Oh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I made my account almost 10 years and 1 month ago. (Weirdly enough, I was 100% sure I made it in December 2014, not 2015, but I guess I was wrong.) I was 20 then. Initially my name was "Nitrobulgarine", then I changed it a few more times before settling on the current one.

I found Warlight after I was bored and did a short search for a "game about conquering territories on real-world maps" or something along those lines. Finding such a game was my dream - and find it I did, soon afterwards! Enormous thanks to Fizzer for creating it!

I was quite active initially, pretty much obsessed, both in standard fight games and in diplos. (Nothing like players like linguitariste, of course. How can you play 327,565 games in less than 4 years?! And the dude is in over 1000 multi-day games right now. Crazy.) Studied in university then and had lots of free time. Gradually my activity waned and after like 2020-2021, I pretty much abandoned Warzone (then already renamed, I think). Decided to return to active playing in early November last year, and I'm not regretting it, though for now my success has been moderate. Okay... maybe "moderate" would be an overstatement, lol. But I'm willing to improve my playing and learn new strategies. Not sure if I will join a clan, but I'm open to it generally. Also, I have 0 or almost 0 experience with ladders and tournaments. Usually just join games available on the dashboard. Have created my own games, but not too often.

So, on the topic. The biggest factor for my continuous engagement with Warzone is my geekiness about geography and geopolitics, and a bit less about history. (I play on non-real world maps extremely rarely.) Combined with the thrill of conquering and overpowering opponents, as well as joining efforts in teams... essentially, I found my dream game and I can't, y'know, leave it forever like this! Even just exploring the maps is so awesome for me. Kudos to their creators! I would make maps, too, and I already have great ideas about maps, so provided I find the time to explore the needed software and make the map divisions precise and beautiful, I'll get down to it.

Also, I'm one of relatively few (I think) Bulgarian players and feel the need to represent my country here.

I'm not that much into the community yet. Seems like there are both great people and dicks. As everywhere, duh. Have made some closer game acquaintances, but nothing too deep for now.

Still remember how naive and emotional I was in my first diplo at level 9 :D

Greetings to all! Hope I can get to know you better!

Edited 2026-01-23 15:59:46

I joined warlight for the game. Kept playing for the game. Still continue here for the game.

5 or 10 years? Noobs.

To answer the question what keeps one around for 15 years:
Addiction.

"What I like best about this game is that it's strategic like chess but also different in that it doesn't overly require memorization to excel."

Resonates with me the most. I like playing it as a daily exercise for my small brain.

Edited 2026-01-30 14:43:44

Made my account in 2014 and played for a while. Picked it back up again in 2018 when an irl Friend tried to tell me about the game like I didn't already know what it was and we played a lot together until about 2020. I picked it back up most recently about a year ago.

Each time I burn out it's because I had too many games and too much life going on at once. Each time I pick it back up I remember the joys of winning a 1v1, and somehow beating the odds in a large FFA.

Been here since 2013 and began playing when I was 11 years old. I joined originally since I enjoyed risk and other strategic board games like it. I have stayed so long because it not only still fulfills that itch but I also have met a lot of awesome people while playing and I still overall enjoy popping up and checking into said communities from time to time.

Also addiction, lol... (:

Been here since 2016, don't remember how i found it but i must have been searching up conquering games, as i found call of war during this era too. I love diplos and FFAs, it's like creating your own story on a map. I come back on and off, and as much as i love diplos i don't last beyond 30 turns i believe looking at my track record. Many diplos are just too taxing or too complicated for a simple web game which is what i like to play it as.

10 years has gone by slowly and so fast at the same time. I miss 2016 :(

this account is the #1 for the name "alababi", was registered in 2011.

I made two very good friends on this game and we played for years, sadly a few years back we lost one of our friends to cancer, i wish he was still here to play this, his name name was Stone, so now its just me and hex, we have found a few other regulars which makes this game fun, though you always get one if you know what i mean lol.

Made my account during August 2013 the day after my 13th birthday, but knew of the game back in 2011 from Kongregate. Back then stayed because I got addicted to the game, but then moved onto code aspects. Got interested in using the wiki and learnt some syntax HTML and wiki syntax as a 13/14 year old. Then Muli's Userscript came along and I found my own use case for scripting ("Hide threads and replies by poster"). Eventually, mods became a thing and got more flexible, so I made my own.

It's hard for me to stay when community aspects are both why I stayed and why I deleted my accounts.

I occasionally check the forum and noticed https://www.warzone.com/Forum/862373-ai-generated-imagestext-everywhere and saw an opportunity to express my opinion and steps to deal with it.

Joined in 2018. Played mostly single player games and quick matches for the first few years. Familiarized myself with the game mechanisms but got bored with playing the same types of games, particularly games i created against AIs.

What really got me to come back after a hiatus and start playing very consistently (since 2023) is when I started making my own LD games. I feel very happy that I get to play with many consistent players who like the format of my games and proud that I was able to create a community around LD games. Additionally, now I have around a dozen active LD games for myself at any given time and around 40-50 LD games for other players I maintain.

I think it's great to find a niche using this Warzone platform - there are so many ways to play this game and finding what works for you is super important to stay.

How long do those LD games typically take to finish? I'm asking out of interest, as you are in 15 MD games right now while having 0 points scored in the last 30 days.

Anywhere from a month to 5-6 months. Most in the 2-3 month range.

Sometimes a couple of games end around the same time and I get a bunch of point from defeating 15-20 players in 2-3 games back to back. Sometimes it's a dry spell of no victories or games taking a long time.

Also at this point, I've won at least once in 80% of the templates I've made. More focused on keeping the games going & creating rematches for other players than winning all the games. As the host and with a lot of experience, I have a slight advantage in winning so I will create games but not join as I want others players to have more of a chance of victory. I enter some games mainly for the sake of advertising the others in the public chat, less so on winning.

Edited 2026-02-10 11:34:09

There is nothing quite like RT Warlight diplos back in their heyday. The frantic mess of messages and game board was finally enough constant stimulation to keep me focused and calm. I have never found anything that runs at that pace. Warlight scratches a lot of the same itches as chess for me. Mapping out openings and gambits, working through specific tactics, and keeping the overall strategy in mind. Doing a hundred actions a turn, juggling PMing multiple players, controlling the narrative in public chat, and doing it all on a 5 min timer? It was pure madness. There was not enough time to do everything, so you had to prioritise.

That golden age has passed, and I weep for it. Now I have learned a new, different joy in multiday games. I am kept chained here by two things: people and chasing a high. Even the people I don't like, I have played with for years and know. They are familiar to me. Most of them I do even like! But the high is why I come back again and again, rather than trying to get them to migrate off-site. Planning an opening gambit for months and using just the right diplomacy and tactics to pull it off? Planning a successful coup for 6 months? Carefully nursing an exploit in the game rules for sometimes years until the right game comes along to take advantage of it? There is nothing like that sweet sweet rush when it all comes together. Most games just do not reward that kind of long-term thinking. Even the agony and paranoia for months while I am waiting to do the funny thing have a sweet flavor all their own.

quickmatch killed open games :((

and modern diplos are just bootfests that lose all semblance of RP within the first 3 turns when everyone gets booted. until fizzer adds a function to replace booted players, MD diplos not fun.

Been around a long time, left many times due to bullies with no life,
Game mechanics around random starts still an issue

Some elaboration of Freelancer's criticism regarding game mechanics in the following game chat: https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=37453546

Impressive patience, Alex.