🚀 go-pugleaf

Gerry Quinn wrote:
> In article <44769e3c$1...@clear.net.nz>, marsh...@SPAMparadise.net.nz 
> says...
>> pigdos wrote:
>>> For the mentally challenged I'll give at least one example of strategy. When 
>>> the Imperial Japanese Navy decided to attack both the Aleutian islands and 
>>> Midway it was a strategic decision, not a tactical one. Tactics can only be 
>>> discussed after such strategic decisions have been made (if you don't know 
>>> where you're going to fight how can you make tactical decisions on how to do 
>>> it). The tactics of how to carry out this strategic decision were left up to 
>>> the admirals who commanded the various task forces or task groups because 
>>> they would actually BE there. Nimitz didn't second guess the tactical 
>>> decisions of Halsey, but Halsey didn't dictate the strategy the entire US 
>>> Navy would pursue in the Pacific either. Other strategic decisions might be 
>>> to bomb war production facilities as opposed to concentration camps --  
>>> either could have been done, but it isn't a tactical decision.
>>>
>> Ok, where does the difference between strategy and tactics stop? While I 
>> agree that it was a strategic move, the carrier fleet still had to 
>> decide the strategy on how they were going to take the Islands.
> 
> Just because there is no bright line doesn't mean there is no 
> distinction.  Yes, you can say that stratergy is what you get when you 
> take an overall view of a lot of tactics, and there can be more than 
> two levels in a hierarchy, in which the strategy of one level becomes 
> the tactics of the next higher level.
> 
So you are saying here that there is some overlap?

> Typically in games, however, the levels change character as you move up 
> and down the hierarchy, and you can group them into broadly 
> 'strategic' or 'tactical'.  In Chess, for example, you count material 
> and positional heuristics at the strategic level, whereas at the 
> tactical level you calculate sequences of moves.  In HOMM, there's a 
> distinction between moving your heroes around collecting resources and 
> avoiding or hunting the enemy, and fighting a battle against an enemy 
> hero.  There are two separate AIs for this, and everyone knows which is 
> strategic and which is tactical.
> 
Saying "everyone knows" is exceedingly dangerous in any situation, but 
back to the discussion at hand.

While I can't say that I've played HOMM (nor even know the basics about 
it), going by your description, I can assume it's something like 
Warcraft III (and hence my basis for the following statements). Is it a 
strategy or a tactic, to only fight in battles you can win (again I make 
the point that I believe they are one in the same)? Is it a strategy or 
a tactic to take as many of the opponents pieces (in chess) as you can? 
Certainly for those examples (and all that I can think of), state (to me 
atleast) that you can use tactics and strategy interchangably.

>> To me this states that the words mean pretty much the same thing (aka 
>> they are synonyms), so RTT pretty much means RTS (and RTS pretty much 
>> means RTT).
> 
> I would say RTT would be the correct name for typical RTS games (some 
> would suggest RSI!).  Not because there's a bright line - sure, you do 
> some strategic things like deciding whether to build a base - but 
> because the tactics dominates and the strategy isn't very complex and 
> doesn't consume much time.  The fact is that the turn-based games, more 
> often or not, have a strong high-level strategic component - and the 
> RTS games, by and large, don't.
> 
Again I fail to see the difference here (but agree with the comment 
about RSI, although I think a FPS would be more likely to cause it). In 
turn based games (I've played the like of the original Civilization and 
Call to Power II) you can use a lot of similar strategies (or tactics if 
you will), with the exception of diplomacy, to those in RTS games (and 
I've played the likes of Age of Empires, Starcraft & Warcraft III). One 
thing I use (and can be applied to both turn based and RTS games), is 
creating lots of minor battles, away from a players main base (or city), 
and then attack their main base directly, before their troops have a 
chance to get back. I guess the main thing I should point out here is 
that strategy is more commonly used on a large scale than tactics (a war 
over a battle), although they are interchangeable.

> There is another kind of 'RTS' game which is not really a strategy or a 
> tactical game but a puzzle disguised as one, i.e. you make several 
> attempts to work out the correct plan to defeat a level, but you 
> couldn't expect even a brilliant player to have a chance of defeating 
> it first time when new to the scenario, except by pure luck.

It goes without saying there that the more you know about your enemy (if 
you take your average mission in a RTS campaign, after doing it a few 
times you get to know the terrain and where the enemy starts - terrain 
(at least unknown) is an enemy), the more likely you are to win.

--
Marsh Lion