But okay, thinking about browser games, you’re probably right. The important factor in this is that the outcome never is deterministic, even if the game mechanisms themselves are. Each player for himself is additional game content to the others as they usually can’t predict how the other player is going to react on other actions. If a player is a lone wolf he may be oblivious to your attacks. If he’s in a strong ally, he may call his friends for retaliation. He may start insulting you, start guerilla warfare or try to befriend you hoping for a strong protector. This is something that would be quite hard to perform by some AI…

So to get back to your “calculated gamble” theory… in Browser games maybe there is some information you can gather, regarding the opponents resources and possibilities but it might be hard to forsee his personal reaction to your moves. So this often ends in “just try it and let’s see what happens”… at least for me

That said, yeah in a real time game you’ve got less time to “gather information” but you still need to calculate risk/reward. You need to decide if you’ll be attacking him now or later, whether to invest in your production or your army. There’s less information about the opponent involved though.

There might be cases where you have perfect information about a risk/reward situation. At least when seen from a tactical perspective. In these cases there’s often a strategic layer that puts the tactical option in a greater context. Then it’s less about the individual choice and more about the clever allocation of resources. This extends to your chess metaphor:

As for chess, there’s no imperfect information about the individual moves: You know beforehand which move is possible and what it’s direct results will be. However there’s imperfect information as to the plans of your opponent. Maybe his move is a feint and he’s setting you up. Here you gamble that your move is the right one to counter your opponent’s strategy but you can’t ever know for sure. That’s the central risk/reward part here.

Usually, but not always. A very few strategy games still present you with absolutely all the information you need to take your decision. Their appeal lies in complexity rather than uncertainty. That is, the high amount of possible combinations that a certain action will create. I’m talking about (You probably guessed it already…), best known example, chess.

Only got the PC version, which I quickly put away after being crushed quite early in the game (guess I suck as a “gamer”, but at least I was playing on “medium”…)
In said PC version, I do not remember any dialog wheel. They probably replaced it by predefined 1., 2.,… answers for the sake of mouse/keyboard controls.

As for QTE: I believe, the PC version of Mass Effect uses minigames (sort of like Bioshock) for decryption of container locks? IMO a much better implementation, but YMMV.

Still, I am thrilled to see how my saves from ME1 will have an impact on ME2.
Or not: I chose a “Jane” Shepard as my avatar and now Kaidan is all lovey-dovey about his superior officer… I’d much rather aim for Ashley, but that seems impossible with a “Jane”. On the other hand, ME is no J-visual novel game, so whatever

My idea is that it makes players take the inspiration process a little bit more serious and cause them to think about their suggestions and not simply fire something my way randomly. After all if they want the bonus, even though it’s small, they’ll have to come up with something cool that is in theme and inspires me.