Axis & Allies is a great game! I still play it every couple of weeks with my friend. It is still sold. Probobly the greatest board game I have played.

Yeah, A&A rocks! They have all kinds of expansion games for it now, concentrating on particular theatres. Very cool game...and complex!

- - - Regarding the OP, it''s my opinion that Monopoly is hardly a strategy game. All of the critical operations of the game but one (buying property) are based on outcome of dice or drawing unknown cards.
- I would suggest that the most important criteria for a strategy game is to have no random inputs: a game where the outcome is only influenced by player inputs. - Lubb

As for me there ar two types of goode games...

I strongly recomend Warhammer 40k as a good strategy boardgame, I have taken "riped off" some of these great ideas that Games Workshop has. Warhammer 40k is only a war strategy so it does not include much of the clasic source gathering.

I also recomend Vampire the masqurade by White-Wolf as a good strategy game... But mostly it''s a very good Role Playing Game... She strategy comes in when you whant to outmanouver your compeditors in your stagering steps in gaining status amongst other vampires while staying alive... Whell i thought that Vampire: Dark Ages or Vampire: The masqurade would make a great RPG... but then agian that was not what you wanted.

Som ideas might enlighten you !

quote:
Original post by Lubb

- I would suggest that the most important criteria for a strategy game is to have no random inputs: a game where the outcome is only influenced by player inputs. - Lubb

I disagree. By this criteria you could think Quake is more of a strategy game than CounterStrike, because the winner in Quake is determined by player input alone, whereas in CounterStrike it is possible to win any battle at any moment with a lucky headshot, even without a perfect aim. Likewise you could consider C&C more of a strategy game than Panzer General, since so much depends on random.

Random is acceptable in strategy games as long as the random component averages out over longer periods of time and the player''s decisions remain the decisive factor.

IMHO, a criteria for strategy games would be that the decisive ingredient for victory is thinking, as opposed to luck, click rate, hand eye coordination and so forth.

- Quake is not detirmined by single-player input alone. The computer operates automated opponents, and those opponents generally don''t behave in any well-coordinated way.
~
Including randomness in a strategy game does not bear extension: games that include no randomness (such as chess) are most definitely strategy games, while games based completely on randomness (such as craps) are not. You cannot mount any strategy against a completely random-acting opponent or objective; having a strategy implies that you can attempt to plan in advance what an opponent will do, and respond in order to increase your advantage. - Lubb

What I''m going to put forward in lecture is that randomness can be used to simulate a certain level of abstraction. For example, you might say that in quake, a certain opponent has x skill points, and from what has been seen so far the player has y skill points, so a match can be simulated using a simple randomization to decide who gets to kill who. The average of many such simulated results may even be accurate.

Abstractions on such a basic level are clearly not influenced by some sort of input. However, if inputs such as put x points into speed, put y points into accuracy are allowed, then suddenly there may be a strategy for dealing with opponents who are better or worse in some way.

Those games which involve many random elements may still be dependent upon strategy, just not on an incident level. Many games played over a stretch of time will eventually show that one player seems to have a higher winning average. Good examples are Whist and Poker. Monopoly is also like this, because you (the player) are at the mercy of those random elements which are put before you, but your strategy for buying and trading is still a critical part of accomplishing the goals of the game.

George D. Filiotis
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quote: Those games which involve many random elements may still be dependent upon strategy, just not on an incident level. Many games played over a stretch of time will eventually show that one player seems to have a higher winning average. Good examples are Whist and Poker. Monopoly is also like this, because you (the player) are at the mercy of those random elements which are put before you, but your strategy for buying and trading is still a critical part of accomplishing the goals of the game.

While this statement is true, majority of the players do not sense the strategy in games that contain a huge degree of varying factors because they do not have the enormous amount of time required to experience the statistic numbers. (Hope this make sense.)

So, if you state that Monopoly is a strategy game, I can only semi-agree with you. However, if you state that Monopoly is a strategy game over time, this, I can say is true.

Science vs. luck

Randomness effects strategy in real life. A general killed at the height of battle - Richard I outside Chaluz - for example. Thus if a strategy game aims to simulate real life warfare to an extent there has to be a random element in it.

Another way of looking at it is predictability. If you could predict with accuracy what your opponent or the AI was going to do would the game be worth playing? It is in trying to predict what will happen, and making contingency plans, that the game comes alive.