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Throughout the history of strategy games, the concept of realism has taken part of cultural discourses that claim such games reproduce dynamics of war. In this thesis, A. Galloways, I. Bogosts and C. Pierces work are used to construct the concept of procedural realism to support the thesis that strategy games build realist fiction based on the execution of game processes through the Heads Up Display interface. Discussion on the visibility of rules will draw attention to the extra-diegetic dimensions of games, to explore how these devices promote ideological approaches to the real. The form of realism found in computer strategy games is an example of Katherine Hayles regime of computation, where [c]ode is understood as the discourse system that generates nature itself (27). This worldview is also present in non-computational strategy wargames; however, analysis focuses on Real Time Strategy and Turn-Based Strategy games non-diegetic devices. / Modern Languages and Cultural Studies

Real-time strategy (RTS) games constitute one of the largest game genres today and have done so for the past decade. A central feature of real-time strategy games is opponent AI which is suggestively the “last frontier” of game development because the focus of research has primarily been on other components, graphics in particular. This has led to AI research being largely ignored within the commercial game industry but several methods have recently been suggested for improving the strategic ability of AI agents in real-time strategy games. The aim of this project is to evaluate how a method called qualitative spatial reasoning can improve AI on a tactical level in a selected RTS game. An implementation of an AI agent that uses qualitative spatial reasoning has been obtained and an evaluation of its performance in an RTS game example monitored and analysed. The study has shown that qualitative spatial reasoning affects AI agent’s behaviour significantly and indicates that it can be used to deduce a rule-base that increases the unpredictability and performance of the agent.

Hasbro’s RISK, first published in 1959, is a complex multiplayer strategy game that has received little attention from the scientific community. Training artificial intelligence (AI) agents using stochastic beam search gives insight into effective strategy when playing RISK. A comprehensive analysis of the systems of play challenges preconceptions about good strategy in some areas of the game while reinforcing those preconceptions in others. This study applies stochastic beam search to discover optimal strategies in RISK. Results of the search show both support for and challenges to traditionally held positions about RISK gameplay. While stochastic beam search competently investigates gameplay on a turn-by-turn basis, the search cannot create contingencies that allow for effective strategy across multiple turns. Future work would investigate additional algorithms that eliminate this limitation to provide further insights into optimal gameplay strategies.

Yes / Past studies have shown evidence of transfer of learning in action video games, less so in other types e.g. strategy games. Further, the transfer of learning from games to inhibitory control has yet to be examined from the perspectives of time constraint and logic contradiction. We examined the effect of strategy games (puzzle, turn-based strategy ‘TBS’, real-time strategy ‘RTS’) on inhibition (response inhibition and distractor inhibition) and cerebral hemispheric activation over four weeks. We predicted that compared to RTS, puzzle and TBS games would (1) improve response and distractor inhibition, and (2) increase cerebral hemispheric activation demonstrating increased inhibitory control. A total of 67 non-habitual video game players (Mage = 21.63 years old, SD = 2.12) played one of three games; puzzle (n = 19), TBS (n = 24) or RTS (n = 24) for four weeks on their smartphones. Participants completed three inhibition tasks, working memory (WM), and had their tympanic membrane temperature (TMT) taken from each ear before and after playing the games. Results showed that only the puzzle game group showed an improved response inhibition while controlling for WM. There were no significant changes in the distractor inhibition tasks. We also found that there was an increase in left TMT while playing RTS, suggesting the presence of increased impulsivity in RTS. Our findings suggest that puzzle games involving logical contradiction could improve response inhibition, showing potential as a tool for inhibition training. / Newton Fund Institutional Links grant ID: 331745333, under Newton-Ungku Omar Fund partnership. The grant is funded by the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT) and delivered by the British Council / Research Development Fund Publication Prize Award winner, Dec 2021.

This thesis is focused on design of framework for creation an articial opponents in strategy games. We will analyze different types of strategy games and artificial intelligence systems used in these types of games. Next we will describe problems, which can occur  in these systems and why agent-based systems makes better artificial opponents. Next we will use knowledge from this research to design and implement framework, which will act as support for creating an artificial intelligence in strategy games.

This thesis is focused on design of framework for creation an articial opponents in strategy games. We will analyze different types of strategy games and artificial intelligence systems used in these types of games. Next we will describe problems, which can occur  in these systems and why agent-based systems makes better artificial opponents. Next we will use knowledge from this research to design and implement framework, which will act as support for creating an artificial intelligence in strategy games.

Building complex games like Grand Strategy Games for both PC and console is a costly endeavour. Normally, two different platforms imply two different User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) designs, even though it is the same game. If the game’s UI could have similar designs for both platforms, this costly obstacle could be overcome. This study aimed to take the first steps to look at “one UI to rule them all”. Due to the lack of existing research on this topic, this study had to begin from scratch. This led to a focus on existing strategy games on consoles, and an evaluation of the User Experience (UX) of these games. Considering the lack of Grand Strategy Games on consoles, eleven existing strategy games on console similar to Grand Strategy Games were chosen to be investigated further with the aim to find possible best practices and/or the most important aspects of the player’s experience in these games. Through discussion with game industry experts (experienced and senior UX designers), the UI and UX of strategy games on console were broken down and grouped as specific game interactions, with emphasis on the similarity to Grand Strategy Games. By using the defined game interactions, a quantitative survey was carried out to pinpoint the game interactions with the biggest impact on the player’s experience. The analysis of the results from the 864 respondents in the quantitative survey showed the importance of console first. It could be determined by looking at how well the only console first game of the survey did. Halo Wars 2 had the overall best-perceived experience in five out of the eight defined game interactions. Yet the participants preferred playing Halo Wars 2 on PC to an equal extent as they preferred to play it on consoles, concluding that console first seems to be the design approach to use when a game studio wants to ship a game simultaneously to both PC and consoles since it gives the overall best player experience. Furthermore, the pace, meaning the speed with which the player can execute specific in-game actions and reach their goals, was found to be a major factor in the player’s experience of the chosen strategy games on console. This led to a further developed definition of the pace through discussion and workshops with industry experts. Research then continued with remote and unmoderated playtests (qualitative usability testing) of two of the chosen games being most similar to Grand Strategy Games; Stellaris and Sid Meier’s Civilization VI. These playtests aimed to find what are the most important aspects of the pace and how the pace affects the player's experience. When the participants were asked to rank what they thought has the biggest impact on the pace in the game, game mechanical aspects were ranked higher than UI and UX aspects of the pace. This shows the game mechanics to be more important than the UI and UX aspects of the pace when designing the pace in a game like Stellaris and Sid Meier’s Civilization VI.

This bachelor’s thesis’s purpose was to determine how the complexity of economic systems invideo games affect the gameplay of said video games, Victoria II (Paradox Interactive AB,2010) and Civilization V (Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc, 2010). This was done by askingthe research question: “How does the complexity of economic systems in grand strategygames affect gameplay?“. The method was rooted in Game Research Methods (Lankoski &Björk, 2015) guidelines and the results were interpreted using Game Mechanics: AdvancedGame Design (Adams & Dormans, 2012). A formal analysis was performed for each game.The key findings of these analyses are extensive descriptions for the functioning of eachgame’s economic system as well as recommendations regarding important aspects of thesesystems and how to design them. / Denna kandidatuppsats mål var att undersöka komplexitet av ekonomiska system inomstrategiska datorspel genom att genomföra en analys för spelen Victoria II (ParadoxInteractive AB, 2010) och Civilization V (Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc, 2010) ochjämföra respektive spel. Detta med forskningsfrågan “Hur påverkar komplexiteten inomekonomiska system gameplay?”. Metoden utfördes utifrån Game Research Methods(Lankoski & Björk, 2015) riktlinjer och tolkades med hjälp av Game Mechanics: AdvancedGame Design (Adams & Dormans, 2012). Forskningen utfördes genom formell analys. Deviktigaste fynden var omfattande nedbrytningar av de ekonomiska systemen för varje spel ochrekommendationer för hur dessa system kan designas.

Due to the high cost of manual content creation within the game development industry, methods for procedural generation of content such as game maps and levels have emerged. However, methods for generating game maps have remained relatively unexplored in competitive multiplayer contexts. Presumably, this is due to the opposing goals of generating game maps that are both interesting and fair. This study aims to explore the possibility of satisfying both these goals simultaneously by separating the generative phase from the phase that enforces fairness. In this endeavor, simple game maps for a generic multiplayer grand strategy game are generated using noise-based methods. The task of partitioning the game map fairly between the players is then modeled as a constrained categorical multiobjective minimization problem that is subsequently solved by two genetic algorithms, the reference-point-based algorithm NSGA-III and the decomposition-based algorithm MOEA/D-IEpsilon. In a primary study, the proposed partitioning method is evaluated based on the quality of the solutions produced, its scalability, and its ability to find symmetrical partitions of symmetrical game maps. The results show that the proposed method makes significant improvement from the initial guess but fails to produce completely fair partitions in general. Explanations and possible solutions to this are presented. The timing results indicate that the proposed method is not applicable in real-time contexts. However, the proposed method might still be applicable in online contexts if smaller game maps are considered and in offline contexts if larger game maps are considered. Finally, the partitioning results show that the proposed method successfully finds fair partitions of symmetrical game maps but fails to find the obvious symmetrical partitions. In a secondary study, the two genetic algorithms are compared to determine which algorithm produces dominating solutions and which algorithm produces most diverse solution. The results indicate that, for the partitioning problems considered in this study, the reference-point-based algorithm is both dominant and produces the most diverse solutions.