FUNDAMENTALS OF GAME DESIGN, SECOND EDITION
A Final Note on Artificial Opponents
Don't expect to be able to create an artificial opponent that can routinely beat a human fair and square unless your game is a simple one—so simple that it can use game-tree search. hFSMs are very useful, but they're seldom good enough to beat a skilled player in an equal contest. Most strategy games use two additional features to provide a challenge to their players: hidden information that the player must find by exploring, and unfair advantages for the computer's side, such as stronger units or more efficient production. But don't concentrate too hard on making an unbeatable AI anyway. You do want the player to eventually win the game. The function of game AI is to put up a good fight but lose in the end.
Covering all aspects of the whole genre of strategy games in a single chapter is an impossible task. Here we focused on the key challenges of most modern war games: conflict, exploration, and economic management. You now know how to design units, choosing attributes and capabilities that will give them the qualities that you want. You should also be able to create an upgrade path or technology tree that allows for a sense of advancement, introducing new units and decisions in the game.
You also learned the importance of establishing a balanced economic model for unit production so that all sides in a game have an equal chance of building up their forces. We looked at several ways to handle the question of supply lines, from literal transportation of supplies to abstract distribution systems.
You should be aware of some of the considerations for designing games set in different worlds, and you should now know the best ways to present those worlds to the player: with an aerial perspective and a multipresent interaction model. Finally, we looked at a few different ways of designing artificial opponents.
If you plan to design a strategy game, a good way to start is to examine the mechanics of a good board game such as The Settlers of Catan. Board games are simple enough for a single person to grasp the entire rule-set and, consequently, such games lend themselves well to analysis.
