A problem with War for Throne

So today I played a game of war for throne. It was a normal game, until blue randomly resigned. Red got to checkmate blue's king, and because of that I got 3rd. If blue didn't resign, I probably at least would've got 2nd. I played another game, hoping to regain my unfairly lost elo, but of course yellow resigned for no reason at all. Blue checkmated him, and red got the hill. If yellow didn't resign for no reason I would've gotten 2nd. And so I lost 30 elo due to kingmaking. I have only played 4 games of war for throne and already I have deducted that it's pretty easy to kingmake. I suggest that war for thrones should have the no zombies gamemode turned on.

Well, it is sure to say WFT and various other old variants does not meet the modern standards.

We need to get rid of defective variants.

Yes, you're right. I'm surprised they still are on the platform.

Any 4-player variant has an element of luck coming from new / low-rated players.

That said, there is a style of play in WFT that can make you control such things.

Alright, if you do not treat resignation imbalance as an issue, accept Windmill.

Post number is 789 if needed reference

I'm not saying it's not an issue. I am saying that every 4P position would have it (and yes, in WFT it's more impactful than in others). Also I am saying that there is a lot of theory developed in WFT that neutralize the impact of this issue.

I can probably make some theory out of Windmill and boom I have an NCV yay

which is also why I don't play popular FFA variants

The main issue with resigning is that it simply gives the player closest to you a massive advantage, but there is currently no way to fix this

What if we just make the resigned player's pieces a slightly worse futer?

The issue you are describing is innate to all chess variants with more than 2 players. I think a key part of improving at 4PC is understanding that this issue goes both ways; although you will lose games because of this, you will also win games because of this, and when you do win, you will thank the existence of this.

Me too.

How about chaturaji? If someone randomly resigns, no one will get a massive advantage. "No Zombies" should be turned on for every 4P variant. And also, if I do get a massive advantage because of luck, I wouldn't thank its existence because I want to play a strategy game, not a luck-based game.

It's true 👍

Also qilp, can you tell me how a player would handle this issue? Because the only solution I can think of is to team on the player who got the unfair advantage.

I’ll be real, I don’t think I’m qualified to answer that nor do I feel like it is worth my time arguing over this.

However, just because someone randomly resigns doesn’t make a variant “luck-based”. That would be similar to saying that a 2P variant is luck-based because someone blundered a piece or disconnected, which is false because those are independent from the variant itself and are simply generic game features.

The point is that a player resigning is not an explicit feature of a specific variant or type of variant; it is simply part of the nature of chess itself. It is independent from the design of the variant, as it is solely based on the player as an individual, and thus cannot be controlled by any other factors.

Why did people downvote me for no reason? Apparently random resignations are not a problem, but me knowing how to neutralise them is? Do you guys think I'm too half-witted to deserve a rating above 1500? I just nicely asked for theory, that's all.

No idea. You could've got +10 and -11 which ended up with -1.
So don't bother by it.

Play Solo. Don't rely on 1500s. Control the hill.

The fact someone gets a free checkmate doesn't mean they get more chances to win the entire game. Usually even the opposite happens, as the remaining two trade all their material with the one who has more material and unfairly more points (otherwise both lose) straight to the point when material is equalized. After that, it doesn't really matter if someone has 40 points ahead or 5 points ahead, because the only advantage a player with more points has is safe shuffling opportunities and abilities to manipulate others more aggressively, e.g. forcing them to make "losing" moves.

In FFA, however, "free" checkmate is an advantage in a way that it guarantees you 2nd easier.

Do you guys think that betraying a teammate in a FFA WFT is a good idea?

They really need to fix the voting system