Unfortunately, while Warlight can handle large numbers of armies on the board, competitive games never really get to see such numbers, as the game normally ends by the time anyone has over 30 armies per turn on competitive templates. Most templates are also designed so that it simply wouldn't make sense for a map to have more than a hundred armies on the board in most games.

However, this doesn't always make sense from a numerical perspective: when you're fighting over a region and you are gaining an income of 4 Meaningless Units Per Turn, what exactly does that mean? What is the real equivalent of an "army" and why are the numbers so small?

And then the question: what kind of settings would make larger amounts of armies possible in competitive settings, yet still make sense to the competitive player's point of view?

I'd like to make a suggestion, bear with me.

If we are to treat each player's income as a true economy, why not introduce margin trading to the game?

Essentially, you have income x. The mystical Bank of Warlight would be willing to loan you y income this turn, similar to a reinforcement card, but the bank expects to be repaid. So, you are in debt to the Bank for x number of turns and you must pay back the loan, either by loss of income during the loan's duration or by forfeiting armies already on the board. The game settings could potentially allow a flat-fee loan or a loan with a percentage-based interest rate.

With this, income not only plays as normal, but also can be used as critical moments to leverage the game: you must use the debt in a way that can justify the loan, or you could turn a good/equal/losing position into a much worse one if the Bank of Warlight forces you to repay it at a bad moment. ;)

I mean, come on, right now there's no way for the "neutral" armies to win, right? Why must they get bashed over and over, game after game, for nothing? Give 'em some fun!

An example, then: if player A has 45 armies per turn vs player B's 50 armies per turn, let's say the Bank of Warlight would be willing to loan each player up to 50% of the income the player has, so player A could be loaned 67.5 armies while player B could be loaned 75 armies.


If player A takes the loan, at 5% interest for 3 turns, he gains 68 armies but loses 17 per turn for 3 turns.

If player B takes the loan, at 5% interest for 3 turns, he gains 75 armies but loses 25 armies per turn for 3 turns.


I think using such a setting would be highly entertaining to Warlight's beancounters, and would make it possible to play templates competitively with higher incomes at stake. At the very least, Warlight's neutrals would become much, much richer. :)

Potentially very interesting, but it becomes a quite different game altogether, IMHO. Not just in gameplay, but also in the philosophy of simplicity. In other words, I would really like to see a game that implements something along these lines, but I just don't see it being WarLight that does it. Maybe an indie game?

This would be comparable to the settings like multi-attack and commanders I think; some templates would have it for those who enjoy playing it, but not all of Warlight needs it.

What is the chance of it getting implementing into a game? I estimate it to be quite low. Somewhat it is interesting, but more of economics than what Warlight tries to be.

Warlight as risk-type customisable board-game strategy has economic underline concepts in light of for example territory value, investment (armies lost) required to yield the bonus (absolute increase in armies per turn). Borrowing and estimating armies is too odd in this game concept. I advise to look any Business simulator games for this type of concept where borrowing is put into more realistic settings.