🗑️ 🧵 PARADOX in strategy games
Anonymous at Sun, 8 Sep 2024 21:31:23 UTC No. 16368736
A MAJOR FLAW IN ALL STRATEGY VIDEO GAMES and in human wars
LOGICAL / MATHEMATICAL / PARADOX
There is a major problem in strategy video games, such as Heroes of Might and Magic, or Civilization.
Especially in Homm when you and opponents (AI or humans) start with one town/castle/base.
Imagine that there is a map in the game.
And there is 8 players (for example 1 human + 7 AI) and there is 8 castles and each player gets one from the start.
If you gain someone else castle, you gain a huge advantage, because you get income from two castles and creatures from two castles.
But if you lose your only castle, this will be a catastrophe (if you don't recover the castle).
Now, when all 8 players start with one castle each,
why and when would they go and attack opponents castle?
Because to successfuly attack opponent you need
-to have much powerful army (25% more powerful)
-or you need to grab the castle when opponent hero is taking army and vising places far from castle
However, if AI is made to be good (or if humans play),
nobody might go far away from castle, to not risk that someone will take his castle (without battle).
All players will just sit close to the castle, collect income and buy all army they can buy.
This will make that all players will have similar power in army and nobody will attack anyone.
The game will play like this forever and nobody will win or lose.
Anonymous at Sun, 8 Sep 2024 21:45:18 UTC No. 16368768
How to solve this problem?
-make that AI is not playing maximally good, but make their behaviour so they leave castle far away and go attack someone
but human player will be able to exploit that and take AI castle without battle
also, this doesn't solve online multiplayer when only humans play
-make that if there is 8 castles on map, there is only 4 players, and they start with one castle each, but they have to find nearby empty castle, get it and build it
but this has flaw: it is not the best player who will get second castle first, but lucky player. because one player will explore map to the right and he will not find a castle, another player will explore map to the left and he will quickly find castle
solution: make that second castle is guarded so every player will find it early but they will not be able to take it over instantly, but when they have stronger army
problem: if all players/AI play equally good, they will get the second castle in almost same time/turn, so the players will still be equal, and nobody will be able to successfuly go and attack opponent
-make that AI and human players do not have the same skills/difficulty but variable, one AI is great while other AI is only good etc
problem: the player who will have dumb AI as his neighbour, will have advantage, as he will quickly gain his castle, while other player will not be able to take second castle, because his neighbour is AI that has high difficulty
-make that the castles in game are not so powerful, and that you can get army and income from other sources than castles, or make that player can build a castle somewhere (as in civilization)
-make that the player is able to make many strategic decisions, long game, before he meets opponents or before he is forced to attack, this long game will make that if one player made many better strategic choices, he will have compound advantage enough to attack someone.
problem: won't work if AI players have same skills and game map is balanced, fair
Anonymous at Sun, 8 Sep 2024 22:24:34 UTC No. 16368819
-make that map is not fair, and some players are advantaged over others. this will make the advantaged players to attack disadvantaged players
this seems unfair and luck based, however, if player will play large number of scenarios, like 20, he will be advantaged in 10 of them and disadvantaged in another 10, so over many games it is not unfair
in multiplayer games, it can be made that players play 4 matches, in 2 they are disadvantaged, in 2 they are advantaged. if the result of match is 2:2, they we can say that the winner is the player, who beat the other player in less time (turns actually). this type of matches are also cool because they will test defensive strategy and offensive strategy of players
There are similar situations in other games than Homm.
In Settlers 1, if you play with AI at high difficulty (you start with tiny resources, AI starts with huge resources),
then you need to build your city and make huge number of strategic decisions, for about 5-10 hours, before you are in position where you can attack your opponent.
But in settlers 1, you build many buildings over open map, while homm has small number of strategically important castles and you cannot build them.
In Civilization,
the players can build "castles", many of them, over open map, and it will take time before they attack and try to destroy other enemy.
Also, in Civilization the map is unfair and unequal, some starting spots are better than others,
but this is not good to decide the result of match by randomness...
Anonymous at Mon, 9 Sep 2024 01:54:49 UTC No. 16369090
>>16368736
is this science?
Anonymous at Mon, 9 Sep 2024 02:24:02 UTC No. 16369118
>>16368819
>so over many games it is not unfair
Let's play the game where Player 1 wins and Player 2 loses, and you switch players each round.
Woo-hoo! So much fun.
Anonymous at Mon, 9 Sep 2024 02:27:11 UTC No. 16369120
>>16368736
>i have a proof that {thing} does not exist
shows {thing}
>but i have a proof