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RPS in RTS

Blogs > AirbladeOrange
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AirbladeOrange
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
United States2573 Posts
March 11 2011 20:17 GMT
#1
This was a chance find while I was reading about Rock Paper Scissors strategy. It's funny how detailed it gets even though it was written for someone who knows nothing of Starcraft. It also seems appropriate because on the forums I hear many people complain about Rock Paper Scissors in Starcraft 2. However, this is about Brood War. I'm no Brood War expert, but this article clearly fails to take scouting into consideration. Regardless of its faults it still is worth checking out. Here it is.

PS It also has a section talking about fighting games, specifically Virtua FIghter.

RPS in RTS

Real-time strategy games such as StarCraft also use the RPS system. Like fighting games there's the concept of RPS on large scale and a small scale. On the small scale, particular units are designed to counter each other in a RPS way. A marine dies to a guardian. A guardian dies to a corsair. A corsair dies to a marine. Abstractly, there are 6 categories of unit. Ground units can either attack 1) other ground units, 2) air units, or 3) both. Air units can attack 4) other air units, 5) ground units, or 6) both. Pure ground-to-ground units usually beat both other types of ground units, yet lose to both types of air units that can attack ground. Similarly, pure air-to-air units usually beat both other types of air units, but loose to both types of ground units than can attack air.

RPS is not limited purely to units countering each other though. Real-time strategy games also have the concept of trading off powerful units now for a strong economy now, which leads to even more powerful units later. So on one extreme, a Zerg player in StarCraft might sacrifice his entire economy to get a quick attack force ("6 pool" is the term). This will likely beat a player who chose the other extreme of playing for pure economy and no immediate attack force (by building double oven triple hatcheries). A moderate build (pool on 9th peon, one sunken colony) will likely defend against the early attacker's rush, though. Surviving the rush, the moderate build will have a much superior economy and win in the end. However, this moderate build will produce an inferior economy to the player who built 2 or 3 hatcheries and went for pure economy.

In Starcraft, the early rush is a very, very risky strategy. It's all or nothing. You'll either win right away off it, or your rush will fail and you'll almost surely lose. Because of this, the early rush isn't all that common (depending on the map), but the very threat that the opponent might play the early rush is enough to stop you from playing for pure economy every time.

Finally, notice how hard it is to determine the actual payoffs in StarCraft. If your correct guess results in a battle between a few enemy Zealots and several of your Marines, what is the payoff? How many Marines will you lose? It depends on the micromanagement skill of both players, the terrain, and whether each player even focuses on the battle at all (maybe there's a more pressing battle somewhere else on the map). A lot of the goodness of StarCraft's design is that it's full of RPS with unequal and unclear payoffs.

http://www.sirlin.net/articles/rock-paper-scissors-in-strategy-games.html

*
mikeymoo
Profile Blog Joined October 2006
Canada7170 Posts
March 11 2011 20:39 GMT
#2
Oh Sirlin... I knew this looked familiar.
o_x | Ow. | 1003 ESPORTS dollars | If you have any questions about bans please PM Kennigit
MiniRoman
Profile Blog Joined September 2003
Canada3953 Posts
March 11 2011 20:54 GMT
#3
T.T fighting gamers may want their genre to be as deep as RTS.. but it isn't. Sirlin with flawed logic does not make it so
Nak Allstar.
Boblion
Profile Blog Joined May 2007
France8043 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-03-11 20:57:41
March 11 2011 20:56 GMT
#4
I think we have already said it before, Sirlin shouldn't be allowed to talk about RTS, especially broodwar.
A D- player is more knowledgeable than him.
fuck all those elitists brb watching streams of elite players.
puppykiller
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
United States3128 Posts
March 11 2011 21:13 GMT
#5
huh... this is pretty obvious stuff except super dumbed down
Why would I play sctoo when I can play BW?
Chill
Profile Blog Joined January 2005
Calgary25981 Posts
March 11 2011 21:18 GMT
#6
Have you seen Sirlin's later posts on RTS? He has no autority on talking about the genre. He can talk about the mind of gaming, but as soon as he crosses into RTS specifics he loses all credibility for me.
Moderator
intotheheart
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
Canada33091 Posts
March 11 2011 21:39 GMT
#7
Except it doesn't exactly work that way, since maxed 200/200 armies attacking each other can typically vary in terms of "effectiveness," as the skill level of the players differ. RPS is luck and mind-games.
kiss kiss fall in love
Chef
Profile Blog Joined August 2005
10810 Posts
March 11 2011 21:57 GMT
#8
Haha, this is such tunnel vision. Maybe some units are better at killing certain units than others, but that doesn't make it rock paper sissors, especially when in StarCraft you are not forced to engage enemy armies if you don't want to. Carriers counter lurkers? Sure, but that doesn't help when your carriers are on one side of the map and the lurkers are in the Protoss' mineral line. There are no real counters in SC because every unit has a number of uses that goes beyond just attacking into the enemy. It really takes someone with no RTS experience to think of StarCraft only in terms of whether the units win in a confrontation vs one another.
LEGEND!! LEGEND!!
TheNessman
Profile Blog Joined May 2009
United States4158 Posts
March 11 2011 22:17 GMT
#9
hahaha, the OP seemed pretty legit and logical, nothing new, but a simple way of explaining some of the basic ideas in SC,

What makes him so discredited? Link?
~~! youtube.com/xmungam1 !~~
Boblion
Profile Blog Joined May 2007
France8043 Posts
March 11 2011 23:16 GMT
#10
The "why TL think that Sirlin is a joke" thread:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=108326
fuck all those elitists brb watching streams of elite players.
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