Something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently is that we have a lot of old WR templates that have potential but need to be modernized.

For one, almost every WR template has random move order. Most of these templates can instantly be improved with cyclic move order.

For two, almost every WR template has neutrals of 2. However, this allows for strategies like gambling on pure 3v2 expansion, and even 2v2 expansion. Neutrals of 3 could result in gambling on 4v3 expansion but it’d be a lot less worth it than 3v2 by a lot.

This thought came up when I saw CL18 is going to have Strat ME appear. Why as Strat community haven’t we reworked these WR templates into something a bit more competitive?

Perhaps we should refurbish these old templates.

Link those templates.

https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=39233614 Here's Strat ME refurbished, but I'm not 100% sure if these settings are best yet. This is the idea though. Swap RMO for Cyclic, +2 to base income +1 to starting army, and +1 to every neutral should be.. similar play. Maybe +1 to base income only.

Basically any 0% WR template could use this.

Edited 10/8/2024 21:59:11

Here’s a tournament with the settings Rufus and I came up with. It plays like Strat ME without the option to try for 3v2 expansion when you fall behind. https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer/Tournament?ID=58956

I've been told that naming my template "Strat ME Optimized" is too elitist, so henceforth the template will be named: Stratowut ME: Ruffles Remix

i like cheese and sour cream ruffles the best

I like the general concept of refurbishing old templates.

I think the 3v2 gambling strat actually is more competitive the way it is, and less determinative,
as you pointed out, it's an underdog strat...
which is probably why settings like random move order were added to weighted random templates,
because random plus random equals randomized fun,
(except when it don't, because random run amok...
also because it's tough to keep track of random order games... because it's not a highlighted setting, or an easily recognized one.)

Tbh the reason why weighted random templates have random move order has more to do with the fact that when this game first came out it was played more like risk than a strategic game. The default templates all had weighted random luck and random move order, so we used those. Even when we swapped to 0% SR we typically kept random move order. This wasn’t for a logical reason it was for a more traditional one. We didn’t move to cyclic move order until awhile later. I also don’t think that 3v2 gambling is good. The issue is that if you want to take a 5 bonus from a single territory you must succeed 4 3v2s and succeed getting correct leftovers on 2 attacks. This is not very likely, but can instantly win you an otherwise lost game. If we update the settings to gambling on 4v3s instead then the chances of doing something like that become almost impossible.

The gambling on 3v2s is exactly why I like WR. You need to be smart with the gambles, imo it adds another layer of depth to the game.

Starting your ME WR game by trying to complete +5 in 2 turns from a single pick is imo an inferior strategy. Even if you succeed, the payoff just isn't worth the risk compared to taking a +4 instead. I wouldn't even bother thinking about it.

The bigger issue imo is the +3 FTBs, since these are actually worth the risk, have 80% chance to work and it hurts when they don't. This could be solved to an extent by using a map that offers +2 and perhaps +1 FTBs as well. Then you'd have bigger influence over the risk vs reward aspect of your picks.

As for random move order, I hate it. I could try explaining why cyclic is better, but honestly there's too many reasons to list. Imo the burden of proof should be on random-move-order supporters to explain why this setting is still used so often.

Except that I've absolutely won a ladder game by taking a 5 that way lol, and against Timinator of all people.

I think instead of calling it ME WR optimised you should just change it to ME SR because then you remove the gambling :)

I think this will help save you a lot of time because instead of fixing those pesky WR templates with strategy based around risk vs reward you get nice SR templates that you'd happily take home to meet your parents :)

Removing random move order in an already random template makes sense though. Less strategic value for it in WR templates to have random move order. Would actually make more sense in an SR game tbh - maybe we should change MME SR to have random move order?

did you just say change 1v1 ladder to rmo?? you animal !

Yeah but I’m not removing the gambling I’m merely making it way less likely to work. And remember I’m not calling it ME optimized anymore it is strictly Stratowut ME: ruffles remix

@Kenny

What if you tried increasing the offensive kill % to 62-65 to make 3 vs 2 more likely to succeed?

Could also go the other way and make defensive kill % a bit lower.

One of the problems is that making the failure events more rare means you're even more likely to lose the game. Nonetheless, you have neutrals of 3 which have a 10% chance of killing an extra.

Might be something interesting to try.

tell me how too refurbish my templates! Tell me how to get players act in team , act not selfish. be patient!
https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?TemplateID=1282932