let's compare boxing, chess, europe 3v3s, and 2v2/1v1 ladders.

in boxing, championship fights are 12 rounds. have one bad round, you can still recover. points are based on each round. for the best fighters (ali, roy jones jr, pakman, mayweather, tyson, etc.), the fighter's record tends to be 40-50 wins and 0-8 losses (or a 90%+ winning percentage, with most losses coming at the very beginning or very end of their careers, not in their prime).

in chess, the best players lose less to weaker players than in 1v1s on WL.

europe 3v3s: i agree with swezen. 3 of the best 3v3 europe players (each rated 2000+) would probably never lose to a team of 3 good/great players (guys rated 1700-1900). that is, when 3 of the best 5 are on one team, they are nearly invincible, like the best boxers in their prime.

2v2/1v1 ladders: picks matter 60-80% (100% according to zaeban) and actual ability can be masked by learning how to pick and play only the first few crucial turns.

so why are 2v2 and 1v1 ladders so open to chance?
- too few picks: the less picks you have, the more each one matters. get slightly worse positioning thanks to pick order, and that alone could determine the game.
- lack of recoverability:
- reinforcement cards: boxers can't legally get free punches. chess players can't add a lost piece back to the board. ladder players can get extra armies. this can disrupt the natural order of the game. it also requires attacks. ali beat foreman with rope-a-dope. he didn't attack until foreman was worn out. one of the four tenets of ancient chinese military strategy is 'don't move like a mountain' (ie, don't attack, defend strong and hold your ground). many times in 1v1s people make attacks simply to get the card sooner, not for any other reason.

why does a team of 3 players rated 2000+ win 95%+ of their games in 3v3s in europe but a player rated 2000+ on the 1v1 ladder can only win 80%+ at best?

- in europe 3v3 games, 3 generals each get their own order priorities. if a 1v1 could allow one player to control 3 separate colors that each have their own 1st turn, 1v1s would be more balanced. eg: we've all played 1v1s in which the other guy got first move 1-4 times in a row and this is the sole reason we lost. but if we had 3 separate uniquely colored armies to control, each with its own orders, losses based on luck alone would be less likely. this also is true for picks: by reducing bad luck when picking (ie, the enemy got my pick and i didn't) and ensuring that important areas are covered by an ally army, the luck factor would be greatly reduced.

Of course random dis has no place in a ladder match template. Not all templates are valid for the ladder, though we should have a much larger choice of maps/templates to play on.

I would like a 3v3 euro ladder as well

I think we should get an Euro 3v3 auto game

An auto game would be great for a whole bunch of reasons, including building up a fanbase for a 3v3 ladder.

I don't know if I agree on the 3v3 auto really broadening the fanbase. It could turn out the other way around.
Even with the 2v2 auto you get a lot of idiots/trolls who, for example, surrender during picking or won't listen to anything in team chat. I can imagine this being even more of a problem in a 3v3 auto simply because there are more open seats. Auto games have no prerequisites, so there's no protection from "bad" (as in both "sucks" and "evil") players at all...

Yes, the 3v3 auto-games can be nice feature but...

Full distribution/cities without any wastelands are the europe settings which i dislike the most. The picking phase is so boring, there are some certain spots that have to be picked and are picked. Starts of every game are very similiar to each other, many of terrytories aren't in use. IMO this map isnt balanced as well as medium earth is.

Better players would be unlikely to play an auto europe game if it has no pre-reqs. There's a point you reach where you no longer care about stats and just want to play interesting games, and no-req games would rarely, if ever, be interesting.

Same goes to the 1v1 auto games, to be honest. You don't find too many decent players on those either.

Would love this. As it is, only 2 of my friends (Chaos and V) are members, and this would be a great way for us to team up. This is the reason why I am not in the 2v2 ladder; I don't have any other friends to play with, and I don't feel like hamstringing a stranger with my less than stellar skills.

someone post a traditional 3v3 europe settings map..
I've already put out 1v1 and 2v2 strat's with pre-reqs, and want to put out some 3v3's to see how they are responded

I agree retrospekja. They are too similar. Another thing i would like to say is that i disagree with Gui and all that people that complain about luck. Not luck as the % in the settings, but the luck which involves the picks, the orders and so on. I know that probably i'm the first that involves the whole heaven when i'm so unlucky and i get mad, but after all that's part of the game and it's nice as it is. Who would ever like to play the SAME repetitve games? Have everything under control it's so boring imo, it's right to keep some unknowns in the games, as it happens to real life, as it happened in the history.

perrin,

[standardized: i think this would make the europe game better](http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer.aspx?TemplateID=149610)
[the one i used to play most](http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer.aspx?TemplateID=144920)


the response is the same for both. nobody seems to care too much if it's europe warlords, cities or standardized bonuses cities. europe with no cards is the important factor. though i've noticed this: create a 3v3 europe no cards and a 4v4 europe no cards and the non-members are more excited about the 4v4 due to its novelty: they can't make it, so they jump at the chance to play it.

red, i still remember our [first ladder game](http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer.aspx?GameID=1471475). what i've *advocated* is settings that would enable the stronger player (your positioning was stronger) to win (i won). no priority card and maybe you would've played that differently...i certainly enjoyed your cursing. i like that. i think we should get a group of serial swearers together and play games in which each sentence must have an expletive. that would be fun. instead of gl to begin and gg to end: fu and gfy. instead of lol: tff or hs.

Probably i'm wrong but i see a lot of sarcasm in your words... as all the posts i read last days... but yeah, probably i'm wrong.
As i said before i'm the first that get mad when something goes wrong with luck, but after all it's good to have some unpredictible factors.

something the taiwanese love to say: "you think too much"

I get mad quickly when something goes bad with luck.. but just as quickly go "*ahh well..*" because I know I have had many occassions it has benefited me, but they tend to not stick out in ones mind as much..