Please vote on whether or not you would like the 1v1 ladder (and the Strategic 1v1 template) switch from starting players with 5 armies on each territory to 4 armies on each territory.

Click here to vote

Since this poll pertains to the ladder, only WarLight members may vote. Anyone can view the poll, it just won't accept your vote if you're not a member.

The poll will close on September 19th. You have until then to make up your mind. The voting link above allows you to change your vote at any time before then (simply click the link and vote again and your old vote will be thrown away.)

If you'd like, feel free to leave a reply to this thread explaining what you voted and why. It's a good way to persuade those who are on the fence!

Please, 4.

4 armies per territory does a few things:

It severely limits the ability for players to complete bonuses on turn 1. Turn 1 bonuses create a huge LUCK based aspect to the ladder that doesn't add anything of value. When a player gets a bonus on turn 1 and the other player doesn't, that player is significantly favored to win the game. Considering that most of the time, whether or not a player gets a bonus on turn 1 is essentially a coin flip (the chances to turn 1 Scandinavia, Central America, or Antartica with 3 3x2 attacks is roughly 50%) having numerous games decided on that fact alone is an undesirable feature for the ladder.

It slows down the beginning of the game, which allows for more strategy on how players want to expand early on, and puts more value in making correct decisions on expansion starting from turn 1. If you can get all 3 of your starting spots by turn 3 then it generally doesn't matter that much if you deploy or attack optimally. If that process is slowed down, then there is more room for skill in how players choose to expand initially.

The one downside I see is that people will probably make a lot of 3x2 attacks on the first turn of the game using the 3 attackers you start with, and those attacks have a chance to fail. This can add a luck component to the game, however, unlike turn 1 bonuses, I think this is a far more minimal effect, because it's easy to just deploy 1 more army and avoid the issue altogether.

I agree with The Impaller
voted for 4

Agreed and voted.

I absolutely agree with everything Imp posted and am thrilled that we're voting on this change. In the games I've played with 4 armies, it's exactly as described above: well thought out games that become incredibly dependent on how you strategize your early turns instead of just plotting out the one good first turn and hoping for a decisive win on a virtual coin flip. There are still times when it's possible to get a set on turn 1 but it usually involves cluster picking which is easily defendable by your opponent which creates even better gameplay early in my opinion. I think it's not only a good change but a necessary one as we continue to build on the integrity of our Ladder system. I vote yes to 4.

bad bad

I agree with everything Impaller said.. but it seems he missed the obvious significance of that aspect.. naturally right now picking 3 spots that are seperate are at an advantage, as clustering your spots makes it more plausible to be able to counter.. however without the ability to gain bonuses early via this strategy, it could end up making clustering a much more viable strategy, even in the upper tier..

as Impaller pointed out in the tournament if I recall.. gaining a bonus on the first turn gives an initial advantage, which ends up giving a cumulative advantage throughout the game..

Guys let me point out this
Risk is always luck (and skill) not just Skill
but i sort of argee with the 1st turn bonus thing

The more I think about the issue the more I am convinced that reducing to 4 will not solve the general problem of predictability. Knowing the number of initial armies per starting territory is inherently predictable and encourages static opening strategies. Fixed values are boring, no matter if 5 or 4.

Suggestion I:
Why not have both?
Let the 1st picks remain 5ers and 2nd and 3rd 4ers. In case you don't get your 1st pick the 5er moves over to the 2nd pick, of course. So 5-4-4 would be the distribution. Or 5-4-3 maybe? Might be interesting as well?

Suggestion II:
Why not have an addition step after territory picking?
1) pick territories, each territory starts with 1 initial army.
wait for all players.
2) distribute an amount of xx armies freely among your starting territories.
wait for all players.
3) continue with turn 1

2) and 3) could be combined if desired, of course, basically I'm suggesting to give a one time amount of xx additional armies for distribution on turn 1.

Suggestion III:
Let players pick territories and distribute armies simultaneously. Then let the distribution of armies decide who gets which territory, not the order of picks.
So if someone so desperately wants Central America he can make sure he gets it by placing most of his reinforcements there, at the cost of lowering priority for his other picks.
Players should be able to distribute more armies than they actually get, since they also can pick more territories than they actually get, but the total they receive will not exceed an amount of xx armies. Players spending less than their maximum amount of armies get those left over armies for distribution in turn 1, so all have the same numbers.

i voted against the change, but mostly because i would like to be able to practice a little bit the new rule to see what the positive and negative points are. the voting deadline does not allow for that (12 days is not enough, at least for me). moreover, i am not even sure how that suggestion became a priority; there are other features that i think could be more important in the game and the ladder.
moreover, if the change is to be made, what is the argument for making only on 1v1 games? why not the 2v2 template?
solid!

Choose -- There was a round robin tournament that Fizzer used with a bunch of fast players (2 day boot) with the new ladder settings to test them out. A majority of the players in that tournament liked the new change and wanted to see it in the ladder.

Hopefully we can have more than one ladder though, one solid/endurance ladder and then another one that is experimental and seasonal.

Diabolicus: Very interesting, I like a lot of those ideas.

ok, i played two games with the new setting (not enough yet), and my impression is that it benefits more experienced players, by decreasing the possibility of luck-dependent outcomes. in my opinion, that is less fun, since it makes outcomes against players who are less experienced more predictable, so less challenging.
any change in the ladder should focus on having more mobility on the top positions, not less.

Choose: I disagree with that. I think there should be some optimal amount of luck involved. I know you aren't talking in extremes, but one could theoretically imagine that a change could be made so that the winner is entirely based upon luck. That would increase the mobility in the ladder enormously as it is just based upon random chance as opposed to the ability of any player. That wouldn't be very fun. I like that there is a separation of players based on skill, and it seems to be validated by the fact that the person that everybody thinks is the best player (or at least one of the very best) has stayed atop the ladder for so long. I am sure there are exceptions, but by and large people tend to stay more or less around their "true skill level." There are obviously no error bars on the rankings, but my guess is that with the current system they are not that large (maybe 10 spots at most). You rarely see somebody in the 30s get into the top 10 or vice versa.

I think there needs to be some luck (and just by picking territories there will always be some luck) or the game could become too automated, but that it needs to be kept to a minimum. But I agree with everything The Impaller said. The 50-50 coin-flip of getting one of the 3 bonuses has too much of an effect on the game. Pretty much every time I have gotten one and the opponent does not it seems like I win. Every time the opponent gets one and I don't, it seems like I lose. I would love to see the statistics of win percentage based upon second-turn income, but my guess is it is very high. Too high in my opinion.

IMHO, it's simply not worth it. the main reason I'm hearing for the change is that games are decided by first-turn bonuses gained. Changing the starting armies to 4 would only make it so that games are going to be decided based on income after the second turn rather than first. Because of that, I don't see as this will help anything in the game. The only change I think this will have is to make games longer, but not change the overall outcome.

Note: The linked template was wrong - it had incorrectly set the base income to 4 instead of the initial armies. It's fixed now. Thanks to Choose a Finger for helping me find that!

IMHO, it's simply not worth it. the main reason I'm hearing for the change is that games are decided by first-turn bonuses gained. Changing the starting armies to 4 would only make it so that games are going to be decided based on income after the second turn rather than first. Because of that, I don't see as this will help anything in the game. The only change I think this will have is to make games longer, but not change the overall outcome.

I disagree with this. Here's why: When one person gets a bonus on turn 1 and the other doesn't, then on turn 2, the income difference is 8 to 5. Those extra armies that early in the game make an enormous difference, often allowing that player to then follow it up by getting a +4 bonus on the 2nd turn, etc. It's a snowball effect.

The situation you're describing where games are decided by income after the second turn won't exist in most games. The reason is that in the vast majority of situations, both players are capable of getting a bonus by the second turn. The game won't be decided when the income is 8-8 after turn 2, but it can easily be decided when it's 8-5 after turn 1. Make sense?

Loved the round robin, though I won like 2 games lol, so voted yes like having a slower game.

Wait would that reset he ladder ratings?

No it would just change the games moving forward for anything created after the date that Fizzer implemented it.