I don't think you've really offered any evidence of a distinction between strategy and foresight. There's no barrier keeping AI from mastering Civilization V the way AI has already mastered chess; algorithmically, any game where you + a set of opponents make a set of moves to achieve a defined objective is solvable. In any such game, since winning is zero-sum, you need to be able to adapt to your opponents' moves.

You're making this weird distinction between games where your goal is to achieve some sort of objective through a set of decisions ("strategy" games) and games where you must predict and adapt to your opponents' moves/strategies ("foresight" games). So let's assume for a second that this clear separation existed.

Let's make a pure "strategy" game- a game where your entire focus is on making the optimal set of decisions without having any need to adapt to opponent moves. In this game- by definition- your opponent's moves have no bearing on your ability to win, meaning that there exists at least 1 strategy that should win regardless of your opponent's moves. However, your opponents can each also employ said strategy (since your choice of strategy has no bearing on their ability to win)... and now no one wins, because we've already arrived at a clear contradiction. Essentially, there's no such winnable pure "strategy" game because there's no real way to isolate "strategy" from "foresight"/adaptation.

The distinction just doesn't make sense to begin with. I mean, your entire argument is predicated on Chess AI existing- so I'd recommend actually researching how chess AI work first. Learn about CS- don't be a tech journalist. :)

Well what's different primarily is that games don't rely on foresight entirely. There's thought that isn't based on the opponent, but that is not necessary.

For example, in civ 5, there are different victory goals. You can tailor your civilization to act appropriately to achieve the overall goal. You have the foresight to act toward the goal, but you must consider the little cogs and such that could go wrong and this is where risk management comes into play. You have to work in your civ's unique traits, thus bringing in diversity in approach to the goal.

Also, the battle system.

You can have a fight of Musketmen rushing veteran swordsmen on a mountain. You need foresight to think where your opponent will attack, but from there you decide what units work best in counter, which ones you can afford to lose, what is the best terrain, these are all strategic aspects that are distinct from foresight.

I said at the start that the 2 aren't exclusive, it's merely that some games rely heavily on foresight. And the way people approach the game, they might often drop other aspects of strategy and focus on foresight.

Ultimately what defines strategy is that it employs diversity in approach to the goal. Another example of a game that has heavy employment of 1 aspect is risk. Which is entirely risk management based, much like chess is foresight based. Perhaps if chess and risk were molded together, we'd have an interesting strategy game, but separate they are 2 separate categories/types.

So to affirm, i say you need foresight, you just don't rely on foresight.

Also you continue to jest that I "learn the game", but this game is ultimately a game, not a noodle-measuring contest. I have my own priorities in how i entertain myself, I don't need or want to get good at warlight, and it's as simple as that.

So your basic claim is that the increased complexity of Civilization 5 makes it require strategy beyond just foresight? (Or in other terms, the simplicity of Warlight makes it require no strategy beyond just predicting your opponent?)

The only reason I'm saying you should "learn the game" is for the same reason I don't really trust financial analysis from a hobo- you end up making a good number of demonstrably untrue claims (like WL relying mainly on predicting your opponent, when in reality a lot of the game's combat comes down to how flexible your moves can be) and ultimately making claims about some emergent properties that you haven't demonstrated result from just scaling the range of possible moves.

I also don't really see why you'd be spending so much time talking about strategy on a site like this (about a strategy game) but not actually picking up the game mechanics. It's not a noodle-measuring contest, but you're honestly currently missing a lot of the basics of the game and as a result you're making all these flawed analyses. Maybe hit something around 1450 (1v1 ladder) first; that's around the point where you've got a solid grasp of the core game and the more interesting stuff comes up. At an all-time peak of 1266, you likely don't really grasp how WL is actually played- it's not just about being good at the game, it's about knowing your subject matter before you make bold claims.

For me, Warlight is constantly getting absolutely destroyed, but still having fun doing it.

Right, and if that's your level of understanding of Warlight (or chess, or strategy games in general), then you more likely than not have a skewed and limited perception of what it takes to win.

So basically what I get from this is that a pure strategy game would be checker(there is a mathematical algorithm that allows for the perfect game, and if I remember correctly, the opponent can has no impact on the algorithm), and a pure foresight game would be a game purely dependent on the enemy's moves.

In which case, you could argue that warlight is a strict mixture of both, as are most games that involve the use of the mind to play, while certain games may have bonus additives, such as reflex and play ability.

So because i don't feel like wasting time on ladder, i can't offer my take? I think you're pretty inane to be thinking like that.

Interesting.

Would "Roshambo" ("Rock, paper, scissors") be a "pure foresight game", then?

technically yes, it would. Though I'd consider it moreso a different type of game altogether ; Psychological.

Soo now go to play [AT WAR]
And then gome back and give us a defenition about the differents between ATWAR and WARLICHT.

I like to play the most strategy game, soo tell us; wich is most strategy?

Chess IS a strategy game. The strategic aspect of the game is just based on foresight. In order to win at chess, you must use foresight to analyze the situation and then implement a strategy based on your findings.

All "strategy" games are based in foresight. The very nature of strategy requires foresight.

A "foresight" based game would not be a game. That would be just someone sitting around analyzing the future. "Strategy" is the implementation of foresight and forethought.

Forsight+Action=Strategy

PS I still enjoyed the article a lot, Genghis.

Edited 5/2/2016 20:55:02

I don't mind Genghis writing theorems about the game without being a top player. His perspective is valid on a general basis. Anyone who understands the generalized rulings of the game can talk about the theory. I can theorize good item builds for League purely from a mathematical standpoint without being a top ranked player. So don't cast away the post just because it's Genghis who wrote it. There's interesting points.

This might be a semantic argument, but chess already makes the distinction between 'strategy' and 'tactics'.

Strategy is long-term, intuitive, and impossible to calculate. The Warlight equivalent is things like choosing your territories and choosing which direction to expand.

Tactics are short-term, forcing, and calculable. The Warlight equivalent is things like placing x units to counter the opponents' y units and z income or moving across an opponents territory to generate new attacking options. Tactics are more prevalent in Small Earth than in MME.

Foresight isn't a term I hear used in strategy games and, as I would interpret it, implies an incomplete information game (Stratego/Warlight) and the associated luck/guessing aspect as opposed to a complete information game (chess/checkers/Go) where there is no luck whatsoever.

Thanks Kenny, old buddy old pal.

Thanks Grover, guy I know.

I mentioned that Foresight does not necessarily imply it's not strategic, it's when a game relies on the aspect of foresight above other aspects that it becomes less strategic in general and more foresight-based.

For example, another aspect in strategy is risk management, and I think there's an argument to be made for General Management. For example, you want to build more papers in your company. You tell your employees to produce more papers. It's not necessarily foresight, it's not risk management. It's a general management. It is technically strategic, because your overall goal is to build papers.

I think this idea of General Management is also an important distinction between what I am calling Strategy and what I am calling Foresight. The nature of managing subservients for the goal.

You could argue that this is seen in chess, but when you move a pawn, it is not necessarily that you need to move that pawn there as part of the overall goal, it is more likely than not a reactionary move to your opponent also moving a piece of theirs, thus it could be considered a Foresight-based move, rather a General Management-based move.

A pure General Management-based move would be seeking the Scientific Victory in Civ 5, thus, you decide to build spaceship parts. There is foresight to be had from this, for example, you could build the parts in specific cities and build specific parts in specific cities to minimize the number of necessary turns, but the nature of purely giving out instruction for the goal is an important distinction.

Strategy is your largest set. All else is within, like foresight, planning, feedback, negotiation, calculation, adaptation, risk/reward, etc., which intersect each other within the all-encompassing strategy. Any information you get informs your strategy.

If you haven't heard of OODA loops, you might like:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop

I think, as graemes said, that the concepts that you are presenting might be the difference between a tactical move and a strategic move. The reactionary move in chess would be a tactical reaction to a move that your opponent made. The "General Management" moves where you attempt to coordinate your pieces to end the game is your overall strategy. Both must be based in foresight and risk management.

Edited 5/2/2016 22:01:14

I think some people confuse 2 mentioned terms only, because they view strategy very narrowly. Most players think that in warlight picking certain moves is a strategy, however most experienced players know that the real strategy is actually picking specific moves a certain percentage of the time. What I mean by that is if you view warlight in a similar way to poker, you won't bother with "foresight", you'll just anticipate the outcomes of multiple moves and your strategy will be to mix certain types of moves. It might not be as apparent during the game, but during the picking stage it is more than evident. Also if you want to discuss strategy and "strategic games", I heavily recommend game theory, where the definition is very wide and you wouldn't discern games like warlight from games like chess. The only difference would be the type of strategy you are looking for and in practise how you search for them.

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