Hey Gila.
You are kinda missing the angle a bit.
You play against human opponents.
There are two 'teams', you'll be on one or the other.
After you play you battle, your score is rated against the rest of your 'team', who have all played the same battle from the same perspective, and you get your tourney 'points' depending on how well you ranked against your team mates.
This is a brilliant system to allow for quite lopsided battle in the tourney itself...the sort of more real battles where those Russians defending the bridge will probably lose, but how badly will they lose?
This system has been used in tourneys here before and has worked very well.
Also, he's suggesting that there will be no 'flags' at all...no need to 'set to zero' as you suggested as they are not even used. The tourney master sets the 'objectives', which only the player knows. He does not know the enemy's objective.
It adds an air of mystery to the game as you try to get your mission done at the same time trying to work out what the enemy is up to and trying to stop his mission.
Much more interesting than a flag based game.
Again, this has been done in tournies here before and works very well.
Chris has run a few tournaments here, always with great success. I think you'll find he has it all well under control mate