The WarLight AI Challenge is back! The AI challenge is a way that coders can write their own bot to play WarLight against other player’s bots on randomly generated maps. The winner gets €1024! (approx $1257)

You can choose your choice of programming languages from an impressive list: C, C#, C++, Clojure, Go, Haskell, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Prolog, Python, Ruby, Scala and Tcl.

The competition is just starting, so grab your favorite language and get coding! http://theaigames.com/competitions/warlight-ai-challenge-2

WarLight has just been updated to version 3.01.0! This update makes some new settings available for coin games, as well as a couple other minor changes.

New Coin Templates

Two new templates have been made available to coin games: A 1v1 on Small Earth, and a 1v1 on Rise of Rome. Check out the Open Games page to check them out.

Games with higher wagers are also available. The templates have been structured so that the cheap 80-coin templates are quick games, and the longer settings have larger wagers.

We plan to continue to tweak the coin templates a lot over the coming weeks. Feel free to let us know what kind of settings you want to play coin games on!

Other Changes

The “Open Games” tab now is split into two sections — one that shows coin games, and the other shows free games. This will make it easier on people who don’t care about the coin games to avoid looking at them.

Profiles now show how many real-time versus multi-day games each player is currently in, rather than just showing the combined total.

Changed the website’s <title> tag for SEO purposes.

WarLight has just been updated to version 3.00.0! This update launches the previously announced coins feature!

Coins!

Coins are a way that you can make money by winning WarLight games. On the WarLight website, there is now a new Coins tab at the top. Here you can deposit/withdraw coins, as well as join and create coin games.

To get started with coin games, deposit some coins into your account and then join a game or challenge someone!

Special Event – 50 player FFA!

To commemorate the launch of 3.0, we’re also launching a one-time special event: a 50 player free-for-all coin game! This is the biggest game of WarLight ever played! And the winner gets 10,000 coins ($100 USD)!

Be sure to join quick, as this event is only open to the first 50 players who join it, and then it’s gone. Join it now!

End-Game Window

Whenever any game ends, WarLight now pops up a new window that gives you some summary information about the game:

The Rematch button provides an easy way to re-play games with the same people and same settings.

Other Changes

– Game/tournament links are now automatically shown in your browser’s address bar, instead of being shown in the settings.
– The points bar in the top-right was replaced by a coin counter. You can instead see your level progress by hovering over your level in the upper right, or clicking Settings -> Points.
– Increased the number of unearned achievements shown to the player from 5 to 10.
– During the process of joining an auto game, if the game starts without you, you’ll simply be taken to its replacement instead of thrown into spectator mode.
– Eliminated the “Home” tab. Moved Change History and About to Help, Maps to Community, and Unlockables to Settings
– Using “https” is now required, and accessing http://warlight.net will redirect to https://www.warlight.net. Because of this change, you may have to sign in again if you weren’t previously signed into https://www.warlight.net

Soon, WarLight will launch version 3.0, which will introduce a new game type: coin games. Coin games will award the winner real-life money!

How this works is simple: In a coin game, all players pay an entry fee when joining it, and if you win, you will receive WarLight coins. Coins can then be turned back into cash.

Here’s an example: The basic 1v1 coin game has an 80 coin entry fee. 80 coins is worth 80 cents ($0.80 USD). Two players join it, each paying 80 coins, and then they play out a normal WarLight game. The winner receives 144 coins.

WarLight coins can be used to join coin games, withdrawn into cash, or used to purchase the unlockables that WarLight sells (memberships, clans, strategy/map packs, etc.)

It’s worth noting that coins don’t give you any in-game advantages. WarLight is, and has always been, a pure strategy game — there is no way to buy your way to victory.

The 3.0 launch will have two templates that can be used for coin games: a 1v1 similar to the Strategic 1v1 template, and a 4-player FFA. Our intent is to start small and expand into more settings over time. For legal reasons, coin games will always have to use pure skill settings: 0% luck modifier, straight round, and no-luck cyclic move order.

It’s important to understand that this is not gambling. Although you do take a risk when you pay to join a game, WarLight coin games have no randomness, which causes them to be legally defined as a “game of skill.” It’s legal to play games of skill in most areas of the world, however some jurisdictions will be prohibited, such as the following US states: Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, North Dakota, Vermont, and District of Columbia.

If you live in a prohibited jurisdiction, you will still be able to play coin games, you just won’t be able to turn coins back into cash. Instead, you can use your winnings to buy unlockables (memberships, clans, strategy/map packs, etc.)

Our goal is to launch 3.0 on Saturday (December 6th). More concrete details will be announced when it goes live. I hope you’re ready for the most intense games of WarLight you’ll ever play!

You can now access the WarLight website with https using the url https://www.warlight.net!

https is the “secure” version of http, meaning that all of your traffic is encrypted which adds extra security. In plain http, the data your web browser sends to the WarLight server is not encrypted, so if someone was somehow able to see it, they could see what orders you were committing in a game, for example. This is usually only possible if they had control of a device that was routing your traffic, such as a wireless access point you were using. I’ve never heard of this actually happening on WarLight, but since it’s theoretically possible it’s worth fixing.

Eventually, it will be required for everyone to switch over to the https version. But for now, we’re in a transition period where both work, so you can choose which you’d like to use.

Please try it out and let me know if you run into any problems!

WarLight has just been updated to version 2.10! This update allows games to be played without any random factors, and also changes the default options and built-in templates to be luck-free.

Randomness is now off by default

With this update, new WarLight games will default to settings that don’t use any randomness (i.e. luck). This is a reversal of the old format, where luck options defaulted on and they could be turned off by game creators.

When randomness is disabled, there isn’t any luck in determining whether your attacks will succeed or fail. Also, you also know when you’ll move before your opponents, and what cards you’ll receive. This helps make games more fair and competitive.

Specifically, this is talking about four settings: The luck modifier, rounding mode, move order, and the minimum number of card pieces given to each card. These are the primary factors that control how much randomness affects WarLight games. By setting these values correctly, it can actually eliminate all randomness within WarLight games. (set the luck modifier to 0%, the rounding mode to straight round, the move order to no-luck cyclic (see below), and the minimum number of card pieces to the same value as the number of cards received each turn.)

This update only affects new games and templates. Existing games and templates will not be affected. Of course, if you like the randomness factor, you can always turn it back on when creating games or templates.

New Analyze Graph

Currently, when issuing attacks you can press the “Analyze” button to see a graph of the probabilities that your attack will succeed. However, with WarLight’s new emphasis on luck-free games, this graph doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, as the values will always fall on 0% or 100%. Therefore, in games with a luck modifier of 0% and a rounding mode of straight round, the probabilities graph is being replaced with a new graph called the “no-luck graph.”

Since there’s no randomness, the graph can know with 100% certainty how many armies are needed to capture a territory defended by a certain number of armies. It simply shows the number of defenders on the horizontal axis and the number of attackers needed on the vertical axis.

You can use this graph to figure out how many armies are needed to capture the territory with how many armies it’s currently defended by. When attacking opponents, it’s also useful to consider how many armies the opponent may add, and how many more you wish to attack with.

No-Luck Cyclic Move Order

This updates adds a new move order option, called no-luck cycle.

First, let’s take a step back and review what the move order does. The move order defines whose first order executes first (or who gets first pick during territory selection). The current options available are random and cyclic. Random means that the move order is determined randomly every turn, whereas cyclic means it’s determined randomly on the first turn and swaps back and forth for the rest of the game.

The advantage of a cyclic move order is that it reduces the amount that randomness affects the game. However, it still has a random element on the first turn of the game. The goal of the new no-luck cyclic move order is to eliminate this first turn randomness.

In no-luck cyclic move order, the initial order of the cycle is determined by how fast each player plays during their first turn (or during territory distribution if it’s a manual distribution game). Whoever plays fastest will be placed 1st in the first move order, and the second fastest player will be placed 2nd, etc. After the initial order is determined, move order will simply swap back and forth just as it would in cyclic move order.

In order to make this fair, the game will only measure the time from when you begun playing your first turn until when you complete it. When a game begins using this move order, the map is initially hidden and a new window appears with a “begin” button. Clicking begin reveals the map and starts your timer, which will stop when you commit orders or picks. There is also a new setting under the Settings tab that relates to this new window, called the begin dialog that can be used to skip this window if you wish.

If you modify your orders on the first turn, it will extend your total move speed to encompass the entire time from when you begun until your final commit. For example, if you begin taking your turn at 1:00pm and commit at 1:10pm, your play speed will be 10 minutes. However, if at 1:30 you change your mind and change your orders/picks, your play speed will update to 30 minutes.

To increase transparency, you can also see exactly how quickly each player took their first turn in the Menu -> Players window. This shows how fast they took their turn, and if you hover over that value, it also shows the exact time they began and ended taking it. As a separate column, it also shows the resulting move cycle that was determined based on these times. This highlights another difference between this new move order and the standard cyclic move order: the cycle is known by all players. In standard cyclic move order, it’s up to players to figure out the cycle on their own, but in no-luck cycle, WarLight reveals to all players who will be moving when. To help make it obvious, the game shows exactly who will move on the next turn in the left column:

You can hover over this label to see the entire move sequence for the next turn.

In team games, the average speed of the team will be used to determine the order of the teams in the cycle. Then, within each team, the order is determined by the move speed of each player compared to their teammates.

Investor

This isn’t related to this update, but I have news that I’m thrilled to announce about WarLight: WarLight now has an investor! For the first time in its 6-year history, I’m not working on WarLight alone. For the last few months, we’ve been hard at work on WarLight 3.0. More details about this will be coming soon.

Misc Changes

– Added simple “fast” and “slow” boot options, aimed at making the boot options easier to configure for first-time players. You can still click “customize” to access the existing functionality.
– Clicking on your name in the top-right now loads your public profile.
– Fixed a bug that caused errors in games that set “bank duration” to 0.
– The “Common Games” page now displays a total letting you know how many games it’s showing, instead of making you count them up.
– Clicking a flashing mail icon now takes you to the last page of the mail thread instead of the first.
– Fixed a bug that made small flag icons say “Plays from null” when hovering over them.
– Fixed a bug on high-resolution screens that made the top red bar stop after 2000 pixels.
– In the lobby, the host-only buttons are now hidden if there’s no host.

Congrats to Verzehrer for winning Season XVI!

Season XVII will use the Strategic Greece template, as voted on by the community. Check out the template with these links: multi-player, single-player

The season will begin at midnight on Tuesday (click to see this time in your local timezone as well as a countdown). Good luck!

WarLight has just been updated to version 2.09.1! This is a small update which adds just a few small features and enhancements.

Yearly membership option

WarLight memberships can now be purchased for one year, at a reduced price of $14.99. This will get you all the membership benefits, such as the ability to play without ads and the “M” next to your name for one year.

The lifetime membership option is still available for purchase, but its price has been increased to $34.99. If you already purchased a membership before this update, you’ll still retain your lifetime membership.

Membership also comes with full access to all WarLight ladders, the ability to set the luck modifier in games you create, the ability to create 20 player games, and extra vacations. If you purchase one year of membership, these benefits will continue forever as a free gift — they will not expire after the membership expires.

You can purchase a year of membership via this link!

Top-right account bar

WarLight.net now shows an account bar in the upper-right corner that shows information about your current account. This is similar to the bar that always existed on the single-player and multi-player tabs, however it’s now present on other pages of the website as well.

It shows your name, level and level progress, whether you have unread mail, and contains links to sign in or out of your account.

This is a first step towards a larger WarLight.net redesign I hope to do in the future. Eventually, this top-right bar will probably be the only way to sign in and out of accounts.

Other Changes

– The automatic boot timer can now be set to lower values. Previously, the auto boot timer could not be set to values lower than 5 minutes. Now, it can be set to values down to 3 minutes. This is useful if you’re combining it with banking boot times, where it’s common to set the core boot time to a low value and increase its flexibility with the bank.
– Profiles of players in the United States now show which state they’re in when hovering over the flag on their profile.

WarLight has just been upgraded to version 2.09.0! This update improves the ladders based on the recent poll, and adds a few other small features.

Real-Time Ladder Improvements

After joining the real-time ladder, if you stay on the Real-Time Ladder page it will now display a loading icon. Once the ladder invites you to a game, this icon will change to a link to that game. Additionally, a check-box exists that will tell the page to make a sound when the game starts.

This streamlines the process of joining the real-time ladder, as you don’t need to continually refresh the My Games page anymore. Instead, you can simply leave the main ladder page open in the background and wait until you hear the chime.

When you finish a real-time ladder game, the page will automatically change back to the spinner within 30 seconds, and will again make a sound when the next game is created (if the box to do so is checked). Therefore, you can simply leave this page open in the background and it will always notify you via the sound when a game is created.

There’s also now a link to the real-time ladder page in the Open Games page, as long as you have unlocked the ability to join the real-time ladder and at least one person is currently playing in the ladder.

Mobile App Linking

In the latest update to WarLight’s iOS and Android app, the app now has the ability to open game links from your web browser! These kind of game links are often used in WarLight’s forum for sharing and discussing games, and you’ll also see them in the e-mail notifications that WarLight sends out.

A game link is one that looks like this: http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=1000045. If you click on this link on your device, it will automatically switch to the WarLight app and open the referenced game.

This will only work if you have the app version 2.08.0 or higher installed. Android and Kindle Fire devices got this update a while ago, and iOS devices should receive it soon. If you want to see what version you have installed, just tap Settings from the main menu and scroll to the very bottom.

Ladder Changes

All of the changes announced previously are now live!

Changes to templates won’t change existing games — they’ll just take effect for games created after this update.

Misc Changes

– The 2v2 ladder page, when you’re not currently joined to it, now shows the most recent team you played with instead of the oldest one.
– In a game lobby, it’s now possible to click the host’s name and open their profile. This is useful if someone creates a game but does not play in it themselves.

WarLight just launched on Kongreate.com!

This is a scaled-back version of WarLight intended to attract new players to the game. You can view it here: http://www.kongregate.com/games/FizzerWL/warlight-multi-player

If you have a Kongregate account, it would help a lot if you’d pop over and give the game a rating.

Back in 2011, a single-player version of WarLight launched on Kongregate to great success — it attracted a lot of new players to the game. This just included the six main single-player levels as well as the ability to create custom single-player levels.

This time, players can play multi-player games right on Kongregate.com. It also contains the single-player levels, and has more features and a better interface than the 2011 version.

It’s worth noting that the games are kept separate — Kongregate players can never play in the same game as a player on WarLight.net and vice versa. However, some Kongregate players may decide to switch over to warlight.net to take advantage of the additional features and maps available there.