Greetings and good tidings!
I have created this page to better explain Elvenar tournament proceedings.This is basiically just the way that I approach it and by no means is the only way or even the best way; it's just the way that I do it and it works for me.
Tournaments start each Tuesday at 12:00noon central u.s. time, and last for 99 hours. There is a 16 hour cooldown time between each round. The way i do it in order to get all 6 rounds in is to hit it as soon as it opens, then the next round Wed morning at 4:00am or 5am, depending how late you want to stay up. Wednesday is the most important day, because you have to get up early to do round 2, and then stay up for 16 hours to do the 3rd round that evening at 8:00pm or 9pm. Then on Thursday you are back to 12:00noon for the 4th round, and then Friday is like Wednesday again except there is no urgency to get the last round in on Friday night, you will have time leftover to do it on Saturday before the tournament ends at 3pm.
So my usual times are like this:
Tuesday, round 1 - 12:00pm
Wednesday, round 2 - 4:30am
Wednesday, round 3 - 8:30pm
Thursday, round 4 - 12:30pm
Friday, round 5 - 4:30am
Friday, round 6 - 8:30pm

Using the above schedule, you will complete the tournament on Friday night before you go to bed, and still have until 3pm on Saturday until the tournament ends. It is important not to forget or miss a round because that moves everything back from that point on, and can make it difficult to finish.
Also, do not bite off more provinces than you can chew in the first round because you want to be able to complete all 6 rounds, as the later rounds are worth more points.

I know not everyone will elect to play tournament every week. Absolutely there is no requirement to participate. Play when you can, when you want to.
When you do choose to play the tournament, it provides many valuable items that you need in order to build your city. is important to note exactly what you are getting. A couple of especially noteworthy examples: after the 10th province in rounds 2 & 5, you get 4 kp for each additional province. That really adds up to a lot of kp. After the 10th province in round 5, you get a broken rune shard for each additional province. Remember you can only hold 10 broken rune shards, so make sure you go into your ancient wonders and forge a rune in order to clear storage space. Here is the breakdown chart for tournament rounds and province booty: