Which game to play against aliens?
 

Ok, here's the deal. One day aliens show up in Earth orbit and after flying around for a bit they summon the Earth's leaders to a conference. It turns out that these aliens love to play games for high stakes. So they make us an offer we can't refuse:

We must send a representative to play against them in a game of our choosing. The game can be of any sort, and it can be either an existing game or one created specifically for this challenge.

We have a year to decide on the game. At that point, we must provide the aliens with a complete & accurate set of rules. The aliens will then have one year to practice the game.

After that second year passes, the human and alien representatives play a best-of-100 match. If the humans score 61 or more wins, the aliens will tell us their scientific secrets & give us their technology. They will also pledge never to attack us & to help us fight against future threats.

If we score between 40 and 60 wins, the aliens will simply leave.

If we score 39 or fewer wins, the aliens will immediately annihilate us.


What game should we choose?

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

Chess

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

let's just go with asteroids , you know, for fun.

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

Tic Tac Toe.

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

Hockey - by the time the aliens have learned all the rules, we will change all the rules again. I doubt they could ever decipher an NHL collective bargaining agrrement.

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

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Tic Tac Toe.

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Umm. This will ensure the annihilation of the human race.

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

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Tic Tac Toe.

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Umm. This will ensure the annihilation of the human race.

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what if home team always gets to go first?

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

all-chamber russian roulette.

Let's see the fargin icehole barstidges practice that one.

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

Oh, I guess because of the wording, you might be right. I was assuming 100 ties would mean they just leave.

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

Who can be quiet the longest.

Or maybe

Who is dumber?

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

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let's just go with asteroids , you know, for fun.

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or Space Invaders


http://img459.imageshack.us/img459/2...logy2023ub.jpg

You are defeated. Instead of shooting where I was you should have shot where I was going to be.

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

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Tic Tac Toe.

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Umm. This will ensure the annihilation of the human race.

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what if home team always gets to go first?

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The future of humanity is at stake & all you can muster is this?!

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

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Oh, I guess because of the wording, you might be right. I was assuming 100 ties would mean they just leave.

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Yes, 1 tie = 0 wins, not 0.5.

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

OMG! Counterstrik! We shud totally play them in a game of COUnterstrike! I would pwn those n00bs w/ my Logitech MX1000 plus yuo no that my GeFORCE 990000 would totally give me teh killer frame rates to pwn those [censored] aliesn and their gay ass XBOX skillz. HAHAH Of which they have none! Hahahahahahaahahah.....aliens totally play taht ghey ass Halo! Fags.

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

It would just have to depend on the characteristics of these aliens. If they were the really physically wimpy ones depicted in many movies something like arm wrestling would be pretty good.

If they were pretty slow at hand-eye coordination or whatever perhaps we should send a bunch of kids to play halo or some other computer game against them.

Swede

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

they should play the game of Go.

Melch

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

Magic: The Gathering.

But who will our representitive be?

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

I know,

we should race them to the crab nebula, or some place really far away.

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

No Limit the-game-that-shall-not-be-mentioned.

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

Sic Tiger on 'em. No way any alien can get beat him more than 40% of the time at a game invented by drunken Scots.

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

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let's just go with asteroids , you know, for fun.

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or Space Invaders


http://img459.imageshack.us/img459/2...logy2023ub.jpg

You are defeated. Instead of shooting where I was you should have shot where I was going to be.

[/ QUOTE ]


Increase speed, drop down, reverse direction!

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

Since the very survival of the entire human race is at stake here, it would have to be game with a very small skill factor. We would have to assume that these aliens are way smarter than us, and possibly have skill sets that we don't (telepathy). We would just have to pick a game that negates all of said alien's advantages, and just hope we get lucky enough to survive. My vote is war.

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

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Magic: The Gathering.

But who will our representitive be?

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David Williams, of course.

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

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David Williams, of course.

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Where's El D when you need him.

Obviously Paluka would be our rep.

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

On the one hand, I think games like go may be best, since we have spent so much time on developing strategies for them. However, if these guys are crazy advanced game players, they may be able to develop better strategies in a year. (Chess is a very bad choice, since such a high percentage of chess games end in a draw, and draws screw us as badly as losses).

So that leaves us with three options:
A game of pure luck (like war or showdown). I think that gives us a pretty decent chance of not getting anahilated, but probably not enough.

A game where first (or second) mover can always win, and alternate first move. They may just anahilate us for being weasels.

A game like pool where the breaker has a strong chance to not let the other guy even get a turn. Alternate breaks.

If the games are completely non physical, and draws screw us, we need games where there can be no draw. If the games have to have chances for both first and second movers, we are probably as screwed as they want us to be unless we pick a game without skill, in which case we just have to hope the ensuing random walk does not kill us.

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

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David Williams, of course.

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Where's El D when you need him.

Obviously Paluka would be our rep.

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Nah, they would call it the Grand Prix for earth and we would be hosed.

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

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David Williams, of course.

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Where's El D when you need him.

Obviously Paluka would be our rep.

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Nah, they would call it the Grand Prix for earth and we would be hosed.

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http://www.wizards.com/sideboard/ima..._berkowitz.jpg

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

This offer is not too good to pass up. It will certainly be passed up.

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

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This offer is not too good to pass up. It will certainly be passed up.

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I think he means, "an offer we can't refuse", in the Vito Corleone sense.

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

lol yeah.

Do we get to inteact with the aliens in the year while we are deciding our game? Like will they hang out with us?

Learning about them first would have a great advantage.

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

It would depend completely on what we knew about the biology of the aliens.

GoT

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

wet t-shirt contest

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

Odds and evens. (p179 of Theory of some-game-people-play-but-not-here)

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

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Odds and evens. (p179 of Theory of some-game-people-play-but-not-here)

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When I saw this thread I was actually hoping Sklansky would somehow see it and reply.

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

The answer to this is easy. Our goal is human survival so we create a game where you switch who goes first and has a very simple strategy where the person who goes first or second cannot stop the other from beating him based on the rules we created for the game. This would end in a 50/50 tie and they would leave.

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

Family Feud

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

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lol yeah.

Do we get to inteact with the aliens in the year while we are deciding our game? Like will they hang out with us?

Learning about them first would have a great advantage.

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Yes, we can get them plastered on alcohol and LCD and learn all about them. Then we won't need their stinkin' technology.

BTW, shouldn't this post be in Game Theory, not OOT?

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

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It would depend completely on what we knew about the biology of the aliens.

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This was my first thought, but beyond that, there doesn't seem to be any specification that we can't make the game ludicrously stacked towards humans. So make it a beauty contest, as judged by humans, and our representatives will be Victoria's Secret models. We would own their faces off.

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

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Family Feud

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i thought of this too. i'd like to see the little alien families know what SURVEY SAYS !

or trivial pursuit or jeopardy or something maybe.

omg i know, SCATAGORIES!

Re: Which game to play against aliens?
 

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The answer to this is easy. Our goal is human survival so we create a game where you switch who goes first and has a very simple strategy where the person who goes first or second cannot stop the other from beating him based on the rules we created for the game. This would end in a 50/50 tie and they would leave.

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Ok, what about these sets of alternate conditions:

1. 61+: knowledge
30-60: leave us alone
29-: annihilation

2. 51+: leave us alone
50-: annihilation

?