if you want perfect calculator games, gnuff, why not have cyclical orders? why not ask for light fog or no fog? then risk management will be limited to just the way you want. take your perfection all the way!

dodo commander: yeah, that is a problem. only occurs when someone creates one, then waits and no one comes and he leaves. and i think if no one joins it will get deleted automatically after a while. but in the mean time folks wanting to play have to wait in the dark. gameapi has no way to inform me of this (if the game is still beeing advertised or not, would be nice to have, have to ask fizzer), but i guess i could also add custom dates and check the time difference and delete the game if it's taking too long. have other things to take care of first though. but thanks for the feedback.

can you make this same ladder with 75% luck for non-members and members?

having non-members play would reduce the wait for games. and 75% luck is more suitable to the map than 0% round.

i can't make it 75% with OpenSeats, it's a GameAPI restriction. i told you this on chat the other day Gui. And without open seats folks would need to go to the site, there is much less visibility.

gameapi has no way to inform me of this (if the game is still beeing advertised or not, would be nice to have, have to ask fizzer)

Real-time games expire from the Open Games tab after an hour. See http://wiki.warlight.net/index.php/Open_Seats

at 75% only members would be able to join? that is odd.

(i didn't understand what type of visibility you were referring to before. but having a CLOT at 75% for non-members to play too would the most enjoyable i think. if it didnt have an open seat game to be created, i'd just make my own -- requiring that the host clicks start before the game starts -- and advertise my search for an opponent)

another possibility: why not make the 1v1 autogame a real-time CLOT in a very basic way: let players keep track of their wins/losses, and allow non-members to play, just as they are allowed to create and play the autogame already?

Qi: any open seat scenario using GameAPI only members can join.

i'm actually thinking Fizzer will soon realize the high value or realtime ladders and make a proper official version of it. lot of gaming sites have this realtime ladder thing where they pair together whoever is online with closest rank to go at it and it has been mentioned a few times before. realtime ladders with CLOT feels abit silly since it uses so many calls to the API and has to reinvent so much of the site (users being online looking for open games). but well, that's my personal hope and expectation.

true. without clots being on wl's main site (the visibility i thought you were referring to, ps), they will never reach their full potential in terms of participation rates.

just think of the 1v1 ladder:
- if you create a game from scratch, one of the first maps you see is ME
- built-in auto games: 1v1 and 2v2 me
- realtime game with open seats: 1v1 me
- first thing most see on the dashboard: 1v1 ladder
- additional me visibility: 2v2 ladder, most seasonal ladders & ladder stats on profiles

people who would never care to play 1v1 or 2v2 me end up playing it. many people learn to prefer it due in large part to its visibility. yet neither template is absolutely the best for 1v1s or 2v2s.

if visibility can make people prefer to play an ok template (1v1 me) and a below average template (2v2 me), i'm sure it could do more for better templates.

I second that. Maybe we should petition fizzer to realize a realtime ladder.
Or better even, multiple ladders on multiple maps.

Please join someone again :( I want to play :(

i think the template has too many wastelands, giving not many variation with 5 picks each person

After playing the map more, I found some things I didn't quite like. So I updated the map: http://warlight.net/SinglePlayer.aspx?PreviewMap=22091.

Now I'm waiting for Fizzer to confirm this update. If PS wants to use the map still, he will have to update his template.

Changes:
- Bonus values decreased: small maps with a lot of income are a bit odd; ancient armies didn't field many troops in battle too; and this will make larger, previously underpicked territories more valuable.
- Athens and Sparta gained 1 territory in their bonuses.
- I deleted one territory from three underpicked bonuses (NE Pel, N/S Cyclades) to make them more valuable.
- I deleted 3 bonuses in Anatolia (I didn't like how those bonuses played out).

I think 3-4 starts would be better for the updated map, especially if the number of wastelands is not reduced.

The map and the settings used by ps were interesting and unique. Not everyone could handle them equally well since they differed a lot from 1on1 me. Now you streamlined it into something that forces the same overused and boring strategies as in 1on1 me.

Why did you do that in the running ladder?
Was it really necessary?

If you like it, ask Fizzer to have two maps.

I made changes based on what I think would make the MAP better, not based on what is best for one of many possible TEMPLATES. I played the map more in the last week than I had previously. More games = more thoughts about the map.

I like your assumptions about streamlining. You haven't even played the updated map! lol

No, I havent played it yet, but i looked at it.
I don`t need to play a map to have a first impression of how the games will be like, or how they will change to a previous version of a map that i played. Its called abstraction and if i werent able to do that, i shouldnt play warlight at all.
Its not 100% accurate but i can make a fair estimation of what will change.

Of course i know its your map and you are free to do what you want with it, but changing it in the midst of the most successful of ps new ladders, without giving anybody heads up, the participants/community or ps for that matter?
Don`t you think that was egoistical and could have been handled better?
Did the though never even cross your mind?

That was why i asked if it was really neccessary.

Q&As

...changing it in the midst of the most successful of ps new ladders...

if ps made a strat 1v1 real-time ladder it'd be more successful. more people like that than greece. just compare the two maps' total number of votes and average map rating. this is my version of 'abstraction'...

...without giving anybody heads up, the participants/community or ps for that matter?

i wrote that it would be changed before it was changed. if fizzer feels a need to not change anything, he won't.

Don`t you think that was egoistical and could have been handled better?

no. i don't really think it is that important. if a lot of people cry out "qi, bring back the older version! the new version is no good!" i will. the old versions of maps are all saved in every mapmaker's account. but i think the new map is better than the old map. if i didn't i wouldn't have changed anything.

Did the though[t] never even cross your mind?

yes, it never did.

----------------

have you ever seen the map preview page for the version of greece you like? have you noticed that Ionian League was always a bonus on the map? i just made it the principal bonus instead of an auxiliary bonus.

have you ever looked at NE Peleponnese carefully? isn't it odd that isthmus and corinth are so small?

have you read the map reviews for the map? the most common complaint: "there are too many connections in the islands." by deleting an island in 2 cyclades bonuses i decreased the number of connections there from 6 to 1 where syros used to be and from 4 to 1 where ios used to be.

and since giving athens and sparta 3 for 3 territories is not good and making them equal to less important bonuses with 3 territories isn't good, i added salamis to athens' bonus (it once belonged to athens) and cythera to sparta (it once belonged to sparta). now sparta and athens can be worth 2-4, while evia and messina (the only bonuses with 3 territories left on the map) can be worth 1. sparta/athens > evia/messina. this makes it slightly more historical and realistic. do you think this changed much? now, messina and evia have more value as counters.

differences in picks between the two map versions:

- fewer total picks in anatolia per game (fewer bonuses to pick): this pulls the map's center of gravity toward greece proper more
- evia and messinia won't be picked as much
- the 2 cyclades and north ageian islands will have more picks
- thrace has greater value, so that somewhat offsets the fewer picks in anatolia
- central aegian islands are safer (since there are less picks in anatolia), so that somewhat offsets the loss of picks in anatolia
- dodecanese is safer now, since anatolia has fewer picks, so this somewhat offsets the loss of the anatolian picks and stretches the map's center of gravity SE a bit
- epirus and crete are more attractive, so they stretch the map's center of gravity to the periphery a bit

mutli-day RR: http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer?TournamentID=4782

some people play so slowly in real-time it is almost the same as a multi-day RR. so let's just make it one.