Being good at "strategy"

lag usually only happens (unless ofcourse some1 has a crap pc which doesnt matter the game) very late game in a 5v5, and by that point most games that havnt ended yet are about to.

To define what I feel strategy game should be in this context I'd like to start constructing it like this:

Someone already briefly mentioned GO and I would like to use that as the starting point of my construct. GO is a turnbased, perfect knowledge and has no randomness (yes.. like chess, but I prefer GO) so it is quite a nice starting point (I also regard GO as a strategy game). It requires geometrical intuition, planning, solving smaller sub-problems (naturally memorizing sequences does help, but there is more to it) and also it requires you to recognize where to push and where to defend and when to switch focus (adapt to the flow). It also kinda nicely ties in with PA since PA is (in my very humble opinion) about area control. These are the elements that construct the basis in my view.

Moving on up, we can add the additional complexity we have in the PA case: real-time (crisis management, more raw time allocation), more units (managing army unit composition) and most interestingly incomplete knowledge. The last one is in my view strategy-wise the most important of the three. It more prominently brings out the human factor, head-games and "information warfare & management".

Finally, I find that there should be enough complexity to avoid a complete move from planning & strategy to mere execution (eg. currently it is infeasible to thoroughly solve GO through computation and difficult to build efficient AIs to solve the problem).

It's likely that I forgot something when I started to ramble, however, this post does capture at least some thoughts on what I regard as strategy wrt. strategy games.

sins lags onuber rigs trust me

I know I get slow down, but never like proper lag.

But im an AI kinda guy, so it might be something do with pings or the net code.

no chap its trade and refinery ships hundreds of them

Christ....I know my system chugs when it looks at 100+ fighters, but really trade and refining?

Sorry for the delayed response, school.

Putting on a continuous build order is a single action that lasts a long time. In starcraft a queue can last a few minutes before you should be rethinking it or telling it to queue up upgrades or whatever. In PA, your t1 bot factory can pump out nothing but doxes all game and you'll be fine.

While things get done faster in PA, you do a lot more of them with many less "actions". Especially now that we are getting proper area build. The more of that you have, the less actions you need to perform per minute to be effective.

So what?

Who told you that? Are you describing PA or Starcraft here? Because in PA I can give my commander a build queue that's fairly long at the start of the game, and have no need to rethink it.

In Starcraft you can build only Stalkers out of a warpgate and you'll be fine.


I don't really know what you're getting at tbh.

Middle bit was Starcraft, I didn't capitalize the S. A few minutes is generous considering the build times for most of the grunt units, but for big things it can be true.

I'm saying that your actions in PA last longer. It takes 2 actions (build unit, continuous queue) to last you until you need to change production opposed to building units one at a time always.

I think that strategy is planning for the unknown.
Tactics are plans that you execute from what you know.

Yes. It is. And computing power got more powerful. Programmers developed faster algorithms. Available memory increased. CPU speeds increased. The AI is allowed to look ahead more moves. Etc.

Oh really? Bearing in mind that Carlsen beat Anand without developing his Queen?

Top players play based on knowledge. Intuition is a back-up. A chess engine is incapable of intuition.

That's because the software and hardware got better. Deep Blue is so 90's.

Chess engines do not strategise. They do use brute force. If you're going to argue differently, you need to do your research.

The algorithm has been refined so they brute force more efficiently - they disregard bad moves sooner. Which may be what is confusing you.

After it does that, the algorithm brute forces what remains to find what is "best".

Do your research. Which quote on Carlsen's play style am I referring to?

I don't think I have ever seen the person using a quote burden the listener with the research portion.

He claims to be the expert on Chess GMs

I like this statement even though it could be misleading. It is quite a short statement which seems to convey what most people mean when they use the words.

Did I? I just follow the competitive chess scene a bit, occasionally checking out some games, and I watched most of the recent World Championship Matches. And I played the game myself at a club level. I'm not an expert on every little thing that Magnus Carlsen has said ever.

In any case, when computer engines abandon "bad moves" sooner than in the past and when they are better at inspecting a position cold without doing any calculation based on their evaluation algorithms, I would say that the computers have become better at decision making. They don't "just" use brute force, mind you. That's why engines today are better than engines in the past, independent of hardware improvements.

And yes, I can beat Magnus Carlsen a queen down. It's not that complicated if you are halfway decent at chess. I'm starting to question whether you even know how to play the game at all given your statement that Carlsen didn't develop his queen in one of the WCC games. (http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1737896) The queen still affects the game even despite being undeveloped, you know. If the queen wasn't there then Anand wouldn't have played any of the moves he did.

I'm thinking Sun Tzu's Art of War. Recommend you read The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China.

Been waiting to wade in this discussion after it branched from another thread;Seems (some?) RTS players are little fuzzy as to what strategy and even tactics are, except in the broadest sense.
In the scope of most RTS', strategy is the overall plan you implement to win, normally this is decided pre-game especially on a map the player(s) know. Rush, Turtle(usually not smart), Boom etc.. are broadly speaking strategies. PA is a little more unique as once the game is underway the plan often doesn't survive (this might be a gg event in starcraft or age of empires), and needs adjustment, a replacement plan etc...
Tactics are battle-field maneuvers, (Hanibal's triple envelopment at Cannae, WWII's pincer mouvements etc...) often cleaver, like strategies, they can be invented or pulled from memory. To be clear moving your death blob better than someone else is not a tactic, that is click-skill, although it is rather satisfying when you fend off certain death this way or seal a game... breaking off units from the main blob to attack from different angles, shield the main force or many other uses and using different units in various roles in support of each-other or not, are examples of Tactics.
Both strategies and tactics be learned and remembered certainly (like chess), but creativity is useful here too (unlike chess), and that's not something you can just read about and do its something you just get/feel

Yeah I think it was Sun Tzu and the Art of Modern Warfare by Mark McNeilly.

I haven't read The Seven Military Classics yet but it's going to happen.

Strategy is the broad, long-term plan. Tactics, or methods, is what is used to carry out the strategy. Tactics is one of five key pieces that define a strategic position. The other four are the ground where the battle takes place, the climate which represents changes in trends and patterns, leadership abilities, and of course the strategy itself, which is the overall goal or mission.

Read this book. One of the best I ever read on strategy:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Golden-St...082250&sr=8-1&keywords=golden key to strategy