I could send you an academic research about the complex cognitive processes that go into a SC2 match and why it is a great object of study. Do you read french?mad825 said:
StarCraft 2 Threatens to Zerg Rush Chess For Science
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
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There is one thing they have to keep in mind though. A lot of players use gaming equipment (mouse and keyboard) with a lot of programmable buttons that make the game a lot easier to manage. When you play chess, it's just you vs. the other guy.
"Complexity" can mean several things. StarCraft and Civilization aren't any more or less complex than each other, they're just complex in different ways. Much like chess, which can be complex on several different levels.WhiteTigerShiro said:
In StarCraft, you have to make several mental considerations in an instant. Where should I move my units? What do I need to build? Where is my enemy sending his units? Am I well-defended at my base? Do I have enough resources? Where should I attack from? How big is my enemy's army? Do I have the proper units to counter my enemy's units? What do I need to purchase? Should I wait and build up or should I attack with what I have now? Where on the map should I expand to? All of these considerations have to be taken into account in a very short length of time. That's what gives StarCraft it's complexity. Individually, any one of these considerations is fairly straightforward to respond to; "My enemy might attack with Unit A. I don't have an effective number of counter units for that. I should build some more." or "My base needs more Pylons. I should build more Pylons." are the kinds of ideal responses that would answer a mental question, but since a game of StarCraft is quite fast-paced, these responses have to be worked out in seconds, and a player's train of thought may not always be able to arrive at a satisfactory response to each situation under such conditions. StarCraft requires you to juggle, to make an analogy.
By contrast, Civilization gives you a nigh infinite amount of time to consider the problems facing you. How can I acquire Resource A? Can I trade someone for it? Is there any place on the map that I can reach where I can control this resource? Is that place occupied by another Civ? Can I mount an effective colonization effort to control the area where I can get that resource? Can I mount an effective war effort to take control of the area where that resource is? What would be the cost of a war/colonization effort? What would be the political ramifications of a war/colonization effort? Civilization gives you a long time to ponder all these things. In Civ, all of these questions stem from the same problem. The response to a a situation wouldn't be a single mental scentence, it would be a few mental paragraphs. In a game of Civ, a player may have several problems facing them, and may fail to resolve those problems by failing to take into account the ancilliary considerations that come with a single problem. A good analogy would probably be trying to arrange the contents of a bookshelf.
In other words, StarCraft and Civ are complex in different ways. They require different mindsets. Like chess, both games require a player to think about how they take on their opponent(s), what should they do to accomplish the end goal of winning, etc. The thing is, as far as I can tell, neither is really a good replacement for chess when it comes to scientific studies. Chess works because, at it's heart, it's a game with a simple concept and simple rules; it's easy to understand, easy to teach, and easy to keep track of how a game is progressing.
Things being complicated in different ways does not mean they have the exact same level of complexity.The Critic said:
Personally I'd say that Starcraft is less complex. That's not to say it is worse.
Being in real-time is certainly a factor, but it's not really part of complexity. Otherwise, presumably games like Dark Colony, which was more fast paced in that units had no build time (!) would be more complex still.
[small]Gah, that game was intense.[/small]
I like how you missed my glaringly obvious statement about the difference between turn based games and RTS games. Are you just ranting/trolling?WhiteTigerShiro said:
At least Forged Alliance (hint: Not a niche game, very popular among the RTS crowd), Sins of a Solar Empire, Anno 2070, The Settlers, Age of Empires Dawn of War (in a sense, if that is RTT then so is Starcraft with how simplistic it is), BFME2 actually perpetuate and develop the genre. All starcraft did was plagiarise warhammer 40k Tyranids/Eldar in the extreme in a cheap knockoff.
I love all the people criticizing sc2 for being "simple" yet fail to realize that chees is a game where 14 of your 16 pieces move in one direction..
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying chess has no depth. Chess is one of those games where thousands of people play it, and the best strategies for it have been hammered down. Yet so much depends on the player opposed to you that you have to constantly readjust your strategies and react to what he does.
Starcraft 2 is -exactly- the same. The units for the most part does one thing. The game is more figured out than any other rts on the marked (with the exception of Broodwar) simply because thousands of thousands of people are playing it. The best strategies have been figured out (at this time, new ones will always emerge), yet so much depends on the player opposed to you that you constantly have to readjust your strategies to react to his. The added element in this game which chess doesn't have, is Micro and Macro (which is moving your units and building stuff). This added element required heavy multitasking, which strains your brain even more as you need to do all this while simultaneously figuring out the strategies.
Some people are asking why not other RTSes has been chosen, surely game X is far superior to sc2? Well, hundreds of thousands of people daily disagrees with you for one. This makes is so theres a large pool of people to do "science" on. Secondly, no other rts game is this competitively, largely because of the huge player pool, but also because some of the most brilliant minds on the planet is playing this game for the increasingly larger cash prices. And thirdly, because of the described similarities above.
tl;dr: Most people have seeing the similarities between chess and starcraft for a decade. This comes off as no surprise.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying chess has no depth. Chess is one of those games where thousands of people play it, and the best strategies for it have been hammered down. Yet so much depends on the player opposed to you that you have to constantly readjust your strategies and react to what he does.
Starcraft 2 is -exactly- the same. The units for the most part does one thing. The game is more figured out than any other rts on the marked (with the exception of Broodwar) simply because thousands of thousands of people are playing it. The best strategies have been figured out (at this time, new ones will always emerge), yet so much depends on the player opposed to you that you constantly have to readjust your strategies to react to his. The added element in this game which chess doesn't have, is Micro and Macro (which is moving your units and building stuff). This added element required heavy multitasking, which strains your brain even more as you need to do all this while simultaneously figuring out the strategies.
Some people are asking why not other RTSes has been chosen, surely game X is far superior to sc2? Well, hundreds of thousands of people daily disagrees with you for one. This makes is so theres a large pool of people to do "science" on. Secondly, no other rts game is this competitively, largely because of the huge player pool, but also because some of the most brilliant minds on the planet is playing this game for the increasingly larger cash prices. And thirdly, because of the described similarities above.
tl;dr: Most people have seeing the similarities between chess and starcraft for a decade. This comes off as no surprise.
Uhm-no. Programmable buttons (meaning buttons that do more than one thing pr click) is illegal both on Bnet and tourneys. Most pro starcraft players prefer to remove those pesky extra buttons from their keyboards so they wont accidentally hit them.Adam Jensen said:
I like Forged Alliance as much as the next guy, and I've actually seen quite a few pro matches in that game as well (mostly from TLO..because he's such an awesome baller). But it doesn't resemble chess as much as starcraft does for this one simple reason: Matches can go on for hours where the only thing you're doing is building units, and sending them to the front line to die. It doesn't strain your brain the same way as a hectic game of starcraft 2 does.
Civilization: Similar to chess if you have infinite time. if you put a timer on turns on civ, I'd be inclined to agree. However, the player base is just too small.
Total war: Same as civ. + 90% of the game is won on the zoomed in battleground, where all you do is "micro".
Age of empires? lol..
Civilization: Similar to chess if you have infinite time. if you put a timer on turns on civ, I'd be inclined to agree. However, the player base is just too small.
Total war: Same as civ. + 90% of the game is won on the zoomed in battleground, where all you do is "micro".
Age of empires? lol..
All hail science! This sounds like a pretty good idea, especially because of the ease of access to data.
There are a good number of factors you chose to omit there:mad825 said:
In chess, you have the fixed premise of a symetrical engagement with sixteen pieces each. You always see your opponents ressources and can watch his response to any of your moves. You are also taking turns, meaning that you do not act AND decide at the same time, but can take turns, even if thats limited to 10 seconds.
You "only" have to deal with the behaviors of five different units that are equivalent to each other and only move in limited ways that are always fixed. While the possibilities of moves is nearly infinite, the rules always stay the same.
In SCII, you do not have all informations about your enemy available to you - a fog of war requires you to estimate his movements. The engagements are often not symetrical, having you deal with the advantages and disatvantages of more units at any given time. You also have to act and think at the same time. You do not have ten seconds to think over a crucial decision in SCII when your enemy is at your front door. You need to make several decisions at the same time and execute them as well.
Strategies are all BUT fixed - some rely on the metagame around the game itself, on the prevalence of certain units or even the preferences of certain players. The rules also keep changing. Abilities are changed to discourage certain strategies etc. It would be VERY interesting to see a numerical analysis about the removal of the "Kaydarin Amulet" alone.
Do you know firsthand that there is no mathematical comparison ? Have you looked into the research ? No ?mad825 said:
Suffice to say that the mathematical models to describe a short and simple game of SCII would be a difficult task on its own.
Is SCII "better" then Chess ?
Only if a cat is better then a bottle of wine.
Quick question: Does this study also include what it means when someone uses cheat codes to play?