WarLight has just been updated to version 1.13.2! This blog post describes what’s changed.

Rounding Mode

WarLight now allows members to control the way that rounding works in combat. When creating a game, members can choose between either Weighted Random or Straight Round.

Weighted Random is the way that all WarLight games have worked up until this point. In this mode, if a combat calculation has a remainder, say 4.3, WarLight will round it up to five 30% of the time, and round it down to four 70% of the time.

Straight Round is a new setting. In this mode, WarLight will always round remainders to the closest number. For example, 4.3 will always round down to four. This is great for those who don’t like random factors in their games.

By combining Straight Round along with a 0% luck modifier, you can remove all luck from the WarLight combat system. Under these settings, you will always know whether an attack will succeed or fail. The combat analyzer shows this best; every point will show a 0% chance to win or a 100% chance to win:

When combined with cyclic move order, fixed cards, and no wastelands, it’s now possible to remove almost all luck from a WarLight game. The only random factor that can’t be removed is the initial seed to the cyclic move order. That means that, if configured properly, you can play a WarLight game that has literally only one random event throughout the entire game.

Chat Room

The same chat room that’s been abuzz on the forums lately now has its own dedicated sub-tab under the Community tab. Drop by if you fancy a conversation.

New Forum Formatting

The forums now allow players to format their posts using BBCode instead of Markdown. This has a few benefits and a few drawbacks, but in the end it was a necessary change for security purposes.

One issue with the old system is that posters would often accidentally activate a feature. For example, in Markdown, starting a line with a pound sign (#) indicated it was a header. This often took players by surprise. BBCode makes the forum formatting much more explicit, so it’s unlikely this kind of accident will happen.

Another issue with the old system became apparent whenever someone would make a list of links. Markdown would only making every other link clickable. The new system will properly make all links clickable.

Misc Changes

– Players who are inactive for more than 20 days are now automatically removed from ladders. They will be sent an e-mail notifying them of this event.
– The automatic zooming now zooms 20% less far in.
– Changed the way that Flash authenticates with the website to a more secure method.
– Fixed a bug that occurred when you clicked a map review’s edit button multiple times.
– Fixed a bug with the lobby that made the headers be mis-aligned over the player names.
– Fixed a bug that could make your income go negative when negative sanctions took it over 2 billion. Instead, your income will just be 0, which still isn’t correct but at least it will no longer break the game.
– Fixed a bug that made the browser hang if you tried to graph a game’s statistics before the first turn completed.
– Fixed a bug that gave an error if you tried to use the Statistics panel during territory distribution.
– Fixed a bug with the in-game map browser that caused maps to show the wrong page when changing filters.
– Fixed a bug that occurred if you clicked “okay” in the attack/transfer dialog and pressed enter immediately after.
– Fixed a bug that caused an error message if you sent a message over 1024 characters to tournament chat.
– Fixed a bug that caused an error message when loading history on games that had turns where no players entered an order.
– Fixed a bug that caused an error message if you clicked re-do orders but then all opponents committed orders and the game refreshed before you clicked confirm.