what's known as a Dart, a triangle with the tip pointed at the goal where the bottom layer pushes off its wall, then each successive layer pushes off its own team members in an effort to get the team's scorer as close to the net as quickly as possible. In underwater quarters, the dart is inverted to be the "fist" where the line of the team swims ahead of the Marmaduke with the ball, clearing the path for them and at the last moment they peel off, giving the shooter a clear shot at goal.
Tournaments
So now you have an idea of how Superpolo works (changing mediums of play, court, scoring, etc), now its time to find out how to become a champion. Teams will compete in tournaments. Tournaments are ranked by prestige, the new ones starting with a low rating, then working their way up to medium and then high. Newbies to the hosting circuit will start with a low prestige rating, meaning that the winner of their cup will need to play off against a winner of another low prestige tournament for qualification to the MarmaCup. Medium prestige tournaments will give the winner direct qualification and high prestige tournaments will give their finalists direct qualification through to the MarmaCup.
Scorination
Calculations were made using random numbers combined with weather and setup choice bonuses that would reduce or increase the time. Scorination was done in Excel.
History
The modern form of Superpolo is a relatively new sport. It was only recently that the anti-gravity technology was developed enough to allow the introduction of an aerial quarter. Before that there were merely underwater, ice, water and land quarters. The ice and underwater quarters were also only brought in a short time prior to the introduction of the aerial quarter, as snap-freezing water had up until that time been difficult and the best underwater breathing apparatus around was clumsy SCUBA gear. However the roots of Superpolo go back thousands of years into Liamist States cultural history.
Throughout the millennia, Superpolo's ancestors has primarily been played by humans but in actual fact, the first version of Superpolo, or Prepolo, as it is called by historians, was a naturally occurring cultural phenomenon amongst Marmadukes. They would take a aeusk, which is a round, hard but elastic fruit, and seemingly throw it at a target. The local pre-Liamists noticed this behaviour and began to replicate it, turning it into a game of sorts. When mathematics was developed some three hundred years later, the first scoring system was introduced - the team who managed to throw the aesuk through the trees used as goals the most, won. Defensive tactics were invented when a particularly aggressive Liamist was sick of losing. His rage was so great that he ran from the sideline into the opposing thrower. This brought a revolution to the sport. Soon, every team was tackling the opposing team to stop them from scoring. The next development came several weeks later in the form of passing. An attacker had been tackled rather brutally just as he was going for goal. The shot went off target and into the hands of a team mate. Not sure what to do, the team mate threw the aesuk between the trees - and the goal counted! So now we had violent defence, passing and scoring all combined together to form the first team sport in recorded NationStates history: Prepolo.
Prepolo became popular all over the Liamist States but it was not for several thousand years that the next breakthrough was made. Of course, offensive and defensive tactics evolved somewhat but the next important breakthrough in Superpolo history was the environment change. The first ever organised Prepolo Championships were held next to a large lake. It was the final and the team that hailed from modern Gradburg were up by two over the team from modern Fairbank. Fairbankian players were dropping left and right (in those days instead of having timed periods, they just played until everyone on one team died) and one Fairbank player was left. The Gradburgians were lining him up for what is now known as the Crunch, where the entire team rushes and tackles the player with the ball. The Fairbankian was clearly scared and ran for the lake in an attempt to escape. Not to be deterred, the Gradburgians followed him in. Now because the Fairbank goals were on the edge of this lake, the Fairbankian was able to swim up next to his goal and throw it in. He then ran out while the Gradburg team was struggling with the water and the mud, retrieved the ball and threw it through the trees again. He again grabbed the ball and threw it one final time to give his team the lead. It went through and he died from exhaustion. The game was declared over and the first ever Prepolo Championship was awarded to Fairbank posthumously. When Prepolo players realised the potential for this, all Prepolo matches were played by lakes or rivers with the goals accessible by land and water. It is at this stage of history that the game is renamed Bipolo.
We skip forward a millenia or so, into the Liamist Reformation. Games to the death had been replaced with timed periods and Bipolo was more popular than ever. People would play it in the streets, next to their sewage ditches. Disgusting by modern standards but fun by Reformation standards. This convention explains the extremely high cholera rates during the Reformation and the saying "You smell like you've been playing Bipolo" used for people who smell really really bad. Tactics had been refined into an art form with the advent of professional coaching and players were lauded far and wide. You may have noticed that we have only discussed human athletes. What about the Marmadukes? Good question. Its about this time, well after the domestication of the Marmaduke but before their amazing intelligence was fully revealed, that Marmadukes and humans started to play side-by-side. Legend has it that a young boy named Jamus Liam let the first ever Marmaduke play Bipolo when his team was one player down. Little did he realise that he wouldn't have to explain the game to Jamus Jr, a Common Marmaduke. Jamus Jr was sent to play in the ditch, for obvious reasons, and after scoring a double hat-trick, became a regular member of the team. This was the beginning of the end for human Bipolo players. As Marmaduke talents were further and further explored, people quickly realised that they were far better, with their relatively superior strength, flexibility and trainability, at the game than humans.
To the modern era now. Human number quotas have been removed and Marmadukes have taken completely over from humans, except in coaching roles where the superior human intelligence is advantageous. Underwater breathing apparatus has been refined enough to fit in a player's mouth. Water snap-freezing has been developed effectively enough to snap-freeze 6400 m^3 of water in less than five minutes. Bipolo has evolved into Superpolo and the first Nahgallac Mail Superpolo Championships are held. Teams from all over the modern Liamist States Empire arrive by the new speedrail. Liamopolis comes through the round robin group and wins the first Championship by beating off a determined City de Liam. Trenport triumphs the following year over the new Liam Island Monkeified Marmadukes. Under the old system that was in place during the NMC2, Liam Island played off against Liamton at the end of the group phase for a position in the semi-finals. Liamton was strong favourite to go through, after defeating the other two teams in its group. Liam Island won a convincing play-off and went on to finish second. Under the new system, Liamton would have automatically gone through to the semi-finals and who knows what they could have achieved? It was this incident that sparked a multitude of rule changes for NMC3, including the introduction of the aerial environment. NMC3 will be forever remembered for a few things. It was the last non-international Superpolo Championship. It was also where the powerhouse Liamist States, well expected to take out the entire Championship, lost to Superpolo minnows Gradburg, 20-0. With the removal of the revitalised LS, City de Liam, bridesmaid two seasons ago, cruised to first place, overpowering a determined Fairbank.
With the new decision from the MSA to become an international organisation, the Liamists could well lose their grip on this sport. However, it will bring Superpolo to a whole league of new nations, freshly armed with new Marmadukes, to the fray to see how they shape up in this sport of kings, tycoons and Marmaduke enthusiasts.
Like FMR, international Superpolo competitions were forced to fold after the Marmaduke Sports Association took massive losses on the stock exchange and faced bankruptcy. Retired Marmadukes are now enjoying their newfound free time.
