I just realized I joined warlight a year 5 months ago.. It didn't feel like that long..

another 10 months and I'll be half of Fizzers age.. wooo..?

I dunno when I joined, but I know when I really started playing. Was when I moved here about 6 months ago. More like 180 days, because I know my visa needs another stamp.

it shows join date, and membership date on your profile..
If I remember properly, I was the first member *besides Fizzer*.. but I could of been beat out by a few other players that were online when I was sleeping..
that was also a long time ago.. almost a year now..?

You hafta consider what membership costs, relatively speaking. It costs much more here, relatively, than it does for people living in the US.

I've heard people talk about the benefits of higher luck, but really, it just allows for some very odd situations to occur and break somebody who shouldn't have been broken.

I'd actually be in favor of high luck if there was a built in rebound factor for when it really screwed you or worked in your favor.

So, if you attacked 10 into 8 and won with zero casualties, you get a negative score that influences future fights until it evens out. The person who lost that fight gets a positive modifier that helps them to win in the future.

Right now, a person can lose a fight they should have won while their enemy wins a fight they should have lost, and there is nothing to compensate the fact that luck was the only deciding factor. The very next fight can go the same way and benefit the same player.

While I get what you are saying Duke, my problem is that it's not realistic.

For one, in statistics it's a basic rule that past outcomes should have zero impact on future outcomes. Each action is an independent instance.

And second, it's far from realistic. There have been plenty of instances in military history where outnumbered forces won (sometimes decisively) or evenly matched forces were routed. Making it some cosmic balance just makes no sense in a real-world construct.

actually, it makes sense realisticly to be quite the opposite.. if your military of 20,000 invades a place with a 7,000 man military.. and in a single skirmish you lose 5,000 while they only lose 700, it will provide a morale handicap to the larger army, showing them that they are more likely to lose, many of them will desert, and the smaller force will be encouraged by their past success... these factors would lend that the force that 'luck' favors, would actually be the force that gains advantage

I think the main difference between high luck likers and low luck likers are the preference between consistency and realism

TexasJohn said:
|> Because, while this game might be BASED on Risk, it ain't Risk.

Risk was just an (the obvious) example. The same goes for the dice rolls in each and every other dice-based game out there, the order in which you draw your cards in card-based games, etc.

|> I learned the basics of WL, like I expect most people did, on 1v1 autogames, or games created by friend who are members. As such, I learned to play with proper (in my mind, 15%) luck. But many of the strategies one develops for 15% luck games are simply useless in a game with 75%.

Many of the strategies one develops for no-cards games (or reinforcements-cards-only games) are equally useless when abandon/blockade/airlift/diplomacy cards are in play. Strategies that work against the AI are by no means assured to work against real players (and vice-versa!). Strategies that work well on small maps might not work on big maps and strategies that work well on heavily-interconnected maps won't work on maps riddled with choke points. I think you see where I'm going...?
The way I see it (and you are of course fully entitled to disagree) is that one of the biggest attractions of this game is its near-limitless tuneability. If you only want to play at 16% luck, by all means, go ahead. But I don't think it makes much sense to act like people who disagree with you must be crazy. Different settings require different styles and strategies.
I'll probably get a membership someday, but the disability to select a luck level in no way speeds up my lameness (the limitations to the custom scenario editor and the fact it's the right thing to do are much more important if you ask me).

|> If you don't hate 75% luck, I wonder if you have ever spent 3 turns trying to break a neutral (4v2, 4v1, 4v1) before you get it. That's bullshit, in my opinion.

Sure that's bullshit, but there's two things you didn't mention:

- It works both ways: every once in a while you get ridiculously lucky, holding a territory you should've lost (or, capturing a territory which should've hold out against your invasion).
- It's a game of chance (in my mind; if you only play games at 16% luck, you might disagree :p ), so every once in a while, such bullshit is just part of it. Losing a Grand Prix or Indy race due to a flat tire is also incredibly lame, but there too, it's just part of the game. (On a related note, if you don't like luck..., why don't you simply turn it all the way down to 0%??)

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The Duke of Ben said:
|> I'd actually be in favor of high luck if there was a built in rebound factor for when it really screwed you or worked in your favor.

Wouldn't that kinda defeat the purpose? Why have luck if you're going to force it to even-out in the long run anyway? Wouldn't it be a lot more sensible to simply do away with luck instead...?

Obviously, there is some psychological rule in play here, which I cannot identify, in which "random" events only piss you off if they go against you. Certainly it happens to me. I cry every time, when, in a ladder game, the opponent gets 3 or 4 first moves in a row. Yet I NEVER cry when it works out in my favor. I cannot comment on the times when I get "lucky" in 75% luck games, because I never play them. It is simply a matter of chocolate vs vanilla (not sure which is which, btw). I don't like 75% luck, so I don't play them.

You are precisely right on the psychology of it. I know I only notice the instances where luck works against me (like having 7v4 fail twice in one game on 16%) and am utterly oblivious in those instances where it works in my favor.

That being said, I prefer to play games with a decent luck percentage (at least in my addled brain). It is honestly the reason why I bought a membership (that and Christmas money). Chaos, my previous benefactor, was too busy with ladder games and forcefully suggested I just buy my own account to create all the games I wanted. And he is not a man (physically, if not mentally), to be messing with.

Hey guys, interesting discussion :-).

Does anyone know the precise probabilty for a fail of an attack of 4 verus a 1 neutral. Analyze function says 99% success meaning 1% fail. But i d like to know a more precise value.

Depends on the luck percentage.

At 75% luck and 60% offensive kill rate, it's **0.01024**, or **1.024%**.

Thank you, Segrain. So the 1% already was quite precise.

BTW ... dont know if someone has noticed how brilliantly my opponent calling himself "Master-Chief" took bonus in turns 1 to 3. ALL his attacks from a 4 on a 2-neutral, not less than 8 in sequence, worked and gave him a quite honorable bonus after 3 turns. Just wonder how likely this is .... :D

Analyze tool says 88% chance of winning 4vs2 with 75% luck (too lazy to do the actual math).

Thus the chance of successfully winning 8 straight attacks is 0.88^8 = 36%... hardly an unreasonable result.

Hello Richard,

sorry, thats a misunderstanding. With "attack from a 4" i mean the attack on the 2-neutral is done with 3 attacking troops. So 8 such attacks in sequence worked for "Master-Chief" in turns 1,2 and 3. Excuse me for expressing myself so ambiguously.

I'm too lazy to calculate precise chance of 3vs2 attack, but according to Analyze tool it's about 0.69, so **0.0513798374428641** for eight of them, or about **5.138%**.