To start, I am sorry if this has already been suggested, but...

Most/All chess sites allow you to "analyze" tool which allows you to open a new window and make theoretical moves for both yourself and your opponent starting from the current position on the board. Of course warlight is slightly different what with fog settings and simultaneous moves, but I think this would be a useful feature to implement.

Here is how it could work for a game with regular fog:

On any turn you can enter the analyze window, since your territory and income is known that will remain as is. For your opponent, all visible territories and troops on the board are displayed, and you are asked to input your best guess for their income. You would then have the option to designate territories hidden by fog as controlled by your opponent based on your knowledge of their starts and possible route of expansion based on their theoretical income.

Once theoretical income and territories are input, you are allowed to manipulate where both yours and your opponents incomes are deployed, and you can then make attack/transfer orders for both you and your opponent and run the turn (as well as the next turns after that). Of course actual turns would not reflect theoretical turns exactly depending on luck settings/move order, but it would still help in planning.

I basically do this in my head anyway, but it would be nice to have a visual to work with (also after imagining five turns in the future or so it gets hard to keep track of everything). I think it would also help newer players learn the meta-game of trying to predict the opponent.

Thoughts?

Great thought, though difficult to make due to all the formulas that would have to be involved, especially for every single scenario.

It would not be difficult to make at all. All the program would need to do would be copy settings, and copy information known by you (basically what its going on in territories you border), then allow you to manipulate things from there. Once you are satisfied you would hit finished then watch the turn just as it normally works

It would be on the user to input scenarios they think are likely, not the program. Does that make sense? Not sure if my wording is clear

This is a great idea but would be a disadvantage to players who don't know all to use it or well perhaps having an option whether to include it in games.

Yeah, allowing attacks is a disadvantage for players who don't know how to attack also ;)

Joking aside, I understand that reasoning. I suppose it is the same as the "attack only" and "transfer only" options, so sure, treat it the same as those. As long as it is included in auto games I would be happy.

I think this would hardly be very useful.. If your guesses at their income and their position are any good then that's already enough to "know" what to do.. If they're not precise then the whole simulation phase will be compromised.. Also, because as you say there are many variables to the game, there is no way a 5-turns simulation would ever turn out to be of any use even if the starting conditions were perfect..

The main problem is that this sort of simulation based analysis is hardly of any value for incomplete-knowledge based games. As you say these sort of things are good for chess and similar full-knowledge games..

Well regarding the usefulness, I know I would find it useful (that's why I proposed it). There are plenty of times I would like to visualize turns in the future, for example if I know my opponent has a large stack 4 territories away from my bonus I want to see how possible the methods to deal with it would work, or to map the best expansion method in the zero luck seasonals.

The point is not to give you a representation of exactly what would happen, its just a visual aid for move planning. We already have an analyze tool, this would just be a more in-depth and useful one.

Yeah, there are certainly times when I have enough information to plan, but I can't seem to hold all my thoughts together at the same time. It's enough that I might consider writing it down and doing the math out. A function like this would be much better.

The main issue seems to be with a simulation creator, as that seems like a good bit more to code than the rest. There's a way to make custom scenarios now, but it's within the game creation system, and I bet that it can't just be ported over.

I admit I know nothing about coding, so I am not sure how much work it would take. Maybe it is wishful thinking, but I feel like all the parts are in place, they just need to be put together in a new way, so it wouldn't be too bad. But someone with more experience might know otherwise.

I definitely agree,

A tool like this would make calculating backwards through your opponents turns reliable. A sandbox could also be used to save my assumptions and calculations day to day, so that in multiday I don't have to play through the history 3 times when I come back to a game. It would also mean I could see how the board looked to my opponent which might help in predicting their moves.

This all good also we would have to consider whether a function will cause lag when loading or performing an action it seems such a complex thing will lag a lot and help in booting lots of players.

Any programers out there that could help us understand the complexity of programming this, possible lag caused by it, or any other issues we are unaware of?

It sounds like a lot of work to put together compared to a lot of the UserVoice suggestions, that is for sure. But I don't see how it could cause performance issues like lag.

If you think through the specifics of how the interface should work in detail, you'll realise that all the parts definitely are not in place :)