gaining another players territories can alter the balance of the game drastically though. what if, for instance, me and obi had half of spain each (in RoR)? if i get booted and obi got my stuff, then suddenly, he has not only gained my half of spain, he now has an additional +10 income from the spain megabonus. he would have had to take it all from me otherwise, reducing my income for some precious turns.

and ai's, they suck. they really do

Yeah.. nice feature request.. Should be a trivial change to make as well I would think.


On a related note, can the AI be made better? I remember a thread on an AI competition. Can the winning AI be used in Warlight? The current AI seems very limited. Surely someone made a better one in that competition.

Yeah, I agree an updated AI would be really nice. Right now the AI is about three times weaker than an average player (try playing a 3 v 1 against AI with usual settings, e.g. 5x5 manual picks, 0% sr, etc., you will most likely win, especially on larger maps where the AI's initial 3x income advantage isn't so large). The fact that the Insane Challenge is winnable in 28 turns speaks to how bad the AI is. One interesting idea would be, is it possible to get some type of API where you can code an AI that interacts directly with WarLight, so that it can be tested on many different maps and settings? For instance, could a type of "AI account" be made that could play competitively with actual people (perhaps with some restrictions, e.g. AI can only play in practice games, etc.), to better test it? Based on my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong), the current AI competition plays with only a very small subset of settings and maps, and only against other AIs (and can't be linked back to WarLight). If such an API existed, we could hold AI tournaments within the WarLight framework.

Also, definitely the territories of the booted player should be indirectly controlled (e.g. as if the booted player became an alt of the controlling player, not as though their territories belonged to the controlling player), otherwise in some circumstances like Punching Bag mentioned it can become very advantageous to boot a team member, and getting booted should never give you or your team an advantage.

@Blightsteel

I would be very interested in making an AI if such a framework exists. I had a few ideas about how an AI could work.. Never really got down to it, since I didn't know how to test it and didn't want to make a user interface to visualize a test game.

Just out of curiosity, do you know which players on Warlight have worked on an AI?

I don't know of anyone specifically involved in an AI. I've actually been meaning to get involved in the AI games project, I just don't have the time right now. It also has the limitations I mentioned above. But if a framework for integrating AIs directly into WarLight existed, or even a framework where you could play games against your AI with a decent UI for yourself (that I don't have to code from scratch), then I might try it as a summer project.

Yes it would be very beneficial to allow teammates to gain control of a booted teammate, but I have a few issues:

1.) Currently when a player is booted, he/she becomes an AI and comits some orders, OR he/she becomes neutral territories.
--> If a team was to play for the booted player.... What would the booted players orders look like? Would the first turn be an AI's orders? Would the team that lost a player get an extra portion of the boot time to make orders for it?

2.)Which teammate gets to make the orders?
--> I like the idea about treating that player as a card.... First come first serve.
OR ---> Could there be some way to elect a captain at the game start and he is responsible for making the orders. (This wont work if it is the captain being booted).

I feel that the game should never entice people to boot their own teammates. Currently this is pretty much the case (very few human players will do worse than the AI), but if another player could take over, it would become far too appealing (to a strong, experienced players) to boot an inexperienced teammember.

It's a team game; if you boot your allies in order to play for them, how are you a team? If the team can't win, they don't deserve to win. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but in my mind, a group of averagely-skilled players working very well together should beat the group with a single extremely-skilled player who shouts and yells so much at his allies they refuse to listen (even when they know it's good advice) out of frustration. If this proposal were to be implemented, the experienced player is will probably kick "those incompetent idiots" first chance he gets, after which he can enter orders for them and might gain an (undeserved) victory.

How do you propose new players will learn how to play well in a team, when they are constantly getting kicked by their allies? That's not how people's skills improve! Sure, this proposal will let you score a few more wins (and cost you another few wins, when the opponent benefits from this mechanism!) in the short term, but in the long term, it will decrease the number of skilled opponents to play against.

In short:

• If people are getting booted too often, play with a longer boot time.
  
• If you don't like having to rely on your teammates (either their skill or their ability to commit orders), don't play team games.
  
• If you don't like people getting booted "on the buzzer", even when they have a valid reason for taking too long, use banking boot times and/or play against nicer opponents (the kind that doesn't take "all is fair in love and war" as if it were a commandment).
  (Simply switching off booting has the downside of not being able to boot people which, due to RL, are unable to surrender.)
  

riyro has a good idea too many games have been destroyed because ai and although people could choose that some players do stack up armies in a territory then get booted and not fair for the other teamates

@RvW
i've explained why someone won't boot their teammates earlier in many ways
strong players are not as arrogant as you portray them
and remember that even after getting booted you can come back so that no one takes your turn
@Turtle
the first turn of getting booted i think should not be AI as well,extra time should start from that point
this also benifits someone who is there and about to commit but got booted,cause it'll be like a warning for that player to play faster

Rvw, fundamentally, I understand your reasoning. However, the newer players who you thought might get booted will take one of 3 options. Walk out of the game, Not listen to their team mates or listen. When one of the first two options get chosen, for piece of mind of the better player, it does make sense. The team is supposed to be a group that works together and takes each other's suggestions. When a team member does not listen and will insist on bad moves, then that person is already not really a team member. Now if the better player got booted, won't that still weaken the team? Also, the extremely skilled player which Rvw has mentioned is someone that is often frustrated at the team mate's bad moves. The thing is, there is a lot of orders to change when improving what a noob would do to what that extremely skilled player is doing. Sadly, many people get put off by this simply because of the fact that a less skilled player has to deal with "Walls of Text". The skilled player would often shout or yell when his or her team mates will not listen. Also, I think a win by the skilled player taking control of the partners even if by winning is deserved. He is in need of taking charge of the players since that would mean that he would be able to make the move and essentially cover for the weakness of his team mates. This feature that Ryiro suggested would also help if the players take the first option. I have had played with Many arrogant team mates that would quit since I was trying to teach them how to play. I have also heard many tales of these from other very good players too. Of course, if you get team mates who listen, then you won't need to worry about this feature. Sadly, this is often not the case.

mayoo, did you forget the enter key on your computer? :P

i often see people join a game early and then when the game starts taking a while, they start doing something else, like another game, or tab out or w/e. additional time the first turn would be nice, i often see people realize a game they joined a while back suddenly started, and rush back with very little time to think, if any, assuming they are still in the game

most good players don't shout or yell at their teammates. normally the issue is with the other teammates who believe that
1. they actually know what they are doing
2. to imply in any way that their orders are not the best way of going about things, suggest any kind of change, or even link helpful threads for later viewing, is tantamount to extreme arrogance, bad attitude. The noobier players will often complain that the more experienced player is being condescending, regardless of how polite or gentle the more experienced player may have been.

there is a reason you don't see more of the good players just randomly joining teams with open seats, it is too hard to try to get many of the weaker players to even listen, never mind to change their orders. not when most people "know better"

might i also point out that team-work involves, well, teams. i would say that a jerk who cusses out someone trying to help him is far less deserving of a win than the more experienced player who is trying to help. unfortunately they may well be on the same team.

the people who hold up games, are generally not the more experienced players, except in rather high level games :P

the points you should take from this -
pretty much every good player i have seen and many below even my rather sad skill level, is not a booter. quite a number of rt games with no autoboot, where someone had an issue and had to leave, became a multiday game. if anything, the noobier, and nastier jerks who believe they have the skilz will be the primary booters (and booted)

better skilled players are generally more mature.

the people who are trying to offer advice, (at least up until now) will generally have a better idea of what is going on than you do, otherwise they would not realize that advice needed to be given. stfu and listen, stop being an arrogant prick. (this is to all the noobs out there :P)

this feature would be very nice, and in the cases where people are actually listening to each other, it will have much less effect in terms of the skill with which all the moves are made on a team, booted players or not

Edited 3/28/2015 00:21:27

@Ryiro:

Just to clear up any misunderstandings, I did not intend to claim all strong players are arrogant, just that there is a sufficient number it might be worth taking (the existence of) that group into account, if at all possible.

Returning from getting booted is a setting; it can be disabled. In almost all games I'm aware of, the number of allowed "returns from AI" is very limited. Relying on it to support your argument, makes the reasoning rather shaky, in my opinion.

I think with this option, the booted player should be allowed to return an unlimited number of times. Also, I'm not so sure about the extra time idea, since it seems like it could get really confusing, especially if the game also used banking boot time. I think it would be better to introduce another boot time (like vote-to-boot, direct boot, and auto boot times) which if passed, will allow a randomly selected teammate to take over for you, and not allow anyone else (including you) to edit your orders for the rest of that turn. At the beginning of the next turn, the system will default to teammates editing your orders but you can press a button to give control back to yourself.

Warlight Staff we need your thoughts on this
most players have liked this idea so far

now give me a reason why that player would accept

zeph, what if the resulting team does not get along? :P

jk

so this would have to draw on people currently logged in then. does fizzer have a way of doing that? (fizzer?)

In my opinion, I think that the best way of this whole ordeal is to have the highest win rate player take control. This way, there is not the incentive if the buzzer boot. Sadly, I can see that most of the people who disagree at this idea are either players who are not very good, newer players or trolls in the case of Pooncrew. One other reason that one would want this feature is actually in case a player needs to leave. I have had many games where a team mate or opponent will say that he/she has to leave. This almost always results in a vote to end. It can be at times quite annoying and especially bad when a player does not agree.

Players on the rest of the team should probably be able to decide whether it was worth giving points to the booted player.

I can assure anyone that a team with a good player and 2 open minded players will work better than 3 players who are ok or almost as good as the good player.

Booting is something that should be decided by the host if that mechanic is an important game strategy or not.

I agree that this is extremely annoying. I played a 1 and a half hour game on a large map and it started to get interesting. Then my team mate was booted (and deservedly so - was given several chances and kept playing late).

I think there are too many of you out there who join multiple timed games and can't keep up. You are wasting every bodies time.

allowing another player to join the game is a great option, and until someone joins have the AI or team mate make the moves. i have read most of the comments and do not see the issue here. At the end of the day AI is better than no team mate at all.

But a bit of respect shown to your fellow gamer's is something we all should be pushing for. And it should be very clear somewhere in each persons stats how often they are booted, so that the serial offenders can be avoided.