I have a friend who is much better at starcraft than I am; he says that he’s largely better because he’s worked out a lot of things like exactly the most efficient time to start harvesting gas and the resource collection per minute harvesters under optimal conditions, and he uses that information when he plays. It works better than playing based on feelings (by which I mean that he beats me).
If you don’t have way too much time on your hands, though, it’s about as much fun to not bother with all of that.
Also, I notice you cited a Wikipedia page. Naughty, naughty, naughty.
Well yea the start timings are important… they correspond to ‘book’ knowledge of chess openings. I did those a fair lot when i were playing chess more seriously (which was long long ago when i was 10-12). You have to do those before you start actually playing, and in RTS those openings are not so well developed as to read ’em off an old book like you do in chess.
Chess computer btw also uses openings, i think none of the 16 possible first moves leads to loss of king in 10ply (i’d wager a bet that none of possible white’s first moves leads to inevitable loss or victory at all, and certainly not in less than 50ply), and the computer does e2-e4 (or other good first move) purely by book. It doesn’t figure out that e2-e4 is better move than say a2-a3 from the rules alone. There’s a LOT of human thought about chess that chess AI relies on to beat humans.
I have a friend who is much better at starcraft than I am; he says that he’s largely better because he’s worked out a lot of things like exactly the most efficient time to start harvesting gas and the resource collection per minute harvesters under optimal conditions, and he uses that information when he plays. It works better than playing based on feelings (by which I mean that he beats me).
If you don’t have way too much time on your hands, though, it’s about as much fun to not bother with all of that.
Also, I notice you cited a Wikipedia page. Naughty, naughty, naughty.
Well yea the start timings are important… they correspond to ‘book’ knowledge of chess openings. I did those a fair lot when i were playing chess more seriously (which was long long ago when i was 10-12). You have to do those before you start actually playing, and in RTS those openings are not so well developed as to read ’em off an old book like you do in chess.
Chess computer btw also uses openings, i think none of the 16 possible first moves leads to loss of king in 10ply (i’d wager a bet that none of possible white’s first moves leads to inevitable loss or victory at all, and certainly not in less than 50ply), and the computer does e2-e4 (or other good first move) purely by book. It doesn’t figure out that e2-e4 is better move than say a2-a3 from the rules alone. There’s a LOT of human thought about chess that chess AI relies on to beat humans.