/vr/ - Retro Games

>>5244593
>What does that even mean in the context of a skill that is entirely random and doesn't do anything throughout the entire game, and is a random ace in the hole that might or might not work in the final battle at all, and that is entirely negated by an artifact? How is that a "true strategic question"?
True strategy requires random elements to have to plan imperfectly around. If you don't have that, you only have a sort of pseudostrategy created around your inability to fully calculate the game out to an endpoint.

Chess is probably the simplest way to illustrate this difference. The game is not solved. It is not likely to ever be solved. But individual positions are soluble, such as pic related. Once you have that solution, all actual strategic thought goes out the window, and you simply execute your checkmate. Now, of course, as you get further and further away from a calculated decisive line, you need to fall back on vaguer, more general concepts. "Grab the center", "expand your piece scope" "try to threaten his king"; but all of those are simply crutches for an inability to calculate the number of ply necessary to determine with 100% accuracy whether your position is a win, loss, or draw.

Resistance as implemented in Vanilla Homm presents actual battle strategy. You're about to cast a spell at your opponent who has resistance? You do not know, CANNOT know, how it will turn out until after it has been executed. If you're making a plan for the next 3-5 turns, you have to work in actual unknown variables into this plan. HoTA's version does not do this. With resistance, you have X spellpower reduction, and you can proceed to fully calculate from there.