Archived from groups: rec.games.miniatures.warhammer (
More info?)
In article <MPG.1d86b7a0acce911698a663@news.west.earthlink.net>, Jim M,
hnjcomics@gmail.com Varfed out the following in Timo speak...
> It was a cold day in September when Myrmidon entered the world pub known as
> rec.games.miniatures.warhammer and said...
>
> > In article <1125958012.965420.109570@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> > StevieEvs@hotmail.com, StevieEvs@hotmail.com Varfed out the following in
> > Timo speak...
> > > No, my point is that 40k is a wargame with the emphasis on game, I'm
> > > well aware that it's not a war simulator, it's a game but the premise
> > > to that game is that people are at war. Because of that when playing
> > > that game people use army lists and strategies and tactics.
> >
> > Tactics - yes. Strategies? No. All 'official' tournament
> > scenario games have two armys that are equal in points value. No
> > strategy of superior force, no 'secret weapons', little or no hidden
> > setup/ambush stategies, et cetera. You want a game of strategy and
> > tactics - try the Japanese game 'Go'.
> >
>
> Actually Dominoes requires the use of strategy and so does Monopoly, but I
> digress. Tactics can be built in to a game to a certain degree. The various
> moves of chess pieces are tactical in nature, the way you set up miniatures
> at the start of a game has more to do with tactics then most people realize.
> The fire power represented buy the different weapons in 40K and the stat-
> lines of Warhammer, 40K, Warmaster and War Machine are all placed in order
> to give the pieces a tactical use.
>
Yes, the stats of a given unit or model rate that unit's potential
effectiveness and give rise to the use of tactics to employ said unit in
the most effective manner. (Reminds me of the old joke - "Q - What's
the difference between efficient and effective? A - Efficient means
getting the job done right, effective means getting the *right job*
done.)
> Strategy however is how the player uses those pieces. IF there is no
> strategy in the game that you or anyone else for that matter is playing,
> then the fault lies in the players and not the company.
Ok, here's where and why I'd disagree with you. First up, *by
nature* and definition, strategy is UNLIMITED. Strategy tends to be
broad and generalized, where as tactics get down to specifics. Suppose
in a 'real world' conflict of some sort one decides to use the Strategy
of 'surprise'. In the real world there are so many different ways
(tactics) to 'surprise' a foe that to all extents and purposes the
number of ways is 'infinite'. Games on the other hand apply un-natural
non 'real world' limitations in the form of restrictive rules sets. The
severity of those limitations predetermines the amount of strategic
potential any game has and is an entirely separate issue from the
strategic ability (or lack thereof) of a given player. Tic-tac-toe is a
supremely simple game of tactics that even small children and low
powered computers can master. After a given level of competency is
reached by both players, neither side can win the game due to the sever
tactical limitations, the complete lack of strategic options, and the
very small number of potential outcomes. I would argue that Chess,
which you mentioned, is also largely a 'tactics' game - just with a much
much greater number of variables to manage to reach a potential winning
outcome - and very limited strategic opportunity. But this 'finite
number of potential outcomes' limitation is exactly *why* computers like
'Deep Blue' *can* play chess at a level of ability that challenges human
chess masters / master tacticians. With suitable number crunching
ability and programming it all comes down to who can out-plan the other
in creating a winning situation. Computers, much like good human
tacticians, do this by discarding non-winning scenarios and working to
create the situation with the greatest potential to win. Humans often
simply do this intuitively rather than mathematically.
http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/wwwr_thinkresearch.nsf/pages/news196
..html#two
"Deep Blue's play demonstrated that our approach is a very effective way
of solving computation-intensive problems," says Chung-Jen Tan of the
Thomas J. Watson Research Center, who leads the team that developed Deep
Blue.
Rather than try to mimic the way in which humans play chess, Deep Blue
applies a brute force approach, examining, on average, close to 100
million chess positions per second. An evaluation function assigns a
numerical value to each position, which permits the computer to compare
them and then decide its next move."
To look at chess from a military stand point - both forces are exactly
equal in size, weaponry, movement ability, etc - this is completely
unrealistic in a real world situation. Add in the fact that real world
variables like recon data & intel, terrain and weather effects, etc are
all entirely removed from the game, and strategic options are quickly
and largely removed. In chess you can't surprise your foe by moving
your Bishop like a rook, moving one of their pieces, etc.** (Move
Elephants through the mountains? Impossible! Or maybe not...) It is
those limitations inherent in the game that make or break it when it
comes to strategic potential. The Japanese game that I mentioned, Go,
is much like chess from a military stand point in that it has nearly all
the same un-natural limitations. Where it *differs* is that it has a
greater number of pieces, a greater number of zones/regions/squares and
thus an astronomical / nearly infinite number of potential outcomes. In
fact I've never seen anyone even try to calculate GO's maximum number of
potential outcomes. I can't find the max number for chess with a quick
google search, it's a large number but I know it's finite and has been
calculated. It's how 'Deep Blue' does its probability assessments. In
addition, unlike chess where you simply remove the other side's forces,
in Go as you capture territory you force strength increases
proportionally allowing for the creation of sudden and rapid disparity
of force that you don't find in chess. The result is a game system with
enough variables and subtlety where current technology simply doesn't
allow a computer to number crunch its way to a likely winning out-come.
It's damn hard to find a GO program that is consistently challenging
(like Deep Blue was to Kasparov) for a good Go player much less a master
level GO player.
Rules sets predetermine the maximum strategic potential of *ANY* game.
I'd readily agree that *after that* it's a matter of player ability.
But the rules are primary, and one can't 'create' new strategic
opportunities outside the scope of the game mechanics without
fundamentally altering the game mechanics/rules in some way. (House
rules anyone?)
** Funny side note: An older friend of mine who was a hard core chess
fan swore his new 'Atari' chess computer game (Lord, I'm giving away my
age) was cheating. On master level (due to its puny processing power)
the game would take about 12 hours to calculate a move. So my friend
would make a move in the evening, go to bed, off to work the next day,
and then come home the next evening and make his next move. One night I
come over and he's pissed! He's swearing that the game cheated and
moved one of his pieces. I was like - "Sure it did..." Well, sure
enough - it did cheat. He recreated the exact same game, and when the
computer (which was programmed to try to 'win' every game at master
level) reached a point where it couldn't find a winning solution, it
rearranged the board (moved his bishop) to find a potential winning
solution and then made its next move. IIRC he wrote Atari about the
issue and got a funny letter back from someone (programmer?) about the
'bug' in the game that they missed.
>
> Now considering whom I am replying to, I am hoping that you understood this
> and that it was the unwritten portion of your answer.
Depends on your view of what I've written above.
> > >
> > > Warmachine doesn't have any strategies and tactics. It's a game of if
> > > you get to pull your special feat or cast spell x before your oponent
> > > then you've won.
> >
> > And this differs vastly from many GW games where the roll to see
> > who gets the first turn determines the winner how exactly?
> >
>
> My thoughts exactly!
While 40K does offer a moderate amount of strategic potential with
its large number of variables, it also suffers due to the inclusion of
certain totally random elements that can utterly negate even the best of
strategies available to a particular force before the game has even
begun. The prime example (and worst offender) in 40K would be the
random nature of the terrain (or rather the lack of it) combined with
the random roll to see who has the first turn. No matter how good a
strategist one is in 40K, if there is little or no cover available in
your deployment zone and you lose the first move/fire opportunity, then
the vast majority of the time you're seriously disadvantaged from the
start. Another offender in 40K is the totally random nature of the
'reinforcements' rules which can and often do negate strategic planning.
Personally, I find the most interesting/fun games of 40K to be
ones where the board has a medium amount of terrain and LOS blocking
features so that the 'who goes first' determination is far out-weighed
by deployment placement choices (which you mentioned previously) and
maneuvering / tactical employment of various units. It's a lot more fun
to me to play a game where the challenge lies in dealing with the
uncertainty of the outcome until the very end. In real world conflicts,
anyone with an above room temperature I.Q. and a basic grasp of strategy
damn well wants to *know* that they've won BEFORE the conflict begins.
Great strategists make sure they don't even have to have a conflict, the
foe already knows they're going to lose if they try or never have the
desire to try at all. (Sun Tsu {Tzu} anyone?)
Later,
Myrmidon
--
"I'm already impoverished from buying wargames minis,
and I'm too knackered for riotous living..."
-- Moramarth
RGMW FAQ:
http://www.rgmw.org
Or...
http://www.sheppard.demon.co.uk/rgmw_faq/rgmw_faq.htm
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram