If the current situation is legal, then pick one of the solutions presented here, and only in tied situations (should happen seldom), use picking speed as a tie breaker.

All right , I was thinking of it during the night (while sleeping :P). And you are right Fizzer - in case of auction for beeeing the first player ties could be the problem as most of players wont bid if there are no teriitory conflicts.

Therfore i propse that:

1) the turn order (which is not so important) should be resolved in a who picks first fashion (like before)

2) any territory conflicts (which are the biggest issue for the start of the game ) should be resolved via auction as mentioned in my 1st post:

auction system:

for easier understanding lets assume that in situation when player has to pick "n" territories, the first "n" number of territories he has choosen are 1-st grade picks and any additional are 2nd grade picks (so if he was to choose 3 territories and he has choosen A B C D E F G , 1st grade picks are A B C and 2nd grade picks are D E F G )

When there is a situation when 2 or more players picked one territory there starts additional round of auction.

The player is informed that one of the territories he has choosen is picked by another player (or more) and now he must

bet on it. The player is informed which territory it is so that he can estimate its value.

Now betting. What to bet?
Initial income! (usually standard 5 per turn).
So player can bet a number ranging from 0 to n (where n is per turn income for this particular game).

Let's suppose he has choosen 3 and his opponent has chosen 2. This means that he has won and that this territory is his.

But this also means that on his first round he will not get this 3 income. So if the base income is 5 he will only get 2.

Of course his opponent doesnt have to pay anything.

When the player looses the auction he is given the first free territory from his 2nd picks list (or random territory if he

doesnt have any valid 2nd grade picks).

The auction is only resolved for a conflicts in 1st grade picks.

If player has more than one conflitct, he is bidding all of them in the same auction turn (so if he has conflict in territories A and B and is given 5 initial income, then if he bids 3 for A he can bid maxmally 2 for B as he has only 5 to spread beetwen them)


There may be two options for conflict of his 2nd grade picks


a) his new territory (2nd grade) was choosen by another player as his main territory (1st grade pick). In that situation he looses this conflict automatically and is given his next 2nd grade territory



Example

in game with 3 territories to pick

(1st grades) (2nd grades)
Palyer 1 picks territories : A B C D E F G
Player 2 picks territories : H I B P O U
Player 3 picks territories : W V D Y Z X

in that situation there is conflict between player 1 and player 2 for territory B
Lets assume that player 2 wins the auction. Now the player 1 is given a teritory from his 2-nd grade picks. D is first in

a row, but it turns out that there is another conflict because D was also choosen by player 3. In thet case D is given to player 3 because it was his 1st grade pick (for player D it was 2nd grade pick). Now the player 1 is given next territory from his 2nd grades which is E.


b) the new territory from 2nd grade picks was also given to another player that has lost auction as his 2nd grade pick. In that situation there is an autoamtic TIE and both of them are given their next 2nd grade picks.

Example

in game with 3 territories to pick

(1st grades) (2nd grades)
Palyer 1 picks territories : A B C D E F G
Player 2 picks territories : K I B P O U
Player 3 picks territories : S V W Y Z X
Player 4 picks territories : R T S D K J


in that situations there is conflict between player 1 and player 2 for territory B and between player 3 and player 4 for territory S Lets assume that players 2 and 3 win their auctions. Now the player 1 is given a first teritory from his 2-nd grade picks which is D and the player 4 is given the first teritorry form his 2nd grade picks which is also D. In that situtation none of them gets it so their are given : Player on E and Player 4 K.

Of course K was picked by player 2 as his 1st grade pick so Player 4 canat have it (situtation a) and is given another 2nd grade which is J. If player 4 didnt have J in his 2ng grade list, he would be given random territory





it may look complicated but it is quite easy. And most of it wil be resolved automaticaly - players will only have to bet.

Summing up.

• 1) player can bet on his conflict territories in auction turn. He is betting with his initial income.
  
  
• 2) if he wins he gets it but his income in first round is lowered by the sum that he has bet
  
  
• 3) if he looses he is given territory from his 2nd grade picks (according to their picking line) and he doesnt have to pay
  
  
• 4) in case of tie both(all) plyers loose that territory
  
  
• 5) if there is conflicts between 2nd and 1st grade pick the 1st grade pick wins
  
  
• 5) if there is conflict between 2nd grade picks all 2nd grade picks loose (tie)
  

*in situation where there is no base income, players could be alowed to bet from the amount of starting troops from particullar territory - eventually this could be a main auction option or they could be mixed (player can bet from the initial income + starting troops from that territory)

I think that this auction system may give even more entertainment to this game. It is also fair because in case of conflict player will need to pay for it to get that teritorry. And it is also strategis as he will have to estimate how much it is reasonable to pay.
The main disadvantage of this method is that it will require additinal turn, but personally I dont think that it would be a big problem. Eventually it may be an optional feature to use that auction system (unlocked on 60th level?).


So now there is only one round of auction with quite good solution for ties (2nd grade picks) and the turn order is based on the on the "who picks faster" rule as it was untill now.

Each player has the % of times they have first pick. The lowest percentage goes first.

Now in case of a tie which will happen primarily in the beginning. First to join the game gets first pick.

Show pick order during picking territory phase.

After "begin" is clicked two buttons come up on the left side of the screen (the action bar) that say "first pick" and "first order".
You glance at the board to quickly determine which one you think would be better to have and then the first one to select will be guaranteed their choice.. But both players still has the full time to make their actual picks.
It would eliminate the annoying scenario when both players want 2nd pick and wait until last second before committing. As some players in this thread complained about wanting to take their time with picking this would also eliminate the stress of making the actual picks.

Edited 4/4/2015 09:36:48

Best idea yet! +1, Darkpie.
Let's say every player has 1min to think about which cicle position they prefer on the board. There can't be any complaining if you tell both players which position the other player picked, because otherwise it's probably unfair if one player knows the opponent will try the only ftb, for example. This improvment would also mean the least change, for Fizzer and for us.

Edited 4/4/2015 11:53:06

there was a thread last month in which a very similar discussion happened
but it went nowhere after that

i hope it does this time

And i don't like Darkpie's idea - if 1st move option would give advantage as often as 1st pick then it's really fine. But 1st move is rarely better than 1st pick - so it will be just clicking fight to click 1st pick first.

Current system is fine to me, couldn't add more to what Gnuff wrote at the beginning.
The only problem is that some coin templates doesn't fit to it:

1. Rise of Rome - no need to check board, just choose what to pick, click begin and commit - whoever can click faster to win

2. Extremly low diversity, so again - no need to think much, just click as fast as you can as losing 1st pick is usually bad.

Change those with other, with more randomness on boards and it's all good.

Edited 4/4/2015 13:01:57

@Krzychu

I'm also fine with the current system, but alot of ppl seem to want it changed and the idea I proposed is something I would also be fine with.

It already kinda is a clicking fight anyway imo. another thing that I think is good with what I proposed is that games where both players rush their picks (and therefore don't think them through properly) to get first pick and then one player is 1 second faster, often putting the second player at a severe disadvantage with rushed picks and no 1st pick, won't happen.


But like I said, I'm fine with the system like it is. I wouldn't be fine with the other ideas in this thread though.

krzychu i am happy you agree with me :-)
- about RoR. The problem is not the map, the problem is the full distribution. Every full distr in 1v1 will have this effect (same picks all times more or less). If it were random warlord, with 1s bonus not pickable, and superbonuse set to 0, the template would be more strategic with more variety of strategy (also some wasterland are ok as well).

Edited 4/4/2015 14:03:12

I realized that too after i tought a while about it. On templates like no luck cyclic medium earth there's almost no problem with no luck cyclic i'd say. Often 2nd and 3rd pick are better than first.

On small earth or RoR it's bad since the starting positions are always the same. On some templates it'd maybe make sense to change something, on others it doesn't cause the actual way is the fairest way possible

yeah. For example, in my opinion, i would change back 80 coin games to ME 1v1, and make RoR random warlord, more starting position, no supèrbonus. Still, IMHO, RoR is too big for a 1v1 very well balanced, would be better play it in a 3v3 or 4v4.

Yes ME 1v1 with 80 coin games would be very nice to have back....

in all other templates it is fair but not so in small earth
you either win by 1st/3rd 1st/4th or 2nd/3rd of your picks
but most of the times it is 1st/4th that wins the game
and only because of 1st pick
sometimes the maps are such that you can win if you pick only australia as well,cause the other picks are that bad
and some players(like me) do need more than 1 sec to commit and still want to win but only to find out i could never outmatch speeds of some others and become positionally disadvantaged from the start itself

that template needs a fix

That is why my auction system doesnt include the element of speed

Kain, I think your auction system is inherently unfair, because winning/losing a territory gives a player extra information about opponents' strategies, which would create advantages and disadvantages in games with more than 2 players.

Also, it's pretty complicated, and with each revision it gets worse. Whatever the new picking tiebreaker is, it should be simple and intuitive.

What did people think of traviter's suggestion on the first page? I thought that was one of the most sensible ideas so far. It would be easy on players (everyone makes an additional set of picks in which they try to guess where their opponent(s) picked), Fizzer wouldn't have to do much work to implement it, as it would use the current picking interface, and it's a fair measure of strategic thinking: predicting your opponent's strategy is an important element of Warlight.

because winning/losing a territory gives a player extra information about opponents' strategies, which would create advantages and disadvantages in games with more than 2 players.


If you dont know which player is bidding against you then you cannot know anything specific in >3 players game (fact is that i didnt mentioned that you shoud not know who your bidding opponent is). Additionally other players taht are not taking part in auction for a particullar territory wont know who is bidding with who and for which territory(they can only know that there is some bidding as the additional auction turn is on)

i 2vs2 game there would be equal share of infrmation so again no problem

the third revision is almost the same as first (the addition is that the turn order is based on picking speed). The second one was trully a dead-end.

and while it looks complicated the rulles of it are quite simple and intuitive (I hope :D )

Edited 4/4/2015 16:56:00

Imagine a game in which all available starting territories will go to players, like full distribution. In your system, if their is a tie, nobody gets that territory. This would result in some players being given fewer over all territories.

I also quite like traviter's suggestion on the first page: base turn order and break ties based on whoever could predict popular picks best.

It's completely non-random and yet highly unpredictable. (Especially since you may have an advantage by making unpredictable picks!)

It's based on the current system, and requires few changes to the game. It doesn't require any kind of mini-game or clicking really quickly, and makes you think about some interesting things.

about bidding system and similar ideas like this one:

Each pickable territory has a "picking speed". For example, Norway has +10 and South Pole has -5, etc. Each player makes 6 picks, and we sum all the numbers. Whoever has the highest total gets first pick.

You can also weight them based on which pick they were. Your #1 pick multiplies the number by 1000, your #2 pick multiplies it by 100, etc. So if both players pick the same territories in different orders, they won't tie.

What will happens if team mirror pick? This happens quite often, especially in 3v3 games.

I'd prefer to stay with current system, because like some players already mentioned It works completely fine.

Maybe one thing I'd like to be changed: advanced attack options. I don't see how it is connected with luck. I understand that you want to make game more approachable for new players, but isn't there already separate bracket of coin games only for them? Why not to restore advanced attack options to regular no-luck cyclic games?