and i completely disagree with Latnox, using regular shapes would just be boring.

Now all that it needs is anonymous bots with different strategies (Didn't 125ch209, Norman and Trogatog post their source code?) and you'll create a real challenge.

Yeah that would be awesome :) But a lot more complicated as well. My own was easy because it's written in PHP and therefore doesn't need to be compiled or executed in order to make it run on a website.

But I still hope Fizzer will eventually incorporate one of the bots into Warlight.

Here's a little teaser for you guys. I've been working on the next Warlight AI competition and so far I'm really happy with how it's going. The image below are 4 screenshots of what the maps in the next competition will be like. They are randomly generated as promised :)

Keep in mind that it's still a work in progress, but let me know what you guys think.



Connections between the islands still have to be made somehow, that's my next step.

Hello Jim

OK, I have been thinking a couple minutes about those four maps and here are my thoughts:

- Aesthetics seems nice though not my field of expertise and I don't really care.

- The shapes of the bonuses / territories are very good so far. Some bonuses have a strategic advantage over other bonuses since they border multiple territories of the other bonus but not vice versa. I see the opportunity for trick moves where you stack against your opponent and then move your stack away to threaten another territory making the stack of your opponent useless.

- How the islands play out depends on how many connections you make between them and the other land masses. Looking just at a single island however it's not possible anymore to just sit the opponent out at a strategically strong position (North Africa at Small Earth map). However there still are strategically strong positions but holding such a position isn't a an automatic game winner anymore.

- I don't agree with the size of the bonuses. It seems like Asia in the Small Earth Map inspired you to make 11 territories maximum. However in the Small Earth map bonuses like the 9 territory North America only come into play when there is a stalemate. Since this time the maps seem to be more open I only expect some local stalemates when someone is holding a strong position but there shouldn't be any global stalemates anymore. With a global stalemate I mean a situation where both players can neither attack nor flank the other player. In this map the big bonuses will probably only come into play to cross them while it isn't worth fighting for them. This will take much of the action out of the game. In the Medium Earth map the biggest bonuses have 7 territories. If you cap the max territories per bonus at a lower level the games will play out completely different and much more interesting.

Jim, its Amazing!
Agree with Norman in all his thougths.

Additionally could say that big bonuses could be playable not only on maps with possible stalemates, but also on bigger maps. Actually this demo maps are very small. Normal map size is 90-150 regions. Above normal map size 150-200. And big maps is >200. I would expect maps with different sizes.

Small issue: bonus income is not currently displayed. Maby you can display it in some small circle inside bonus (somewhere in border of regions inside bonus)? Or it could be tooltip when hover mouse over any region of bonus (but it is not so clearly for human).

Also you can think about adding cyclic connections of bonuses, its when most left bonuses on map connected with most right, and most top bonuses connected with most bottom. It gives more freedom in piking, because without this connections picks in center of map would give more advantage, then picks in some corner (more space for expand -> more quick expand).

But currently very good job, keep on!

Edited 8/3/2014 15:22:32