In anticipation for the Hot Seat patch for Civ 5 I went back to play a bunch of random strategy games again, and one of the game I played was Nobunaga's Ambition 12 on some custom super duper hard scenario. I picked a relatively weak power and I noticed I was never attacked by the AI the whole game. The AI will never attack you if they cannot have an advantage in troop at least locally (i.e. you can have way more troops nearby and lure them into a trap, but they will never attack a place that is certain death without reinforcement approaching). I never lost a single battle in the whole game, and even though I started with 20K troops surrounded by guys with 50K to 1 million troops, there was never a point where the AI had more troops than me at the local level.
Now this isn't about why the AI sucks (it's actually surprisingly good), or what awesome tactic I used (I delegated all offense to the AI). I noticed this is a recurring theme in most strategy game I play. Once I go on the attack I generally never lose a battle to the AI, and in turn based game 99% of the time I will never lose to a human player either once on the attack. This doesn't mean I'm invinicible. If I'm playing in a bad position against say my brother I may never be able to attack at all and just get wiped out, but in this case he's the one who is on the offensive for the entire game. The aggressor in most strategy games wins virtually 100% of the time even against equal skilled players, assuming that the aggressor knows the game well enough to be on the offensive when he will win. Even in games with strong defenses this is still true. Nobunaga's Ambition 12 has incredibly strong defenses. In Starcraft 2 terms, imagine your defensive structure are invulnerable, with no way to bypass them, and if you dare to click attack on them the anti-rush police will drop a nuke on your army and that's about how strong Nobu 12's defense are. Now Nobu 12 is not multiplayable, but even with these ridiculously overpowered defenses, you'd still get into a game where nobody would attack at all until you have an army powerful enough to run straight through them and still take out the enemy. Even here the aggressor will still win nearly 100% of the time. To me the game then becomes a glorified SRPG since in a SRPG your party is also never supposed to actually lose any battle. If turn-based strategy game are feasible multiplayer and I can play against someone of similar skill, most games would either end after the first major fight, and most likely before the first major fight took place (because the attacker wouldn't attack until he's sure he can win).
So why does this happen? I mean strategy games are supposed to simulate wars, but wars sure aren't decided before the first major battle is fought. Sure part of it is information, as you generally have more information at your disposal than even the most advanced metrics, but it can't be just that. America got bogged down in multiple wars against far inferior foes, and while they didn't lose them, it sure isn't an inexorable march toward victory with no possibility of losing. I think there are some factors that cause this unrealistic behavior, and hopefully games can avoid them in the future:
1. Experience and healing - Virtually all strategy games have some kind of experience system, or at least a way for one unit to become more powerful through battle. Most games also feature the ability to heal back to full strength. Almost always experience is gained for killing stuff. This means if you win a battle, then your guys are now more experienced, and the enemy is not because they're dead. Since all your units can eventually heal up, this means the next time you fight the enemy can only be at a worse situation than before.
Super Daisenryaku is a notable game where units do not heal. Your M1A1 starts at 10 strength, and if it somehow became at a super elite at strength 2 where it gets a +25% to hit and +12% evade, it stays at strength 2. You can combine it with a strength 8 newbie tank, but then you end up with a strength 10 unit with +5% to hit and +2% evade, which is decent but hardly game changing.
2. Most units are too hard to kill. This is usually a result from #1, but in general units in most strategy game just aren't hard counters. With enough experience you can beat Pikeman with Knights in Civ 5. Most counters in strategy game just aren't 'hard' enough. Again I'll point to Super Daisenryaku as one where they do it right. A max XP M1A1 still only has a 20% chance to hit an Apache helicopter, and the Apache has about 80% to hit the M1A1 (less depending on terrain). Even if you were able to get a full strength M1A1 to max XP, it'd still be trivially taken down by helicopters. You might take out 1 helicopter instead of 0, but you'll still lose badly no matter what.
3. Logistics is meaningless. Most strategy games cost absolutely nothing to move troops around, even though keeping an army supplied is probably the single most expensive operation around. We hear about how American wars cost billions of dollar a day and it's taking a toll on the American economy, the strongest one in the world by far, and the Americans don't exactly have a massive army in terms of numbers. Yet in various games you'd be marching around armies that make world war 2 look like a small skirmish while supporting it effortlessly. Here I think ROTK 11 (and probably earlier games) have a pretty good model. It costs relatively little to maintain a standing army at home. If you got twice the economy as your opponent you can easily sustain twice his army at your base. However, this is only before you need to move them. Once troops are out on the move, the maintenance cost skyrockets and there is no way a person with twice your economy can mobilize twice your force. He'd be lucky to be able to mobilize an army equal to 150% of your size, and the defender can easily come up with say 125% of the army he should've been able to mobilize, since as the defender he doesn't need to be concerned with moving his troop any meaningful amount of distance.
In fact, ROTK 11 is one of the few games I can think of where the game does not result in an inexorable march to victory once a side has an advantage. Let's say you can support 100K and your enemy can support 200K, and both are equally good. Although you're in a bad spot, an offense would look like this:
Enemy mobilizes about 150K troops (he cannot get his last 50K to your point without going bankrupt).
You hire troop up to 125K when you noticed the enemy is preparing a massive attack. While you do not have the economy to mobilize the troops to the enemy city, you don't actually have to travel that far so it's okay because you're defending.
In a 150K vs 125K, the defender can easily win this fight (they can also easily lose) depending on some random variables + tactics. It is entirely possible for the defender to win decisively and completely wipe out the attacker. You might end up with say, 60K troops left, and at this point you can counterattack with your 60K troops (that you are able to mobilize) while the enemy is training a new army. Now, since the enemy left 50K behind (that he wasn't able to move), you probably won't succeed, but it's at least possible to put pressure on the other guy despite only having half of his resources. Therefore in ROTK 11 you don't have the inexorable march of victory, because at some point a competent defender can defeat your overexposed army and mount a counterattack. Even the computer can occasionally pull it off, and a human player of comparable skill can do it quite easily if you get greedy. So fights in ROTK 11 tends to be more skirmish where you try to see if you can find a good opening, and if you can't find one you may just retreat even if you've an advantage because you don't want to risk getting bogged down and killing your economy in the process.
I think the biggest issue here is logistics, as very few strategy game even think about such issues, even though many battles in history are determined solely due to that. Now you don't have to have supply line or anything that detailed, but at least giving some thought in upkeep in wartime versus peace would go in a long way.
Now this isn't about why the AI sucks (it's actually surprisingly good), or what awesome tactic I used (I delegated all offense to the AI). I noticed this is a recurring theme in most strategy game I play. Once I go on the attack I generally never lose a battle to the AI, and in turn based game 99% of the time I will never lose to a human player either once on the attack. This doesn't mean I'm invinicible. If I'm playing in a bad position against say my brother I may never be able to attack at all and just get wiped out, but in this case he's the one who is on the offensive for the entire game. The aggressor in most strategy games wins virtually 100% of the time even against equal skilled players, assuming that the aggressor knows the game well enough to be on the offensive when he will win. Even in games with strong defenses this is still true. Nobunaga's Ambition 12 has incredibly strong defenses. In Starcraft 2 terms, imagine your defensive structure are invulnerable, with no way to bypass them, and if you dare to click attack on them the anti-rush police will drop a nuke on your army and that's about how strong Nobu 12's defense are. Now Nobu 12 is not multiplayable, but even with these ridiculously overpowered defenses, you'd still get into a game where nobody would attack at all until you have an army powerful enough to run straight through them and still take out the enemy. Even here the aggressor will still win nearly 100% of the time. To me the game then becomes a glorified SRPG since in a SRPG your party is also never supposed to actually lose any battle. If turn-based strategy game are feasible multiplayer and I can play against someone of similar skill, most games would either end after the first major fight, and most likely before the first major fight took place (because the attacker wouldn't attack until he's sure he can win).
So why does this happen? I mean strategy games are supposed to simulate wars, but wars sure aren't decided before the first major battle is fought. Sure part of it is information, as you generally have more information at your disposal than even the most advanced metrics, but it can't be just that. America got bogged down in multiple wars against far inferior foes, and while they didn't lose them, it sure isn't an inexorable march toward victory with no possibility of losing. I think there are some factors that cause this unrealistic behavior, and hopefully games can avoid them in the future:
1. Experience and healing - Virtually all strategy games have some kind of experience system, or at least a way for one unit to become more powerful through battle. Most games also feature the ability to heal back to full strength. Almost always experience is gained for killing stuff. This means if you win a battle, then your guys are now more experienced, and the enemy is not because they're dead. Since all your units can eventually heal up, this means the next time you fight the enemy can only be at a worse situation than before.
Super Daisenryaku is a notable game where units do not heal. Your M1A1 starts at 10 strength, and if it somehow became at a super elite at strength 2 where it gets a +25% to hit and +12% evade, it stays at strength 2. You can combine it with a strength 8 newbie tank, but then you end up with a strength 10 unit with +5% to hit and +2% evade, which is decent but hardly game changing.
2. Most units are too hard to kill. This is usually a result from #1, but in general units in most strategy game just aren't hard counters. With enough experience you can beat Pikeman with Knights in Civ 5. Most counters in strategy game just aren't 'hard' enough. Again I'll point to Super Daisenryaku as one where they do it right. A max XP M1A1 still only has a 20% chance to hit an Apache helicopter, and the Apache has about 80% to hit the M1A1 (less depending on terrain). Even if you were able to get a full strength M1A1 to max XP, it'd still be trivially taken down by helicopters. You might take out 1 helicopter instead of 0, but you'll still lose badly no matter what.
3. Logistics is meaningless. Most strategy games cost absolutely nothing to move troops around, even though keeping an army supplied is probably the single most expensive operation around. We hear about how American wars cost billions of dollar a day and it's taking a toll on the American economy, the strongest one in the world by far, and the Americans don't exactly have a massive army in terms of numbers. Yet in various games you'd be marching around armies that make world war 2 look like a small skirmish while supporting it effortlessly. Here I think ROTK 11 (and probably earlier games) have a pretty good model. It costs relatively little to maintain a standing army at home. If you got twice the economy as your opponent you can easily sustain twice his army at your base. However, this is only before you need to move them. Once troops are out on the move, the maintenance cost skyrockets and there is no way a person with twice your economy can mobilize twice your force. He'd be lucky to be able to mobilize an army equal to 150% of your size, and the defender can easily come up with say 125% of the army he should've been able to mobilize, since as the defender he doesn't need to be concerned with moving his troop any meaningful amount of distance.
In fact, ROTK 11 is one of the few games I can think of where the game does not result in an inexorable march to victory once a side has an advantage. Let's say you can support 100K and your enemy can support 200K, and both are equally good. Although you're in a bad spot, an offense would look like this:
Enemy mobilizes about 150K troops (he cannot get his last 50K to your point without going bankrupt).
You hire troop up to 125K when you noticed the enemy is preparing a massive attack. While you do not have the economy to mobilize the troops to the enemy city, you don't actually have to travel that far so it's okay because you're defending.
In a 150K vs 125K, the defender can easily win this fight (they can also easily lose) depending on some random variables + tactics. It is entirely possible for the defender to win decisively and completely wipe out the attacker. You might end up with say, 60K troops left, and at this point you can counterattack with your 60K troops (that you are able to mobilize) while the enemy is training a new army. Now, since the enemy left 50K behind (that he wasn't able to move), you probably won't succeed, but it's at least possible to put pressure on the other guy despite only having half of his resources. Therefore in ROTK 11 you don't have the inexorable march of victory, because at some point a competent defender can defeat your overexposed army and mount a counterattack. Even the computer can occasionally pull it off, and a human player of comparable skill can do it quite easily if you get greedy. So fights in ROTK 11 tends to be more skirmish where you try to see if you can find a good opening, and if you can't find one you may just retreat even if you've an advantage because you don't want to risk getting bogged down and killing your economy in the process.
I think the biggest issue here is logistics, as very few strategy game even think about such issues, even though many battles in history are determined solely due to that. Now you don't have to have supply line or anything that detailed, but at least giving some thought in upkeep in wartime versus peace would go in a long way.
