Question

I’m very new to programming and for some reason this program is not calculating the scores – my outprint when it comes to scores is consistently 0 (for example it just prints our score: 0 their score: 0) Here is my program:

public static void main (String[] args){
    Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
    boolean warmonger=false;
    int playerScore=0;
    int aiScore=0;
    theIntro();
    for (int i=0;i<GAMES;i++){
        scoreCounter(playerScore, aiScore);
        playerInput(in, warmonger, playerScore, aiScore);
        }
    }


public static void scoreCounter(int playerScore, int aiScore){
    System.out.println("=====");
    System.out.println("Our score: "+playerScore);
    System.out.println("Their score: "+aiScore);
    }

public static void playerInput(Scanner in, boolean warmonger, int playerScore, int aiScore){
    System.out.print("What is your strategy this year? ");
    String strat=in.next();
    if (strat.equalsIgnoreCase("peace")){
        peaceStrat(warmonger, playerScore, aiScore);
        }
    else if (strat.equalsIgnoreCase("war")){
        warStrat(warmonger, playerScore, aiScore);
        }
    else {
      while (!strat.equalsIgnoreCase("peace") && !strat.equalsIgnoreCase("war")){
            System.out.print("Invalid strategy.  Enter \"peace\" or \"war\": ");
            strat=in.next();
            }
        }
    }

public static void peaceStrat(boolean warmonger, int playerScore, int aiScore){
    String aiStrat=getStrategy("peace", warmonger);
    if (aiStrat=="peace"){          
        playerScore+=3;
        aiScore+=3;
        System.out.println("peace");
        }
    else if (aiStrat=="war"){
        aiScore+=5;
        System.out.println("we lost");
        }
}

public static void warStrat(boolean warmonger, int playerScore, int aiScore){
    warmonger=true;
    String aiStrat=getStrategy("war", warmonger);
    if (aiStrat=="peace"){
        playerScore+=5;
        System.out.println("we won");
        }
    else if (aiStrat=="war"){
        playerScore+=1;
        aiScore+=1;
        System.out.println("tie");
        }
}

Do I need to return the scores somehow?

Answer 1

aiStrat=="peace"

This is not how you compare Strings in java. It should be

aiStrat.equals("peace");

You’re probably not hitting the code that would cause the score to be updated.

Also, change

 int playerScore=0;
 int aiScore=0;

To

static int playerScore = 0;
static int aiScore = 0;

As Dave Newton pointed out, you’d need to move these variables outside of the main function.