Randomness in early game

That's like taking away the queen of a chess player (but letting his opponent control the full army) at the start of the game and telling him "Just use strategy to adapt to this!"

That's because there is so extreme competition in those games. If you have a load of super skilled players of cause no random person will be able to surprise them. That's why they are called skilled.

I don't understand those people. But from what I understand things like poker actually are not only about luck, but more about judging your opponent facial expression.

Weird, I am playing the same thing again and again and again.

No it does not. You can have a mathematically completely fair mirrored map generated that no player has ever seen before. That will force them to make up their build on the spot, reducing the pregame theorizing. (Actually it only makes the pregame theory stuff so much more complex that only the very best players will engage in it, making the whole game even harder)

You cannot practice but you have to learn adapt and evolve? Errr. Did you ever even bother about how people get good at games? Memorization will matter just as much. Look at chess for example. A few years ago I was naive enough to think that good players are actually good at this mysterious "strategy" thing that many people go on about in relation to PA. Well turns out I was mostly wrong. The best player more or less memorize 1000+ high skill chess games and can easily just ask their memory "Hey this is the situation, what do I do now?". They look up the next perfect move in their memory like in a book with an index.
The same thing happens (or can happen assuming we get really high level competition started) when you use random maps to increase the possibilities a player faces. Instead of memorizing that one or two builds/maps the player will memorize 1000 situations and use those as a reference when playing.

I have the feeling lots of people who go on about "strategy" that has nothing to do with memorization or raw execution speed are just about as naive as I was about chess.

I support Cola's arguments with every part of my brain and soul and body. I also want the game more strategical, less clicky and with more depth. Man, I've stopped playing starcraft 2 after 3 years(a couple of hours a day, I was in prohouse for 5 months too) and those are the reasons that i left it. You can't imagine how much i hate the fact that I have to memorize every answer that a korean did to certain thing. I spent 3 months of only exercises and no playing to be able to play at 300 apm which is required to be reasonably good. Now I realized how much I hated it. I want strategy man, I want adaptation and clash of brains. But randomization is just a road to frustration and this is not the way to improve game's strategic depth.

No, it absolutely isn't.

It is more like having your queen switched with your rook. It is all still there, but the situation has changed.

No, it absolutely isn't. If expansion is farther away it results in less income for me because I started to build extractors later. Therefore I'm at eco disadvantage for reasons that are independent from my skill and smartness and adaptation.

I never said further expansions. I said fewer STARTING metal spots. The metal expansion distance is easy to fix. If you integrate distances to metal spots from each starting location, you can get an easy way to make all starting spots equivalent in terms of eco.

You are arguing a moot point.

Less metal at my direct starting location is even worse. I have experienced it first hand multiple times. There is just nothing you can do. The game just tells you: "DIE!" and then you die. If you think you can do better try it.

A question I just came up with that I want to ask to the people who say "no memorization, no speed of execution, etc.": How is a person good at a 100% strategic game? What makes a person good at it? How is a player supposed to know the perfect reaction to a situation?

When it comes to chest at the higher level nobody develops new strategies. At that level it becomes dull and boring. Due to the memorization of patterns. This is a rather new thing in chest simply because the game used to always evolving until it stopped in the 20th century. the issue was big enough to cause to people to make two variants of chess called Chess960 and Chest 2: The Sequel.

http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2012/7/18/a-discussion-of-balance.html - section on chess
http://www.businessinsider.com/anan...hampionship-off-to-a-disastrous-start-2013-11

On a small planet, that may be the case. Regardless, that is an easy problem to fix.

as for this question: "How is a player supposed to know the perfect reaction to a situation?" they aren't.
If someone did, then they would always win and they would be the best.

Like it or not, in an RTS where every second the possible number of gamestates increases at an exponentially exponential rate, it is impossible to have such clear-cut situations. A good strategist is someone who reacts in ways that most likely maximizes return (note the requirement of luck). Of course, this is just my opinion and quite possibly not valid.

But that is why chess is an interesting game, because there are so many possible situations that they are practically limitless and only memory freaks can excel at the highest level. Meaning they have the skill. Same with poker.. it is all about memorization.

Any game with a limited set of possible outcomes will become a case of memorization at extreme levels. It doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for more complexity, which makes memorization more difficult. Ideally in addition to random maps, there should be new units introduced to the game regularly as well, to mix it up.

Ofc nobody really knows the perfect situation, but how do they know a good one?

How does one become a good strategist? How does his brain accomplish being good at it?

Agreed.
This question is one of best ever. It's actually thread worthy. I wish i hadn't exams coming on monday xd We need to make thread about it.

Once we get an answer to that one, next one on the list is "what is randomness?"

First we have to figure out the difference between a strategist and a tactician. What is strategy? What is tactics? What's the difference? How do they compare?

Actually, that's why a number of people consider traditional chess to be the mid-low end of hardcore strategy board games. The faults of chess actively went into the development of other similar games to fill the strategic gaps, as somebody else has already posted.

Go, on the other hand, to learn properly uses traditional memorization techniques to teach proper thinking and not just catalog management.

Memorization should be a tool for learning proper thinking, not a crutch to tell you what to do in a given situation.

The point of my question is understanding what the answering person thinks of "strategy". So we don't need to ask the difference between strategy and tactics, my question already does ask it more or less.

intelligence? I don't know. Being able to simulate probable outcomes of a situation in a quick manner? If you could be like Robert Downy Jr. in Sherlock Holmes, that would be ideal.

Sherlock is the best strategist.

There is your answer

How do you become a good strategist? Are you kidding me?

Better question: What makes a person a good strategist?

Definition of a strategist from google: a person skilled in planning action or policy, esp. in war or politics.

So a good strategist is someone who can plan an action and see its affects beforehand - that is, they have a grasp on either how the system works or how the enemies mind works.

Strategy, Tactics, and Talent

According to my Basketball coach:
Talent (Skill) is something that involves one person
Tactics involves two or more people
Strategy involves the whole team over the course of the season.

In other words, strategy is your big picture outlook. Tactics are dragging the enemy army towards your defensive line and separating the enemies bombers from his fighters. Now that we have that out of the way.....

----------------------

To be a good strategist, you need to be ahead of your opponent. And not just one step ahead - you need to be thinking about which moon to take before you even land. You have to scout his base and use that information to decide what factories to build. Etc. etc.

What is the most effective way to "simulate" the outcomes of a situation?
How does a human brain become best at it?

What makes a person a good strategist? I am not looking for some sort of talent.
A strategy game should be build in a way that everyone can get reasonably good at it.
(Not to mention I think anyone can learn anything anyway, it's just a matter of time)
How does one become good at such a game? Note that I am not forcing any fixed definition of strategy onto you. Think of whatever you think as "strategy" and try to answer: What does a person need to learn to be good at it?

How can you be ahead like that? By thinking faster? How does a person can practice being good at thinking fast?

@cola_colin I would say that using common sense to foresee what would happen.

I don't quite understand the importance of this conversation though...

Well there is a big group of people who go on about how the game is supposed to be more "strategic" and how players should worry about strategy and not about apm.
So if these people know what they are talking about they should be able to define how a player is good at that.

Your answer about common sense is still not a real answer. How does that common sense work? How is a player supposed to become better at it?
I think this question is so cool I really am going to make a thread.