Advantage of starting

[tabanli]

In small maps with turn based games, whoever starts the first has a small edge, just like white has an edge in chess. I think they should get half the moves and half the city golds. This concept is similar in tennis. During the tie-breaks starter serves one and afterwards each player serves two per turn. This should also work in 4 vs 4 or 2 vs 2.

[KGB]

Tabanli,

Ideas to fix this issue have been discussed for more than a year now.

The fairest way to solve it in my mind is to 'bid' for turn order. When you join the game you are told the starting gold range (nearest 100 so, for example 1200-1300 starting gold). You then bid an amount to 'go first' from 0-starting gold range (lower number). If you win the bid, the gold is subtracted and you go first. If you lose, you go 2nd but still spend that amount of gold. Now in every game you can go first if you want to spend the gold to do so.

This also helps games with more than 2 players where going 8th could be a disadvantage.

KGB

[tabanli]

I am also seeing a disadvantage of finishing early in simultaneous games. One game we had an early encounter with my opponent had a super barbar with some infantaries and I had a decent stack with Valkyrie +14 attacking leadership,a Giants, a Knight and a few one turners. It came down to who attacks first wins %70. I waited till 11 PM and when I woke up my stack was gone.

I think there should be some incentive to finish early also. Otherwise we can just sit there and wait for the others to finish. How about +80 gold?

[KGB]

"I love the smell of dead Valkrie in the morning"

The problem in simultaneous games is timezones around the world very often determine who plays first on the next turn. In one game I was the last player to finish around midnight Eastern Time (USA). The next turn was starting in 5 hrs and as much as I love Warbarons I am not waking up at 5 AM to play a turn. By the time I did wake up at 7 AM, 4 players had already done their turns because they are players from Europe so the turn started in the middle of their day. Of course now that I know the time those players are playing, when I am the last player to play I will finish my turn around 7 PM my time so that they will still be asleep and I'll play again first the next turn around midnight my time .

In other words, simultaneous games have a HUGE problem with timezones. Other than forcing all players in the game to be in the same timezone (or within 1-2 hours) I don't think there is anything that can be done to fix this.

KGB

P.S. Your experience with the Valkrie is why I don't use her. She's just dead meat on defense and it's very easy to lure her to her death as she must attack any threatening stack so you just keep another one slightly further back to kill her after she kills that stack. The only use for her is when she appears *right* on the front lines where you can immediately slam her + allies + stack into an opponent city/armies for maximum devastation especially when she arrives at L3+.

[piranha]

One thing that will address this is individual freeze times in next version. If you end turn earlier than your opponent your next turn will start earlier than his. Still it could start in the middle of the night for you and then it will be the same thing. But should at least be better than now.