The Warlords II
Players' Encyclopedia -
 
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This page last revised 27-Apr-02 by Bob Heeter
Rules of the World Warlords II League
- Philosophy:
- The fundamental purpose of the Warlords League is to have fun!
- The second purpose of the Warlords League is to track who is the
Greatest and maintain worldwide ratings.
- The Warlords League will run full-time, all the time, as long as there
are interested players!
- The Basic Rules:
- Anyone can play against anyone else.
- Anyone can decline to play and take a Warlords vacation for a while, too.
- All League players are included in the system, and may
set up both
official (rated) and unofficial games.
- There are no restrictions on turnaround time except
if all players agree on a turnaround time limit, or
if the Remailer deletes a game for 30 days of inactivity
(in which case whoever failed to move is out of the game).
- Each player is rated in terms of Glory, which is a combination of
Fame and Power.
- Fame is earned by playing games and by defeating foes. There is no
limit to how much fame there can be; it increases each time
a new League game is played. However, because fame fades away
over time, everyone's fame is cut in half every year.
To encourage new players, there is a Buddy Bonus for helping
new players play in their first or second League games,
and for helping inactive players to rejoin the League.
(Veterans of Rounds B and C of the Tournament are considered active.)
- Power is never created or destroyed; it can only be won and lost in battle.
Every time you defeat or outlast an opponent, you capture some of
their Power. But every time you are defeated, your opponents
capture some of your own Power.
- To count in the official Glory, Fame and Power ratings, a game
must be played on the Remailer, the game history must be archived
for posterity, and the game must be played competitively for at
least 3 complete turns.
- In the event of rules violations, cheating and/or abuse of the system,
the Moderator and/or Rules Committee may penalize players by
subtracting Fame and/or Power points from their ratings.
In extreme cases offending players may be expelled from the League.
- How Fame Works:
- Your fame starts at 0.
- Your fame increases by 10 points each "official" game you play.
- Your fame increases by 5 additional points for each opponent you beat.
(So if you came in 3rd in a 5-player game, you'd get 20 Fame points:
10 for playing plus 10 points for beating 2 of the other 4 players.)
- Your fame drops by half every New Year's Day (January 1).
- "Buddy Bonus": You receive a Fame bonus of 5 points for being a
"buddy" for a new or inactive player (less than 30 fame) by helping
them get active in the League by completing a game against you
(and possibly others).
- Players are expected to be honorable and not to artificially
boost their fame by falsifying game histories.
- Power Ratings:
- Starting Power: We assume new players are about average in skill,
but may need a bit of experience to compete with the veterans,
so new players start with more initial Power than 1/3 of the League
and less than the other 2/3. Typically this is about 800-1000 points.
- Capturing Power: In a 2-player game, the winner captures 10% of the
loser's initial Power. This base value is modified by a Bonus
(or Penalty) for defeating or outlasting someone with more (or less)
Power than yourself. In multiplayer games, each player captures
a smaller percentage of power from each player they defeat or outlast,
and loses a small percentage of power to each player who defeats
or outlasts them. Since there are more players, you can gain or
lose more in a multiplayer game. The exact formula is given below.
- The Formula: power is won and lost according to the Power Formula:
Total Captured = Base Bonus/Penalty
-------------- ----------- -------------------
P = ( L/(5*N) ) * (1 + (L-W)/S)
where: P is the total Power changing hands
L is the Loser's initial Power
W is the Winner's initial Power
N is the Number of players in the game (2 to 8)
S is the "Power Spread" across the League (highest minus lowest)
The Power formula just implements the rules described above.
A high-Powered player will gain less or lose more when playing
someone with substantially lower ranking. For instance,
the highest-Power player could not gain any Power by defeating
the lowest-Power player, but the lowest-Power player could gain
20% of the highest-Power player's Power.
- Notes for Multiplayer Games: The Power Formula is applied to
multiplayer games by treating them as a collection of 2-player games.
For each pair of players in the game, the Captured Power is calculated
as above. You take Power from whoever finishes worse than you
in the game, and lose Power to whoever does better than you.
As the number of players in the game (N) increases, the
Captured Power per player is reduced. For a 2-player game between
veteran players with 1000 glory each, the Captured Power is 100.
For a three-player game, it is reduced to 66 or so, and for a
4-player game it drops to 50. Thus, the winner of a 3-player game
would gain 132 (by defeating 2 other players and taking 66 from
each of them). Meanwhile, the winner of a 4-player game would
gain 150 (taking 50 each from 3 other players).
The winner of an 8-player game would pick up 25 from
each of 7 players and thus gain 175. And someone coming in
4th in the 8-player game would defeat 4 players (gaining 100) and
lose to 3 players (losing 75), for a net gain of 25. The loser would
stand to lose 175 (25 Power to each of 7 enemies).
However, in practice one would expect the winner of a game to
typically have the most Power to begin with, and the players with
less Power would typically lose less since the Bonus/Penalty part
of the formula prevents high-Power players from efficiently
stealing Power from low-Power players.
- Overall Rating (new "Glory"):
- Each player is given an overall Glory rating between 0 and 100%.
- Your Glory rating depends 75% on your Power and 25% on your Fame.
The overall Glory Rating is determined by comparing your
Power and Fame relative to the rest of the League, as follows:
(Your Glory) = 75 * (Your Power) / (Maximum Power of any player)
+ 25 * (Your Fame) / (Maximum Fame of any player)
Note: since players start with zero Fame, even a small amount
of Fame can make a big difference in your overall Glory!
- Rankings: League Rankings are computed by listing players in order by
Power and Fame (separately) as well as by Overall Glory. You can
play for Power, or for Fame, or for both!
- Titles: Players receive titles in the League based on their Glory:
"The Greatest" player chooses his/her own title.
Glory Ranking Title
---------------------------------
Top player Chosen by Player
Top 10% Warlord
Top 10-20% Lord
Top 20-30% Baron
Top 30-40% Paladin
Top 40-50% Knight
Top 50-60% Champion
Top 60-70% Cavalier
Top 70-80% Hero
Bottom 20% Apprentice
- Reporting: At the end of each game, the winner reports the results to the
Membership Guru (the guy who handles the player roster and rankings)
so that the changes in Fame, Power and Glory can be accounted for
in the database. In the future we hope to put the player database
onto the Web and let users update it themselves via Web forms,
but that's a longer-term project.
- Grandfathering: All players will start with zero Fame.
Initial power ratings will be given to players who are/were active in the
Tournament based on their Tournament ranking (Rounds A-C).
The middle-ranked Tournament survivor will be given 1000 points,
and everyone else will get 1000 points plus (or minus) 20 points
for each tournament rank above (below) the middle player.
(In other words, the top-ranked player will start about 1600 Power
and the bottom-ranked player will start at about 400 Power.)
All other players currently in the League start with 800 power.
We will then run the results of all past official League games
(including Round E) through the Power and Fame formulas.
Back to the W2 Players' Encyclopedia
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Legal and Historical Disclaimers:
This site began in 1994 as Eugene Lee's
Warlords II Home Page in Australia. It has evolved steadily since then,
and now includes material by a variety of authors, including Bob Heeter,
Eugene Lee, Elam Birnbaum, Glen Barnett, Dirk Pellett, Vern Vaillancourt,
Gary Best, and others where indicated.
A number of graphics are copyright by SSG; copyright and other
rights to the Web source are reserved by the appropriate authors.
(This site is not the Official
Warlords Site by SSG.)