Ace Windu wrote:
|> Well, as people have said, 1v1 strategic games are often decided on turn 1 even if the players don't know it and I really don't think that's a good thing. The situation was even worse when the seasonal ladder had light fog. Any good 1v1 player would know who was going to win a lot of the games just by looking at the picks.
|> There is definitely far too much significance put on picks which are also decided by chance to some degree. Remember it's not just who gets the first pick that's decided but all your other picks can be decided on that basis.
This whole discussion about 1v1 ladder distribution came up a few times already over the past months, and it is good to see that players still care about it.
Like I said before, I think the main problem with the 1v1 ladder and it's predictability is not the picking itself, it is the fact that picking of territories and initial distribution of armies are not separated. (Eventually) knowing that my opponent started in South Pole, Mexico and Sweden is not what makes the game predictable. Knowing that he started there with 4 armies each is what really takes a lot of strategy and variation away.
If instead the initial distribution of armies were completely separated from the picking of territories and would happen as an additional step between picking and turn 1, then the game would be MUCH more interesting.
If you like the idea let me point you to the UserVoice entry I made for this:
http://warlight.uservoice.com/forums/77051-warlight-features/suggestions/2286567-free-deployment-of-initial-armies
Here is how things COULD be:
a) both players place their picks
b) game advances, players see which (three) picks they actually got and which ones they didn't get, players can also see if their starting spots are adjacent to the opponent's spots.
c) players distribute their initial armies (12 armies for example) freely among their starting positions.
d) in case a player decides to leave a territory completely empty, i.e. he places no armies there, that particular territory reverts back to a neutral with 4 armies in it.
(or VARIANT: d) a territory left empty by a player turns into another 10er wasteland)
e) game advances, proceed with turn 1.