Beating the Chick Parabola

I love me some strategy/tactics games. However, as we’ve all learned from the Chick Parabola, it’s not enough for PC strategy games to be balanced and well made – these games are still limited by their AI. It’s very, very hard to both make a game that has interesting, varied and balanced decisions as well as an AI that can make those decisions at any level that is competitive with a human.

As a result, I’ve started to compile a list for myself of games that beat the Chick Parabola in some way, I’ve found that there are a few ways to do it:

a. Make the game palatable for humans to play against one another instead of needing AIs. In my book, that means it can’t be a game where I need to spend hours online at a time (unlike e.g. Civ multiplayer).
b. Make the game asymmetric, so that the AI needs to make simpler decisions than the human playing.
c. Make the game moddable, release the source code, or just have someone reverse engineer it, so that fans can come in years later, after the main strategies have been learned, and mod in balance fixes and improved AI.
EDIT: d. As mentioned by @nesrie, another solution is a variation of b: make the game entirely systems-based, so that no AI is really needed.

Examples of great games in each of these categories:
a. Chaos Reborn, Antihero, Tooth and Tail, Dominions 5. (Possibly Kohan?)
b. AI War, Firaxis Xcom1/2/WOTC.
c. Civ 4 (+kmod), x-com (+openxcom), Jagged Alliance 2 (+ja2 1.13).
d. Slay the Spire, Simcity, (arguably) Slay the Spire.

EDIT:
I’ll maintain a list of the games I think beat the parabola here:

a. Multiplayer, low time commitment:

  • Chaos Reborn
  • Antihero
  • Tooth and Tail
  • Dominions 5
  • Frozen Synapse

b. Asymmetric AI:

  • AI War
  • Firaxis Xcom
  • Invisible Inc
  • Slay The Spire
  • Crusader Kings 2 (AI is incidental to the core game)

c. AI improved over time by mods:

  • Civ 4 (k-mod)
  • x-com (openxcom)
  • Jagged Alliance 2 (ja2 1.13)
  • Pandora First Contact

d. No AI; Systems only. (This is a much more open category – games are judged based on mechanic balance only.)

  • Management games (Simcity, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Theme Hospital, Frostpunk, etc)
  • Survival games (Don’t Starve etc)

Since I’d like to expand my list, I’d be happy to hear about more such games. Note that I realize that most RTS games fit the bill (since they’re meant to be played competitively against other players), but I’d only like to consider games that don’t require high APM to play well, and can be played over short sessions.

Are you looking for mostly MP type games. I am not familiar with all those so I am curious if something like Rimworld would fit, and it fits mostly b but certainly c. The mods bring a large variety, but it is more of a player vs. the world than say a strategy game like Civ. As in… the AI is not another faction/player playing the same game you are. Is that what you are looking for… like where everyone is “playing” the same game type thing?

I’d also add the Paradox grand strategy method: don’t have a singular win state, but have an open system with wildly varied faction arrangements, and enable the user to achieve their own goals.

Want to try and become HRE Emperor as Ulm? Have at it. That is very different from trying to form the Mughals, or winning the Hundred Years War as England. The AI doesn’t have to be perfect, or even balanced. It simply provides a systems based playground where the player can dynamically set the level of challenge they want.

Agree. Its why EU, Vicky and CK are their best series, imo. The expansive time scale represented is more forgiving of historical quirks than say HOI, and more believable when sandboxing.

Wouldn’t Total War fit that bill then. I only have experience with Total War Warhammer 1 and 2, and I got the impression they AI plays the game just fine.

No, TW does not fit the bill because it is a wargame first and foremost, and system interactions are all aligned towards dudesmashing, which the AI cannot compete in.

The Pandora: First Contact DLC includes an extremely strong non-cheating player-developed AI, and the game design is great (no doomstack issues, no 1UPT). I recommend checking out the economy guide.

WH40K: Gladius by the same developers seems well received too, but it hasn’t had the Ail treatment yet.

I like the Conquest of Elysium games for the crazy stuff they throw at you, rather than smart opponents, so maybe they belong in category B. The Last Federation too, being a manipulation and balancing act rather than direct or asymmetric competition.

The TWW AI’s get bonuses, they’re also biased against the player, and strong players routinely stomp them, even on Legendary. There are mods of course, but they may be limited to re-weighting existing AI behaviors.

Here’s my hand drawn rendition of the Chick Parabola:

Basically the idea is that as you’re learning a strategy game and its systems, you’re enjoying yourself, and the more systems you learn, the more you start enjoying yourself. But eventually you run into the point where you learn how the AI plays the game and what they can do and what they can’t do. And at that point, your enjoyment starts dropping, and the more you learn and figure out what’s behind the curtain, the more your enjoyment drops.

My own personal solution to this is very simple: having a huge backlog. I usually don’t learn enough of the systems to get to the top of that peak before I move on to another game, so I usually look at people complaining about the AI and the systems and shrug. For example, in Master of Orion 2, I only played about 500-1000 hours. I realize that most people here at Qt3 have played a lot longer than that, and can beat the AI even on Impossible. But I never got to that point yet. My enjoyment after that many hours is still on the upswing part of the Chick parabola. But other games like Civ V and Civ VI are supposed to have a much shorter apex to that parabola, where you realize quickly how the AI is playing and how much it can’t handle the game’s systems.

I disagree. While some Warhammer: Total War 2 campaigns can be “easy” (ish), there are a few campaigns where the systems, the environment, the ai and player choices can make the game hard enough (even on normal/hard) to last through this parabola. You can easily lose some Warhammer 2 campaigns even if you are smart enough to realize why you are losing.

I can think of three or four faction choices that will be a challenge for 100 plus turns. Take the Crooked Grin goblins, for example. Tech, hero choice, lord abilities, gold revenue… troop quality? No modding necessary to make that game hard enough to enjoy every system and strive.

A few mods --like the faction unlocker --can also make the game a challenge/yet winnable/yet use every system.

Plus without trying to sound like a Warhammer 2 shill they drop a new faction, change the map, and create a new gameplay situation fast. A good example is that last patch where they created a new Britainia faction in Africa that was difficult but possible against nigh on impossible odds.

So sure Warhammer 2 almost is a game that is designed to beat the chick parabola – variety, min-maxing, difficult locations, leaders, units, new systems (like the undead pirates?). I agree there are some AI predictabilities but…

And then you figure out to play that start position and you smash its face on legendary.

Hear, hear. Another vote for Pandora post-patch, it really is one of the best 4xes out there.

In order to beat the Chick Parabola the AI has to beat a human player over and over and over again? That doesn’t seem right because neither a, b or c says the AI has to win. It’s more like the AI has to be able to play the game. I mean if the player feels challenged, what difference does it make if they are at the same competitive level as a human?

HOMM 5: Tribes of the East received a complete AI fan replacement which is supposed to be much better and faster than vanilla AI.

LOL - I have 300 hours in Rome 2 total war, around 160 in Warhammer Total war 2 - and I still get my ass kicked at “normal”. Based on my own extremely limited set of data obviously from friends and family, its a very rare subset of gamers that have this issue, where they unfortunately can beat for instance Total war games on legendary.

Raz – on legendary the ai gets such huge bonuses on the average troops. I refuse to play on higher than normal in a Warhammer game – just troop bonuses and I hate that. Ai on campaign is different. Just seems unfair. To be clear there are two difficulty levels to be set in Warhammer games (battle and campaign)

Btw Rome 2 is a pretty damn good game for anyone that is reluctant because of earlier problems. They really cleaned it up and some of the dlc’s are worthy of the “chick parabola” including “Caesar in Gaul” which is a good cross between a tough strategic game and a tough tactical game… try that one. Not easy. And every system is tested there.

Attila: The last roman is another great example.

Atilla in general is probably the best, grittiest and most fun(!) Total War game in existence. Its just hampered by turn times in the extreme.

This is why I have a hard time playing non-competitive games. Anything else, I get too used to the AI and the Chick Parabola hits hard.

I’m scared as hell about what things will be like when I’m too slow to hold my own in fighting games.

You will switch to turn based games, sonny! Also, get off my lawn.

That’s a great point, and while it could go under b, it kinda belongs in its own category as well. All games where there is no AI per se but you’re only managing something and fighting against the systems - known and unknown - is another way to solve the problem. Starting with Railroad Tycoon perhaps, and moving on to SimCity, and including even Don’t Starve and They Are Billions – these are games where the systems are enough to provide a sufficient challenge, and there is no real need for an AI. Games like Invisible Inc, Into the Breach and Slay The Spire have AIs that knowingly behave like predictable systems, so b is definitely a continuum along a dimension, where the ‘AI’ devolves to the point that it’s just systems.

This ties in to the same idea. I personally think I have a problem with EU4, where there isn’t much to do other than to blob AFAICT, and the AIs are mostly pushovers (there are around 100 of them running in realtime, after all). CK2, on the other hand, is really an RPG game with a DLC that happens to involve full maintenance of the world’s powers and relations, and there, I’m much less concerned about the AI’s inability to fight back.

Also, I’m personally not so fond of games where you set your own goals, unless those goals allow you to experience variation. This is where achievements excel, both in-game and out-of-it, in that they can drive you in new and interesting directions you would not have tried otherwise.

Awesome! This is what I was looking for. I would totally have skipped this otherwise.