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What you are describing with your risk/reward scenario is still math. And the gap doesn't need to be huge. It needs to be anything. You can prove which is more likely and then you should do the more likely.

But, EVEN IF we were to say you are 100% correct (which I am not) what this always boils down to in these discussions is people on your side of the argument have to present rare specific scenarios in order to say "See! What about now! Doesn't the game have interesting choices now!" But if the game only gains these interesting choices in these rare specific scenarios then how often do they come up in a game? Of your # of units * number of phases they act in decision points what % of them are these specific situations that are interesting (which again, I am not agreeing with you that the one you present is that) ?

Lets figure out some variables. If we are talking about having say... 12 units in an army. They all move, 3 are psykers, lets say 10 can shoot, and 9 can melee.

Thats 34 simplified decision points turn 1 player 1. Not accounting for player unit losses, (34 * 6) * 2 = 408 basic decision points in a game.

How often is your specific scenario coming about? Once a turn? Twice? Lets call it 5 because I am feeling crazy generous. 60 decision points out of 408. It's just over 14%. Again. 5 a turn is me being SUPER generous. Lets remember that turn 1 is basically just auto pilot. NONE of these scenarios are showing up then. And judging by this thread ( https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/801802.page) these decisions might spike in turn 2 and then decrease each turn after with turn 3 and 4 being increasing odds of the game being a foregone conclusion.

So even my super generous 5 a turn is probably more likely 0 turn 1, 5 turn 2, 4, 3, 2, 1. 30 a game. Not 60. or 7% of all decisions.

So based on the debatable and highly faulty idea that your scenario isn't just math with an optimal solution, and my generous idea that that scenario arrives regularly throughout the game, it still makes up less than 10% of all game play. Great.



I see what you are doing trying to come up with terms like the illusion of power to counter the concept of the illusion of choice. I even appreciate it to an extent.

But no. The illusion of choice is an ACTUAL thing. It's studied. It's understood. The designers of WoW talked about how the old talent trees were a bad mechanic because they created a lot of illusion of choice which is why they ditched them.

"Illusion of power" is nonsensical.

When a turn is interrupted you have to be able to predict what the other player is going to do. People are different from mechanics because they can be tricked. They have agency. The moment the calculation is trying to think what would that guy do instead of what are the mechanics going to be you enter into an entirely different set of circumstances.

But, do ALL decisions have to be 'interesting' ones, to make it a good game? Surely not, there must be a break even point of some sort in there.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I am comparing it to the end of the CoC game. The enemy hasn't deployed all their assets, but I have seized all but 1 (and one decoy) JOP and am advancing on the final objective.

Similarly, in 40k example, I am two or so turns away from the end of the game.

Just to foot-stomp this harder:

It's the end of both games. In one game, only the enemy's rough position is known and there is still uncertainty even with regard to where the enemy simply is. This means that scouting/reconnaissance/feeling out the enemy position is still necessary, even late in to the game, due to the paucity of information. A good number of my "how to address this situation as the attacking player" ideas involve using some combination of units to gather more information - and, where they don't, they essentially involve gambling that you've chosen correctly.

And do you know what? It's even more complex than that; the enemy may have made it obvious which JOP was a decoy earlier in the game (e.g. by deploying troops off of one) or made a mistake and deployed one badly (which means either I don't have to worry about it or it's clearly the decoy, since troops coming off of it will be in a bad position to stop my attack). In these cases, I can execute my attack with more knowledge - knowledge that was gained through interplay with the opponent (in this case the opponent's decisions when placing or deploying off of JOPs).

In 40k? Especially during the last two turns? You know EVERYTHING. There is no hidden information from either player. You know the exact movement rates of units, you know every stratagem, you know that no more models are coming on, you know the contents of the enemy force, you know how the terrain impacts movement down to the inch, etc. The risk-reward calculation is easy; it's simply a matter of plugging all the variables into the formula. What sets GOOD players apart from GREAT players is the great players understand the details of the risk-reward equation; they may account for more variables than their opponent, or their opponent may overlook a crucial variable that the GREAT player is planning to exploit (usually because it is obscure e.g. an unknown stratagem).

 Kcalehc wrote:
But, do ALL decisions have to be 'interesting' ones, to make it a good game? Surely not, there must be a break even point of some sort in there.

No I would argue that all games have some decisions that are not interesting. If there is one single action that can win you the game a game made up entirely of interesting choices boils down to that coup de grace that ends it all. But, I would argue that the more often the interesting choice and the more interesting they are the better the game play becomes.

Having less than 10% of your choices be interesting is a gak ratio no mater how you look at it. If it was flipped and 90% of the choices were interesting it would be hard to notice the 10%.