Well, it would have been nice to have these debates on here like the OD one. Then template makers could address that feedback, and settings would have been well known when rating/voting was done.

This is like having an election with no debates. Sure, the candidate's record (in this case settings) are out there, but with no debate there is no context.

Yeah, that's how I felt too...

IMO, the biggest goal should be to have some viable templates come out of this contest. And if you have no communication/debate, then the templates that maybe just need a tweak are discarded and never used.

Yes, but when Timinator + Sze + Gnuff + Seph + MoD said "OD moves are a problem on this template", all with good points on why 10x income is bad for delay moves, and if you can't take the criticism, why join a contest at all?

I discussed this with Sze here: https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=9963978

The long and the short of it is that he/they have not actually demonstrated that the cards won't largely eliminate the need for delay moves (except in relatively rare circumstances). They *claim* it will be a common occurrence, but fail (IMO) to take into account how the cards change the game when they are fairly plentiful. For more detail, see the chat in the linked game. If you have specific questions/objections, let me know.

TL;DR: Nothing beats actually trying the template. Intuitions can be misleading.

and if you can't take the criticism, why join a contest at all?

a) What makes you think I can't take criticism? b) I already explained my reasons for joining the contest: to demonstrate that 100% luck can still be strategic, contrary to the intuitions of many.

Edited 12/2/2015 00:42:20

I was referring to Fleece calling the judges, particularly Gnuffone "retarded".

i could quote myself again, but i guess you're still refusing to understand it :/

I can understand and see the flaws that happened in this event but I would like to point out that:
1.) This is Szeweningen's money so he can give it to those he chooses.
2.) This is the first time something like this was done so if it is ever done again I'm sure it will be run much more smoothly since we can learn from our mistakes.
3.) Thank you to all who commentated and spent their time looking over the templates. A lot of us take for granted the time and service your giving to us. I myself was a bit harsh and rude about this so I'm sorry about that.
4.) Thanks to all who submitted templates because you spent some time and effort into making a better template for the community to use and to supply for the competition. Even if your template was not deemed good it is still your creation and can be done with as pleased.

Really those first 3 points are the important ones. I really think we should all calm down a little bit, it's just a game after all.

I think the major issue for most of us was point number 4.

I get that it's his money, I'm not arguing over his decisions, but asking people to submit templates and then simply being downright rude about it and not even thanking us for our efforts is in my opinion unacceptable. I'm pretty sure you're the first person to actually thank those who submitted work to this competition, and if it's to "happen again" then we're going to have to be a lot nicer as a comunity to our template creators.

Well, that's just my opinion anyway...

i could quote myself again, but i guess you're still refusing to understand it :/

I understand it, I just think you're not considering the other factors I mentioned in the chat with sze. I could quote it, but I guess you're still refusing to take the time to investigate and understand before rushing to judgment. :/

If you want a response, show me you understand my points. Quote them. Disagree with the quote. Make an argument. I addressed your exact point in the chat.

Edited 12/2/2015 03:25:09

Seriously fleece we even tried out your template cause you wanted us to. We watched a game you played on it before. Should we say "thank you so much player x" eerytime we finished reviewing a template. Ok that would be possible but you was spamming on chat. You was insulting us (or at least the other commentators) and sze still decided to go over your template even closer. You should be greatful.

Wct i can see your points and i agree that it is strategic in a way. But in a competitive way (the goal of this contest imo) it won't work well cause there is the point, where both got no delay cards left and stay at the same amount of cards. At that point order delay moves might be game deciding. For me there is no enjoyment tomake 100 delay moves every turn.

The "try out" was about 6 turns, they didn't even touch. That's why I'm so frustrated. The insults were accurate, I don't like to point out people whom have lower intelligence, but I only do it when confronted by arrogance.

Saying "thank you so much player x" 10 times, for the 10 templates that were treated like garbage? Yes, yes I think you should.

And as for spamming chat for the most part I was the only one talking, no-one was talking or reading chat for long periods of time, I can't help that I at least tried to keep people interested, normally chat is vibrant, but I suppose when it's only full of self-righteous circle-jerkers, what can you expect I suppose?

Are you implying it's impossible to understand your template which has no luck, symmetrical starts, and army cap without playing it all the way through? The point still stands that you can literally count and calculate the most optimal strategy, and eventually once everyone figures out that optimal strategy they will end up in a draw. That's the entire reason why we avoid symmetrical maps with no luck. You don't seem to understand that, and are calling the people who do understand that unintelligent.

where both got no delay cards left and stay at the same amount of cards. At that point order delay moves might be game deciding. For me there is no enjoyment tomake 100 delay moves every turn.

I appreciate your taking the time to actually check out the points being made. But again, I don't think this has been validated by actually checking to see how often this happens in practice. You are again simply declaring that it will be a common occurrence. Yet when players get a delay card every turn, it will not be often that there is a shortage of delay cards. Nor will it be often that you know how many cards your opponent has, if he has kept some in reserve or not. Also, which I haven't mentioned previously, there is often the option to simply hold-off on attacking for one turn, letting your opponent use delay cards while you hold some in reserve for the next turn when you will play your big attack.

The actual rate at which these Delay Move Doomsday scenarios you guys are so afraid of occur *has not actually been tested* to see if it's as frequent as you think it will be. It is not enough to go by your intuition on this. I myself was surprised when I played many games and *not once* (not even with sze) did the circumstances *require* me to play an extraordinary number of delay moves. I always had other options.

And finally, as I said in the chat, the number of possible delay moves is not limited only by armies but also by how many connections you have access to. Since this number of connections will usually be significantly less than the actual number of armies available to move in this template, the number of such moves is naturally more limited than many people would otherwise think.

Basically, at this point, I've heard only objections that I've already considered long ago and found them to be lacking when I actually tested the template. Really the only thing that will be persuasive is either a fresh argument to explain why these Delay Doomsday scenarios are actually going to be common (which addresses the reasons I brought up arguing the opposite), or, better yet (much better), some actual testing of the template to show that, yes, indeed, it really is a common occurrence when played by more skilled players such as yourself. Again (and again and again), this is why actually trying out the templates is so much more useful than merely speculating about them.

It's kinda like science. Yeah, it certainly does appear that the Sun orbits the Earth; but no, actually, it doesn't. You have to test the idea to see if it's actually right or not.

You know, it reminds me of something I just saw a few hours ago on one of ps's streams. I think it was the stream using the multi-attack template on a map by Chaos, and one of the commentators insisted that you can attack from a territory multiple times using the same armies (after they had been rebounded on a previous attack). I didn't believe it. I thought he was clearly mis-remembering something, since it's well known that once an army is used for one thing, it's 'used up' and can't be used for another thing. And ps and the other commentators didn't believe him either. But he kept insisting.

You know how they resolved that dispute? They actually opened up a game where this had supposedly occurred and ... whaddayaknow, it actually works!

Without that crucial step of checking it out to test if it's actually true or not, regardless of what our intuitions are, these kinds of disputes can go on forever pointlessly. So, basically, at this point, my attitude is this: I disagree with your assumptions, based on my experience which contradicts what you're telling me. If you want to convince me otherwise, the most effective way to do so would be to show me, not just tell me.

When good players play it it's fairly easy to find out if they played a card or not.

I got a suggestion to improve your template so delay wars seem less likely! Give every player 2 delay cards every turn. They can chose then if they want to use none, 1 or 2 cards. This makes room for more options. You don't believe me, but on the actual system you'd get a big advantage from delay moves despite of delay cards

Are you implying it's impossible to understand your template which has no luck, symmetrical starts, and army cap without playing it all the way through? The point still stands that you can literally count and calculate the most optimal strategy, and eventually once everyone figures out that optimal strategy they will end up in a draw. That's the entire reason why we avoid symmetrical maps with no luck. You don't seem to understand that, and are calling the people who do understand that unintelligent.

Wait, are you talking about chess?

[NB: I haven't even looked at the template in question. Perhaps it is just as simple and easy to analyze to find the optimal solution as you say. But perhaps it isn't, as chess isn't. On the face of it, I hope you can see by analogy with chess why your argument isn't a good one in the general case.]

[Edit: After having watched the sample game and checking the settings, in my opinion it is premature to say that there is necessarily one dominant strategy, and that an AI would easily be able to figure it out. There are choices that the other player can make that probably cannot be perfectly predicted and countered every time. I.e. there may be multiple ways to win, and you may have to respond to your opponent's choices by trying to predict which path he is going to take, and to plan ahead to outsmart him. Plus there is random move order. I don't know this for sure, but I think it's premature to tell. Running a tournament would be a good way of collecting data to get a better idea.]

Edited 12/5/2015 09:13:28

If I was alive at this time, I would have submitted a template and got angry when it wasn't afrorded the anticipated adulation it rightfully deserved.

Thankfully, it isn't too late to join the mob: I blame Szeweningen for all this. My templates deserved more.

I got a suggestion to improve your template so delay wars seem less likely! Give every player 2 delay cards every turn.

*sarcasm alert* Sorry MoD, I've been informed by Timinator, Sze, and others that OD cards *cannot* solve the problem at all. I have it on their word(!) that it is impossible. So your idea to use even more OD cards is just foolish. Listen to the experts, silly man. In fact, according to the illustrious Timinator, adding more OD cards actually makes the problem *worse*, not better.

[/sarcsam]

I agree that adding more cards might very well do exactly as you say. And making such a tweak to the template would literally take 2 minutes. Do you see why having such a template which might only require a small tweak being discounted as 'a joke' entry is perhaps just a little bit insulting?

Your tweak may be necessary. On the other hand, it may not. Perhaps having 2 cards per turn is just overkill. I don't know. The fact remains that it simply has not been fully tested to make that decision clear. Without trying the template more fully, it would not make sense (IMO) to jump to any particular conclusion. That's my point.

@wct, your template wasn't a joke - that's a bit harsh - but I am having trouble understanding what you're trying to prove with it. Obviously the more armies you use the less variability there will be, and as you approach infinity you'll approximate no luck. We all know that. So what benefit does this offer over just playing a game at 20% luck (which you said it approximates in the game with szew)? People keep saying that the delay aspect is a drawback, and maybe you're right that is not. But what do we gain, besides being able to say we're playing with 100% luck? I think that's what you have to demonstrate for any of this discussion to be relevant.

Edited 12/2/2015 12:33:09

@Beren,
I got the template idea when I saw comments like this (see the beginning of the thread):

You may want to establish some ground rules on what is strategic. Like maybe no luck > %16 WR.

And I decided to actually make this exact template when I saw comments like this:

You never wanna play with that much luck. 100% luck, I don't believe that can be considered in any bit strategic, I mean there is no risk management, since you really don't know what is going to happen after an attack.

Edit: sorry, I didn't mean you don't want to play with luck, just not with that much involved. Yes Sultan, you're right :(.

...

calculating risk to attack with 3 or 4 is risk calculation. With 100% luck it is possible to fail a 10vs1 attack. How is that strategic in any way? It would be easier to just make a game on the duel map cause both are lotteries but duel is way quicker

...

Well like Ollie said, 100% luck is kindof purely nonsense :P. Managing risk is possible with a little luck involved but when there is so much, management is simply impossible. 100% has probabilities yes, but failing a 10vs1 should not be considered normal by any means. So unless you are playing with persons who are used to playing with that much luck, and consider their attacks following it, then yes, 100% can be considered strategic :/.

But seeing that 90% of the players play with SR, I think 100% luck would just be horrible for about everyone. Well that's the thing, with 100% you can never really know the outcome of a move, unless you have about 10 times more income than your opponent ( might be an exaggeration).

...

Ottoman saying luck in general is bad is blasphemy. I agree on everything higher than 16% luck. Bit below it just requires more skill to win despite of bad luck.

And here is how I introduced the template:

It's an attempt at a proof-of-concept that 100% luck WR could theoretically still be usable in a strategic way. I upped all the armies by 10 times, so that should reduce the standard deviation quite a bit. You may get a few odd results, but it's much less likely than if you were playing with the standard income and distribution settings. (10 armies might occasionally fail to take a 1, but 100 armies will almost surely take a 10.)
...
Gameplay is very similar to the standard 1v1, just with a bit more variety. Also, you can pretty much delay as much as you want. I'm thinking of adding in more delay card pieces to reduce the impulse to use delay moves. Instead, you'll have to decide how many delay cards to use or to save for later.

So, there you have it.

So, what am I trying to prove with it? That, despite many people's intuitions, 100% luck can indeed be strategic.

What do we gain? A better understanding of probability, perhaps? An "Ah ha!" moment (I like those, and I suspect lots of people do, too), perhaps? A chance to double-check our own presuppositions (I like those, too), maybe? Finally, an option to make strategic templates that are not limited to small amounts of luck (i.e. a proof-of-concept, as I stated initially), perhaps?

Have I "demonstrate[d] for any of this discussion to be relevant" to this thread, to your satisfaction?

Edited 12/4/2015 02:54:53