Why would you ever downgrade a flag until youre a turn from elimination? i just dont get that variant, the other ones are good. (http://warlight.net/ViewHelp.aspx?s=Variants)

Someone with a lower flag than you presents no danger to you, since they can't possibly win the game. Therefore it's a waste of armies to try to attack them.

Basically, downgrading your flag makes it so the bigger players in the game have no reason to attack you.

What you end up with is, for example, are situations where a few players with a 1st place flag that are fighting eachother for first place, and a few players with a 2nd place flag that are fighting eachother for second place.

I know it is a bit off topic, but reading the 'Hunter' description I couldn't help but wondering why you haven't incorporated some kind of missions into the game yet? I know, keep it simple etc., but how about something like:

Give each player a secret task to occupy 2 to x random bonus and hold them for y turns? To keep it fair, the bonuses in the task should add up to similar sizes/values. Maybe map creators could also pre-define a set of tasks for their maps?

I also like the variant idea of capitals

http://warlight.net/Forum/Thread.aspx?ThreadID=934

but most things like that are player ran, as afaik fizzer likes to keep the game as customizable as possible, and currently has other things he's working on rather then trying to hardwire these in.. also afaik, a small portion of the community actually participates in such variants so.. :/