Wilhelm Steinitz, the first official world champion in the history of chess, revolutionized chess positional theory. Perhaps his main theories can hold true in Warlight, as well:


At the beginning of the game the forces stand in equilibrium.
Correct play on both sides maintains this equilibrium and leads to a drawn game.
Therefore a player can win only as a consequence of an error made by the opponent. (There is no such thing as a winning move.)
As long as the equilibrium is maintained, an attack, however skilful, cannot succeed against correct defense. Such a defense will eventually necessitate the withdrawal and regrouping of the attacking pieces and the attacker will then inevitably suffer disadvantage.
Therefore a player should not attack until he already has an advantage, caused by the opponent's error, that justifies the decision to attack.
At the beginning of the game a player should not at once seek to attack. Instead, a player should seek to disturb the equilibrium in his favor by inducing the opponent to make an error - a preliminary before attacking.
When a sufficient advantage has been obtained, a player must attack or the advantage will be dissipated."

Let's discuss how this relates to picks, and whether his thoughts are applicable to Warlight.

100% I believe this.

Correct play on both sides won't lead to a draw on good templates

edit: maybe in exceptionally rare circumstances on 0% sr

Edited 8/5/2015 14:31:11

90%

I agree with it, but because 1st pick can be such an advantage or disadvantage (depending on if you really want 2 of your top 3 or just 1 bonus for sure) and you never know if you have first pick or not (unless you play completely no luck) then neither of you knows what the opponent is doing. In chess there is no fog, so you and your opponent both have the same information about the game (all of it). In warlight the fog means you both have different knowledge of the board (incomplete) and although you can try and guess what your opponent has from optimal picks and expansion and whatever, unless it is no luck and you know a lot about how much he is deploying each turn (maybe a border from turn 1) it is hard to ever truly know 100% what their situation is and hence what the optimal play is. So it is very likely that you will both make many mistakes (offensive or defensive) and it is just about making sure that they make the more key mistakes (e.g. when you are bordering a bonus and break it last order or whatever)

Edited 8/5/2015 14:46:21

I agree with hedja's statement for the most part. I think there are 4 types of moves in a game. First, there is the best move in the position. What I mean is that, based on the information you have, you make the move that gives you the best chance to win against the majority of players. The second move is the optimal move, which sometimes is the same as the "best move", but sometimes different. The optimal move is what works/would work best in the individual game you are in against the player you are playing. This includes predicting your opponent. Most elite players have a strong handle on the "best" move in most scenarios. What separates the top players from elite players is the ability to make the optimal move more often than the elite players, even though the elite player may make the "best move" more often. The third type of move is a misguess. It's what happens when you try to predict your opponent and fail. The fourth type of move is a strategic mistake. This is a move where the player either does not know or does not think of the "best move" and isn't trying to predict the opponent.

In most games, both players are in even position until one makes a mistake, which usually happens on picks. If both players play an optimal game, then the game comes down solely on luck, where in chess, it would be a draw. Warlight is much more about predicting your opponent than chess, which leads to less optimal plays in Warlight, even when players make the "best move". This is why there are very few games that are decided solely on luck, even among top players. At a high level of warlight, the games are usually decided by who makes the most optimal plays and the least misguesses, and the size of those misguesses. In the lower levels, it comes down more to who makes the most "best moves" and the least mistakes.

I hope the above makes some sense to you guys. It made sense in my mind at least :p

I disagree that the forces are at equilibrium at the start of the game. Maybe you choose a strategy that leads to high income early in the game, but your opponent chooses a position where he has more room to expand in the mid-game. In this scenario, you need to successfully attack before your opponent before he has time to expand. He, on the other hand, has to outguess your attacks and defend while he increases his income enough to win.

Yeah, chess and warlight are 2 completely different games. It's hard for us to peg down a successful theory given all of the pieces of knowledge you have to work with.

Chess gives you complete information, so you're most likely using knowledge you know you know and knowledge you don't know you know (thus mistakes)

Warlight you're working with all 4 types of knowledge (you know you know, you know you don't know, you don't know you know, and you don't know you don't know)

Think why Gnuffone's counters work so well sometimes vs Szew's calculated play. How dunga/piggy's aggressiveness works so well vs passive players.

It's utilization of the 4 groups of knowledge applied in different situations.

Plus in Chess, you have different pieces of differing values and uses that force you to consider what you can lose and what pieces you need to move in to a certain position.

nah

At the beginning of the game the forces stand in equilibrium.

In 98% WL games = there is no equlibrium since the starting positions are not symetricall (as in chess). Usually both map and players picks are assymetric.

Although there are some maps, where players starting positions would be 100% the same.