I think the pre-game somewhat takes away from the main event. The dot, geography, monkey... The current system seems to be a natural part of the warlight (or warzone) culture/process.
Just mho.

I am thinking of a number between 1-100. If you guess the number, you go first. Else I go first. ;)

But seriously, The proposal for weighted picking seems interesting so far.
Each territory is given a random value ahead of picks.
Your first choice is multiplied by some number, second place multiplied by a smaller number and so on.
If you pick territories that sum higher, then you get your first pick.
If everyone wanted Australia, then the focus moves to the value of your second pick.
We would require +3 picks more then required.
In the event of a tie, the board would be reshuffled.
(For FFAs we would continue to use time picking for now)

How does that sound?

i would be a huge fan mercer!

use picking time was always an awful idea imo. I have never created games with that cause i like to pay attention to my picks. When a clock is ticking its a much bigger chance you make a mistake in picks.

sometimes it is rewarding to miss first pick so you get stalling games on picks (which will always be won by the person who clicked the first on begin) sometimes a pick just needs to be first so you cant take your time on picks..

Deciding games by people making mistakes on picks because they feel rushed to pick should not be an issue. I am very interested how this will turn out. Maybe create some testgames with it to see how it works?

I like it, it've values that can be tuned for balance purposes, a different strat for picking that is skill based. It may or may not be better than how it currently is, but I'd say it's worth a try :)

Good thing i signed in once more despite taking a WL-break, i dont want to miss this discussion.

I ve read through the whole thread now and i think there already are a few good ideas.

To me, something that replaces the randomness by a 0luck/0skill game (like stone/paper/scissor)
would be fine, just let them play a round of it pre game (without telling them who won) and there wouldnt be any diffrence to playing in cyclic( not no-luck cyclic ) move order besides that its legal for coingames. Simple and already way better than the no-luck cycle.

Those more complex minigames seem to take away the focus from the actual game, i dont think they fit there. Also the dot-mini game requires a skill totally unrelated to warlight and the geography test favors players more expericened on the map to much (same goes to other minigames that were mentioned).

I like Fizzers idea of adding a weight to the bonuses, it seems to solve every problem i mentioned in the other thread. I dont think team mirror would be a problem, you can just go by picking speed in that situation as the outcome for the team is going to be the same anyway.
Having to pick again in case of same picks (as your opponent) seems to be fair, but picking twice probably isnt that fun (maybe switch to an auction in that situation? not changing the picks of course).
Its not that big of a deal anyway, as this situation will mosty likly not occur to often, and picking twice every X games should be okay.
Also, the map may look a little clustered at picking stage with those weights included,
but those are only minor problems i think.

Ruths idea also looks intresting to me. Not only does this solve every problem mentioned in the previous thread we had regarding this topic, it also seems to take away a luck factor of the game by adding a skill component. I dont see any problem with his idea.

Edited 4/10/2015 15:57:07

"To me, something that replaces the randomness by a 0luck/0skill game (like stone/paper/scissor)would be fine" (GiantFrog)


Unfortunatelly stone/paper/scissor is 100%luck/0%skill game


although in real life there is some space for a deeper strategy
http://iwastesomuchtime.com/on/?i=55376

Edited 4/16/2015 17:04:42

Unfortunatelly stone/paper/scissor is 100%luck/0%skill game

There is no luck in stone/paper/scissor in the sense of randomness, which is what has to be eliminated to make it legal for coin games.
The outcome of a stone/paper/scissor game is fully determined by what each player is doing.
still there is no skill needed, as every "strategy" is as good as any other, all you do is gamble

There is no luck in stone/paper/scissor in the sense of randomness, which is what has to be eliminated to make it legal for coin games.

And who (besides Fizzer) claims that all randomness has has to be removed from WarLight coin games?... and for what legal purpose? Are there American States which would label WarLight a gambling game if there was randomness involved? If yes, would chess also be labeled a gambling game if it's randomly decided who gets white? For me as a German guy with average legal knowledge this all doesen't seem to make much sense.