To be honest there are times when it is acceptable to pick a teammates picks.. in the 2v2 ladder, before me and my partner started our random awol leading to boots, we would often double up on picks that we figured would be more vital to our eventual victory in the game..

Blue Precision [WarLight Member] :
Your profile shows that you've played 100% of your games in real-time. Of course there are exception to this rule (you likely being one)but generally smarts and patience go hand in hand.

bullshit.

I would love to see your empiric evidence on that one, anything showing a significant connection of smarts with playing multi-day games.

I think you misheard him. he was trying to say that if you're more patient and slow down your game and really think, you can make well thought out moves. Think about it in chess terms, if you have 5 minutes to make a move or 3 days to make a move, you will have way more time analyzing all of the different possibilities. That doesn't necessarily make your move smarter...it just allows you to see all of the moves and make a good decision.

Some people are better than others at which they process all of these possibilities and in the game of warlight you don't necessarily NEED to know all of the possibilities, just the top 5 or 10. You get that when you play multi-day because there isn't the pressure of the clock on you.

I've had plenty of mis-moves in 5 minute games where I would have caught it in a multi-day. Does that mean we should all play multi-games? No. I have my own processing speed. Someone very well might just be good enough to only play real-time and be amazing. But put that person in a multi-day where they analyze their moves...makes them a lot better.

Guarantee that every person that has been in the top 15 in the ladder started out as a real-time player (when they first started) then moved to prefer multi (with the exception of Heyheuhei...he's a freak)

Thanks Ruthless, you nailed it. We must have been brothers in a past life.

Myhandisonfire. You're correct in ascertaining that I have no empirical evidence to support the claim, just first-hand experience. Real-time games, for the most part, are open games meaning that anyone can join. Your pool of serious players and non-serious, for sake of argument is likely 75%-25% generously on the side of serious players. So that means roughly one in four random teammates are the ones who are playing while cooking food, texting on there phone, watching sports or what have you. And this is not too mention the yahoo's who think its funny to ruin games.

I fit the mold that Anthebes was wanting in that I usually partner with the same 10-15 people so I just offered him my advice on how I managed to find them. In speaking to my prefered partners, when discussing critical moves it is not uncommon for us to have a good chunk of dialogue before executing orders. In fact, most of the smartest turns involve coordination: transfers, multiple yet specifically sequenced attacks from two different teammates etc, and this simply cannot happen in 5 min or less for most people. In speaking directly to territory selection, again, 5 min is not a lot of time especially if your teammate expects you to not overlap picks.

Heyheuhei and Samurai are two such lads that seem to be able to lock in moves before I even finish watching the turn sequence. Other then these "freaks" as Ruthless called them lol, I stand by my assertion for people who enjoy smart plays and teammate coordination generally play in multi-day games.

Blue Precision, of course you are right in what you say about coordination. There is a need for coordination, but I disagree that it has anything to do with playing multi or real time games. In my opinion, warlight isnt a too complex game, like chess for example, that you really need to ponder more than 5 minutes over your move.
When i play games 3on3 games, I rarely ever type anything, for multiple reasons.
When playing with noobs, average players, beginners or however you want to call them, I simply dont have the patience or willigness to talk them into making better moves. I accept their wrong moves as a greater challenge, which speaking for itself has a greater chance of failure.
But when playing with pros like Heyheu or Commidity or a couple of other excellent players there is seldom the need to talk at all. And that goes for playing against noobs or pros alike. In fact its a rarity if more than one move per game is being discussed.
There are several reasons to this. When playing with excellent players you kind of expect them to intuitively make the move with the greatest likelihood of success. But thats not all. Excellent players know that turn order in the team is a form of communication. The someone in the game, having to carry out a critical move usually waits for the others to make their moves first, choosing to carry out his move later, or he commits his turn first, making a statement to his teammates, forcing them to adapt. I admit that playing in a highly competitive game with added variables and strategical options such as cards, the need for communication might rise, but in a no card game moves to a certain level all moves are pretty much predetermined.
So basically playing with such players is for people who enjoy smart plays and teammate coordination - the communication and coordination form of blind understanding.

I would say you both could take this argument over a game haha, but hand is going to want to play it in real-time and blue (im guessing) is going to want to play it multi day. Lolz.

I would have to agree with myhand, and even though on my profile it says 100% real time games, I'm currently playing and have played a few multi-day games and to be honest, it seems that most people don't think more than 3 minutes before making their move, whether it's a real-time or multi-day game. It's quite rare to see someone go change their orders an hour later because they caught a mistake. Most people just commit quickly and don't come back until it's time to make another move.

I take about 2-3 minutes to process most average sized ffa 1v1 games.. team games require coordination and cooperation that apparently myhand thinks can be done telepathically...
you watch the 1v1 ladder, there are different styles of playing.. and one person looking at the game and processing it in one way, might result in actions that are different then the result that another player processes them.. and when those plans need to mesh together, they -should- communicate and possible figure out what the best course of action is for the team.

It's not telepathically. There's a very limited amount of good moves to make, and almost all are obvious to experienced players, so there's just no need to talk about it. And even if you want to talk about it, that doesn't take more than a couple minutes regardless. Team games rarely require much coordination, because each teammate is fighting his own front. When teammates meet, you can discuss orders quickly, but not much more than a line or 2 of chat is necessary.

Returning to the original topic...
anthbes, if you want to play real-time games with players that know what they are doing, why don't you just make your own template and set very strict requirements? For example min. 300 games, less then 5% boot rate and more than 50% games won? In that case you'll have to wait longer for players to join, but you'll be almost certain that you won't be disappointed with the quality of players.

For the latter discussions, shouldn't we all just accept it depends on the type of game? Some games, like the popular 3vs3 Europe with 4 starters, no card, require the minimum amount of intel gathering and coordination. 24 out of 32 territories are taken, so we generally know from the start where the attacks would come from. When we reduce the quantity of starters and introduce, for example, an airlift card, then many turns should be discussed in the matter of how to use some spare troops. Not to mention, it's just fun to socialize ;)

I disagree with the idea that there are a limited number of good moves and that they are obvious to the more experienced players. I guess it comes down to the definition of what classifies a good move but I'm fairly confident in saying that everyone makes at least one mistake (and probably a lot more) on almost every single turn in a game of Warlight. I also would guess on average there are probably 4-5 turns per game where I don't think it's obvious at all how the turn should be played and top players would likely disagree on what the 'right' moves are.

The mistakes may be something as small as reversing the 6th and 7th order, or attacking with 18 instead of 19 attackers, or any number of small things, but over the course of a game or many games, those little mistakes add up. Most of the time, they don't matter. Occasionally they do. Minimizing those tiny mistakes is often what separates the "good" from the "great" and is the difference between winning 70% of your games and 80% of your games.

The point I'm making is that when you are given more time to make a move, you have more time to make an optimal move. What constitutes an "optimal" move increases significantly in complexity in team games, because not only do you have to account for your own play, but the play of your teammates and other factors like airlift or reinforcement cards.

I'm not arguing for or against real-time or multi-day games, I'm just saying I think the idea that a team can play as well in a 5 minute game as a multiday game is pretty ridiculous, assuming they actually care about making the right moves. Most people don't care. For those who do, multiday games are going to be far less sloppy than their 5 minute counterparts.

Personally, I like real-time games for 1v1's, and prefer multiday games for team games, because discussion makes a huge difference in those games. It may surprise some people that I prefer real-time 1v1 games, because I take my time playing ladder games, but that's mostly because if I'm given 3 days to make a move, I might as well take my time on tense moves and avoid as many mistakes as I can find.

I'm sure teams of good players who know each other well can play solid games without the need for communication and will beat the vast majority of their opponents who are probably worse players individually and also have no teamwork. However, pair them up against opponents of equal skill who communicate better and I think you'll see a noticeable difference.

i opened a game to see whether telepathy or optimality win, starring:

The Impaller
Blue Precision
Perrin3088

vs

Myhandisonfire
Heyheuhei
Choose a Finger

europe map, multiday.

Doesn't seem to be fair enough. Compare total 3v3 game record of your teams and you will see what I mean.

but that's the point. myhand claims that when you play with same team mates, it is easier to win; the impaller claims that when you have a long time to discuss strategies and moves you win, as long as you have players who play as a team. i thought the teams represented well those two philosophies. i might be wrong, though...

and the first team has players who play multiday games, whereas the second team has players who play mostly real-time games... the two different schools of thinking of warlight clash, i guess...

In that case you must set-up at least 10 games to see who's right. And instead of Perrin (who dislikes such format) put Ruthless or Duke.
Then you'll probably see "who is the bitch".

yes, you're right. not sure we can handle 10 games, though...
if perrin rejects the game, i will invite another player. i won't take him out of the game without his permission, that would be extremely rude on my part.

We will accept the challenge.

The players on the multi-day side should not much matter. It helps if they have skill and experience because they can think for themselves and contribute to the discussion of what the best course of action is. This is entirely the point, you see. I could take someone whose played the game for only a week and still have a good shot so long as they are able to communicate and are willing to listen to advice from their teammates (the less experienced, or course, it is implicit that they need to basically submit full control if your going to beat a team as skilled as what this trial is set up to be). More to the point is your team can be as strong as your strongest player should he want to take full control in multi-day, yet in real-time it is normally a medium: a strong player holds his own but a weak player drags the team down.

This discussion has turned its side on what players are better real-time or multi-day. I agree with Impaller that there is only a slight difference. In multi-day, especially 1 v 1s one can suffer from over thinking or there read that they had one a particular player is lost. Like Imp, I'm usually game to play real-time even in ladder games with anybody. I'm confident that I'll make less real-time mistakes then my opponent. In team games, however, its tough to get a read on the flow and I think it helps to view each turn as a snapshot. You ask questions to yourself and your teammates, such as: "what cards do they have?" "what where each of their deployments?" "Who tends to play aggressively vs defensively?".... the questions become more and more as the players increase and settings become more robust.

The point where I will fully agree, and back to the original post, is that in a game with no cards there is obvious moves, but only in so much that there are obvious moves NOT to make. From Impaller vs the world no vote has been a consensus. Sure there are cards but even if there weren't I'd imagine that the duplications of exact orders would be few, even among the players with the best records. Tossing my ego aside I love the chatter in team games and will normally tweak things and change them completely after a discussion with a teammate. This can be a small as Imp's example of slotting a move in a different order or adding an extra delay, or as fundamental as trying to capture a set rather then breaking one of an opponents.

@Anthebes: I cannot remember how to spell his name but using the filter is a great tool. I create quite a few games and sometimes want an infusion of new blood or good players that I have never played against. I achieve this by inviting a few players from my list and then add open seats with strict prerequisites.

I've been following this thread for the last few days and have quite enjoyed the banter back and forth and altho it was my original intention to stay out of the fray, I thought I'd post a quick blurb on my overall thoughts on the topic.

I am one of the players who started playing multi-day games when I first joined WL and have never really looked back since. Sure, the odd time (if I find myself with an at keys opponent and I have nothing better to do) I may actually sit down and play a real-time game out in one session but like Imp, I've found time and time again how many more mistakes I seem to mount up in these games versus the games where I sit back, analyze each situation independently and have the time to really make my moves count. I know BishesUpInErr mentioned that *"it's quite rare to see someone go change their orders an hour later because they caught a mistake. Most people just commit quickly and don't come back until it's time to make another move"* but I disagree with that statement (at least based on my own gameplay) as there have been a multitude of times where I've gone back an hour or even a day or two later and changed orders that I had already locked in, sometimes drastically. Coincidentally, the times I've found this to be the most beneficial are during team games where a teammate has pointed something out that I didn't see or I've adjusted my orders slightly to compensate for what orders my teammates have locked in. On the flip side of this (as BP alluded to a little bit), I've also found that *over-analyzing* my moves can sometimes cause me to botch a turn that I would have succeeded in had I just gone with my original gut instincts but for the most part, I'm pretty confident in my ability to play this game when given enough time to analyze the situations presented and make the most informed decision.

I will agree with the fact that verbal communication is not always necessary every single turn and often enough checking a teammate's orders or assuming the "logical choice" will do just fine for everyone involved but to claim that you can collect, absorb, discuss, and execute successfully on all of the available information going on during a team game every turn with consistency in a 5 min window is absolutely ludicrous. Now that's not saying that there's less skill involved in real-time games, I just believe from my experience and from what I've seen that the more time you have to analyze a situation, familiarize yourself with what's going on with the other team(s) and what they could potentially be doing, discuss tactics with teammates, the better/more informed decisions you'll be able to make on a regular basis.

In keeping with the specifics of this post, in a 3v3 game with no cards involved, I would definitely agree that the time needed to make a move should be significantly reduced based on the fewer intangibles found in that format versus a more standard *Strategic* setting. Even with that being the case (and especially when the team consists of more than 2 players), there are still moments in these types of games where I think it's absolutely necessary to take more than 5 mins to plan out a turn collectively.

Good players will play well whether it's a multi day game or real time. Bad players will screw their team unless they're paying attention and willing to listen.

Real time and multi day both have their pros and cons but overall those differences are minor and will rarely make the difference between a win and a loss.