or, another argument against cycling move orders:

https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=10394504

Turn 8: I decide I will hold Cuba/Caribbean Islands one more turn and then exploit the move orders.
Turn 9: Strategos moves before Macedon. Strategos grabs East Canada and a +5 to be able to deploy 25.
Turn 10: Macedon goes first. But it is a crucial turn. He will use the order priority. Ok. Let him. I'll save mine in case I need it later.
Turn 11: I go first.
Turn 12: I debated letting him hit me before I entered SA. Game was over if I had. Too bad. Wasted use of card.
Turn 13: Strategos goes before Macedon. It doesn't matter. But from Turn 9 to 13, Strategos has first order four times, Macedon once.

Turn 15: Orange has first move on Strategos. My team just got a +5 and OP card. Strategos uses the OP to avoid orange's attack and to bust Macedon's final bonus.

With random move order, none of this could have been telegraphed/planned. Random move order is superior to this cycling shit in team games because it forces people to make the best move based on more possible outcomes. Strategically hedging your luck is far more difficult. When the move orders can be exploited to the advantage of one team, it is not more strategic. It is stacking the odds against the other team. Is it fair to be able to have first order 4 of 5 key turns and to be able to plan how you will manipulate this situation? I don't think so. And with 0% SR, the planning can be surgical. 3v2s expand quicker and find enemy soft spots/bonuses quicker.

As the number of players in team games increases, the negative effects of cycling orders worsen.

Why is planning this worse than having it happen randomly?

At least this is a strategy, not dumb luck.

At least there you strategically made a plan. Maybe it relied on something you consider cheap/unfair, but I'd rather lose to someone that thought out an unbeatable plan than have shit like this happen:

https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=10359897

I won that game, and I picked poorly, but his first order luck made it much closer than it otherwise would have been. He had first order all 4 turns the game lasted.

Edited 1/31/2016 15:34:12

^^ exactly, and how is this systematic cheating? forum title is clickbait

+1. this is the case on the actual 2vs2 ladder template. on 3vs3 europe there are no op Cards so i cycle is better there.

Why is planning this worse than having it happen randomly?

Because I would have never done this randomly. KNOWING the future CHANGES your method of planning (and thus your plans).

"Dumb luck": Higher levels of strategy --> Make contingencies to counter the effects of luck.

How is it systemic cheating? I used cards and the move orders to game the system. Winning/losing on performance-enhancing cards is like winning or losing a sporting event while using PEDs. Let's use an analogy from boxing. Two boxers face off. One has used PEDs (like most in boxing). The other is clean. The boxer on PEDs has a promoter who picks the gloves, picks the dimensions of the ring, and picks the judges. This isn't a fair competition. In WL, if I can manipulate the move order and there is absolutely nothing the other team/player can do about it, is this fair competition? Isn't it like picking the judges? Sure, the system in place appears fair. But in reality it is not. The system works for one player/team and not for the other.

If I get 4 of 5 first orders with random move order, it is not expected; so, I don't have a fixed plan for this outcome. If I know for certain that I will have 4 of 5 first orders with cycling orders, I can begin to implement a plan from the very beginning! This is the difference. Five turns of a fixed plan is a much different game than having multiple contingency plans and not necessarily being able to commit fully to one.

Lastly, if there is cycling move orders, hiding the cards allows one player/team to exploit the system! If one side knows it has 4 of 5 turns in a row and the other side is unaware (can't see the cards), the one will plan with certainty while the other has imperfect knowledge. If the system is fixed, the knowledge has to be as equal as possible.

Edited 1/31/2016 15:58:08

I think one of the issues about this is how the OP card works. I think if the setting uses cyclic turn order, if 2 players use the same amount of OP cards, the person that would have the priority without the cards should still get first order 100% of the time. Making the move random is pretty weird.

Yes, but the beauty of cyclic is that you can know if your oponnent is hiding a card or not!
If you can buy judges, so can your oponnent. Which means whoever is willing to make the biggest bribe is the likely winner.

I thought in this szenario, the cycle would stay as it is? (at least in 1v1)
Equal number of OP-Cards played -> the one first in the cycle moves first?

3v3 ladder is an improvement in two respects: no OP and no other PECs (and thus, no more assymetric knowledge related to hidden cards).

However, the 3v3 ladder is imperfect (if you like "pure skill," which I don't).

The goal of SR and cycling move orders is to approximate "pure skill." Yet there are still remnants of "impure skill" in the settings.

Picking: If the goal is to reduce luck, cycling orders does little to address the pick lottery. If you play the 3v3 ladder, are you able to predict who will be where after you commit your picks? Of course not. Solution: Use Risk picking! My app says WarLight, Risk and Strategy. Bring in Risk picking! This would get rid of the picking lottery that starts (and sometimes finishes) each game. If you want to alternate picking territory by territory, then contingencies can be planned as the teams pick. Now, you have to hedge your strategic outcomes and rely on an uncertain coin flip (first pick or second). Having first pick allows your team's first 3 and last 3 picks to be better; having second pick allows your team's second 3 and third 3 picks to be better.

Asymmetric Intel: Picking leads to asymmetric intel. It also leads to different levels of knowledge of the move order. It can be worked out (partially or completely) with logic games. Solution: If everyone knows the move order every turn, there is less asymmetric intel; the settings options allow this, but the template doesn't.

So what we are left with on the 3v3 ladder (compared to 0% WR, random orders):

- a smaller map: 3v2s shorten distances as a function of armies needed to deploy and ensure a capture
- faster play: 3v2s enable quicker growth and earlier contact with more enemies
- more fixed outcomes: pick lottery advantages become fixed sooner due to 3v2s, fixed move order, and/or asymmetric intel
- more time needed to use LSAT logic games in order to know all the intel available in the history based on the results of the pick lottery and mirror picking

I've given up on the 3v3 ladder. The LSAT logic games make it too much of an investment in time, and the remnants of "impure skill" settings don't make it worth the time.

Edited 1/31/2016 18:36:33

I still want my weighted random move order (vote for it on user voice). I would have odds of first move increase/decrease by %10 based on if you had first move the prior turn (ignoring cards).

Edited 1/31/2016 16:33:15

Cycling orders in 1v1s is fine. Some settings are better with it. But in team games the cycling orders don't work like in 1v1s.

For example, an old argument... Let's assume this fixed move order in a 3v3 Europe ladder game:

Odd Turns
First: A1
Second: B1
Third: B2
Fourth: A2
Fifth: A3
Sixth: B3

Even Turns:
First: B3
Second: A3
Third: A2
Fourth: B2
Fifth: B1
Sixth: A1

Mid-game, the two teams are in a tight fight and income is more or less equal...

Turn 7: Team A's most strategic play requires A2 to have first order over B3. He has it.
Turn 8: Team A's most strategic play requires A2 to have first order over B2. He has it.
Turn 9: Team A's most strategic play requires A1 to have first order over B1. He has it.
Turn 10: Team A's most strategic play requires A3 to have first order over B1. He has it.
Etc.

You see my point. In 1v1s the strategic dynamics of having or not having first order involve only two players. In team games, cycling move orders could RANDOMLY benefit one team over the other when the most strategic first order is considered qualitatively. This gives an unfair advantage to one TEAM, despite how the cylcing orders may seem fair with respect to the PLAYERS.

------------

Cycling move order is a setting that balances orders between players. In 1v1s, the players are the teams. So the outcomes tend to be balanced: You this time, me next. In team games, things get complicated. As the number of players per team increases, the possibilities of unfair outcomes increase. It could get so bad that a player in the middle of the move order could play an entire game without ever having first order when it matters most (if there are enough enemy armies near him to make this happen). With random move order, such a hypothetical situation might happen. But it happens RANDOMLY! The system cannot be exploited to make it a planned outcome. This is a major difference.

I have never thought cycling orders is suitable for team games. I still believe this. We should revolutionize the picking stage for 3v3 Europe games and use cycling picks (like Fantasy Football drafts). But the playing stage should have random ordering.

Edited 1/31/2016 16:47:31

That is very unlikely to happen.
However if it does happen, it is still cyclic SR! So you can outpredict your oponnent and make your best possible move based on his best move.

Let's compare 3v3 Europe to Fantasy Football (or baseball/basketball) drafts.

Fantasy drafts use cycling picking. 12345678876543211234567887654321 etc. In most fantasy leagues, team managers know the picking order days or weeks in advance (based on the previous year's standings/results). So they can plan their picking strategy a bit.

Fantasy drafts work like this: You pick one player for your team per pick. You wait and watch what other players are picked. Then you strategically make your next pick based on (a) what is available at each position and (b) your team's needs. Strategic picking is based on supply and demand: When the number of good players at one position become limited, you have more pressure to pick someone from that position to ensure your team is well rounded.

Imagine if Fantasy drafts used WarLight's 3v3 ladder's picking system...You submit a list of over 100 players you want. You don't know when your team picks before you submit the list. If your order isn't good, you might not have enough players at a position or you might end up with too many good players at another position.

In WarLight, picking is often 50-100% of the game. Yet the picking stage isn't fair. In Risk, territories are picked one at a time and the picking order alternates. If WarLight wants to call its coin games "pure skill" with any sense of honesty, it must use Risk's (and FF's) style of picking. Picking lotteries are not "pure skill."

Edited 1/31/2016 18:37:34

I thought in this szenario, the cycle would stay as it is? (at least in 1v1)
Equal number of OP-Cards played -> the one first in the cycle moves first?

Yep, that's how it works, not just in 1v1 but also in every other game type.

Edited 1/31/2016 18:06:06

Actually it does not work like that, if in cycle move order I have 1st move over my opponent and we both play the same amount of OP cards, we both have 50% chance to get 1st order. Unless there has been a change in the mechanics recently that's how it works.

i think that's wrong. the Player with priority before has still priority after both played a Card.

I don't think that's right Sze

Mod is right. If each player uses OP, the one with 1st order without also gets it with OP.

Also I prefer random move order too, but sadly more people are beginning to like cyclic. Since I don't want to have to put in effort to calculate turns in advance, or work out individual picks in team games.

Random is the way to go.

+1 buns

tl;dr this entire thread. Something about move orders being gay or something idk. All I know is as a gay man I am offended.