The concepts outlined are pretty good, but I want to make a counterpoint against heuristics in general. Distilled ideas like these are certainly useful for trying to grasp a complex system, but they do not, for the non-expert player, represent game knowledge. Let me explain why.<p>The pitfall for the average viewer/player is to take these mantras and apply them directly to what they see. They see a game where T apparently overcommits after winning an engagement at his 3rd, and wonder why he didn't take a 4th instead. Surely, this is a mistake of not getting more ahead!<p>An expert player might look at the same scenario and see an entirely different picture. The problem was that he scanned a 15m timing instead of a 17m timing for the Hive, so he was actually behind in that engagement (he should have decisively won with the Z's gas locked up elsewhere!). And that Broodlords would be due out in 2 production cycles, but it takes 3m for him to break-even on the new mine, and he would miss the window to secure enough of an advantage to push the game into a low-econ trade phase.<p>My point is that real game understanding is extremely specific. It's all about the actual state and timing. To go back to the article, that's where the marginal advantages are gained - by understanding and controlling how these extremely specific scenarios play out. The larger ideas about strategy that everyone loves fall out from the analyses of these interactions. But "getting" the general idea isn't the same as actually _getting_ it when you work out these scenarios and timings yourself from extensive playing/testing. So heuristics are really only part of the picture, the much larger part is a precise understanding of the system at work.
My little brother, quoting a noted SC personality: when you're ahead, get more ahead. It is probably the most important strategic lesson in the game: if you have a temporary 5 pct material advantage, you can still easily get outplayed if you force a fight. Better to turn that into a 10 pct material advantage, etc, and force a fight only after you've already won.<p>The other game I play a lot of is League of Legends, and sadly the community around my skill level has not learned this gospel yet. If it looks like we have 30 seconds of advantage, the team of 5 almost invariably either does nothing or goes for a decapitating stroke whose downside risk is loss. A better tactic is probably "Get more ahead so we win the next skirmish, too, snowballing until we win by concession or overwhelming force."
As many of the sc2 players here might know, the guy who wrote this (day9) is one of the famous person in esports right now. He used to be a professional player of sc, but since sc2 appeared (2010) he dedicated to analyze the game, and has even a daily show about it.<p>The interesting thing about starcraft is that it's played _so_ much (in s. korea is a profession, kids actually go to live in "pro houses" were they play all day), that the game has/is evolving to a point where every little thing matters. In the highest levels, you can't really fight a straight up battle and hope to win, it's a game of getting little advantages (like removing %1 of his income) and trying to get ahead, and push those advantages much later on. Increasing your economy, building up you army, the execution and management of your units in the fight, everything counts.
Sean "Day[9]" Plott (the author of the article) is probably the best analytical Starcraft II caster around. His "Day[9] Dailies" cover everything from the absolute fundamentals ("here's how you set up your hotkeys, here's how you keep your money low") to more advanced topics like build orders, expanding, tactics, and micro. He also throws in "Funday Mondays", where beginner and experienced players alike try to win with unorthodox constraints (usually with funny and/or insightful results).<p>Bronze league matches often end up being a contest of who can win with the first rush or the earliest "cheese", but most pro-level play does end up being a careful balance between aggression, defense, and expansion. The winner is usually the one who can stay just slightly ahead of their opponent until they can seize a clear advantage.
There is no _Game theory_ mentioned anywhere in the article, but _Competitive game design theory_.<p>Title should be changed to reflect that as to not bring confusion about it referring to the broad (and complex) Game theory subject.
Day9 hosted an event called The After Hours Gaming League in which eight tech companies will compete each other for charity. The event has just finished its first season with team Microsoft crushing everyone else. Zynga is the runner up and Google claimed third place.<p>Games: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ahgl" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ahgl</a>
Homepage: <a href="http://afterhoursgaming.tv/" rel="nofollow">http://afterhoursgaming.tv/</a><p>There are a number of interesting game theory articles on competitive Starcraft. This is one: <a href="http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=258566&currentpage=125#2488" rel="nofollow">http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=258...</a> (and my comment to it: <a href="https://plus.google.com/116918963723558831013/posts/A8DRTY11MYQ" rel="nofollow">https://plus.google.com/116918963723558831013/posts/A8DRTY11...</a>).
The new 4-5dan go-playing bots on kgs (zen19d, crazystone) use this strategy extensively. When they're ahead they play to consolidate their biggest weakness, and when they're behind they play more and more risky moves to try to come back. In the endgame the calculate the score exactly, and will play negative point value moves as long as they are ahead on the board.<p>It makes for a really tough game, cause if you do get ahead, you have to face a series of attacks which <i>almost</i> but don't quite work, and if you mess up any of them it's over.
This marginal advantage strategy is also well demonstrated in professional tennis. When you are in control of the rally, going for a shot which maintains your offensive position, with the potential to slightly extend your lead within the rally, is best. Often the defensive player will go for a huge winner if they are getting tired or are so out of position as to be unable to recover by hitting several good marginal defensive shots to get the point back to a neutral position. But if you watch the best players, they all have skills which gain or erase the most marginal advantages.
Am I the only one that thought this post would have been about Economic Game Theory? - <a href="http://www.dklevine.com/general/whatis.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.dklevine.com/general/whatis.htm</a><p>Very nice read though. Day9 is right. The best players all seem to have a knack for maintaining a marginal advantage or taking a small one and getting a bigger advantage.
If I remember correctly from my college AI days, thinking about upcoming turns and minimizing your opponent's gains is called minimax: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimax" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimax</a><p>I'm surprised that there was only one AI in the competition that did this. We were all expected to use this strategy in my class. Once everybody's figured this out, it becomes a game of:<p>- Who can think ahead the most turns?
- Who has the best "am I winning?" heuristic function? (For Mancala this function is fairly obvious, but for many games it's not.)
The author stated, "Third, a good competitive game should test a player’s skills and minimize the element of chance or luck. Ideally, the probability of a weak player defeating a good player should be as close to zero as possible."<p>Do you think this is always the case? I'm thinking about texas hold 'em, which has short-term variability but the stronger players win over the long run with a better strategy. Does chance have a place in competitive gaming?
For those that aren't familiar with it, the teamliquid.net forum typically has very high-quality posts (i.e. heavily moderated) and a great resource for anyone interested in e-sports. I recommend you check out the front page if you haven't before.
This article correctly notes that those in the lead should play to conservatively extend their marginal advantage.<p>The corollary, for those in behind, is that they should attempt more gambits.<p>The principles of variance are strange. Sometimes, if you're in behind, you reduce your chance of losing by adopting what looks like a "losing" strategy (according to naive expected value calculations). With a wild all-or-nothing strategy, your chance of winning from behind likely won't exceed 50%, but by acting more like the 'risky amateur,' you might up your chances from 10% to 30%.
In my opinion, the most important concept to understand is "Timing windows". Vs a equally skilled player, you can't have all the advantages. Understanding the <i>imbalances</i> of a current situation - and taking advantage of it - is really what differentiate beginners from great players.<p>Sometime, in a game of 30mins, there's only a few seconds where you have the upper hand.. and this is where you need to attack. Miss that moment (from a couple of seconds!!) and you lose. Go a little bit before, and you lose!
So much stuff can be learned from sc/sc2 to apply in your life. Things from accepting defeat and understanding your mistakes, to know how to fight strategically. (By <i>fight</i> I mean it in a very vague way; Fight for a girl, Fight for a new job, etc.)
I just read all the comments because the author states that one program collects the maximum amount of stones, and another competitor's program figured out how to collect an additional stone.<p>Does this not make sense to anyone else? Can someone please explain it to me?
I browse hacker news and reddit/r/starcraft each day.. I love when an article appears on both :) A perfect mix between <i>hacker</i>-ness and <i>gamer-</i>ness.