I agree with Billy for the most part: pick in such a way as to neutralize the enemy's chances to get an unearned win and increase the chances that the game is won based on who is the better player in open space. Sze likes getting angry when people speak about game theory but don't use the words he knows from his textbooks.

The way I see the philosophical side of the game, there are at least four philosophies inherent to warlight:

1 Art of War: based on historical battles, wars, strategies, tactics, etc. from Chinese and Western sources (me)
2 Game Theory (sze)
3 Systems Theory: engineers, programmers, others think like this based on their educational background (unknown, fizzer?, hhh, faith, saladin, retro)
4 Daoism: for flow of game and balance (Chinese art of war is intimately linked to Daoism)

Ultimately, the essence of all four are more or less the same. Only the perspectives differ, which accounts for the differences in how we rank our options and what we eventually decide to do. None of us fully represent these theories, however, so our imperfect adoption of these ideas also accounts for differences.

Billy Walsh you could also stomp an AI an post it here.
Its a joke rofl
(Btw enemy didnt have double income.)

hahaha

one thing that sucks about the ladder: less time to take candy from babies in real time games :(

http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=3514762

billy, i challenge you again! you can redeem yourself.

hes not gonna accept 69! i have asked twice now and he is to scared to play those that have already beaten him

691, i will play u again once i have refined my strategy for cheap turn 1 tricks

but you still wont play me again?

Ok but if I beat u, u have to change your name to CPU BW#1 for one week

everyone plays differently, billy, i like to end it quickly rather than dragging the game. i cant comment on gui's comment since i'v never played a 1v1 against him.

PS: what will you have to change if ryan beats you, billy?

everyone plays differently, billy

Right. Most people play terrible, a few people play good. Your brand of terrible gives me problems for some reason. I thank you for bringing it to my attention and allowing me to plug that leak in my game. There are surely other similarly terrible people I will have to play in the future, and I'll want to beat them just as easily as I'll beat you after I figure out how to counter your stupid tricks.

691,

this is what a game between u and i would look like if it got passed turn 3

http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=3515098

u r going in the wrong direction now, if u keep posting long posts ppl wont even read them (like I didnt) and this will die... pls dont kill the most uninteresting entry in the forum like that

awww.. billy declined my 1v1 strategic game ;(
who wants to play me? :D

IF i win You have to change your name to CPU RYAN IS THE BEST PLAYER EVER

u r going in the wrong direction now, if u keep posting long posts ppl wont even read them (like I didnt) and this will die... pls dont kill the most uninteresting entry in the forum like that

You know, one of the things that really hurt Apple was after I left John Sculley got a very serious disease. It's the disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90% of the work. And if you just tell all these other people "here's this great idea," then of course they can go off and make it happen.

And the problem with that is that there's just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product. And as you evolve that great idea, it changes and grows. It never comes out like it starts because you learn a lot more as you get into the subtleties of it. And you also find there are tremendous tradeoffs that you have to make. There are just certain things you can't make electrons do. There are certain things you can't make plastic do. Or glass do. Or factories do. Or robots do.
Designing a product is keeping five thousand things in your brain and fitting them all together in new and different ways to get what you want. And every day you discover something new that is a new problem or a new opportunity to fit these things together a little differently.

And it's that process that is the magic.

And so we had a lot of great ideas when we started [the Mac]. But what I've always felt that a team of people doing something they really believe in is like is like when I was a young kid there was a widowed man that lived up the street. He was in his eighties. He was a little scary looking. And I got to know him a little bit. I think he may have paid me to mow his lawn or something.
And one day he said to me, "come on into my garage I want to show you something." And he pulled out this dusty old rock tumbler. It was a motor and a coffee can and a little band between them. And he said, "come on with me." We went out into the back and we got just some rocks. Some regular old ugly rocks. And we put them in the can with a little bit of liquid and little bit of grit powder, and we closed the can up and he turned this motor on and he said, "come back tomorrow."

And this can was making a racket as the stones went around.

And I came back the next day, and we opened the can. And we took out these amazingly beautiful polished rocks. The same common stones that had gone in, through rubbing against each other like this (clapping his hands), creating a little bit of friction, creating a little bit of noise, had come out these beautiful polished rocks.

That's always been in my mind my metaphor for a team working really hard on something they're passionate about. It's that through the team, through that group of incredibly talented people bumping up against each other, having arguments, having fights sometimes, making some noise, and working together they polish each other and they polish the ideas, and what comes out are these really beautiful stones.

Off topic: sorry: I'm sure the forums used to be good, now it's Bull****. I think from trolls and complete knutters (not mentioning any names) anyonelse think similar.

i think its spelled nutters