 | Q. First of all, as an experienced player of the community, and organiser of every CNC, how do you feel this year’s cup has been so far in terms of activity, matches and drama, in comparison to the years before this?
Erik: In terms of activity, I would say this year’s Cup has been very good. As we all know, the community is slowly becoming less active and the number of people joining regiments and communities is dwindling, but, many veteran and active players showed interest and requested that this tournament run one last time in 2017, and so, my hesitation faded, and I began preparation. Because of this willingness of players, everyone is already very motivated to do their best in every match, and I honestly think that is why the matches have been so good so far. On FSE the thread had already exceeded 40 pages in the first 3 weeks of the tournament, and yet I think last year’s thread stopped just below 40. I think this proves how much the community wanted this tournament and their willingness to participate. About drama, there is drama every year. Maybe there is a little more drama this year, it seems that way, but shit happened, and I dealt with it as efficiently as I thought to do so. I’ve always tried my best to keep these events drama-free, I very much like being in control of what happens and therefore unnecessary drama is simply unwanted to me, and the rest of the team of helpers. As you all know, this year I tried to make some changes to the tournament such as the introduction of Lancers. This obviously caused an uproar with some people, but you can never make everyone happy, so I just aim to make the majority happy. No one is forced to play for their nation, and therefore if they feel so strongly about those changes then they are free to leave as they please. But overall, we’ve seen some really good matches this year, so I honestly think the Cup can be in anyone’s hands.
Q. France’s team this year is obviously home to some of the best players in this year’s cup, as Cpt, how do you balance training as a team and letting your players do their own thing, seeing as so many of them are already so experienced?
Erik: I’m pretty blessed with some of the best cavalry players this game has to offer in the French team, and I appreciate that. It’s a big pleasure to lead them, no one is here to troll and their mentality was good from the beginning, so the mood of the team is very good. In all honesty, we didn’t do much preparation before the CNC, we did a couple of practice matches against Germany and the United Kingdom, which are 2 of the big contender for this competition, and managed to win both matches, but it was very close. Overall, the team had a rather short but difficult preparation. I actually think this was the right thing to do as I didn’t want the team to be overconfident by beating every team there was before we even started for real, or losing lots of matches and dropping the morale before we started. I believe this short but sweet preparation helped to hone some rusty skills for some of the members but allow them to adopt the right mentality. The team is a mix of 9e, 4e and 7e with a few more guys from other diverse regiments. Getting everyone to know each other and start playing as a team is difficult, but we are getting there, and because of this I am starting to see some good team spirit. On the field, I do speak a lot and give lots of advice to the team, I know they are all seasoned veterans, but I think keeping that communication up is the key to success. They all have their own ways of doing things, their own ways of getting out of certain situations, and as long as it works, they are allowed to do it. It is only when they ignore commands and then get killed because of this that I get bossy. The rule of thumb is: if it works, then keep doing it. I’m very much looking forward to our future matches to see how well we can all work together, I believe we can improve much more.
Q. In the FRA v ESP match, ESP had changed their class from the usual Cuirassiers to Lancers. How did you and your team think to oppose this change, and how was this strategy implemented into your real match?
Erik: In the end we only had two trainings against lancers before our match with Spain. I asked friendly communities to play as lancer against us, but I do not think this was all that efficient. The people we asked to help us train were not originally lancers, and therefore they were not playing against us with the ferocity that Spain brought to the table. The people we trained against were mainly Hussars and Infantry, so this was to be expected. In the real match, what we tried to do was exploit their weaknesses and avoid their strengths. We had some rounds where we only lose a few men, and the rounds we won were generally by a large margin, but as soon as we gave them the chance to make use of their strengths, they punished us for it. Because of this, it was a very close match.
Q. The first two rounds of your match against Spain were quite smooth sailing for France, giving you a 2-0 advantage. Would you say the cause of Spain’s eventual win was because something changed in the way that your team played, or was it simply Spain adapting and improving as the game continued?
Erik: I’d say it was probably a bit of both. The match was a continual change of tactics, on both sides I would say. We started off really nicely as you said, but we let them come back. That evidently cost us a lot. It was a series of change, whoever adapted faster won the rounds. It was mostly a 1 round margin between the two teams, but at one point we were losing 5-3. We did manage to pull it back though to 5-5 to get us back in the game, as we knew if they had a big advantage then it was game over for us. Throughout the match I think there was a lot of thinking involved, so from a spectator point of view I think it would have been interesting to see how both France & Spain changed as the match progressed.
Q. Your match with ESP was undoubtedly one of the closest ever to happen across the last 4 years of this tournament, how did it feel to play in that match and how did you keep your men motivated when morale was dropping?
Erik: Honestly, I think our match against Spain was one of the best matches any CNC has ever had to offer. 15 rounds were played in the end, totalling a playtime of 1.5hours. Were I a spectator in this match, I’m sure I would have enjoyed watching it a lot, however, from a player’s point of view, it was very stressful. I did like the challenge the match had to offer, but I often found myself getting frustrated with my own performance in this match as I genuinely believe I was one of the worst contributors to the match that day. In a team sense, I don’t think we ever once lost morale. We never doubted that we could come back and win this game, so we just tried our best throughout and never gave up on victory. Even when we were two rounds down, as I said before, we managed to pull back through by keeping spirits high. In matches I do tend to listen to what my players have to say and what their opinions are on different situations (even if I do sometimes ignore it), but as I said before I will always advise what I believe to be best, and to be honest, I didn’t have to say anything to them to keep the spirit up. Overall, as a cavalry player that game was very intense but also extremely enjoyable.
Q. Last week's match against Spain was the first time France lost a group stage match in CNC history. How do you feel about that?
Erik: I do consider our defeat against the Spaniards a failure, but not as a critical one. It sucks a lot to be losing a group stage match, but we do have the benefit of not being out of the competition entirely. I know we have what we need to go far into the tournament, so yes, this defeat is a failure, but it will not kill us. We have to make sure we win all the rest of the matches to qualify for the Semi-Finals, and once we get there, it can become anyone’s match. It doesn’t change anything that we lost, we have exactly the same aims and mentality as at the start of the competition, and I’m sure we will get back on our feet as soon as the next match comes. It’s not as if the defeat was a humiliation, we lost 8-7. If there were two more rounds than we may have won it, we just happened to lose at the 8 round mark. I don’t think it has made anything harder for us as I was expecting tough Semi’s no matter if we came first or second in the group stage. I’m sure all teams once in the Semi-Finals will have a hard time winning. Just to note as well, last year UK lost badly to France in the group stage, it was 8-2, but they ended up beating France in the final with an 8-5 finish. This just proves that a group stage defeat is not a defeat for the whole CNC.
Q. Out of all the teams participating, are there any which you are really looking forward to playing, and why?
Erik: After our defeat against Spain, I’d say the match we are most looking forward to is against Poland. Poland has always been a tough opposition, and they are playing as Cuirassiers this year again, so we will need to adapt to that class as well. I also have a slight personal thing about beating Poland, because the last time I faced them was in the FRA v POL 2014 final, which we lost under my lead, so I’m really looking forward to a good, challenging revenge match. Beating Poland is probably our ticket to the Semi-Final, so there’s a lot riding on it. We can’t fail again.
Q. Similarly, were there any teams that at the very beginning of the tournament you were a bit apprehensive about fighting, and why?
Erik: No, none at all. For a simple reason, which is I gave myself and my team a clear aim in the CNC. We are participating to win and so there is no aim below that. Since we all agreed on that mentality, we can’t allow ourselves to be doubtful or pressured about a match. We have to win against every opponent we face eventually to get there anyway, so there’s no point doubting ourselves. If we play the right way, I truly believe we have this, and that’s the only way we can think if we want to win this CNC. Winning this is my last big aim as a member of the community. I had the honour of winning every tournament group-wise there is with the 4e, but I tripped on the last step as Captain of France in 2014. I will not allow that mistake to happen again this year. Sukesa and I both have this Cup as our last goal in this game, seeing as it’s the only title we haven’t won for ourselves, and so I wish for us to win it to finish off my career of Mount & Blade. CNC is probably the hardest thing to win Cavalry-wise, there’s been no finals that are completely one-sided, and we’ve had a different winner every year: Poland, France and UK, and so the thought of winning in such a difficult tournament makes me want it so much more. | 
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