I've played in the ladder and loads of tournaments earlier, and still do on other account with over 2k games. ME is a fine map but lately I've mainly played on different maps, several tournaments on Battle Islands V and some other maps like volcano island. Fizzer's new Heavy Earth seems very interesting as well.

True, I dislike too much luck in competitive games/sports. That's why I like the 0% + SR, which still leaves luck in the game, but at least not when it comes to 3v2 attacks.

What are those ugly unintended consequences you mentioned? So far I had really good games (won or lost) with these settings and at least they were not decided by failed attacks or high risk play.

Nothing wrong with keeping it the way it is, but I'm interested in different opinions. This is not a crusade to change the game.

@ R+A: thanks for the constructive feedback, really helpful...

Hannibal: that is such a brilliant idea.

Chaos: the unintended consequences were what I was talking about in my other posts: emphasis on expanding middle and late game, calculating being all important, overall the game being less complex.

This is based off my experience with season 5.

The luck factor is a part of the game you need to deal with, and your calculus can be as rigorous and thorough as you want to. It means you have to be more flexible on mere reasoning, it doesn't mean the game gets uneven considering both players can do the maths exactly the same way.
Pick your favourite way to think your games, please don't say the game is less interesting with a luck factor you'd like to ignore just because it's easier to do so ^^

Easier? We all know the possible outcomes with luck, no need to calculate it any more, and I'm sure nobody ever does for the common situations. You attack with 3 on 2, calculate all you want, but the only way to see the exact outcome it to see the next turn. We deal with other luck factors already.

"Personally I don't see any reasons to play with (16%) luck. All it does is force you to gamble a lot on 3v2 attacks early on."
Do any of the top players actually do that?
Have to agree with the majority here. 16% luck is maybe a little too high (it IS annoying when a 7v4 fails) but 0% luck + straight round puts a huge emphasis on micro in the opening stages, which in turn makes picking well even more critical. And given that picks already decide the majority of games in Strategic 1v1 I don't think that's a good idea for that particular template anyway. Personally I tend to prefer 0% luck + weighted round.

sometimes you have to rely on 3vs2 attacks. Pretty disgusting if you lose some of them

@Hannibal: The ratings are modified based on who gets the first pick. If you get first pick and you win, your rating boost will be lower than if your had gotten it. Cumulative luck is a bit trickier, sometimes cumulative luck graph can show +5 armies for one person, on the other hand it had no consequences to the game and the winner got crucial 1st order... Very hard to aggregate overall "luck" in the game.

@R+A=R, A not 0: Even with weighted random a lot of the time you can find an optimal strategy, a lot of the time it's a dominant strategy, sometimes a Nash equilibrium in mixed strategies, so if you really want to push that argument, you should not play the game at all, since you can always calculate expected value and variation.

Of course every template is different and which is the preferable luck setting is debatable, depending what goal we have in mind. My preferred standard is 0% luck weighted random. Of course 16%<0% luck, since it is pretty much the same, except turns attack that are 95% accurate (like 7vs4) and turns them into 100%. Since income is a scarce resource in warlight, we rely on attacks that are >95% accurate (unless there is a very specific reason not to do it) so it really comes in handy when you want your 7vs4 not to miss, calculation is simply easier. 16% luck was implemented for 4vs2 attacks to be 100% accurate, since that is the most common type of attack on almost every template, since 2 as a neutral is a standard, but the very same argument can be made for 14% lick and 12% luck for 5vs3 and 7vs4 to be accurate respectively. 0% luck makes the calculatoin just much easier. Now for the straight round vs weighted round, both have some advantages, but I dislike the first for the very same reason I don't like cyclic orders: it overcentralises the game. Contrary to popular beliefs, managing 4vs2 and 3vs2 attack is a very important part of skill in warlight and you should recognize when you can and when you cannot use them. The problem with straight round I have it overcentralises the game around expansion. Expansion is almost always preferred since it is A LOT more cost-effective then in weighted round due to 3vs2 being always successful and neutrals killing only 1 on defense leaving maximum amount of leftovers possible. On many templates it allows you to search for optimal picking strategies, for example 2vs2 0% luck straight round manual warlords with 4 starts on europe is broken because of the rounding system, I am confident that setting has 1 dominant strategy with very small tweaks. Take back straight round, ut opens up many possibilities. Similarily cyclic orders make attack and defense so much easier since you know when you can rely on 1st order and when you cannot, that allows for much less refined strategies in both attack and defense. Straight round I think works very well on small maps where leftovers and further expansion will not be a problem e.g. my turkey 1vs1 template. I am probably in a minority, but I'll always prefer 0% luck weighted round.

a bit hard to read through that big paragraph, but I agree that 0% luck and WR seems a good compromise. I only tried this a few times, but it seems good.
It does make the 3v2 the same as with SR though.

Maybe it's a matter of playing around with the different numbers for luck? Try everything from 0% to 16% and compare the odds and outcomes. If there is a setting that guarantees 3v2, but could leave you with 1 or 2 remaining armies, that might be a solid choice.

Anyone tried with 3 on the neutrals and more income or starting armies?

Even with 0% luck, 3v2 is only guaranteed with straight round. I believe that was the reason straight round was implemented, to specifically allow a setting for 3v2 to always work.

I forget the season number, but there was a season that used 3 army neutrals. It was the season with the Oceania map. Lots of test cases there, if you want to go back and watch the games.

I see, must have made a mistake in testing the 0% and SR. How about x% luck and SR?

3V2 is always a risk and you know it when you risk it, so i don't see the problem.
what bothers me is when you fail to take a 5 territory bonus in 2 turns while putting a pick + all your income there, it can delay you a full turn (i mean when you attack 4V2 and 4V2, both leave behind 2, and you fail the 3V2 you were forced to do).

Huhuhuhuhahaha! Don't change a thing. The game is fine just the way it is. If anything needs changing it's how some people appreciate the game. Huhuhuhuhuhahaha!

3v2, 5v3, and 7v4 are all guaranteed with 16% luck or less on straight round.
3v2 cannot be guaranteed on weighted random. In straight round, even with 16% luck, 3 will always leave 2 left on . (2*70%*84%)+(2*16%)=1.496 armies killed, rounded down to 1.
5v3 is guaranteed on 0% luck with weighted random.
7v4 is guaranteed on 4% luck with weighted random.

Guaranteed is a weird word. I keep on thinking I'm spelling it wrong. :/ As for the current luck setting, I feel like there's enough randomness to let it be.

I think that both weighted random as well as straight rounding settings are competitively equally viable settings, provided of course low luck values are used. On one hand, you have the calculated risk taking games with weighted random, forcing strategies such as Sze described. On the other, there's the merciless no-luck settings which have an emphasis on micro skills and careful analysis. It's highly interesting to see that such a small change in the settings can provide a totally different gameplay experience, and I enjoy alternating between them.

That said, I think Gui's idea of selecting a couple of balanced 1v1 templates in order to create a Ladder map rotation would be a good idea as quite evidently the Strategic 1v1 template is hardly the ultimate quantifier of skill level anymore. After all, the different luck settings completely change around the metagame. Moreover, it would make the Ladder a lot less stale and tedious as many players seem to find it. And a more fun to play Ladder would definitely attract more players and increase its competitiveness as a result.

[中国阳朔]Chaos posted:

Anyone tried with 3 on the neutrals and more income or starting armies?

Three on neutrals is actually quite the brilliant setting and I've had a lot of fun playing around with that one. Both random round or straight round settings work well, but with random round you'd definitely need to go with 0% luck, as that's the only setting that allows 100% success rate on 5v3*. The straight round version with 3 on neutrals is most notably used in the 7v7 games in the Nations Cup, with great success (it's become kind of a personal favourite to me). The key in taking down 3 on neutrals with straight round lies in the fact that you can take it with 1v3 + 3v2. It takes the same losses as 5v3, but needs one army less to overtake. As a result, one needs to plan their micro out even more than the same settings with 2 on neutrals, as you'd need to factor in hitting neutrals with 1's from adjacent territories and such. For team games, this means that players can help their teammates create bonusses faster than they could on their own if they have adjacent lands to the bonus they want to complete.

As far as random round settings go with these neutrals, it would play out largely the same as with 2 on neutrals, but acquiring cards would be tougher as safe takeovers are expensive to make when under enemy pressure. I'm not sure, but logic would therefore suggest it rewards offensive play more due to this if the reinforcement card is in play. The player with the initiative would have more opportunities to make safe takeovers, thus getting reinforcements faster, which can then be used to press the advantage even further. Theorizing the matter even further, getting back in the game when you're behind would be more difficult than with two on neutrals, as you cannot start employing more risky tactics to turn the game around. With standard neutrals, you could switch to 3v2 and try to use luck to make up for your disadvantage, but since 4v3 only has 40% chance of succeeding, this tactic would generally not pay off.

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*Compare: season III, I believe, was on East Asia & Oceania with 3 on neutrals and 16% luck. With those settings, 5v3 had only 94% chance of success, which resulted in some players being highly screwed over thanks to one of these attacks failing in the early game. If such a failure resulted in a turn delay in making the first bonus, it was basically a guaranteed defeat. It was one of the reasons why people started questioning the luck settings, eventually leading to the implementation of straight round.

“Chaos is inherent in all compounded things. Strive on with diligence.”