For the past year or so, many of us who love playing Warlords by email have mused about the idea of having a "World Championship" PBEM tournament. The file compatibility of the Mac-CD and the PC Deluxe versions makes such a tournament technically feasible. However, there have been numerous reports of PBEM cheating, and the inability to ensure a fair tournament poses a tricky problem for those who would like to organize a world championship.

There has been a fair amount of discussion in various Warlords circles about the possibility of fixing up Warlords to create a cheatproof play-by-email game which could form the basis of a worldwide tournament. A lot of ideas have been sent to the Web site here with ways to make this possible by adding security measures to the data files, altering the game software, and so on. This will require substantial work on the part of SSG, and while they are moving in the right direction, I don't think they'll get a really cheatproof game engine for at least another year.

However, it should be possible to design a set of playable and interesting PBEM rules that can support an interesting and verifiably cheat-free game. While such a set of rules requires eliminating some of the best features of Warlords, and changes the game style substantially by eliminating most of the randomness in the game, it should make for a fair tournament which tests the depth of everyone's strategic Warlords expertise. And if we can organize a semi-functional tournament of our own and make it work, it would probably help motivate SSG to improve the game engine to support a more "warlords-like" tournament in the future.

This section of the Players' Web site is dedicated to exploring the possibility of a cheat-resistant set of rules for playing Warlords in a tournament setting. The core philosophy behind the rules proposal is given below. I recommend that you first read about the experience with the Experiment game, involving John Harrison, Jim Panagos, myself, and some other players who were eliminated early on, to see where the core nucleus of ideas originates. I hope you will find the possibilities intriguing enough to send in feedback and ideas of your own!

The fundamental core principle is that the tournament must be cheat-resistant and as fair as possible, so that the winner of the tournament can truly say "I am the Greatest", and those who do not win will concede that the tournament was fair and the results are meaningful. It's no fun to play in an unfair tournament or in a tournament where players are able to cheat without being caught.

The ability to revert in Warlords makes it possible for players to secretly cheat, by manipulating any random game elements to their advantage. Because it's often impossible to tell the difference between cheating and luck, it's possible for players to cheat a little to get "lucky" and gain an advantage in winning. While in casual PBEM play it's usually possible for people to resist the temptation, it's also the case that a single person who cheats can ruin the game for everyone. A tournament is more competitive than casual play-by-email, and therefore at much greater risk of cheating. If you can't prevent cheating, and you can't tell the difference between luck and cheating, then you have to play with rules that allow what is normally considered cheating, so that all players can manipulate luck equally, to keep the game fair. Since it's not possible to keep players from reverting, the only way to make the game fair is to give all players equal opportunity to revert (and thus manipulate luck as much as they like). Similarly, since it's not possible to keep players from peeking at the map or peeking at other countries, these actions must also be allowed.

Thus, the first guiding idea of the tournament proposal:

Everyone is allowed to use any feature of the Warlords application to their advantage.

This includes peeking at other players' countries and reverting as much as one likes, but excludes use of anything other than the Warlords game program to manipulate the game files.

The Experiment game was organized by John Harrison to test the playability of this rule. As we discovered, one consequence of the above principle is that players who want to win must revert over and over again to achieve exactly the results they want. Attackers must revert for hours to win battles against incredible odds; defenders must stay clear of any enemy attackers. And to compete a player must make a huge effort to ensure that heroes always appear in the strategically ideal location, with three of the most useful allies, whenever the player has enough gold.

Experience to date is that games where reverting is allowed can be enjoyable, but only if the rules are adjusted to minimize the need to revert, because otherwise each turn requires several hours of very tedious reverting if one wishes to remain competitive in the game.

Hence, the second guiding idea of the tournament:

Rules and settings must be chosen to reduce the need to revert.

This is so that turns can be played in a reasonable amount of time, keeping the game enjoyable and playable.

This means that additional heroes and allies must be eliminated from the game, so that players do not revert for hours in order to receive heroes and allies in critical places at critical times. Quests must likewise be eliminated, or players will revert for hours to receive simple quests and ideal rewards. Also, the army set should be balanced so that all units are roughly equal in strength, so that in typical one-on-one battles, the attacker can win (as he inevitably will) with a minimum overall average number of reverts. Other rules settings follow from the same sort of need to minimize reverts.

Not everyone who has seen these ideas has been happy with them. Allowing reverts is anathema to many players used to the traditional PBEM ethics; throwing out many of the fun game features of Warlords, such as heroes, allies, and quests, to minimize the need for reverts is like rubbing salt into a sore wound. However, the ability to reload a game file and play a turn over makes it possible for players to manipulate the luck in the game to their advantage, and those who are good at it can do it in a subtle way so that honest players may never notice. I have heard of too many games that were ruined by this sort of cheating, and having myself experienced firsthand the frustration of seeing a game ruined in this way, I think it's unacceptable for a tournament to be vulnerable to cheating.

There are only two ways to eliminate this sort of cheating: rewrite the game engine to eliminate reverts, or set up the game to eliminate luck and thus the ability to manipulate luck by reverting. Since we can't do the first one without rewriting the Warlords software, we are stuck with the second. Provided the "stealth" forms of cheating can be eliminated, any other game cheating will be detectable and punishable, and at least the tournament will be fair.

I would rather have a tournament with unusual restrictions than a tournament in which I know other players can cheat without being caught. With that core principle, the rest of the tournament proposal seems to be the only logical way to set things up, until SSG improves the cheat-resistance of the PBEM variant of Warlords.