It's happening way too much and causing conflicts, even with players who are not new to Warlight, and I'm getting really tired of it. Whenever it happens on my team now I just surrender first turn because I am bored of trying to resolve conflicting picks on the first turns while the other team builds up bonuses.

Maybe to solve this we could have an option for players to dispute their team mates' picks?

now would this option cause less problems by forcing people to work together.. or more problems by causing elitists to wait for the others to double check their orders, and trolls to just constantly contest without reason?

I'd rather wait a few minutes each game if it meant this didn't happen any more, and trolls are going to troll no matter what we do, at least it will out them for us before the game gets going and allow us to blacklist them and vote to end games.

Perhaps if there was a way to subtly highlight territories already selected by teammates.

Good suggestion imo chewie. Also, this could be made to be an option by the host, there's no reason why it would have to be compulsory.

You surrender when it happens? That's ridiculous.

Don't get me wrong - I hate when it happens. But I've been able to pull out victories despite the mixed up starts. To quit on your team despite some lazy moron not checking shouldn't cause you to immediately bail.

I don't personally support giving trolls ammunition.. especially when the primary ammunition besides troll bait is mainly for elitists to -force- players to play the way the most outspoken individual wants, rather then multiple individuals attempting to play as a team...
If something like this was implemented, except in rare rare circumstances, the act of someone using it on me would result in my immediate surrender... if you want to make my moves for me, become a multi, otherwise deal with playing with -me- the way I play..

I support requiring an additional step to verify your initiation into a game, after having joined it.. despite it being additional troll fodder.. however this troll fodder will be -only- usable at the beginning, rather then possible to ruin a good game midway through.. and would serve the purpose of ensuring the team is capable and ready to communicate with each other prior to actually having started the game.

good idea chewie.
highliting chosen territories would make life easier in team games . especially in the ones of 6 or 10 players in one team.

Yeah I really like the idea of having your teamates picks show up, maybe just displayed in a faded see through version of their color. This would help new players out a lot because some of them don't know how to check orders, and it would help lazy ones out (like me), especially in large team games.

Highlighting teammate picks and / or orders would be great.
Or as an alternative I'd like to see a button to turn on a kind of team overlay with all teammates' orders combined. Much like step 3, just before you hit commit.
Oh and can we have wastelands show up as well on the fogged terrain? It is a pain in the a.. to always skip back through history 1st to make sure there isn't a 10er in a bonus ...

@ Diabolicus: press "home" and you're back to the start in the history panel, very easy and pretty quick

Unfortunately there is no "home" button on my cell phone.
Well, actually there is, but it has a different function :-)
Still wouldn't hurt to have some kind of indicator on the fogged territories if they where wastelanded from the start?