Game Theory and Starcraft 2 - Page 2

On July 09 2011 04:20 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:


This is such a twisted view. What is "better"? The only way you can concretely determine performance is by how much you win, which is what performance is. If you can cheese your opponents every game and win the GSL, is that not worth it? Don't consider that maybe you won't be able to play long macro games like the rest, because again, only the results matter. If you cheese every game and win every tournament, are you a good player?

Of course that example is to the extreme, but I hope you get the point. (Look at thebest though, he was quite successful in the super tourny and made much more money than players playing "standard" like idra).

On July 09 2011 02:41 SoKHo wrote:


I think it came from the Korean BW commentators. At least that is where I first heard it. Why do you feel so insulted and hate the word cheese so much? When you all-in a hatch first (which is standard zerg play), every game, you probably won't improve at all. To become a better player, you need to play standard. I like to incorporate cheese in a tournament game.

On July 09 2011 01:38 Barrin wrote:

wtf?

Cheesy>Greedy
AND
Greedy>Cheesy?

can't have it both ways...

---

Anyways, if anyone wants to learn more about Game Theory: http://academicearth.org/courses/game-theory

You're welcome.

On July 09 2011 01:44 Milkis wrote:
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=204175

You might be interested in this

On July 09 2011 01:43 Thereisnosaurus wrote:
While this shows a decent understanding of game theory it doesn't show a decent understanding of the realities of professional starcraft. For one, suggesting that a game of professional starcraft is single iteration zero sum is a wee bit foolish. A starcraft 2 game is more like a single game (within a set, match, tournament and season) of tennis than anything else. The player must take into account, for example

> optimum revealing of information such as build orders, micro ability, tricks and tactics in order to gain maximum advantage over the game, match, tournament or series of tournaments.

> optimum expending of energy reserves to gain the optimum win chance in a certain scenario where energy is not infinite over the course of a match, a tournament or series of tournaments.

>Score as a resource expendable to gain advantages in future series. playing a super risky cheese even knowing you will lose guaranteed if it gives you a percieved advantage in future games and doesn't eliminate you may be a worthwhile trade if it can be made

> metagame/career winnings. If say player X plays standard and wins 90% of tournaments gaining Y money and player A plays flashy, crazy tactic based games and wins 10% of tournaments gaining B money, but also C from endorsements, sponsorships, streaming and canned fan drool, if B+C > Y then player A can be said to 'win' at SC2 over player X if money is the only score system. This states that playing risky/cheese strategies that have a lower percentage chance of winning a single non iterated game may actually be more valuable to a player in an iterated scenario, so the highest %win chance strategy within a game is not always the best strategy.

Your arguments are solid, but you're looking at a very narrow aspect of SC2's metagame of progaming. If those were the only variables around you'd be right, unfortunately, they're not so things are a wee bit more complex than basic game theory can deal with.

On July 09 2011 02:53 Zocat wrote:


Imagine the following SC2 situation:
TvP. Your army values are about equal.
You, the T, drop the P's mainbase and start attacking buildings. Do you retreat after killing a pylon / a warpgate or do you push into the probeline and try to kill all the probes?
You can risk your whole drop (a lot of chips) or retreat and take away your small advantage (small pot).

Now imagine you did kill all his probes and got away with your drop. Obviously you have a big economic lead.
You now dont need to proceed with your planned timing attack (against an opponent with equal army value), possibly engaging in a bad position, since over time your advantage will increase. You can now play defensive, setting up good positions when a fight is about to happen.
Since your opponent is behind he has to take risks to make a comeback. And you can exploit those risks. Similiar how in football the team behind has to open up the defense and try to score a goal. And the leading team can exploit the open/free space by utilizing fast counter play.

On July 09 2011 04:20 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:


This is such a twisted view. What is "better"? The only way you can concretely determine performance is by how much you win, which is what performance is. If you can cheese your opponents every game and win the GSL, is that not worth it? Don't consider that maybe you won't be able to play long macro games like the rest, because again, only the results matter. If you cheese every game and win every tournament, are you a good player?

Of course that example is to the extreme, but I hope you get the point. (Look at thebest though, he was quite successful in the super tourny and made much more money than players playing "standard" like idra).

On July 09 2011 05:18 obesechicken13 wrote:
Even if safe play is better, warcraft 3 got really boring for me when I noticed commentators started predicting what heroes a player would get, what items they would get, and when they would get them five minutes before they actually did. Variety is necessary for a pro scene to survive.

On July 09 2011 07:07 Cyber_Cheese wrote:


Yes, you are. If the other people can't survive your onslaught and make it to late game, then why bother letting games get there?

Let's put it this way. If you scv-marine all-in every game in the first few minutes, how can you improve your skill? Even if you are winning 100% of the time you are still not improving, there are almost no variables to improve on with an scv-marine all-in.

On July 09 2011 08:06 Nagu wrote:
You don't really gain anything strategy wise from game theory. Pretty much everything is obvious but it lets you tell people how dumb they are for complaining about cheese or other strategies.

On July 09 2011 07:47 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
What is skill? Skill doesn't matter as long as you win. If you win, you outplay your opponent. Only the skill needed to defeat your opponent is skill that is actually "used".

What determines improvement? Performance. What determines performance? Winning.

If you are scv rushing every game and winning 100%, you are the perfect player in that sense. You can improve in other aspects of the game, in this extreme situation that would be long macro games, but why give your opponent the chance to win if you can just kill him early?

On July 09 2011 08:06 Nagu wrote:
You don't really gain anything strategy wise from game theory. Pretty much everything is obvious but it lets you tell people how dumb they are for complaining about cheese or other strategies.

On July 09 2011 23:48 DoubleReed wrote:
Sigh, the OP claims to be a math major and yet still uses "Game Theory" incorrectly. Game Theory is about decisionmaking and getting the best possible outcome. Game Theory has extremely little to do with starcraft 2, poker, and gaming in general. It's much closer to economics than video games. Nothing in the OP is even remotely close to Game Theory.

You don't have friggin' Nash Equilibriums in Starcraft 2.

On July 10 2011 00:00 aristarchus wrote:

Yes, you do have Nash equilibria in sc2. He's using "game theory" correctly. It has plenty to do with poker and sc2. They're too complicated to use actual equations and work out specific probabilities of each build/bet, but you can definitely get some helpful understanding from it, and that's what he's giving. Game theory-wise, for example, it's really easy to see why on the ladder there is no penalty from doing the same build every game (assuming same matchup/map), but horrible problems if you do this in tournaments (or are well-known).

On July 10 2011 00:06 DoubleReed wrote:


Why do you need to bring game theory into it to suggest this? This is obvious without mathematics.

He claims that cheese/rushing should be in game to prevent everyone from FEing every game. Why is this bad? Why does game theory care? You have to bring in ideas like "excitement" and "fun" to make any sense of anything.

On July 10 2011 00:12 aristarchus wrote:

He's talking about what good strategy is. I guess you might find it more fun to watch everyone FE every game. It also might be more fun to watch soccer games if both teams just don't bring goalies... but that's not the point of this discussion. As a player, especially at the pro level, your main goal is to win, and that's what he's talking about.

But if your point is "Who cares if it's bad strategy? It's fun to watch" then make that point. Don't insult the OP by claiming he doesn't understand what he's talking about when he does, you don't, and you just make yourself look bad.

From a game theory standpoint, cheese needs to be there. If there was no danger of early attacks, there would be no need to build units and every player would just expo first. We could then skip the first 5 minutes of the game. In my oponion it also makes the game more interesting and challeging because it adds this mind game aspect, makes scouting important and provides different types of games. I even enjoy most cheeses (esp. from good players) because they show some action in the first minutes of the game and still often transition into a standard game.

On July 10 2011 00:21 DoubleReed wrote:


No, that's not my point. My point is when I read this:




It shows the OP doesn't make sense. From a game theory standpoint, cheese does NOT need to be there. Does it add variety? Does it add excitement? Sure. But what the hell does that have to do with game theory? There is no game theoretic reason why cheese needs to be in the game. That's not what game theory is.

It only begins to make sense when he says "In my opinion" which still has nothing to do with game theory.