footsteps
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Eh, close enough for government work!
The number of possibilities in ASL
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Michael Dorosh
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Why would anyone assume that satisfaction can only be gleaned from playing them all? If collecting (or hoarding, in many cases) wasn't one of the reasons to purchase ASL stuff, there would be much less of it out there.
Christmas morning can be whittled down to 10 minutes of unwrapping boxes, but the anticipation of buying it and waiting to see the reaction of the recipients can last for months.
Honza
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Calling the possibilities of ASL infinite was an exaggeration after all. As Wu Wei said the number of hexes and units are FINITE and therefore the number of possibilities are finite too. No matter how large. If you have 10 to the power of 5 billion then you still have a finite number. Infinity is greater than any given number!
boylermaker
Senior Member
As a scientist, I wear a materialist hat for my day job, and since it's during the day (where I am) I would like to point out that infinity is a mystical concept that has no bearing on material reality. There is no physical way of confirming that numbers larger than the number of particles in the universe actually exist (or any way to ascribe them meaning), and so I am comfortable saying that there are infinite ways to play any ASL scenario. Certainly it is no less absurd from a materialist view than talking about "infinity" as meaning something other than "a very large number indeed".
Catch me in the evening when I'm no longer a materialist, and I might have a different view.
Catch me in the evening when I'm no longer a materialist, and I might have a different view.
footsteps
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Materialist Scientist by day, Immaterialist Gamer by night. It's a bird, it's a plane, it's... Meh Man!
Honza
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But scientists and mathematicians don't always agree. Infinity in the mathematic sense is a possibility. It is an ENDLESS number. All other numbers come to an end.
boylermaker
Senior Member
Indeed! Mathematicians are mostly disgusting Platonists who might as well believe in witchcraft, and it is unfortunate that the tools they produce are so useful for Good Materialist Science.
[Again, come back this evening for a different opinion].
Sparafucil3
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As a computer scientist, I think you're all crazy because you don't start counting at 0.
-- jim
footsteps
Just visiting
Should we count on that?
von Marwitz
Forum Guru
Maybe for some further insight, we should instead count the number of finite possibilities of ASL?Should we count on that?
von Marwitz
footsteps
Just visiting
I'm game. Let's go...Maybe for some further insight, we should instead count the number of finite possibilities of ASL?
von Marwitz
1... 2... 3... 4...
...
Kevin Kenneally
Elder Member
I gotta take my socks off if we count past 10....
von Marwitz
Forum Guru
Then this one is for you:
How many possibilities if ASL were played in a 1-dimensional thread-universe?
von Marwitz
Honza
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So if the possible moves for a chess game are 10 to the power of 135. Then what are the likely possible moves for a game of RB? 10 to the power of what? Or what about all the possible moves for the whole ASL system? 10 to the power of 5 billion?
footsteps
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bendizoid
Official ***** Dickweed
You can tytrate(?) and go 10^100^100 short hand for a big number.
trailrunner
Senior Member
Say two people sat down and started playing ASL on the first day that the earth was created. Say that they have been playing the same scenario continuously, non-stop, and that each game took four hours.
Could they have gone through every possible unique play of even the simplest possible scenario? One squad vs one squad, starting one hex apart, for one complete turn. All terrain is open ground. The victory hex is the hex initially occupied by the defending squad (although this may not matter for this experiment). No AI is involved - consider only every possible valid variation of play.
Could they have gone through every possible unique play of even the simplest possible scenario? One squad vs one squad, starting one hex apart, for one complete turn. All terrain is open ground. The victory hex is the hex initially occupied by the defending squad (although this may not matter for this experiment). No AI is involved - consider only every possible valid variation of play.
