Why you shouldn't read The Art of War

[Bean]

I've said it before, and I'll no doubt say it again: if you want to be good at 40k--or any war game, for that matter--all you need to do is read the rule book. Literally. Beyond a basic grounding in logic and math, everything that you need to be good at a war game is contained within its rules. Classic military authors like Clausewitz and Sun Tzu have little to offer beyond marginal metaphors that range in value from superfluous to downright harmful to good in-game tactical decision making. If this ever needed to be demonstrated, it was quite clearly by Doug Lenat's Eurisko software that won the Traveller Trillion Credit Squadron tournament two years in a row, before being banned from participation. It is described in this excerpt from
Malcom Gladwell's New Yorker article, "How David Beats Goliath."



In 1981, a computer scientist from Stanford University named Doug Lenat entered the Traveller Trillion Credit Squadron tournament, in San Mateo, California. It was a war game. The contestants had been given several volumes of rules, well beforehand, and had been asked to design their own fleet of warships with a mythical budget of a trillion dollars. The fleets then squared off against one another in the course of a weekend. “Imagine this enormous auditorium area with tables, and at each table people are paired off,” Lenat said. “The winners go on and advance. The losers get eliminated, and the field gets smaller and smaller, and the audience gets larger and larger.”
Lenat had developed an artificial-intelligence program that he called Eurisko, and he decided to feed his program the rules of the tournament. Lenat did not give Eurisko any advice or steer the program in any particular strategic direction. He was not a war-gamer. He simply let Eurisko figure things out for itself. For about a month, for ten hours every night on a hundred computers at Xerox parc, in Palo Alto, Eurisko ground away at the problem, until it came out with an answer. Most teams fielded some version of a traditional naval fleet—an array of ships of various sizes, each well defended against enemy attack. Eurisko thought differently. “The program came up with a strategy of spending the trillion on an astronomical number of small ships like P.T. boats, with powerful weapons but absolutely no defense and no mobility,” Lenat said. “They just sat there. Basically, if they were hit once they would sink. And what happened is that the enemy would take its shots, and every one of those shots would sink our ships. But it didn’t matter, because we had so many.” Lenat won the tournament in a runaway.
The next year, Lenat entered once more, only this time the rules had changed. Fleets could no longer just sit there. Now one of the criteria of success in battle was fleet “agility.” Eurisko went back to work. “What Eurisko did was say that if any of our ships got damaged it would sink itself—and that would raise fleet agility back up again,” Lenat said. Eurisko won again.
Eurisko was an underdog. The other gamers were people steeped in military strategy and history. They were the sort who could tell you how Wellington had outfoxed Napoleon at Waterloo, or what exactly happened at Antietam. They had been raised on Dungeons and Dragons. They were insiders. Eurisko, on the other hand, knew nothing but the rule book. It had no common sense. As Lenat points out, a human being understands the meaning of the sentences “Johnny robbed a bank. He is now serving twenty years in prison,” but Eurisko could not, because as a computer it was perfectly literal; it could not fill in the missing step—“Johnny was caught, tried, and convicted.” Eurisko was an outsider. But it was precisely that outsiderness that led to Eurisko’s victory: not knowing the conventions of the game turned out to be an advantage.
“Eurisko was exposing the fact that any finite set of rules is going to be a very incomplete approximation of reality,” Lenat explained. “What the other entrants were doing was filling in the holes in the rules with real-world, realistic answers. But Eurisko didn’t have that kind of preconception, partly because it didn’t know enough about the world.” So it found solutions that were, as Lenat freely admits, “socially horrifying”: send a thousand defenseless and immobile ships into battle; sink your own ships the moment they get damaged.


You can read the entire article at,

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/11/090511fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all

and you should.

[Nabterayl]

I don't think that's actually why people read The Art of War, or talk about applying tactics to 40K - or other wargames, for that matter. They do those things because their goal is not to become good at 40K. I quite agree that if your goal is to become good at 40K, all you need is the rulebook. But that's not necessarily people's sole, or even primary, goal when they play. Reading in military history or military theory is perfectly reasonable if you want to be a better tactician more than you want to be a better 40K player.

[Bean]

I don't think that's actually why people read The Art of War, or talk about applying tactics to 40K - or other wargames, for that matter. They do those things because their goal is not to become good at 40K. I quite agree that if your goal is to become good at 40K, all you need is the rulebook. But that's not necessarily people's sole, or even primary, goal when they play. Reading in military history or military theory is perfectly reasonable if you want to be a better tactician more than you want to be a better 40K player.

A fair point. I would have made the title longer, but it wouldn't fit--I tried to make it clear in the body that I was discussing the value of this type of text with regards to being good at war-games, but it's certainly worth noting that both are reasonably good reads otherwise.

It's just when people become convinced that being a good tactician--in that sense--translates directly into being good at 40k that they run into problems, and I've certainly seen people espouse that position.

Again, the Eurisko case should illustrate that such a problem does exist.

Another amusing quote from Lenat further down in the article:


“In the beginning, everyone laughed at our fleet,” Lenat said. “It was really embarrassing. People felt sorry for us. But somewhere around the third round they stopped laughing, and some time around the fourth round they started complaining to the judges. When we won again, some people got very angry, and the tournament directors basically said that it was not really in the spirit of the tournament to have these weird computer-designed fleets winning. They said that if we entered again they would stop having the tournament. I decided the best thing to do was to graciously bow out.”

[Captain Talon]

This story reminds me of something similar. I've forgotten most of the facts, but the main thurst is this:

Guy moves to America from India. His daughters go to school and want to play basketball. There is no coach, so he volunteers. He reads the rules for basketball and learns the game.

In basketball, there is an acceptance that after a team scores, the scoring team retreats back and lets the other team basically move up to the other side of the court for free. But this coach came up with a great idea...legally, you could play defense the whole time. His girls were not top athletes, but they played the game differently, and with this type of defense, they began winning. I believe a college team did the same thing and was very successful...both teams would create turnovers and then score.

They made it to the championships, but basketball purists started to work against them. Refs called fake penalties, and they gave them a bad schedule I think.

The point is, the winners at war don't follow an accepted "code" of how to fight a war. They win by doing it differently. David didn't beat Goliath by going toe to toe...he won by fighting a different way.

Just an aside I think using Napoleon's tactics do work in 40K. Pin the enemy or tarpit them or bait them away, beat up part of his army with the majority of yours, then turn on the other part etc.

[UltramarineFan]

All this really says is that a computer can beat a human at a game (wow..) and that people who don't play in the spirit of the game are *****, again, wow..

[slxiii]

The point is, the winners at war don't follow an accepted "code" of how to fight a war. They win by doing it differently. David didn't beat Goliath by going toe to toe...he won by fighting a different way.



If I recall, David had a little bit of "help" as well.

The problem is, its the Art of WAR. WARgames actually have nothing to do with war, they would more accurately be called battle-games. A war involves economic and human factors that do not fit into the games, currently.

Some principles, however, do apply. Striking only when you have the upper hand, decieving the enemy, refusing to fight fair, etc. All of these, and many more, will help you win a wargame.

[Grailkeeper]

It wouldn't work in real life, no one would get on the ships. However this does have very close ties with the arguements between people with fluff based armies, and those with min maxed cost effective tourniment armies.

[Fellend]

Actually this same thing happened twice in military excercises with the swedish army and the american army. For those of you that doesn't know, David and goliath isn't a fair enough description. It's more along the lines of The deathstar vs that one annoying lite x-wing.

In a naval engagement the swedes basically took every boat they could find and loaded it with soldiers with rpgs. They manage to bypass all the defenses of the american navy and "sink" the carrier.

Our ridiciously small submarines also managed to sneak past the entire american fleet and shoot it's payload on new york. I especially liked the discovery programs quote about it "Luckily the Swedes aren't our enemies"

Anyway. My point: If you forsake everything to win in a battle that has will lead to no consequences of course it's easier to win if you throw away morals and honor. But in reality, how fun is playing a spam army? How many times can you do that to your opponents fluffy white bunny-marines before he gets tired of playing you?

[Bean]

This story reminds me of something similar. I've forgotten most of the facts, but the main thurst is this:

Guy moves to America from India. His daughters go to school and want to play basketball. There is no coach, so he volunteers. He reads the rules for basketball and learns the game.

In basketball, there is an acceptance that after a team scores, the scoring team retreats back and lets the other team basically move up to the other side of the court for free. But this coach came up with a great idea...legally, you could play defense the whole time. His girls were not top athletes, but they played the game differently, and with this type of defense, they began winning. I believe a college team did the same thing and was very successful...both teams would create turnovers and then score.

They made it to the championships, but basketball purists started to work against them. Refs called fake penalties, and they gave them a bad schedule I think.

The point is, the winners at war don't follow an accepted "code" of how to fight a war. They win by doing it differently. David didn't beat Goliath by going toe to toe...he won by fighting a different way.

Just an aside I think using Napoleon's tactics do work in 40K. Pin the enemy or tarpit them or bait them away, beat up part of his army with the majority of yours, then turn on the other part etc.

Actually, that's pretty amusing--'cause most of the rest of the article is about an Indian guy who did exactly that. Almost certainly the same guy.

Awesome.

Anyway, yeah--the point of the article is that when you're the underdog, you can't afford to play by convention--your best bet is to try breaking with convention somehow.

But, nestled neatly within that point is this one: applying convention to a problem just because it is convention is not always a good idea--and that's the message I've been trying to get across fora while, now: just because there are conventions about military tactics and strategies doesn't mean that they resemble the best way to win table-top war-games at all. As Lenat points out, those strategies are designed for a system which is much much more complex and much much less well understood than any system of rules you're going to find--even the famously complicated Traveller ship-building rules.

To come up with a strong strategy, analysis of the actual system in question is a better approach than simply accepting the first appropriate looking convention you can find.

Anyway, I thought it was a neat article, and I enjoy the story of Eurisko, in particular, because I often hear people talk about wargames as through they were immune to this type of "break." They're not. Just like any other game, careful analysis of their rules will always present an optimal strategy.

[Lord Azaghul]

The problem is, its the Art of WAR. WARgames actually have nothing to do with war...


DING DING! We have a winner.

Most games deal in mathmatcis, and dice odds - these don't corrilate directly into 'the art of war'

But yes. I agree, read the rules (not the fluff ;))

[MaltonNecromancer]

It wouldn't work in real life, no one would get on the ships.

I believe they would: Communist Russian tactics? The Battle of Stalingrad? The average Russian soldier had a life expectancy of 24 hours on arrival. Eurisko fought wars exactly like Russia; you just take a million peasants, give them rifles and cheap tanks and drown the ****s in their blood. You see, the thing about soldiers is that they follow orders. If you're told to get on the ship, you have to get on the ship. I think you'll find a great many service personnel are engaged out in wars today with substandard equipment. You take the government's penny, you don't have a choice about how you get to earn it.

Also, I believe it was actually Sun-Tzu who pointed out that if you have numerical superiority, you will win. So Eurisko isn't quite as unique in it's strategic ability as the author believes. Basically, the article seems to have been compiled by someone who had military philosophy and strategy described to them, rather than reading about it themselves. Some nice observations let down by a lack of basic research.

[Nabterayl]

I don't think the author was making a point about military strategy at all. That's like saying Lawrence was a bad military thinker, because he didn't prosecute his campaign like the Ottomans did. But surely it's obvious that it was the Ottomans who were the inferior military thinkers, for failing to anticipate and/or adapt to Lawrence's campaign.

The point isn't about convention versus unorthodoxy. The point of the article is that convention is not a substitute for effort. This is as true in warfare as it is in other areas of life. At the same time, the article isn't saying that effort is a substitute for competence. Even in the Redwood City basketball example, the Redwood City coaches admit that their strategy was covering up the fact that their girls weren't very good basketball players.

The point of the article is not that competence and effort are interchangeable so much as that they aren't - and many people believe that because they have skill, they don't have to work hard, which leaves them vulnerable to those who have less skill but are willing to work much, much harder. But that's not to say that competence is irrelevant. A team of amateurs who is willing to work hard and play a full-court press all the time in basketball is still going to find itself in trouble against a team of skilled basketball players who are willing to work equally hard and play a full-court press all the time. It's the teams of skilled basketball players who aren't willing to work hard and play a full-court press all the time who have to worry.

[Deadlift]

Wow I know some guys and gals take wargaming seriously, **** me this is above and beyond. Drink some beer, roll some dice and compare the paint jobs and maybe chat casually about the hobby, that's a fun night.

It's a game not a university lecture.

[Nabterayl]

You see, the thing about soldiers is that they follow orders. If you're told to get on the ship, you have to get on the ship. I think you'll find a great many service personnel are engaged out in wars today with substandard equipment. You take the government's penny, you don't have a choice about how you get to earn it.
I think the military theory point to be made about this is that a belligerent has an advantage if it is able and willing to be unconventional. Those aren't things you can just flip a switch for, though. Plenty of people are willing to go into combat on ships that are functional but not top-of-the-line. I imagine far fewer people are willing to go into combat knowing that their mates will scuttle their ships the instant they become damaged - heck, for that matter, there aren't that many people who are willing to scuttle their mates' ships just because they're damaged.

But as MaltonNecromancer points out, it can be done. People are generally more willing to be unconventional if they're fighting for the life of their homeland, for instance. And some sociopolitical structures lend themselves to unconventionality more than others. Remember Pyrrhus' invasion of Italy? The sociopolitics of the Successor States meant that losing a battle effectively forced a king to lose the war, because his army wouldn't fight for him any more. Rome had a different sociopolitical structure, one that permitted the state to keep fighting even after a crushing defeat. Pyrrhus defeated the Romans at Heraclea, and if Rome had been structured like the Successor States, that would have meant he won. But the Romans raised another army, which Pyrrhus beat at Asculum. And when the Romans raised another army, Pyrrhus left off the invasion rather than risk a defeat - because unlike for Rome, he couldn't afford to actually lose.

But the lesson there is not that the Romans were the first to realize that a war isn't over until both sides agree. Plenty of people had realized that before Rome. The lesson is that Rome had a society that allowed it to act on that knowledge, whereas the Successor States did not. As the New Yorker article points out, lots of basketball teams have realized the value of a full-game full-court press. But not every team can handle the intense, sustained work such a strategy requires.

[Bean]

I believe they would: Communist Russian tactics? The Battle of Stalingrad? The average Russian soldier had a life expectancy of 24 hours on arrival. Eurisko fought wars exactly like Russia; you just take a million peasants, give them rifles and cheap tanks and drown the ****s in their blood. You see, the thing about soldiers is that they follow orders. If you're told to get on the ship, you have to get on the ship. I think you'll find a great many service personnel are engaged out in wars today with substandard equipment. You take the government's penny, you don't have a choice about how you get to earn it.

Also, I believe it was actually Sun-Tzu who pointed out that if you have numerical superiority, you will win. So Eurisko isn't quite as unique in it's strategic ability as the author believes. Basically, the article seems to have been compiled by someone who had military philosophy and strategy described to them, rather than reading about it themselves. Some nice observations let down by a lack of basic research.

Yeah, I think you're missing the point. The article is only tangentially about military tactics at all--and it's not true that if you have numerical superiority, you will win. I don't recall that in the Art of War, but it's obviously false either way.

The article touches on a number of subjects--as Nabterayal points out, it discusses heavily the value of effort over skill. It's a good article, but I'm most interested in the Eurisko case, because it touches on the value of not bringing irrelevant preconceptions into an analysis.

The article isn't about how conventional military strategy is bad, it's an article about how convention is not always the best solution to the problem, and it's important to know how to figure out what the best solution actually is rather than relying on convention.

[Nabterayl]

To bring this back to Bean's original post, I would argue that 40K is tactical enough that a good tactician can do pretty well at the game with a pretty shallow understanding of the rules. In fact, I remember telling my own father about a game I had played, and he was able to have an intelligent conversation with me about the game, asking me why I had done this and not that and suggesting alternative tactics that had real merit - despite never having even seen a game of 40K, let alone read the rules. He now plays himself and our gaming group agrees that, even though he plays the least of any of us, he's a quite competent player.

Why was Dad able to do that? Because he's an old wargame and military history grognard from the '70s, and the tactical skills he learned playing wargame board games translate to 40K. Dad can do this for pretty much any wargame - put him down in front of a new system and he'll know what to do, because he isn't good at games. He's good at tactics.

Now, saying that generalized tactical knowledge is applicable to a game isn't to say that it's the same thing as the game. I study the rules a lot more than Dad does, which means I beat him far more often than not, even though he's a somewhat better tactician than I am. In the New Yorker article's terms, Dad has more conventional skill at 40K than I do, but I've put in more effort - so much more effort that I can beat him. If I only had a little more rules proficiency than he did, I might not be able to overcome his edge in general tactical proficiency. But I have a lot more rules proficiency than he does, so I win regularly.

And why doesn't Dad just study the rules as hard as I have? Because he doesn't feel the need. His tactical skill meant he could sit down to play 40K competently with basically a single read through the rulebook, and being a busy guy, that was all the time he wanted to put into it. I'm sure that he could be the best player in our gaming group, if he wanted to put the time into studying the rules, but that isn't worth it to him.

EDIT: To go back to my original reply, I'd agree that if you want to be good at 40K, you should study the rules. And I'd certainly advise against studying military history or military theory in order to become good at 40K. I do think studying military history and military theory will make you better at 40K (imagine two people who have put no effort into studying the rules, one of whom is an excellent tactician and one of whom can't tell a Mauser rifle from a javelin - who do you think has the better chance of winning?); it's just that studying the rules will make you better at 40K faster.

And similarly, I'd say that if your goal is to become good at tactics, playing 40K is not the most efficient use of your time. I think that playing 40K will make you better at tactics - but there are other things you could do that will make you better at tactics faster.

[eldargal]

Well, Art of War is as much (or more) about psychology as it is tactics. Limited utility in a wargame where psychology,logistics, morale and morality are irrelevent, but still of some use against the opponent.

Incidentally,similar tactics mentioned in the OP article were employed in some naval exercises in 2002 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002), resulting in the loss of a US carrier group with minimal effort.

[JxKxR]

This is why tournaments, in my opinion, bite the big one.

I try and bring a fun and colorful army and some douche who just wants to win sits down with a calculator and brings an army that he knows you CAN"T beat because it's mathematically impossible.

[Nabterayl]

I agree that there seems to be a curious focus, at least in online wargaming articles, on works like The Art of War that treat war at a high level of abstraction. Knowing how to fight a mechanized infantry platoon or company is knowledge relevant to 40K, and there are things you can read to learn about those problems, but The Art of War is not really one of them.

[Denzark]

Sun Tzu is grand strategic - strategic level. 40K is tactical level. the 2 do not apply. Actually the thread is misleading - you should read the art of war if you are interested in ancient military history and how it applies today. Why you shouldn't try to apply it to 40K is firstly because of the point I raise above, and secondly because trying to spout such pseudo-science about a random dice game just makes you look a nob.

[Bean]

I agree that there seems to be a curious focus, at least in online wargaming articles, on works like The Art of War that treat war at a high level of abstraction. Knowing how to fight a mechanized infantry platoon or company is knowledge relevant to 40K, and there are things you can read to learn about those problems, but The Art of War is not really one of them.

Exactly (and, for the record, I basically buy most of what you wrote in your second-to-last post, as well).

I actually saw a guy, one time, who posted links to a bunch of infantry maneuver manuals used for training marine corps officers. Unfortunately, the only bits of it that I sat down and read before losing the link were too nitty-gritty--still, it was a better approach.

[Deadlift]

Sun Tzu is grand strategic - strategic level. 40K is tactical level. the 2 do not apply. Actually the thread is misleading - you should read the art of war if you are interested in ancient military history and how it applies today. Why you shouldn't try to apply it to 40K is firstly because of the point I raise above, and secondly because trying to spout such pseudo-science about a random dice game just makes you look a nob.

Points up, "what he said"

Who really wants to play against someone who takes the game so seriously that they want to apply "historic tactics" to a dice game.

Not much laughing in those games I bet.

[Nabterayl]

Points up, "what he said"

Who really wants to play against someone who takes the game so seriously that they want to apply "historic tactics" to a dice game.

Not much laughing in those games I bet.
I do that and my friends and I laugh plenty. You can't play 40K without applying historic tactics. Whenever you figure out what you're going to do on your turn, you're deciding on tactics - and whether you think of yourself as a tactician or not, human beings have been deciding on tactics for long enough that the odds are pretty high you're trying something that doesn't have a historical analogue. The best you can do is also apply non-historic tactics.

Whether you think in explicitly tactical terms when you play is another matter, of course, but that just comes down to mental organization. Everybody has their own way of figuring out what they're going to do next turn. Some people think about their conception of how their faction would act on the battlefield. Some people think about the game in terms of MEQs and GEQs and hordes. My dad thinks in terms of light infantry, heavy infantry, vehicles, and armor. Some people think in terms of probabilities.

I doubt very much that the combination of paradigms you use impacts how much fun you have. I think that's more a factor of attitude and demeanor. I think it's a mistake to assume that a person who uses a certain type of mental organization will also tend to have a certain attitude and demeanor. Don't we all know folks who can mathhammer till the cows come home who are also a blast to play with, write fabulous background for their army, and can geek out at length about the fluff of the universe? I sure do.

[thecactusman17]

I think that completely dismissing Sun Tzu from wargaming is pretty shortsighted, because while he was focused on grand strategic campaigns, he was also trying to describe how to win with a powerful force that still suffered from serious vulnerabilities to noncombatants (The Art of War was written for nobility who by tradition were expected to lead armies despite a lack of significant training or experience).

What can we take from Sun Tzu?

From the 5 constant factors (those being Moral Law, Heaven, Earth, the Commander, and Morale and discipline), we can see a number of basic elements that are crucial to the outcome of any war and any game of warhammer, including both fantasy and 40k. From the Moral Law, we are advised as players to maintain our troops such that they will avoid tests of their morale and leadership where possible, and to mitigate the effects of a bad roll. From Heaven, we take note of the accounting for weather, and the ability to see and be seen (or unseen) by opposing forces. Earth is a massive hodgepodge of 40k elements, but they are often the deciding factors in many games: terrain for both yourself and your opponent, your ability to move over it and engage or disengage from your opponent on your terms. The Commander has the responsibility to carefully judge the performance and abilities of his units, and to stay focused on which elements of his and his opponents games are contributing towards victory or defeat in the game objective. And Morale and Discipline is actually a great way to discuss maneuver: How should your units deploy for maximum effect? Which units need to engage directly to benefit the whole the most? What is the risk and reward for sending your units into any given fight, and how are you contributing to the overall logistics of getting your army from game start to wherever they must be at game end? Also, Morale and Discipline directly addresses how you purchase your army pre-game, assigning upgrades and selecting units to complete the mission objective.

All these elements are crucial to Warhammer. To quote The Art of ar's most important and valuable passage:



12. Therefore, in your deliberations, when seeking to determine the military conditions, let them be made the basis of a comparison, in this way:

(1) Which of the two sovereigns is imbued with the Moral law?
Whose army can continue functioning despite unexpected setbacks over the course of the game?

(2) Which of the two generals has most ability?
Who came best prepared to deal with any potential scenarios and opponents?

(3) With whom lie the advantages derived from Heaven and Earth?
What is the best way to move and deploy my forces to maximise my effectiveness and minimize his capabilities?

(4) On which side is discipline most rigorously enforced?
How focused are you on satisfying your win condition vs. your opponent? Is that focus subtle and leaving your opponent confused, or is he already seeing it and moving to stop you at your most crucial point?

(5) Which army is stronger?
A massive wave of Genestealers will rip apart a Descent of Angels list, but fall hard to a Leafblower.

(6) On which side are officers and men more highly trained?
Statlines go here. Think carefully. This is also a great place to consider your point costs.

(7) In which army is there the greater constancy both in reward and punishment?
Who picks their fights better? Are you going to throw all your units at that one unkillable deathstar while the rest of his army walks unscathed?

By means of these seven considerations I can forecast victory or defeat.
Damn right.

[Bean]

Those all fall pretty clearly into the category of marginal, superfluous metaphor. In every single instance, you stretch the meaning to apply it to some facet of wargaming that is obvious without ever going to Sun Tzu

Again, everything you need to know to be good at the game comes from the rulebooks and a very basic grasp of logic and math.

Anything you get from Sun Tzu or Clausewitz is only useful once you've taken it way out of context, turned it into a trite metaphor, and pretended that it has suddenly become sage relevant advice. There's not one thing that any of those books can teach you that you can't get from the rules and common sense without all of the BS.

And that is a good reason to dismiss them as wargaming aids. Interesting reads? Sure. A good way to sound pretentious when distributing obvious truisms? Absolutely.

A good way to learn how to win wargames? Not really.

And, as the Eurisko incident illustrates, that sort of thing can actually be harmful to your skill at wargaming--when you rely on twisting out-of-context advice into the context of wargaming you tend to fit the rules into a framework created by your understanding of real-world tactics, rather than taking them at face value, which can often blind you into missing ways of playing that are particularly effective or concluding that certain options are more effective than they really are. Not one of the Traveller players at that tournament had come up with Eurisko's game-breakingly-effective strategy on their own--and it was because they were forcing the rules into a framework created by their understanding of the conventions of naval combat, rather than taking them at face value. Play to the rules, not the conventions the rules are intended to represent. The two aren't the same, and pretending that one is the other might help you, but it isn't necessary and it might hurt you, too.

The Art of War will teach you nothing about wargaming that the rules won't, except things which are either irrelevant or actually harmful.

[Nabterayl]

Not one of the Traveller players at that tournament had come up with Eurisko's game-breakingly-effective strategy on their own--and it was because they were forcing the rules into a framework created by their understanding of the conventions of naval combat, rather than taking them at face value.
I don't know anything else about the tournament in question, so are you sure about that? On what basis do you dismiss the possibility that one or more Traveller players hit upon the same strategy and discarded it because it wouldn't be fun, or instructive, or anything other than "effective at winning the tournament?" Was the Traveller tournament held to determine the best way to win a Traveler tournament?

EDIT:

I think that completely dismissing Sun Tzu from wargaming is pretty shortsighted
If I understand him correctly, that isn't actually what Bean's doing. Consider two statements:
One can learn nothing useful about wargaming by studying Sun Tzu.
One can learn useful things about wargaming faster by studying X than one can by studying Sun Tzu.
I believe (correct me if I'm wrong here, Bean) Bean is not saying the first, and is saying the second, where X is "the rules of a given game." Which I think is a fairly self-evident statement.

EDIT FURTHER:
One might ask, then, whether at some point studying military history and military theory is at all useful for a wargamer who is interested solely in winning wargames. My answer (and not Bean's, this time) would actually be yes, sort of. In order to usefully absorb things from a study of the rules, I think most human players need a way to access that information quickly. I know how to calculate kill probabilities, but when I want to know whether this squad of space marines can effectively engage a squad of nob bikers, I don't actually calculate the kill probabilities. I say to myself, "Nob bikers are a tank. Space marines are infantry. Is this a circumstance in which infantry could reasonably be expected to effectively engage a tank? No." That takes me about two seconds to do, which is a lot faster than it would take me to demonstrate to myself the same answer using the rules of the game.

Other people probably do it differently (if you are thinking to yourself, "Nob bikers aren't tanks!" then you're one of them), but my point is that most people, I suspect, do it. They find a way to remember and apply the rules to the game other than the text of the rules themselves. If military history helps you encode things that way, more power to you. If you can do via algebra in two seconds what I can do via military history analogy, that's great, but I think there are a lot more wargamers who encode the rules via military history than who do so via algebra.

[DarkLink]

The big disconnect between general military theory and wargaming is that the real world doesn't have explicit, set in stone rules. Soldiers don't hit on a 4+, Marines don't hit on a 3+, moral isn't taken on 2d6. Wargames have explicit, simple rules that are relatively easy to just do a little math, play a few games, and figure out what works. Since real life is infinitely more complex and chaotic than that, things aren't that simple.

Since military theory has been developed to deal primarily with the complexity of the real world, you can say that it doesn't have a direct application to a specific wargame, because it doesn't. It's foolish to say that you can't learn anything from military theory, however, Sun Tzu included.

For example, the US Army publishes the Principles of War (http://www.pvv.ntnu.no/~madsb/home/war/fm1005/principles.php). It's a set of concepts and ideas designed to guide a military leader through the planning process. It's very general and generic, since it is intended to encompass all of traditional warfare. It basically states that in a plan, one needs to consider the objective, offense, mass, economy of force, maneuver, unity of command, security, surprise and simplicity. Similar lists have been published by various other militarily around the world.

Does is apply to wargaming, though? Objective means you have to keep your objective in mind, mass means you need to hit something with enough guns to kill it, maneuver means you have to get into advantageous positions, and so on and so forth. Some things you don't need to worry about, like unity of command. But those sound like really, really relevant advice to playing just about any game, 40k included.

Does it tell you anything specific about how to win? No. It doesn't tell you how many meltaguns you need to put in your list to kill Land Raiders. That doesn't mean it's not useful. Quite the opposite. In fact, it's far more important to understand than the basic rules of the game, since you can figure those out as you go. Most anyone can learn to play reasonably well with a little effort. But it takes a lot more work and a lot more intelligence to go from being a good player to being a great player, and it's not rote game mechanics that will get you there.


So, no Sun Tzu doesn't have a direct application to 40k. Reading it will not make you a better player. Understanding, then applying that understanding to the game, however, will*, and it's very shortsighted to think otherwise.


*unless, of course, you figured out the lessons the Art of War covers on your own. Not that hard, considering how widespread the Art of War is, and how many people are competing with other people in various ways. Growing up you should be exposed to plenty of stuff that gives a clever person plenty of opportunity to learn the basics of military strategy.

[Bean]

Nabterayal:

I can't make that assertion with perfect certainty, but it does stand to reason: it's a large annual tournament and Eurisko's approach was novel to both the participants and judges. It's certainly possible that someone both figured out a virtually fool-proof fleet and opted not to use it. However, unless the number of people who figured out Eurisko's approach on their own is insignificant, the probability that all of them opted to refrain from winning seems very unlikely.

And, frankly, the difference between none and not enough to matter doesn't really change my point or argument, though I'm willing to concede that it might be the latter.

I'm trying to round up a copy of Lenat's own paper on the topic (you can see a preview of it, here (http://www.deepdyve.com/lp/association-for-computing-machinery/learning-program-helps-win-national-fleet-wargame-tournament-EPl10Sp8x6)) but I don't want to pay for it and I haven't found it for free anywhere.


Darklink:

"So, no Sun Tzu doesn't have a direct application to 40k. Reading it will not make you a better player. Understanding, then applying that understanding to the game, however, will*, and it's very shortsighted to think otherwise."

I don't think that it's impossible to get anything out of the Art of War. I think that it's unnecessary, I see it causing people problems, and I think it's worth telling people to go to the rules instead of classic military texts if they want to become better at the game.

And, for what it's worth, analysis of mechanics alone can certainly make you a great player. As you yourself note, it's not terribly hard to derive all of the applicable principles from the Art of War just by playing the game. Again, the classic military texts just aren't necessary, and I consistently see them doing people more harm than good when it comes to winning wargames.

[Nabterayl]

On a side note, this illustrates perfectly what I see as the main attitudes towards the Codex Astartes. As thecactusman points out, The Art of War was novel for its audience. If it seems trite now, well, it's had at least 2500 years and a good deal of globalization to get that way, but somebody in China had to start.*

Similarly, the Codex Astartes may seem overly hyped in the 41st millennium, but at the time it was written mankind had finished waging the very first interstellar war in millennia, with many more on the horizon. It was probably very timely for somebody to sit down and write a book about summarizing the state of the art military thinking of the day.

* Not, of course, that The Art of War was the first instance of systematic Chinese military thinking.

[Lexington]

Those all fall pretty clearly into the category of marginal, superfluous metaphor. In every single instance, you stretch the meaning to apply it to some facet of wargaming that is obvious without ever going to Sun Tzu
Agreed, with this and with your overall argument...but is this really a necessary point? Are there a lot of people quoting Sun Tzu in a way that's not a marginal, superflous metaphor?

[Bean]

Agreed, with this and with your overall argument...but is this really a necessary point? Are there a lot of people quoting Sun Tzu in a way that's not a marginal, superflous metaphor?

Not that I've seen. But there are a lot of people quoting Sun Tzu in a way that is marginal and superfluous metaphor--and I think it's useful to provide a counterpoint to that.

[DarkLink]

I can agree with you that any specific strategy book isn't that important. It's just important to pick up strategy somewhere, and books like the art of war is a decent place to start. At least, I'm assuming. It's got some cool quotes, but I've never actually read the whole thing. And I bet there are some more modern books that do a better job.

[PalinMoonstride]

If I recall, David had a little bit of "help" as well.



Ever seen what a sling can do to someones face? That show where the collected data on old weapons and made up simulated fights between warriors from different eras tested out a sling and it was ridiculous how much damage it did. It really changed my idea of the whole David vs. Goliath thing.

[thecactusman17]

Agreed, with this and with your overall argument...but is this really a necessary point? Are there a lot of people quoting Sun Tzu in a way that's not a marginal, superflous metaphor?

I was copy pasting that. It is metaphor. It was explicitly written as metaphor. For an audience that like most of us had no prior experience with real warfare in any capacity and from a different culture. Reading the rules is important but the rulebook doesn't explain how to use those rules to achieve victory. A small bit of transliteration takes us from metaphor to simple, tested truths. Given the response i suppose i could add in a bit more context: The art of war was written for people who insisted that they knew better than an experienced general despite no formal training or prior experience. That is where the pretentiousness comes from, to fit into the expectations of princes.

[Nabterayl]

Ever seen what a sling can do to someones face? That show where the collected data on old weapons and made up simulated fights between warriors from different eras tested out a sling and it was ridiculous how much damage it did. It really changed my idea of the whole David vs. Goliath thing.
The David vs. Goliath fight was a lot more balanced than people generally give it credit for, true, though it was still an uphill battle. On the one hand, you have a huge man who is clearly a seasoned soldier, fully armed and armored from head to toe in bronze (and this was smack in the middle of the dark age, remember, so that much bronze would have seemed more like somebody armored head to toe in mithril). On the other hand you have a merely well-built man who is highly proficient with the deadliest ranged weapon of his age. David was hardly defenseless. On the other hand, it's telling that he only picked five stones. Essentially what he was saying was I'm either going to kill you in five shots, or you're going to cut me to pieces.

[thecactusman17]

The David vs. Goliath fight was a lot more balanced than people generally give it credit for, true, though it was still an uphill battle. On the one hand, you have a huge man who is clearly a seasoned soldier, fully armed and armored from head to toe in bronze (and this was smack in the middle of the dark age, remember, so that much bronze would have seemed more like somebody armored head to toe in mithril). On the other hand you have a merely well-built man who is highly proficient with the deadliest ranged weapon of his age. David was hardly defenseless. On the other hand, it's telling that he only picked five stones. Essentially what he was saying was I'm either going to kill you in five shots, or you're going to cut me to pieces.

Actually it was five stones for five people. Goliath had four giants as bodyguards and shieldbearers.

[Nabterayl]

Only one according to 1 Samuel 17. Regardless, the impressive thing isn't so much that he could kill a man with a sling; the impressive thing is that he managed to kill a man in full armor on his first shot - but he clearly wasn't planning on getting many.

[thecactusman17]

Only one according to 1 Samuel 17. Regardless, the impressive thing isn't so much that he could kill a man with a sling; the impressive thing is that he managed to kill a man in full armor on his first shot - but he clearly wasn't planning on getting many.

Samuel 17:41 explicitly states that there is at least one shield bearer in front of him. Other accounts suggest that he had bearers for his weapons and armor as well, all armed.

Also full armor would not have been as we think of it today. Probably chain or scale chest at most with greaves and gloves or gauntlets for his hands. A helmet, if any, would have been relatively small and not covering the face. Plate armor and serious metalworking wouldn't be around for centuries or more yet.

[Nabterayl]

People lose their helmets last of all, but I'm aware of what fully armored meant in 1000 BC (or 600, depending on which way you swing). But the psychological meaning of "fully armored" has never changed, I think.

[Da Gargoyle]

I think your original argument is flawed and I am not entirely impressed with the rules of the tournament that Eurisko competed "?" in.

Apparently there were no rules in the tournament that required objectives, No advantages to movement. No limit to any specific type of vehicle, or apparently no range or power limitations on the weaponry systems. It appears to have been a flat clear playing board, otherwise use of cover would have left the computer stuffed. I believe an IG armored company would mimic Eurisko in what you guys call castling. A flat open field would play right into the hands of a force like this. The real failure was in the opponents who failed to change their tactics and who probably got hung up on the computer.

By comparison, in 40k, moral is a factor when casualties mount. Depending on a single weapon will result in you not being able to deal with all enemy threats. Multple compulsory unit choices mean that you simply can not mimic Eurisko. But the point is well taken that you need to know your rules and the game rules to compete effectively. I know I have been burned for not knowing them well enough.

[Da Gargoyle]

By the way, and this is said without the full knowledge of the rules or fleet capabilities.

Basic tactics against Eurisko, Following deployment, as Eurisko is immobile, move your fleet to one side of the board and concentrate all its fire power on that point. Then fill the gap created and "Roll up the flank". Eurisko can not bring the full fleet fire power to bear because its frontage is no longer pointed at you. If Eurisko's ships don;t survive hits then the use of your own weapons that have a high rate of fire or broad blast patterns would be the way to go.

A basic military tactic since the use of organised military forces. And until he bumped into Wellington, Napoleon employed this with great effect.

[Bean]

By the way, and this is said without the full knowledge of the rules or fleet capabilities.

Basic tactics against Eurisko, Following deployment, as Eurisko is immobile, move your fleet to one side of the board and concentrate all its fire power on that point. Then fill the gap created and "Roll up the flank". Eurisko can not bring the full fleet fire power to bear because its frontage is no longer pointed at you. If Eurisko's ships don;t survive hits then the use of your own weapons that have a high rate of fire or broad blast patterns would be the way to go.

A basic military tactic since the use of organised military forces. And until he bumped into Wellington, Napoleon employed this with great effect.

Eurisko designed the fleet by playing lots of games against itself. Its creator played the fleet in the tournament and won easily two years in a row despite no prior experience with war games or any substantial knowledge of historical military tactics.

Your disclaimer is apt, but it also renders pretty much every other point you make completely irrelevant. You have no idea what it takes to win the Traveller tournament, or what the rules are, or whether you could come up with a strategy to beat the Eurisko fleet--but the fact that you think, with your almost non-extant knowledge of the game or the rules, that you could do better than the two years worth of national-level-tournament competitors who did not basically just serves to render your objection non-compelling.

I mean, the organizers of the tournament asked the guy to stop coming because his fleets were so overpoweringly good. You really think that was because they were all so dumb as to not think of a "run up the flank" maneuver? Really?

Also, for the record, Eurisko's ships weren't immobile, just really slow, and they weren't all identical and they didn't all have identical weapon systems.

You have both failed to present a cogent objection to my initial argument and have also demonstrated pretty clearly that you don't know what you're talking about.



In fact, really, Gargoyle, you're basically the poster-boy for my position. My position was that knowledge of historical military tactics is both unnecessary and potentially harmful, because it can pull you into the trap of thinking, "such and such will work because my knowledge of historical military tactics says it should," or, "such and such would never work because my knowledge of historical military tactics says it shouldn't." In fact, historical military knowledge is only useful in application to the game to the extent that the rules of the game cause it to mimic the real-life situations from which that knowledge comes--which, for all war games (even famously complex ones like Traveller) is "very little."

Your post is really nothing more than you falling into that very trap as a result of your knowledge of historical military tactics--you've basically said, "this shouldn't work because my knowledge of historical military tactics says it shouldn't." But, of course, it did work. It worked very well, and this is because historical military tactics didn't turn out to offer the best way to approach the game. You're a model of exactly the type of error that Eurisko exploited and exactly the type of error that comes from relying too much on classic military texts to inform your war-gaming decisions.

So, thanks for that. It's always nice to have an object lesson to bolster my position.

Also, for the record, Traveller is a naval game, and even historical naval combat takes place on what is, effectively, a wide open field with no cover or terrain. I'll bet there's more terrain in your average Traveller game than there was in the average historical naval battle. Another of your points which is entirely off mark.

[Xas]

Eurisko designed the fleet by playing lots of games against itself. Its creator played the fleet in the tournament and won easily two years in a row despite no prior experience with war games or any substantial knowledge of historical military tactics.

Your disclaimer is apt, but it also renders pretty much every other point you make completely irrelevant. You have no idea what it takes to win the Traveller tournament, or what the rules are, or whether you could come up with a strategy to beat the Eurisko fleet--but the fact that you think, with your almost non-extant knowledge of the game or the rules, that you could do better than the two years worth of national-level-tournament competitors who did not basically just serves to render your objection non-compelling.

I mean, the organizers of the tournament asked the guy to stop coming because his fleets were so overpoweringly good. You really think that was because they were all so dumb as to not think of a "run up the flank" maneuver? Really?

Also, for the record, Eurisko's ships weren't immobile, just really slow, and they weren't all identical and they didn't all have identical weapon systems.

You have both failed to present a cogent objection to my initial argument and have also demonstrated pretty clearly that you don't know what you're talking about.


you are starting an argument without giving people full access (yeah not even a link to the tournament's rules!) and then complain if they make assumptions upon those information given by you?

Without any assumptions your initial argument boils down to:
"Computers can beat humans in a game therefore everything written by humans about strategy/tactics is irrelevant to games."

I assume you are a human beeing too and therefore the logical reasoning would be to deem your initial argument irrelevant to games as well.

My answer is that instead of asking to not attend the organizers should have instead cooperated with the programmer of eurisko to use it to improve their game rules until the computer would not be able to determine an "I-win-button army" anymore.


I would really love to see that programm try to "break" warhammer 40k. It would be most interesting how they would implement the issue of LOS and randomly placed terrain into the code...



Is it wrong to say that 100% rules knowledge should come before any types of lecture about real-live warfare (historical or not)? Definatelly not!

Is it wrong to say that you cannot learn anything from those pieces for writing at all? Definatelly!

As this game is a game between two real, human perople basically everything you read and learn can help you win your game as long as you are willing to use that information (even something as absurd as a book about gardening can help you win if you use that information to make you feel better before the tournament). It goes without saying that the further away the piece of information's field is from the rules and tactics, the less impact you'll get from your information compared to the time spent on gaining it.

[Bean]

you are starting an argument without giving people full access (yeah not even a link to the tournament's rules!) and then complain if they make assumptions upon those information given by you?

The rules change routinely. I doubt there is a complete set of the rules for either of those years available on the internet at all. I did provide a link to Lenat's own article on the matter in a post further down, and that has more concrete information in it.

Gargoyle offered speculation that was both baseless and actually contradicted by material that I had already provided. So, yes--I'm perfectly willing to argue with him about the worth of those speculations. If you think that is unreasonable, well, that's basically your problem.



Without any assumptions your initial argument boils down to:
"Computers can beat humans in a game therefore everything written by humans about strategy/tactics is irrelevant to games."


This is both entirely baseless and entirely false. This isn't accurate representation of my reasoning, my premises, or my conclusion. Did you even read what I wrote?



I assume you are a human beeing too and therefore the logical reasoning would be to deem your initial argument irrelevant to games as well.


Stop trying to be clever. You obviously don't have the chops for it. See above.



My answer is that instead of asking to not attend the organizers should have instead cooperated with the programmer of eurisko to use it to improve their game rules until the computer would not be able to determine an "I-win-button army" anymore.





I would really love to see that programm try to "break" warhammer 40k. It would be most interesting how they would implement the issue of LOS and randomly placed terrain into the code...


Line of sight and random terrain aren't isn't hard--there are first person shooter AI's manipulate line of sight in much more complicated ways that 40k allows for. And, of course, random terrain isn't even really an issue--it would only matter if you presumed that AI's can only manipulate line of sight by being pre-programmed to operate in a certain way on each specific terrain arrangement, which obviously isn't the case.

That said, I would also like to see it.




Is it wrong to say that 100% rules knowledge should come before any types of lecture about real-live warfare (historical or not)? Definatelly not!


I'm glad you agree.



Is it wrong to say that you cannot learn anything from those pieces for writing at all? Definatelly!


Again, I'm glad you agree.



As this game is a game between two real, human perople basically everything you read and learn can help you win your game as long as you are willing to use that information (even something as absurd as a book about gardening can help you win if you use that information to make you feel better before the tournament). It goes without saying that the further away the piece of information's field is from the rules and tactics, the less impact you'll get from your information compared to the time spent on gaining it.

Similarly, as it's a game between two real, human people things that you learn can end up causing you to make mistakes when you try to behave as though an ability to apply it through metaphor means that it actually has value when applied to everything through metaphor.

The Art of War isn't incapable of helping you be a better 40k player. But it isn't necessary, reliance on it can trick you into bad decisions, and the rules both can teach you everything you need to know and will never trick you into bad decisions through bad metaphor.

[Anggul]

Yup, real war is nothing like wargames.

Nice example. Min-maxing at it's height!

[Tynskel]

Yeah, uh.

There's a whole chapter on espionage. That would be useful in this situation. Knowing what people are bringing to the tournament. What are the rules. What will have the maximum effect.

This is essentially what the computer did for the creator: play espionage against itself to come up with the best organization.

This is straight outta the art of war, dude.

[thecactusman17]

Classic military authors like Clausewitz and Sun Tzu have little to offer beyond marginal metaphors that range in value from superfluous to downright harmful to good in-game tactical decision making.

Let's redo that:


Classic military authors like Clausewitz and Sun Tzu have little to offer beyond marginal metaphors that range in value from good in-game tactical decision making to superfluous to downright harmful.


Basically, you pointed out precisely what they did: this information can be useful when applied correctly at the right moment under the right circumstances. But in a shocking twist, you reordered the priorities to suggest a lack of relevance.

Stop whining about the flowery language. That was the language and customs of the intended audience of the period. Your response makes you sound illiterate. If you want to read only the rulebook, that's fine. If all you care about is being a warhammer munchkin, so be it. I doubt you will have much fun with the game if all you care about is just finding the least amount of effort to beat people before you even assemble an army. My understanding of the game is that the last time somebody figured out what the game munchkin system would do, it was so detrimental to the game community he played with that he retired the list and anything that looked like it from his games.

I dub thee troll, and cast thee out!

[Tynskel]

nah, that was bs, the leafblower isn't as effective anymore.

[Bean]

Yeah, uh.

There's a whole chapter on espionage. That would be useful in this situation. Knowing what people are bringing to the tournament. What are the rules. What will have the maximum effect.

This is essentially what the computer did for the creator: play espionage against itself to come up with the best organization.

This is straight outta the art of war, dude.

What the computer did wasn't equivalent to espionage at all. It didn't look at what other people were going to bring. It didn't consider what had been brought in the past, it didn't consider what would be brought, and it didn't try to gain any information about what other people were planning to bring.

Coming up with a huge range of possible options, simulating them against each other, and taking notes isn't the same as espionage at all. It isn't even very similar, and it isn't a topic broached by The Art of War in any way.

So, no. Your point, here, is entirely wrong. Try again.

[Bean]

Basically, you pointed out precisely what they did: this information can be useful when applied correctly at the right moment under the right circumstances. But in a shocking twist, you reordered the priorities to suggest a lack of relevance.


What are you talking about? My argument is that anything you can get from The Art of War you can get from the rules, and that there are things in the Art of War which, if actually applied to the game, are harmful to your ability to win.




Stop whining about the flowery language. That was the language and customs of the intended audience of the period. Your response makes you sound illiterate. If you want to read only the rulebook, that's fine. If all you care about is being a warhammer munchkin, so be it. I doubt you will have much fun with the game if all you care about is just finding the least amount of effort to beat people before you even assemble an army. My understanding of the game is that the last time somebody figured out what the game munchkin system would do, it was so detrimental to the game community he played with that he retired the list and anything that looked like it from his games.

I dub thee troll, and cast thee out!

I dub thee far, far wide of the point. If you're not going to bother to invest even the tiny amount of effort it would take to understand the post you're trying to belittle, don't bother to post, either. Stuff like this just makes you look lazy--it certainly doesn't do anything to discredit me or refute my argument. Nothing in htis paragraph is even relevant to what I posted.

Also, if you're talking about the leafblower, that's basically laughable. Anyone who gives that one guy that sort of credit for the mech guard craze is an idiot--every competent guard player I know looked at the codex and saw the exact same list. Some played it, some didn't, it didn't come anywhere near ruining any tournament scene, and if that guy decided to stop playing it, that's fine, but that act had no significant effect on its presence in the tournament scene.

What a joke.

Try again. First, though, try reading what I wrote so you aren't sitting over there beating your head against a wall while imagining it to be a door.

[thecactusman17]

What are you talking about? My argument is that anything you can get from The Art of War you can get from the rules, and that there are things in the Art of War which, if actually applied to the game, are harmful to your ability to win.




I dub thee far, far wide of the point. If you're not going to bother to invest even the tiny amount of effort it would take to understand the post you're trying to belittle, don't bother to post, either. Stuff like this just makes you look lazy--it certainly doesn't do anything to discredit me or refute my argument. Nothing in htis paragraph is even relevant to what I posted.

Also, if you're talking about the leafblower, that's basically laughable. Anyone who gives that one guy that sort of credit for the mech guard craze is an idiot--every competent guard player I know looked at the codex and saw the exact same list. Some played it, some didn't, it didn't come anywhere near ruining any tournament scene, and if that guy decided to stop playing it, that's fine, but that act had no significant effect on its presence in the tournament scene.

What a joke.

Try again. First, though, try reading what I wrote so you aren't sitting over there beating your head against a wall while imagining it to be a door.

Maybe you ought to read your posts. The entire argument that you ceaselessly place forth in front of everyone (for almost two weeks now) is that you think that The Art of War is irrelevant, because everything is in the rules. Not true. The rules are merely the framework by which the turns are taken, which actions are legal and taken within each phase, how to perform the actions etc. It makes not one significant statement about how to actually engage an opponent's army with your own in a way that will help you win.

Players can read the rules of the game, they can understand them perfectly and all the loopholes. but it is meaningless if you don't have an idea of what can be achieved through them. Old writings about stategy and planning by actual successful military leaders can give you ideas about how to apply your strengths over the course of the game. Some of them apply directly to the game (fight from the high ground, apply the most force to where the enemy is weakest, etc.), some of them apply to the metagame (what are my opponents likely to bring, what are the mission objectives going to be etc.) and some of them have no correlation to the game (fight with your backs to a river or cliff so that you will not attempt to run mid-fight).

The rulebook has rules, and that is all. Rules are critical to playing the game, but understanding the rules is not a mathematic principle for winning. Movement phase action A plus shooting phase B plus assault phase C does not equal victory, because A, B and C are all variable. If you are playing purely by the game rules you are relying on dice, which as random number generators are by definition unreliable. So researching the advice of people who understood how to win a fight is hardly a bad or irrelevant idea.

[Bean]

Maybe you ought to read your posts. The entire argument that you ceaselessly place forth in front of everyone (for almost two weeks now) is that you think that The Art of War is irrelevant, because everything is in the rules. Not true. The rules are merely the framework by which the turns are taken, which actions are legal and taken within each phase, how to perform the actions etc. It makes not one significant statement about how to actually engage an opponent's army with your own in a way that will help you win.

Players can read the rules of the game, they can understand them perfectly and all the loopholes. but it is meaningless if you don't have an idea of what can be achieved through them. Old writings about stategy and planning by actual successful military leaders can give you ideas about how to apply your strengths over the course of the game. Some of them apply directly to the game (fight from the high ground, apply the most force to where the enemy is weakest, etc.), some of them apply to the metagame (what are my opponents likely to bring, what are the mission objectives going to be etc.) and some of them have no correlation to the game (fight with your backs to a river or cliff so that you will not attempt to run mid-fight).

The rulebook has rules, and that is all. Rules are critical to playing the game, but understanding the rules is not a mathematic principle for winning. Movement phase action A plus shooting phase B plus assault phase C does not equal victory, because A, B and C are all variable. If you are playing purely by the game rules you are relying on dice, which as random number generators are by definition unreliable. So researching the advice of people who understood how to win a fight is hardly a bad or irrelevant idea.

Here you are back on point. But, of course, your point is demonstrably incorrect, and the point of this thread was to show the evidence of the error in this line of thinking.

Eurisko had no knowledge of historical military tactics. All it knew was the rules. None-the-less, armed with nothing but knowledge of the rules, it learned how to play the game not only functionally, but game-breakingly-well.

Your assertion that the rules aren't sufficient for becoming good at the game is false. Demonstrably false, thanks to Doug Lenat and Eurisko.

So, got any arguments that I haven't already dis-proven? Or are you just gonna keep wasting everyone's time?

[Hive Mind]

I think the problem you're running into here Bean is that you're using the cold logic of a computer as an analogue for the human brain.

You can indeed learn to play the game well enough to break it with nothing but the rules, but you can almost certainly get there much quicker if you have a grounding in military history. You can also never get there if you apply the wrong bits of the Art of War, true. You said yourself that Eurisko ran trials and experiments to perfect the system it used, you cannot say with any certainty that it would not have delivered a game-breaking system quicker if it had military texts fed to it as well.

In the end, neither position is absolute. You can't say that the Art of War is essential and you can't say that it's useless either.

[eldargal]

What is becoming clear is that most people don't seem to understand the Art of War. It isn't about tactics, you could argue it is about strategy, but most of all it is about understanding war and the psychology of war. Hence its applications to many areas othe than warfare. If it were about tactics no one would read it as 6th century B.C. Chinese military tactics were rendered obsolete, well, two milennia ago.

[Bitrider]

What is becoming clear is that most people don't seem to understand the Art of War. It isn't about tactics, you could argue it is about strategy, but most of all it is about understanding war and the psychology of war. Hence its applications to many areas othe than warfare. If it were about tactics no one would read it as 6th century B.C. Chinese military tactics were rendered obsolete, well, two milennia ago.


A few points of background info:

-I will be 41 on August 8th.

-The first point is stated simply to say that I am older than dirt and was there when Traveler was published and played it for years during my teens in the 80s.

-Traveler is a really great SPACE RPG that expanded to include planet creation and space ship battles. Not nearly as complicated as Starfleet Battles (a great spaceship combat game), but fun none the less. It is NOT a blue water navy game. It is space combat.



-The Trillion credit fleet battles was great to play. I played a game in which I built several 'million' ton ships and huge fleet carriers. My opponent said he built (1 million) 400-ton ships at one mega-credit each. (That should be 1 million x 1 mega-credit = 1 trillion credits)

- The issues with that strategy (even in the 40K world) is there is simply no-where near the shipyard capacity and a million ships would have a tough time with coordination, etc.

-I still lost the game because the rules did allow it. :)

-I am a US Navy Submarine veteran.

-I do not have university degree in World History, but I play one online. :)


Soooo... at the risk of suffering Eldargal's ire a couple of points:

1. Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" is certainly first and foremost a philosophical treaties on the conduct of war.

2. in that vein, it conveys to the reader this philosophy through the use of TACTICAL, STRATEGIC and PSYCHOLOGICAL examples, guidelines,etc.

3. Saying that the Art of War from the 6th C. B.C. would NOT be used if it was a text on tactics alone is a narrow (very very narrow) attitude. Soldiers and Sailors, Officers and Enlisted alike are taught from the examples of warfare from as far back as 2nd and 3rd millennia B.C.


Now, what I believe is actually the case (and is a core, however shaded, point of Eldargal and others) is that the older the text, the more it is used a tool to guild the philosophy and psychology of war rather than the esoteric or tangential value gathered from the literal examples.



Greg

[Bitrider]

What is becoming clear is that most people don't seem to understand the Art of War. It isn't about tactics, you could argue it is about strategy, but most of all it is about understanding war and the psychology of war. Hence its applications to many areas othe than warfare. If it were about tactics no one would read it as 6th century B.C. Chinese military tactics were rendered obsolete, well, two milennia ago.

As an aside since I do not read Chinese, I much prefer reading about Sun Wu using Gen. Griffith's translation and commentary rather than either Giles or Wing who are at best pedantic and at worst boorish.

FWIW.


Greg

[eldargal]

Actually that should have read 'about tactics alone etc...', I don't think we are disagreeing.:)

[Bitrider]

Actually that should have read 'about tactics alone etc...', I don't think we are disagreeing.:)

Yep, I agree.


Greg

[Bean]

I think the problem you're running into here Bean is that you're using the cold logic of a computer as an analogue for the human brain.

You can indeed learn to play the game well enough to break it with nothing but the rules, but you can almost certainly get there much quicker if you have a grounding in military history. You can also never get there if you apply the wrong bits of the Art of War, true. You said yourself that Eurisko ran trials and experiments to perfect the system it used, you cannot say with any certainty that it would not have delivered a game-breaking system quicker if it had military texts fed to it as well.

In the end, neither position is absolute. You can't say that the Art of War is essential and you can't say that it's useless either.

I'm not sure I see any reason to believe that you can "get there much quicker if you have a grounding in military history." I picked up Firestorm Armada, lately, and basically figured out the best tactics for my Terran fleet from a read through the rules and thinking about how to deploy my fleet in the first game I played--and they don't resemble anything I've ever seen suggested by any classic military texts.

But, sure--neither position is absolute. That's why, you'll note, I haven't been saying that classic military texts are useless but that they are not necessaryand potentially harmful. While you can get something useful out of them, anything useful in them you'll get out of the rules, and the rules won't give you anything that's potentially harmful. I mean, matter of hours. It would have taken me far longer than that to read "Dreadnought" or "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History" or something similar.

That's been my argument the entire time, and though it isn't quite as strong as the "there's never anything of value at all in classic military texts" position people seem determined to attribute to me, I think it's still more than sufficiently strong to support my advice, which (as I said at the very beginning of my first post) is that if you want to become good at playing 40k, don't bother with classic military texts. Instead, go familiarize yourself with the rules, and think through the game from that perspective rather than trying to force your decisions into a mold formed by classic military knowledge that may not be helpful or applicable.

The Eurisko case demonstrates that my first point--that an understanding of classic military knowledge is not necessary--is true.

The New Yorker article offers what I feel is a compelling argument in favor of the my second point, and I have definitely seen deleterious effects come from the attempt to apply classic military knowledge to one's 40k game, so I think it is pretty reasonable to believe the second point as well.

[Bean]

What is becoming clear is that most people don't seem to understand the Art of War. It isn't about tactics, you could argue it is about strategy, but most of all it is about understanding war and the psychology of war. Hence its applications to many areas othe than warfare. If it were about tactics no one would read it as 6th century B.C. Chinese military tactics were rendered obsolete, well, two milennia ago.

A fair point, sort of. Of course, I do understand that most (not all--it does address some tactics) of the Art of War references strategy. That hasn't stopped people from trying to twist its advice into metaphor that they can then force upon 40k and other wargames--even those which, like 40k, are purely tactical simulations with no strategic element at all.

Unfortunately, the psychological impact of war and combat on humans is so vastly different from the psychological impact of playing a game or virtually any other activity that I have to reject your assertion that it has applications to many areas other than warfare. I have yet to see even a single worthwhile observation about psychology from The Art of War applied to wargaming by anyone, much less applied anywhere else.

But, hey--if you have examples, toss 'em out there.

[eldargal]

Well, honestly beyond the psychological I don't think Art of War has a whole lot to offer a wargamer (that is still quite a bit). But I know a lot of people who credit success in their professional lives to understanding the philosophy of Art of War, including my father (though his professional career is more of a hobby, it isn't like he has to be a defense procurement consultant for the money).

I do believe that reading the Art of War has helped me in wargaming, being able to manipulate your opponent through psychology is useful.

[Bean]

Well, honestly beyond the psychological I don't think Art of War has a whole lot to offer a wargamer (that is still quite a bit). But I know a lot of people who credit success in their professional lives to understanding the philosophy of Art of War, including my father (though his professional career is more of a hobby, it isn't like he has to be a defense procurement consultant for the money).

I do believe that reading the Art of War has helped me in wargaming, being able to manipulate your opponent through psychology is useful.

I guess I just don't see any reason to believe that any of its psychological advice can be relied upon to manipulate opponents in predictable ways.

[eldargal]

Well their responses aren't predictable, but so long as it throws off their game, objective achieved.:)

[Bean]

Well their responses aren't predictable, but so long as it throws off their game, objective achieved.:)

Being thrown off one's game is a response, which you obviously consider to be predictable.

Again, I see no reason to believe that anything from The Art of War can reasonably be expected to produce even this result within the context of 40k.

[Hive Mind]

I'm not sure I see any reason to believe that you can "get there much quicker if you have a grounding in military history." I picked up Firestorm Armada, lately, and basically figured out the best tactics for my Terran fleet from a read through the rules and thinking about how to deploy my fleet in the first game I played--and they don't resemble anything I've ever seen suggested by any classic military texts.

There's no compelling reason to disbelieve it though either. See below.



But, sure--neither position is absolute. That's why, you'll note, I haven't been saying that classic military texts are useless but that they are not necessary[/i ]and [i]potentially harmful. While you can get something useful out of them, anything useful in them you'll get out of the rules, and the rules won't give you anything that's potentially harmful. I mean, matter of hours. It would have taken me far longer than that to read "Dreadnought" or "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History" or something similar.


Superfluous to downright harmful, were your words. Perhaps I erred, perhaps 'useless' was the wrong word to apply. However, what I meant still stands; you can't really say that there is no place for them and others can't say that they are essential.



The Eurisko case demonstrates that my first point--that an understanding of classic military knowledge is not necessary--is true.


It doesn't though. It might lend some support to your point, but it in no way proves it. Firstly, as I mentioned earlier you're using a computer as a direct analogue for the human brain. Humans brains do not necessarily work in the same dry, logical way that a computer does. Secondly, you're assuming an equality of capability. Perhaps you can digest a rule-set and have everything figured out in a few hours but you'd wrong to attribute that capability to everyone. Thirdly, your Firestorm Armada example neatly raises the point that you are in fact aware of military texts and while you might think that they are not directly informing your thoughts and perceptions on the game you cannot actually say with any certainty at all that you are working solely on the rules at all. Again, the human brain works in a way that means there are countless background processes running, processes that we're totally unaware of most of the time.

It's an interesting article but I cannot say that it proves your contention, not without significant leaps of logic. The only way to 'prove' what you're saying is to repeat the experiment with Eurisko having been fed information from classical texts and comparing the results. As it stands you're declaring a winner with only half the race having been run.

[Bean]

There's no compelling reason to disbelieve it though either. See below.

A fair point. There are other compelling reasons to dissuade others from trying to learn wargame strategy from classic military texts, though, and I've already covered those.



Superfluous to downright harmful, were your words. Perhaps I erred, perhaps 'useless' was the wrong word to apply. However, what I meant still stands; you can't really say that there is no place for them and others can't say that they are essential.


I can't say that they will never accomplish anything worthwhile. I can and have said that they can't accomplish anything that the rules cannot. At best, they will teach you useful things that you could learn from understanding the rules. That renders them at best superfluous, since you have to understand the rules to play the game well, anyway.

At worst, they will alter your perception of the game in a way which is harmful.

So, yes. Superfluous to downright harmful is what I said. It's what I meant, it's warranted by the evidence, and it is consistent with the rest of what I have been saying.



It doesn't though. It might lend some support to your point, but it in no way proves it. Firstly, as I mentioned earlier you're using a computer as a direct analogue for the human brain. Humans brains do not necessarily work in the same dry, logical way that a computer does.

Human brains do not work in the same way that computers do, but any computational task a computer can do a human can do given enough time. If a computer can break a game from the rules alone, a human can. That's just a fact about computing.




Secondly, you're assuming an equality of capability. Perhaps you can digest a rule-set and have everything figured out in a few hours but you'd wrong to attribute that capability to everyone.

Fair. I'll concede that for some sufficient level of mental deficiency, metaphor is necessary. When explaining complicated things to small children, you sometimes need to couch your explanation in metaphor, and it's not impossible that some gamers function in roughly the same way. I guess I could be giving the community too much credit, but I think I'll continue to err on the side of charity.



Thirdly, your Firestorm Armada example neatly raises the point that you are in fact aware of military texts and while you might think that they are not directly informing your thoughts and perceptions on the game you cannot actually say with any certainty at all that you are working solely on the rules at all. Again, the human brain works in a way that means there are countless background processes running, processes that we're totally unaware of most of the time.


You can opt to believe that I am not self-aware enough to make this sort of determination. I am, so you would be wrong, but I can't prove it to you beyond, again, pointing out that my solution did not, in fact, resemble any similar historical military tactics I'd ever heard of. If that isn't sufficient evidence for you, then I don't really care--it was only an example, and, despite your reticence, it isn't really necessary since Eurisko is more than sufficient proof of concept.





It's an interesting article but I cannot say that it proves your contention, not without significant leaps of logic. The only way to 'prove' what you're saying is to repeat the experiment with Eurisko having been fed information from classical texts and comparing the results. As it stands you're declaring a winner with only half the race having been run.

It proves half of my contention without significant leaps of logic and supports the other half. With your suggested alternate experiment, you're again straying into the realm of pretending that I made an assertion that I did not--how well a computer would play given a background in historical military tactics is actually irrelevant to the assertion that Eurisko proves (and only tangentially relevant to the one it supports). That said, it would be pretty cool if you could make a program that worked in the manner you suggest.

[Tynskel]

What the computer did wasn't equivalent to espionage at all. It didn't look at what other people were going to bring. It didn't consider what had been brought in the past, it didn't consider what would be brought, and it didn't try to gain any information about what other people were planning to bring.

Coming up with a huge range of possible options, simulating them against each other, and taking notes isn't the same as espionage at all. It isn't even very similar, and it isn't a topic broached by The Art of War in any way.

So, no. Your point, here, is entirely wrong. Try again.

A form of espinage is a 'think tank'. We use them all the time. In the real world, you take all the information you have, put it in a computer, and the computer spits out an answer.

In the example you offer, the code writer took all the available information and put in the computer, and the computer spit out an answer.

Yes, you need to look into this more. Check out IDA, for example.

This adheres to the principles of the Art of War, which is not to go into a fight blind.

[Bean]

A form of espinage is a 'think tank'. We use them all the time. In the real world, you take all the information you have, put it in a computer, and the computer spits out an answer.

In the example you offer, the code writer took all the available information and put in the computer, and the computer spit out an answer.

Yes, you need to look into this more. Check out IDA, for example.

This adheres to the principles of the Art of War, which is not to go into a fight blind.

Again, you're just wrong. The computer wasn't given all the information available. The computer was given the rules and a very small amount of very basic guidance from Lenat--and extrapolated its game-breaking strategy from that alone.

Again, what you are suggesting is not at all similar to what the computer did, what the computer did does not constitute espionage in any way, and what the computer did is not something that The Art of War suggests or even discusses in any way.

You're reaching way too far, Tynskel. There is no substance to your argument at all. In effect, Lenat did go into the tournament blind, with no idea what to expect from other players, armed only with the product of thousands and thousands of games he (by proxy) effectively played against himself.

[Tynskel]

Nah, you are just restricting the Art of War to 2000 years ago.

The principles are the same. Using computers to solve problems is a form of modern espionage. The computer is able to create solutions that normally would take years of practical application.

Someone playing the game enough times would have come up with the same solutions that a computer has. This is a form of espionage.

Obviously, Bean cannot be wrong. We are all stupid! The Art of War has no practical applications in the modern world!


No. Using a computer to play simulations is adhering to the principles of the art of war. Coming up with cohesive strategies is a basic tenet of the Art of War.

I suggest you actually read the book, and then read your scenario again. You'll find that 'lenat' was following the book to the letter.

[Bean]

Nah, you are just restricting the Art of War to 2000 years ago.

The principles are the same. Using computers to solve problems is a form of modern espionage. The computer is able to create solutions that normally would take years of practical application.

Someone playing the game enough times would have come up with the same solutions that a computer has. This is a form of espionage.

Obviously, Bean cannot be wrong. We are all stupid! The Art of War has no practical applications in the modern world!


No. Using a computer to play simulations is adhering to the principles of the art of war. Coming up with cohesive strategies is a basic tenet of the Art of War.

I suggest you actually read the book, and then read your scenario again. You'll find that 'lenat' was following the book to the letter.

I can't help but laugh.

Fine, I'll concede your point. Lenat came up with a cohesive strategy. The Art of War suggests that you should come up with a cohesive strategy. In this (and only this) he was doing exactly one thing that the Art of War suggests.

So, yes--if you are so utterly mentally incompetent that you can't figure out, on your own, that you should come up with a cohesive strategy, you might be able to get that from the Art of War. If we presume that Doug Lenat was utterly mentally incompetent, we might conclude that he required the Art of War for this most basic of observations.

Of course, everyone who isn't brain-dead--including, no doubt, Lenat--would know that much without ever touching the Art of War, so that really doesn't do anything to refute my position, and nothing about what Lenat did resembles anything described in the Art of War beyond this most utterly basic and simplistic level. The Art of War doesn't suggest his methodology specifically, or metaphorically, or even suggest anything that resembles it at all.

He did not follow the Art of War to the letter. Taken literally, this assertion of yours is laughably, obviously stupid. At best, you can say that he followed it in doing what any living, mentally functioning human knows to do without ever reading any books at all, which leaves your assertion still laughably obviously stupid, though in a slightly different way.

Either way, Tynskel, wow. New depths, man. New depths.

[Anggul]

The Art of War has no practical applications in the modern world!

While I think Bean took completely the wrong path to answering your response, I'd like to make it clear that I agree with him on his point in his initial post, which pretty much everyone seems to have missed.

Simply put, no, he isn't saying it has no practical applications in the modern world, and his point isn't that a computer did it. He's saying that war books such as The Art of War aren't useful for wargaming, as wargames are nothing like real combat. Or at least that's what I got from his initial post.

[Darkwynn]

While I think Bean took completely the wrong path to answering your response, I'd like to make it clear that I agree with him on his point in his initial post, which pretty much everyone seems to have missed.

Simply put, no, he isn't saying it has no practical applications in the modern world, and his point isn't that a computer did it. He's saying that war books such as The Art of War aren't useful for wargaming, as wargames are nothing like real combat. Or at least that's what I got from his initial post.


I have to say making a statement like that is incorrect or at least to broad. You don't use the Art of War to take historical examples and try to apply them directly into a game or even other types of problem or issue you’re trying to solve. The Art of War in today’s terms is translated for you to understand the basic underlying concepts and premises to allow you to think different. There is a reason why it’s one of the unspoken required books to read in business. You are playing a giant game with rules established or not and you have concepts and strategies you can employ in them. Same thing for Wargaming it’s just on a different level conceptually.

Now if you want to understand game theory on a deeper level and have direct content or corresponding material that you can apply to any type of game look for a book called the Art of Strategy. It’s a book about game theory and how games work from business to simple games such as Go. It is a good read can be a little dry but it’s worth it.

Also, Leafblower is effective and honestly very few people even understand how it works or what is even in the list. They assume its pure mech guard and any list is a Leafblower list. The list is designed to work against many extremes of the meta and matching up against different equilibrium’s across different codexs. Many people don’t understand how to play it or understand what the real list is.
.

[Da Gargoyle]

Also, for the record, Traveller is a naval game, and even historical naval combat takes place on what is, effectively, a wide open field with no cover or terrain. I'll bet there's more terrain in your average Traveller game than there was in the average historical naval battle. Another of your points which is entirely off mark.[/QUOTE]


Hi Bean, I still disagree with your original point, and you are correct in that I lack the details of the tournament and even the skills of the players to properly formulate tactics and strategy. I do think the tournament organisers were a little slack in stopping the guy from playing though. I mean there must be other players out there that would like to replay and crack the computer.

In the mean time your final comment is as flawed as you believe my argument to be. Battles at sea have never been on a wide open field. The examples of this are myriad, but one of the best was the battle of Jutland. The German fleet had crossed the T of the Royal Navy. However the RN pressed on and ignored early losses to wear away at the German tactical advantage. In the late afternoon the Germans realised that the RN had the superior night fighting skills so they implemented a new maneuver and their line turned away from the RN line into fog. Shortly after that, night fell and the German fleet escaped back to port.

Argentine aircraft had trouble finding and attacking the RN fleet in the Falklands because of the whether, while the Shiny Sheff' got hit by an exocet launched from over the horizen. Finally the Belgrano went down from a salvo of torpedoes fired from a sub, which used the following storm to avoid the destroyer escorts.

Weather, swell, atmospheric conditions and the curvature of the earth all provide cover, and that last one was used a lot further back in history than you might think.

[Tynskel]

u could also look at the classic battle of trafalgar, where nelson had the winds, and the franco/spanish fleet pinned up against a coastline. He was out numbered by 600+ guns yet, kicked butt, and still won even though he was killed halfway through.

[Weafwolf]

This story reminds me of something similar. I've forgotten most of the facts, but the main thurst is this:

Guy moves to America from India. His daughters go to school and want to play basketball. There is no coach, so he volunteers. He reads the rules for basketball and learns the game.

In basketball, there is an acceptance that after a team scores, the scoring team retreats back and lets the other team basically move up to the other side of the court for free. But this coach came up with a great idea...legally, you could play defense the whole time. His girls were not top athletes, but they played the game differently, and with this type of defense, they began winning. I believe a college team did the same thing and was very successful...both teams would create turnovers and then score.

They made it to the championships, but basketball purists started to work against them. Refs called fake penalties, and they gave them a bad schedule I think.

The point is, the winners at war don't follow an accepted "code" of how to fight a war. They win by doing it differently. David didn't beat Goliath by going toe to toe...he won by fighting a different way.

Just an aside I think using Napoleon's tactics do work in 40K. Pin the enemy or tarpit them or bait them away, beat up part of his army with the majority of yours, then turn on the other part etc.

Nitpicking here, but that's not a strong analogy. There's nothing controversial or exceptional about a full-court press. It's not allowed with the youngest players (or no one would ever score), and they're rare in the NBA, but not because basketball purists find them offensive. Colleges and high school teams use them routinely (see Pitino, Rick). They're also called "fouls," not "penalties."

Good point on Napoleon, though.

[Turner]

I think not only does history repeat it's self but is a perfect example of how art imitates life.

When you setup your "fluffy" army and see someone with a min/max spam list who's to say that's wrong and not fluffy? If you were to put yourself in the shoes of the commander of your army and you look across the field, scanning your troops you think you have what it takes to win the day, to defeat your enemy. On the opposite side of the field (or table) the enemy commander is literally fighting for his life, their lives, what they believe in... and he believes that bringing tons and tons of min/max spamming units what will win him the day. The example of America Vs the British is "life" and exactly that! Washington doesn't send his troops out front rank style to get slaughtered over and over again, he sends his troops to hide behind trees, rocks, walls, buildings whatever it takes to win the day and fight another. I'm sure the British were upset that they weren't fighting the way they were but who's to say they were fighting wrong?

"War does not determine who is right - only who is left" and in the end if that "fluffy" army is standing then they are left, if that min/max spamming army is is standing then they are left.

[thecactusman17]

Um, Washington and numerous others determined that they didn't have the manpower or training to successfully take on the British head on. They adapted tactics learned from the French and Indian War (where Washington was a British General) and other smaller groups who had successfully won out against large armies including the British, Germans, French, and others.

But this is ultimately irrelevant, as that was the only part of your post I could make any sense out of.

[Grenadier]

I find that the issue isn't so much that texts on warfare do not make you a better player. Rather, the issue is translating real warfare wisdom into a game that doesn't exactly replicate real warfare. That's because we players know the game inside and out and are very familiar with the capabilities of the various armies.

For example, in the Art of War is a lesson that teaches you to feign strength when you're weak or vice versa. Well, we can't really do that in 40k. We can appear to be weak or strong all we would like. Fat lot of good it does us because our opponent most likely is very familiar with our army.

Translating these real war lessons into such a game is nearly impossible. The rulebook already breaks down the combat aspect for us. Through it and some gaming experience we understand the ins and out. Good players over time learn from experience. We've lots of little things to contend with. How best to deploy our troops. Where to move them. When to move them. When and how to exploit an enemy weakness. But at the same time your opponent has the exact same capability. Also, there is no "fog of war" in 40k. At any given time both players know exactly what is going on and exactly what the other guy has. And of course we have a strong element of luck involved. In real war commanders do as much as they can to eliminate the luck factor. Luck is only good for individual soldiers in a war. It is not good for the entire army. In our game luck often is the key factor and we can't control it.

That's not to say that some basic war lessons can be filtered into the 40k. For example, Field Marshal Rommel in his book talked about the need for caution and boldness.

"Proceed with maximum caution at all times allied with boldness at the right moment."

Well this war lesson has helped me a lot in the game. And it influences how I play with my Imperial Guard. The "maximum caution" is reflected in how I deploy units and how I move them. I do so in a way that ensures the enemy has absolutely no safe zone free of not being shot up by my many weapons. I ensure I always have at least one unit covering and supporting another. Ultimately my army has overlapping fields of fire, kill zones, and mutually supportive of each unit. The boldness comes when my firepower finally opens up weaknesses I can then exploit. I've been able to hammer at my enemy and open up huge holes in his lines. Which then my appropriate units surge forward to exploit. I've been able to cautiously sit back and hammer away and then punch a whole right in the middle. Only to then roll forward with my tanks and roll up what is left.

But this lesson is one more of common sense than brilliant strategy. Rommel was a fine commander but his grasp of warfare hinged on what I like to call practical common sense. You don't need to be a Rommel to be good at 40k. You just have to think logically apply common sense.

[thecactusman17]

I think that it us players who make the info work. A player who cannot see where, for example, The Art of War needs translation and re-interpretation is unlikely to even grasp it in regards to real warfare even in relation to classic Chinese warfare. The AOW makes solid, worthy comments on the importance of Morale,.logistics, reading the opponent, reading the battle space, and when to commit to actions so that you stand the best chance of success.

[Tynskel]

Holy crap! The zombie apocalypse must have started, because I swear all the active threads right now were resurrected!

[Bean]

Wow, yeah. This is from a while back. Lol.

It's a crazy coincidence--I was just talking about Eurisko to someone else, earlier today. It remains my favorite wargaming story.


edit:


For example, in the Art of War is a lesson that teaches you to feign strength when you're weak or vice versa. Well, we can't really do that in 40k. We can appear to be weak or strong all we would like. Fat lot of good it does us because our opponent most likely is very familiar with our army.

I can't tell you how many times I've tried to get this point across to others. I see that "feign weakness, feign strength" line all the time, and I say, "it's a total information game--you can't feign weakness or strength unless your opponent is an idiot," but I keep seeing people trot it out, time and time again, even though it is completely inapplicable to 40k.




I think that it us players who make the info work. A player who cannot see where, for example, The Art of War needs translation and re-interpretation is unlikely to even grasp it in regards to real warfare even in relation to classic Chinese warfare. The AOW makes solid, worthy comments on the importance of Morale,.logistics, reading the opponent, reading the battle space, and when to commit to actions so that you stand the best chance of success.

It's true--many solid, worthy comments, the value of which, when applied to 40k, can be deduced in their entirety by anyone with the IQ of a functional human and a solid grasp of the rules without ever even knowing about the Art of War, along with a lot of solid, worthy comments that are routinely applied in utterly asinine ways to 40k by people who clearly don't understand the book or the game.


edit again:

So, here's a challenge for the AoW fanclub:

Name a specific piece of advice that is of value in 40k that you can get from the Art of War but not from the rules.

[thecactusman17]

Advice of what sort, playing the game, or winning games? You are not allowing the possibility of a difference, and that is why you see no value.

[thecactusman17]

So, here's a challenge for the AoW fanclub:

Name a specific piece of advice that is of value in 40k that you can get from the Art of War but not from the rules.


3. The art of war, then, is governed by five constant factors, to be taken into account in one's deliberations, when seeking to determine the conditions obtaining in the field.

4. These are: (1) The Moral Law; (2) Heaven; (3) Earth; (4) The Commander; (5) Method and discipline.

5,6. The Moral Law causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger.

7. Heaven signifies night and day, cold and heat, times and seasons.

8. Earth comprises distances, great and small; danger and security; open ground and narrow passes; the chances of life and death.

9. The Commander stands for the virtues of wisdom, sincerely, benevolence, courage and strictness.

10. By method and discipline are to be understood the marshaling of the army in its proper subdivisions, the graduations of rank among the officers, the maintenance of roads by which supplies may reach the army, and the control of military expenditure.

11. These five heads should be familiar to every general: he who knows them will be victorious; he who knows them not will fail.

...

13. (1) Which of the two sovereigns is imbued with the Moral law? (2) Which of the two generals has most ability? (3) With whom lie the advantages derived from Heaven and Earth? (4) On which side is discipline most rigorously enforced? (5) Which army is stronger? (6) On which side are officers and men more highly trained? (7) In which army is there the greater constancy both in reward and punishment?

14. By means of these seven considerations I can forecast victory or defeat.


By recognizing those elements of the 5 disciplines we can control, which are controlled for us, and which are not represented within the game or within the structure of playing the game, we can determine which factors we can manipulate to our advantage. By manipulating these factors we have control over to our advantage, we are at an advantage over our opponents when we play. More so than any other philosophy, this will help players in Warhammer, Warhammer 40k, and even in other areas of our lives where competition leads to success or failure.

[thecactusman17]

I can't tell you how many times I've tried to get this point across to others. I see that "feign weakness, feign strength" line all the time, and I say, "it's a total information game--you can't feign weakness or strength unless your opponent is an idiot," but I keep seeing people trot it out, time and time again, even though it is completely inapplicable to 40k.


The quote in question, VERY applicable to 40k:


18. All warfare is based on deception.

19. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.

Hey, look at that, I've found in the first 20 lines useful information that can be used by a starting player, and even a few veterans.

[Bean]

Advice of what sort, playing the game, or winning games? You are not allowing the possibility of a difference, and that is why you see no value.

Winning. I've always been talking about winning. I'm not sure what you think the relevant distinction is, here, though.



By recognizing those elements of the 5 disciplines we can control, which are controlled for us, and which are not represented within the game or within the structure of playing the game, we can determine which factors we can manipulate to our advantage. By manipulating these factors we have control over to our advantage, we are at an advantage over our opponents when we play. More so than any other philosophy, this will help players in Warhammer, Warhammer 40k, and even in other areas of our lives where competition leads to success or failure.

You can learn what elements you can control, what elements your opponent can control, and what elements are not included in the game by reading the rules. In fact, you can only learn those things by reading the rules--The Art of War won't help you there.

So, this obviously fails to serve your point.


The quote in question, VERY applicable to 40k:

Sure, if you're playing against a complete incompetent. Against a competent opponent, it is impossible to feign strength or weakness to any effect--knowing exactly how weak or strong your opponent's army is in any given location is a requirement for competence.

Advice that's only worthwhile against incompetents doesn't qualify as valuable. This also fails to serve your point.


All warfare is based on deception.

In 40k, as in all total information games, deception is impossible against competent opponents. Another failure for you.



19. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.

See above.



Hey, look at that, I've found in the first 20 lines useful information that can be used by a starting player, and even a few veterans.

Nothing that serves your point. Everything of value in your suggested material you get from just reading the rules.


Anyone else care to take a shot, or can we put this one to bed?

[thecactusman17]

You claim that you know all my plans and capabilities in advance. You allow no room for your own error. Of course you would take no advice from this source-you are arrogant and foolish. None of the advice given here is contained in three rule book. This was advice given to non-generals who one their men could fight but didn't know how to put them in a situation where they could win. Just like the rule book. Multiple parts of what I trapped about, including the reference to moral law, can easily be interpreted as knowing the rules of the game.

[eldargal]

I think you are being a bit narrow in your view, Bean. Certainly you can't use much of the advice the AoW gives in the game, as you say it is a total information ruleset designed with some degree of balance. Unlike the real world. BUT you can apply the lessons to your opponent, as much of it is about psychology.

For example, people often assume because I'm a girl I'm not very competitive and not a good player. Sometimes I will act like a bit of an airhead to lull the opponent into a sense of false security, leading him to underestimate my abilities. It often helps distract from unit synergies I'm setting up and whatnot.

As much as I approve of the Art of War, I've found the Maneuver Warfare Handbook (by William S Lind) to be of more use as an Eldar player.;)

[thecactusman17]

Bean, here's a thought experiment: Tell me how the Laws of Heaven and Earth DON'T apply to wargaming? And don't just try to pass off my above quotes, go read the relevant sections first.

[Bean]

You claim that you know all my plans and capabilities in advance. You allow no room for your own error. Of course you would take no advice from this source-you are arrogant and foolish. None of the advice given here is contained in three rule book. This was advice given to non-generals who one their men could fight but didn't know how to put them in a situation where they could win. Just like the rule book. Multiple parts of what I trapped about, including the reference to moral law, can easily be interpreted as knowing the rules of the game.

Obvious straw-man is obvious.

I didn't claim to know all your plans and capabilities in advance. I claimed to know all of your capabilities in advance--which I do. Which every competent player does. Which is sufficient to make it impossible for you to feign strength or weakness to any competent player.

I showed quite conclusively why none of your suggestions are sufficient to refute my position. Simply insulting me and offering an obviously laughable "argument" only shows how desperate your position actually is.

Keep going though--every post you make just makes it more obvious that I'm right.




I think you are being a bit narrow in your view, Bean. Certainly you can't use much of the advice the AoW gives in the game, as you say it is a total information ruleset designed with some degree of balance. Unlike the real world. BUT you can apply the lessons to your opponent, as much of it is about psychology.

For example, people often assume because I'm a girl I'm not very competitive and not a good player. Sometimes I will act like a bit of an airhead to lull the opponent into a sense of false security, leading him to underestimate my abilities. It often helps distract from unit synergies I'm setting up and whatnot.


This seems awfully thin. I don't doubt that you have been "underestimated" because you're a girl, but the Art of War really doesn't discuss the exploitation of machismo at all. This isn't drawn from the Art of War, and, again, it feels like the sort of thing that marks an opponent as incompetent, anyway.




As much as I approve of the Art of War, I've found the Maneuver Warfare Handbook (by William S Lind) to be of more use as an Eldar player.

I'll have to check that out.

[eldargal]

Well it is thin, it was just a vague example. But I do think reading these sorts of books on the philosophy and psychology of conflict can help you manipulate your opponent into making mistakes. It is subtle, though, and it certainly doesn't make them incompetent. The principles of deception and deceit are drawn from Art of War to some extent.

But even making a few obvious not not critical mistakes and pretending to get flustered can make a skilled opponent, even one that knows you, think the game is going there way and you are having trouble coping.

I recommend the book, and reading anything by Lind on warfare. I don't agree with his politics entirely but this is a chapo who in 1989 was saying the world would move away from conventional warfare to terrorism and insurgency type tactics and was laughed at.

[Bean]

Well it is thin, it was just a vague example. But I do think reading these sorts of books on the philosophy and psychology of conflict can help you manipulate your opponent into making mistakes. It is subtle, though, and it certainly doesn't make them incompetent. The principles of deception and deceit are drawn from Art of War to some extent.

But even making a few obvious not not critical mistakes and pretending to get flustered can make a skilled opponent, even one that knows you, think the game is going there way and you are having trouble coping.


This just really seems unfathomable to me. Every once in a while, I think that I really just can't make meaningful comments on tactics, because other people function in a way that is fundamentally different from the way that I function.

Thinking that the game is going your way? Why does that matter? Does that actually affect the decision-making process of other people?

I have not yet seen (and I have read tons of them) even a single suggestion for applying psych tactics to wargames that seems plausible, outside of the suggestion that you just insult your opponent mercilessly until your opponent is fuming (yes, someone actually suggested that) and, frankly, that seems like way too much of a dick move to constitute worthwhile advice.

I can't imagine anything you're talking about, here, mattering in one of my games. Either that means that you--and a lot of other people--are just fooling yourselves, or most other people really do just play the game in a manner which is fundamentally worse from the way that I play it. And I find that difficult to believe.




I recommend the book, and reading anything by Lind on warfare. I don't agree with his politics entirely but this is a chapo who in 1989 was saying the world would move away from conventional warfare to terrorism and insurgency type tactics and was laughed at.

Hah! That does sound good.

[Bean]

I presume by, "the law of heaven and earth," you mean these two lines:


Heaven signifies night and day, cold and heat, times and seasons.

Earth comprises distances, great and small; danger and security; open ground and narrow passes; the chances of life and death.


First of all, let's be clear: this doesn't constitute advice beyond the very most basic: "these things matter." Since that (to the extent to which it is true) is utterly obvious, this isn't really valuable to the wargamer--or to anyone else--who isn't a moron.

That should be sufficient.

But let's go further.

There is no night and day in 40k. There are the night-fight rules, which are not night. They are a set of rules that limit your ability to shoot.

There are no times, seasons, hot, or cold.

The Law of Heaven, this, is actually entirely inapplicable. It doesn't discuss conditions that actually obtain in Warhammer, and (even if it did) it doesn't tell you anything about them, anyway.

The Law of Earth is, again, basically just the statement, "terrain matters." This is true, and it does apply to wargames. Again, though, it's utterly obvious to everyone, and it's also stated pretty explicitly in the rules.

In fact, the rules tell you a lot more about why terrain matters than The Art of War does.

So, there you go.

Point for point refutation of these examples as support for your position.

[Sure]

The only folks I've seen who try to apply the old Chinese manual to wargaming are pretentious but well-meaning college age types. Reading that book would tell you that the best way to win the tournament would be to not spend the time and effort painting the army, learning the rules of the game, and spending a Saturday at the shop. That way, you win by not fighting.
That manual is for long-term conflict, whether is be war, business, or politics... not a 2-3 hour game.

[Bean]

The only folks I've seen who try to apply the old Chinese manual to wargaming are pretentious but well-meaning college age types. Reading that book would tell you that the best way to win the tournament would be to not spend the time and effort painting the army, learning the rules of the game, and spending a Saturday at the shop. That way, you win by not fighting.
That manual is for long-term conflict, whether is be war, business, or politics... not a 2-3 hour game.

Agreed.

Except that it seems like I see people online trying to apply Sun Tzu to wargaming frequently.

Which is why I occasionally make threads like this.

Also, in this particular case, the Eurisko story is particularly awesome.

[thecactusman17]

I presume by, "the law of heaven and earth," you mean these two lines:



First of all, let's be clear: this doesn't constitute advice beyond the very most basic: "these things matter." Since that (to the extent to which it is true) is utterly obvious, this isn't really valuable to the wargamer--or to anyone else--who isn't a moron.

That should be sufficient.

But let's go further.

There is no night and day in 40k. There are the night-fight rules, which are not night. They are a set of rules that limit your ability to shoot.

There are no times, seasons, hot, or cold.

The Law of Heaven, this, is actually entirely inapplicable. It doesn't discuss conditions that actually obtain in Warhammer, and (even if it did) it doesn't tell you anything about them, anyway.

The Law of Earth is, again, basically just the statement, "terrain matters." This is true, and it does apply to wargames. Again, though, it's utterly obvious to everyone, and it's also stated pretty explicitly in the rules.

In fact, the rules tell you a lot more about why terrain matters than The Art of War does.

So, there you go.

Point for point refutation of these examples as support for your position.

And this is why you fail.

Starting with the Law of Heaven:

The Law of Heaven, as you correctly noted Bean, comprises information about night and day, the seasons, the time, hot and cold, etc.

There are so many aspects of Warhammer controlled by The Law of Heaven it is unfathomable to me that you can dismiss them. Nearly every element of the game that does not involve rolling dice takes The Law of Heaven into account.

The first and most obvious element is time. With a maximum of 7 full turns in a normal game (with further restrictions in many tournaments), time is a critical factor in Warhammer 40,000. Not only are the actions you can take important, but when you implement them is equally important. A rush to the opponent's home objective on turn one may get you an early lead versus one enemy army while spelling your certain defeat against another. Likewise, it's nearly impossible to destroy a unit of Grey Knight Paladins in just one turn of shooting. Time and timing are critical factors which are further explored several times throughout The Art of War. Timing is also a critical element of deception. My opponent may capitalize on a perceived weakness if my timing is wrong, but he may be in a trap if my intended timing is right.

You insist that there is no Day or Night in 40k. Firstly, 5th edition Necrons and 4th edition Harlequins would like to say hello, and disagree with you. Further, when we look at the elements of weather that Sun Tzu was discussing, it was largely in capacity of reading our opponent's movement and being able to see, and thus engage, our opponent. If that doesn't apply directly to True Line of Sight than nothing could. How many games have you won or lost by not noticing that your unit was visible through a small window or gap in terrain? Here's a hint: if the answer is "0" then you aren't using enough varied terrain in your games. Players need to be aware at all times of both the obvious and subtle LOS to their targets, and the LOS back to their own units that they wish to keep out of trouble.

When Sun Tzu talks about Deceit, time is a critical factor. Not only must traps be well sprung, but they must also be kept hidden from the enemy. A player who can be easily read can be easily countered, and as the General's most famous quote goes, "Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt." Thunderbolts don't fall over the course of 5-6 turns, they are sprung at one moment, a critical moment determined by the actions of each player and the objectives at stake.

I could continue and pull further information about The Law of Heaven and its applications within wargaming from the other 12 chapters of the book you failed to read but I would rather do other things tonight, and will thus move onward to the Law of Earth.

Chapter 9, The Army on the March, deals in large part with the Factor of Earth. It offers suggestions on moving, taking positions, and avoiding dangerous areas. Chief amongst these statements:

Maintain an advantage in height over your opponent. Especially in the case of anti-assault, this is a functional strategy that has wide applications in Warhammer 40k.

Stay in areas with open views to the desired enemy forces for your units, so that they can engage critical units, and perhaps many units over the course of the game.

Be wary of Entangling Ground, or terrain that is easy to defend but difficult to reoccupy when taken. If the opponent takes this point it may be impossible to retake within the game time. If the opponent hastaken it, try to lure him out of position first.

None of these aspects are mentioned tactically within the rulebook. The rules for allowing them to happen are certainly represented, but causing them to happen is another matter entirely.

And speaking of the rules:

The Moral Law: True, there aren't subjects, but when we are talking about controlling your army with consent, there's really only one thing to talk about: the game rules, for your army, your opponent's army, and the game in general. You can be playing a min-maxed super WAAC list, but without proper understanding of the game you simply will not succeed, and will not pursue clear advantages over your opponent when it counts. Know your rules, and you handily satisfy the factor of Moral Law.

[Grenadier]

And in the end it is still just a game fellas.

[Bean]

And in the end it is still just a game fellas.

Very true.

Some people do like to be good at winning the game, though, and that's a legitimate goal.

Those people should just ignore thecatcusman. I have never seen such a load of utter tripe masquerading as advice. Never. The ignorance of that last post, both in terms of depth and in terms of scope, is truly breathtaking.

Fortunately, I don't really need to stress this point. I have absolute confidence that anyone with any sense will come to the same conclusion.

[Tynskel]

Very true.

Some people do like to be good at winning the game, though, and that's a legitimate goal.

Those people should just ignore thecatcusman. I have never seen such a load of utter tripe masquerading as advice. Never. The ignorance of that last post, both in terms of depth and in terms of scope, is truly breathtaking.

Fortunately, I don't really need to stress this point. I have absolute confidence that anyone with any sense will come to the same conclusion.

Sorry buddy, but cacti is spot on. The night fight rules are constructed to represent night. They may be rules to you, but, if you take that view- physics just an explanation of the rules that represent 'night'.

[Bean]

Sorry buddy, but cacti is spot on. The night fight rules are constructed to represent night. They may be rules to you, but, if you take that view- physics just an explanation of the rules that represent 'night'.

The night-fight rules are constructed to represent night, but they do not. They don't, for instance, hamper your movement, prevent you from knowing where enemy models are, or throw off the circadian rhythms of your troops.

Anyway, more importantly, Sun Tzu doesn't actually offer any relevant advice on how to deal with night-fighting in 40k. He never talks about the effect of darkness on ranged combat (which is the only thing that "darkness" affects in 40k).

So, even if we do equate the two, cactus is still obviously wrong--Sun Tzu doesn't offer relevant advice on dealing with "night" conditions in 40k.

[Bean]

The first and most obvious element is time. With a maximum of 7 full turns in a normal game (with further restrictions in many tournaments), time is a critical factor in Warhammer 40,000. Not only are the actions you can take important, but when you implement them is equally important. A rush to the opponent's home objective on turn one may get you an early lead versus one enemy army while spelling your certain defeat against another. Likewise, it's nearly impossible to destroy a unit of Grey Knight Paladins in just one turn of shooting. Time and timing are critical factors which are further explored several times throughout The Art of War. Timing is also a critical element of deception. My opponent may capitalize on a perceived weakness if my timing is wrong, but he may be in a trap if my intended timing is right.


Sun Tzu never offers any advice on turn manipulation, or anything equivalent. Another failure for you.



You insist that there is no Day or Night in 40k. Firstly, 5th edition Necrons and 4th edition Harlequins would like to say hello, and disagree with you.


Sun Tzu never discusses the effect of night on shooting. Another failure for you.



Further, when we look at the elements of weather that Sun Tzu was discussing, it was largely in capacity of reading our opponent's movement and being able to see, and thus engage, our opponent. If that doesn't apply directly to True Line of Sight than nothing could. How many games have you won or lost by not noticing that your unit was visible through a small window or gap in terrain? Here's a hint: if the answer is "0" then you aren't using enough varied terrain in your games. Players need to be aware at all times of both the obvious and subtle LOS to their targets, and the LOS back to their own units that they wish to keep out of trouble.


There are no weather effects that affect line of sight in 40k.

I have never won or lost a game by not noticing that a unit was visible through a gap or small window in terrain, and we play with plenty of varied terrain--including stuff with gaps and small windows.

In the words of the Operative, I am not a moron.

I agree that players need to be aware of LOS at all times--another thing that Sun Tzu fails to discuss, since he doesn't really discuss ranged combat at all.

Another failure for you.



When Sun Tzu talks about Deceit, time is a critical factor. Not only must traps be well sprung, but they must also be kept hidden from the enemy. A player who can be easily read can be easily countered, and as the General's most famous quote goes, "Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt." Thunderbolts don't fall over the course of 5-6 turns, they are sprung at one moment, a critical moment determined by the actions of each player and the objectives at stake.


Lol. Just lol.

If you've ever deceived an opponent, you were playing against an idiot. That's all there is to it.

Deception is impossible against a competent opponent in 40k.

Another failure for you.



Chapter 9, The Army on the March, deals in large part with the Factor of Earth. It offers suggestions on moving, taking positions, and avoiding dangerous areas. Chief amongst these statements:

Maintain an advantage in height over your opponent. Especially in the case of anti-assault, this is a functional strategy that has wide applications in Warhammer 40k.
[/quote]

A height advantage doesn't necessarily do anything for you in 40k, and everything that it does do for you is covered by the rules--you don't need Sun Tzu to offer you grossly-overgeneralized version.



Stay in areas with open views to the desired enemy forces for your units, so that they can engage critical units, and perhaps many units over the course of the game.

This isn't a line from the Art of War. Are you so desperate that you're just making stuff up, now?



Be wary of Entangling Ground, or terrain that is easy to defend but difficult to reoccupy when taken. If the opponent takes this point it may be impossible to retake within the game time. If the opponent hastaken it, try to lure him out of position first.


Again, not a line from the Art of War. Whoops.



The Moral Law: True, there aren't subjects, but when we are talking about controlling your army with consent, there's really only one thing to talk about: the game rules, for your army, your opponent's army, and the game in general. You can be playing a min-maxed super WAAC list, but without proper understanding of the game you simply will not succeed, and will not pursue clear advantages over your opponent when it counts. Know your rules, and you handily satisfy the factor of Moral Law.

Thanks for offering an argument for my position.

If you know the rules, you handily satisfy the factor of the Moral Law--thus obviating the need to know the moral law. Yet another instance where simply knowing the rules renders a bit of Sun Tzu's advice utterly superfluous.


Well. That was a load of fail. You failed on every point except the one that supports my position and undermines yours.

Congratulations. Ready to give up, now?

Actually, you should keep going. Every time you post, you make it more and more obvious that I am right. ;)

[thecactusman17]

Knowing the rules and knowing strategy are two different things entirely. One is dependent on knowing the other. Inexplicably you have taken the position that knowing either precludes the other from being of any benefit or even desirable. Instead, you have insulted me and others for finding valuable advice by considering the suggestions of a renowned battlefield commander based on the merit of the actual comments in question. As I see it, you have dismissed any context that the comments could have had. Given that your name is obviously a homage to the Orson Scott Card character, I am unable to accept that you do not grasp the importance of context. Unless like the character in question you also are autistic, in which case I must simply state that there is no way we can agree in this issue.

And by the way, regarding Sun Tzu and ranged combat, Chinese archers and crossbow men were often seen as critical elements of army composition. Sometimes, armies would be composed entirely of bowmen and early artillery including gunpowder artillery. So suggesting that he was ignorant or unable to comment in ranged combat is foolish in the extreme.

[thecactusman17]

Sorry, double post.

[Bean]

Knowing the rules and knowing strategy are two different things entirely.

True. All strategy that is actually relevant to 40k, though, comes from and depends entirely upon the rules. Knowing the rules isn't the same as knowing the strategy, but knowing the rules (with, as I said in the beginning, a bare modicum of logical and mathematical acumen) is enough to lead you to every strategy you need.



One is dependent on knowing the other. Inexplicably you have taken the position that knowing either precludes the other from being of any benefit or even desirable.

No, I haven't. I've taken two positions:

First, that all strategy relevant to can be derived from the 40k rules without any background in classical military knowledge.

Second, that a background in classic military knowledge seems to lead people astray--causing them to believe that strategies are relevant to 40k when they are not. You, clearly, have fallen into this trap.



Instead, you have insulted me and others for finding valuable advice by considering the suggestions of a renowned battlefield commander based on the merit of the actual comments in question. As I see it, you have dismissed any context that the comments could have had. Given that your name is obviously a homage to the Orson Scott Card character, I am unable to accept that you do not grasp the importance of context. Unless like the character in question you also are autistic, in which case I must simply state that there is no way we can agree in this issue.

It's actually not a reference to Card's Bean, though I did enjoy those books, but I do grasp the importance of context--which is one of the main reasons I dismiss Sun Tzu as an aid for wargamers.

I would absolutely agree that Sun Tzu's advice is worthwhile within the appropriate context. The problem is that the appropriate context is war in ancient China--an activity which differs at least as much from playing a game of 40k as playing a game of 40k differs from knitting a scarf or tap dancing.

I appreciate Sun Tzu and its context. Of the two of us, you are the one who has failed to realize the importance of context--a fact you've demonstrated by ripping Sun Tzu's advice from its and trying to pretend that it remains valid when placed in one that is not at all similar.

You're wrongly accusing me of doing exactly what you're doing. How ironic.



And by the way, regarding Sun Tzu and ranged combat, Chinese archers and crossbow men were often seen as critical elements of army composition. Sometimes, armies would be composed entirely of bowmen and early artillery including gunpowder artillery. So suggesting that he was ignorant or unable to comment in ranged combat is foolish in the extreme.

I never suggested that he was ignorant or unable to comment on ranged combat. Obvious straw man is obvious.

I sad that Sun Tzu didn't comment on ranged combat in The Art of War--not that he wasn't able to, but that he didn't--and that is entirely true.

Again, you have failed on every point except for the ones that support my position and undermine yours.

It's time to call it quits, Cactus. You've pretty clearly demonstrated that you have no worthwhile argument to offer in support your position.

[thecactusman17]

You mentioned the ranged attack issue in your previous comment. The only import if any type mentioned by Sun Tzu is the chariot was the only fast transport of his era. Whatever. I forgive you. Archers and other ranged units were commonplace and deserving of no such recognition.

Instead, let us agree to disagree for the remainder.of this thread.

[canoebuilder001]

I agree that the rules help you play the game better, but the fluff keeps you coming back to the game long after you have finished building your army and getting the roster just right. So, while the actual tabletop efforts, have very little to do with the fluff, the hobby is highly dependent and much more enjoyable with the fluff.

[DarkLink]

Since this thread is back, I guess I'll have to say that I both agree and disagree with the premise.

I've never actually read The Art of War. I've seen so many paraphrasing of aspects of it that I know pretty well what it covers, but I've never actually read it. I like to think I do just fine at 40k without reading it.


That said, the discussion and study of strategy, in general, will carry over to any strategic game. It doesn't have to be Sun Tzu, but any time you sit down and seriously think about strategy will improve your ability to strategize, as blatantly obvious as it sounds.

I've found that, thanks to a good understanding of basic strategy, I can learn new games and become competitive very quickly. I managed to win I think my 5th or 6th game of Warmachine against an extremely good player (which I'm pretty proud of), because even with my rudimentary understanding of the rules I was able to seize upon a small opening and take it. Picking up games like Go and Othello, which both have very simple rules and tactics but a lot of strategic depth seems fairly easy for me, and I'm confident that it is because of my interest in abstract concepts of strategy.




I think that strategy carries over very well from game to game, and it's generally just the tactics that you need to pick up as you learn the rules. Recognizing when you're facing a stronger opponent and need to start resorting to hit and run tactics, for example, is pretty universal once you have even just a basic understanding of the game, though you still need to master the rules/tactics of that particular system in order to effectively employ the strategy.

[Bean]

You mentioned the ranged attack issue in your previous comment. The only import if any type mentioned by Sun Tzu is the chariot was the only fast transport of his era. Whatever. I forgive you. Archers and other ranged units were commonplace and deserving of no such recognition.

Instead, let us agree to disagree for the remainder.of this thread.

You'll forgive me for making a point that both is completely true and completely refutes one of yours? How generous...

We do disagree. We don't need to agree to do so, and I'm not going to stop pointing out that you're both wrong and have failed to offer any good argument for your position.

[sverigesson]

Bean,

I find this discussion fascinating. Would you perhaps be able to provide some 40k specific anecdotes of people applying advice from the AoW in a way that was harmful to them? This seems to be the crux of your argument, and while I'm not trying to undermine you or anything (I do agree that in most cases, wargames are not particularly like actual warfare), I would be interested in some actual examples.

[Bean]

Sverigesson:

I would begin by stressing that I'm using the Art of War as essentially a synecdoche for classical military history in general. The Art of War, itself, is so highly generalized (and, as I pointed out, intended for a context so very different form 40k) that it's hard to point to anyone doing anything that is specifically from The Art of War--it's basically impossible to actually do anything that is specifically from The Art of War--in a 40k game.

But, as far as the inappropriate application of classical military strategy to 40k, here are two examples:

I watched one Imperial guard player play against a marine player. He deployed a Leman Russ on one side of the board--the side of the board opposite to the bulk of both his and the Marine player's armies. He spent the first three turns moving it up that side of the board--and not taking shots. When he did finally start to take shots, he didn't have good shots, because his Leman Russ was isolated, and didn't have good lines of sight to the other side of the board--where the fight was actually taking place.

By turn five, he had clearly lost, and his Leman Russ had failed to do anything worthwhile--or even take any shots that were likely to be important--throughout the whole game. In his post-game commentary, though, I heard him say, "I put that Russ over there so that it could flank you on that side" (this is paraphrased, the actual conversation took place long enough ago that I don't remember the details.)

More strikingly, he offered this observation as if it justified the decision--as if he had not, in fact, wasted his Leman Russ that game, but had, in putting it on a "flank," done something intrinsically worthwhile that some counteracted the fact that it not actually done anything.

This player placed his Leman Russ in a bad position--not accidentally, but actually thinking it was a particularly good spot--and wasted its potential throughout the entire game because of deeply flawed application of classic military tactics to the game.



A second, similar example (whose roots can be seen much more clearly in "The Art of War') is this:

I once played a game where my opponent deployed his army, split into two roughly even halves, in separate corners. It was, again, a marine player, and though he had some long-ranged shots, it wasn't really his army's strength. I deployed on one side, overwhelmed that side easily, and won an easy victory.

In his post-game commentary, he noted that he'd tried to set up a situation where, regardless of which of his forces I hit, he could respond by attacking with the other force--very much what Sun Tzu was talking about when he wrote:

"The skillful tactician may be likened to the shuai-jan. Now the shuai-jan is a snake that is found in the Chung mountains. Strike at its head, and you will be attacked by its tail; strike at its tail, and you will be attacked by its head; strike at its middle, and you will be attacked by head and tail both."

Unfortunately, he saw value in this tactic where, for him, there was none. The size of the table combined with the range and mobility of his army left him unable to effectively launch his attack, for one thing. More importantly, of course, the range of his army meant that, even if he had been able to effectively counter-attack, half of his army would have spent a couple of turns doing nothing while my entire army was participating. Even if he had been able to manage an effective counter-attack, it still would have been a bad strategy--largely because the desired effect of the counter-attack against an embroiled force in real life is mainly that of surprise and confusion. However, in 40k, there is no surprise or confusion. My troops don't care which direction they're getting attacked from. It won't throw them into disarray to be attacked from the "flank" or "rear". That won't impact their morale or efficacy at all. And, of course, it won't affect my morale or efficacy at all, because I'll be able to see it coming the whole time--I'll always know exactly where that counter-attacking force is, where it can go, when and where it can hit my guys. I'm never goign to be confused, surprised, or disheartened by such a tactic, and that basically means that it's got to have some other benefit--which is very unlikely in a game of 40k.

Again, my opponent critically misapplied classic military tactic and handed me an easy win in the process.


Edit:

Here's an article that expresses my point pretty well:

http://theback40k.blogspot.com/2011/04/sun-tsu-and-art-of-stupid.html

Here is an article that exemplifies my point well: by drawing from the AoW a bunch of advice that is either bad (most of it is bad) or not actually from the Art of War at all, but represented as such anyway.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2010/06/wargaming-through-eyes-of-sun-tzu.html

[DarkLink]

Those are two good examples of misuse of the 9 principles of war* a list used by the US military in part of its theory and doctrine.


The Leman Russ player, by not realizing he was putting his russ in a position where it couldn't fire on anything the whole game, out-maneuvered himself. He gave the opposing player an opportunity to automatically ignore that Russ, for no real gain. He also didn't have a clear objective for outflanking the Russ. If that Russ had been a scoring unit moving to contest an objective, then there would have been a reason to justify taking a unit out of the fight like that. But he had no such objective other than "hey, I'll out flank you or something".


The Marine player violated the ideas of security and mass. By splitting his force, he gave you the opportunity to apply your entire army against half of his. He gave you overwhelming mass, and failed to provide effective security for his force.




Mass Concentrate combat power at the decisive place and time

Objective Direct every military operation towards a clearly defined, decisive, and attainable objective

Offensive Seize, retain, and exploit the initiative

Surprise Strike the enemy at a time, at a place, or in a manner for which he is unprepared

Economy of force Allocate minimum essential combat power to secondary efforts

Maneuver Place the enemy in a position of disadvantage through the flexible application of combat power

Unity of command For every objective, ensure unity of effort under one responsible commander

Security Never permit the enemy to acquire an unexpected advantage

Simplicity Prepare clear, uncomplicated plans and clear, concise orders to ensure thorough understanding

[thecactusman17]

So, according to darklink and Bean, the Art of War is a poor thing to base your gaming decisions on when you don't understand how and when to apply what it teaches? And even less when you don't actually read it in its totality and whole context?

This is good to know. And covered repeatedly in...

Well, you know.

[Blaznak]

There is a legend among the Orks of a military genius known only as da Evil Sunz Toof! This military genius came up with a grand battle strategy:
"Shoot fighty and fight shooty." Then he changed his mind. "Nah, just fight everfing til its dead."

Hopefully this is of help to the discussion.

[Bean]

There is a legend among the Orks of a military genius known only as da Evil Sunz Toof! This military genius came up with a grand battle strategy:
"Shoot fighty and fight shooty." Then he changed his mind. "Nah, just fight everfing til its dead."

Hopefully this is of help to the discussion.


Lol. It certainly is. Thanks. =)




So, according to darklink and Bean, the Art of War is a poor thing to base your gaming decisions on when you don't understand how and when to apply what it teaches? And even less when you don't actually read it in its totality and whole context?

This is good to know. And covered repeatedly in...

Well, you know.

No, that doesn't even really resemble anything I've been saying.

But, then, I know you know that.

Honestly, if your participation isn't going to rise above the level of just making stuff up, don't bother to participate at all. It's just a waste of space.

Unless it's funny, like Blaznak's post. But yours isn't and haven't been. They've just been worthless.

[thecactusman17]

That's what I gathered in the previous statements.

"I did this because (insert random quote)"

"I did that because that's what I heard in passing from some military story"

Neither of these are encouraged in The Art of War. In fact, that's the mindset Sun Tzu was trying to get his most important audience (hereditary generals with little military background) away from. Those exact scenarios are what the US military spends billions each year trying to de-teach its soldiers. That's why Darklink was able to quote you a set of military guidelines, because somebody recognized that the advice was valuable to begin with and started teaching it to the people who needed to make command decisions.

[DarkLink]

No, I actually do think it's useful. I was just saying that it's the study of strategy as a whole that's important, whether or not you use The Art of War as your guide.

[Bergermeister84]

So what you have to do in order to become a better 40k player using classic military thinking is sit down and read a bunch of books (or one book repeatedly). Then, find something that you might consider relevant in a game of 40k. Stop. Think about it for a while and how you can apply it into your typical game. Finally, execute your grand strategy in a real game.

Now, one of two things will happen. Either, you have carefully thought through your strategy and it worked. Or, it didn't meet your expectations. In either case, should you blame or praise the book you read a line from or you own mind that put it into context in a game of 40k? That is to say, if you must spend hours of time deciphering military strategy and its applications in 40k, it's not really the book that deserves the credit (or fault) but you for taking an idea and applying it in context.

I would argue the source of information does not matter. You could get inspired by many things. Perhaps it was a critical detail in your last game. Maybe it was a careful examination of the rules. It could be reading ancient anachronistic military strategy. Or you could be equally inspired by the works of William Shakespeare. It does not matter. Only the thought process of putting an idea into successful practice is what should count.

If you become a good 40k player by reading The Art of War, what you've really done is spent a lot of time thinking about 40k. If you become a good 40k player by reading rules and practicing logic, it also must mean that you spent a deal of time thinking about 40k. Its clear that to become a good 40k player you must spend a lot of time thinking about 40k.

Bean, in your two examples, the players practicing advice from AoW were clearly not top caliber players. They either lacked the foresight of what could potentially happen, or they didn't think about their actions and how it would impact on the game. A proponent of the AoW might say that they misapplied its teachings and your statement is that they were dumb for trying. In either case they made a dumb decision. They will learn from their mistakes and become better players by thinking about why things didn't work as well as they thought, or they will continue to make mistakes by blindly following what they feel like they should do. In either case, you shouldn't blame the source of their idea, you should blame the player that thought it was a good idea.

[Bean]

Bean, in your two examples, the players practicing advice from AoW were clearly not top caliber players. They either lacked the foresight of what could potentially happen, or they didn't think about their actions and how it would impact on the game. A proponent of the AoW might say that they misapplied its teachings and your statement is that they were dumb for trying. In either case they made a dumb decision. They will learn from their mistakes and become better players by thinking about why things didn't work as well as they thought, or they will continue to make mistakes by blindly following what they feel like they should do. In either case, you shouldn't blame the source of their idea, you should blame the player that thought it was a good idea.

Clearly, neither were very good players, and clearly both should be blamed for their mistakes.

But, while I would generally agree with your assertion that the source doesn't matter, I think the source can share in the blame.

If I tell you, "do X" and you go and do X and X sucks and you lose, you should certainly blame yourself for not realizing that X sucks. But, are you gonna give me a free pass? No--you're going to come back and say, "hey! Why'd you tell me to do X? X sucks!"

If some classic military text says, "seek to outflank your opponent" and you outflank your opponent and it doesn't actually help, you certainly should come out of it thinking, "man, I should have realized that outflanking my opponent wasn't actually going to help." But, at the same time, it's not at all unreasonable to say, "man, that was some bad advice--you shouldn't necessarily seek to outflank your opponent, and that really needed to come with a pile of qualifiers."

The Art of War, in particular, really doesn't come with qualifiers. For the most part, its lines are along the lines of "do this--it's good!" But, of course, "this" is not necessarily good--even in actual war--and "this" is far from necessarily good once you've twisted it around to 40k.

For the most part, I agree with your point. You can get worthwhile inspiration from anywhere, and it doesn't really matter where you get it. The important thing to remember is that any good approach to 40k requires you to spend time thinking about 40k--not just reading strategy books or anything else.

But, at the same time, I think you can point to things which are not good sources of advice. Inspiration? Perhaps. Advice? No. You wouldn't go to a book on gardening for advice on how to play 40k, or a cookbook, or a Jane Austin novel. You could be inspired to some profound understanding of 40k through any of these things, but none of them are good sources of advice.

The Art of War--in fact, every book of classic military strategy I've ever read--is the same. Sure, you can derive inspiration from it, just like you can derive inspiration from just about anything, but it's not a good source of advice--because what it's talking about is not 40k.

Actually, that article I linked earlier put it well.

"But what it won't do is generate new knowledge out of nothing. If you've never been in the army, run a business, or played a wargame before, then you have no trees in your forest to step back from. Without knowing the details of a particular system like 40K, you can't properly interpret what you're reading in that context. Because the examples and commentaries used in Sun Tsu's book to illustrate the concepts are all about ANCIENT CHINESE WARFARE; not modern warfare, business, or 40K."


The author follows up with this even more telling observation:

"...the relatively few philosophical points that might carry some weight to a 40K player are so obvious as to be worthless to anyone with twenty games under their belt."

But that's really another point altogether.

[Bergermeister84]

I did enjoy that Sandwyrm article. Thanks for posting that.

[DarkLink]

If some classic military text says, "seek to outflank your opponent" and you outflank your opponent and it doesn't actually help

Thing is, while they recommend flanking your opponent (because it is generally good advice, though moreso in real life when crossfire actually matters), they don't claim it's a free win. If you send a weak unit with limited capabilities out to do something that it cannot accomplish, you cannot expect for it to accomplish anything significant. So while it, on the surface, seems to follow the advice of the text, it really doesn't.


Outflanking confers an advantage, not total superiority. If you fail to properly take advantage of said advantage, the advantage you've taken advantage of won't matter, because your opponent has superior advantage in terms of firepower, so his advantages negate your advantages.

I only worded the last sentence like that because I thought it was funny.

[Bean]

Thing is, while they recommend flanking your opponent (because it is generally good advice, though moreso in real life when crossfire actually matters), they don't claim it's a free win. If you send a weak unit with limited capabilities out to do something that it cannot accomplish, you cannot expect for it to accomplish anything significant. So while it, on the surface, seems to follow the advice of the text, it really doesn't.


Outflanking confers an advantage, not total superiority. If you fail to properly take advantage of said advantage, the advantage you've taken advantage of won't matter, because your opponent has superior advantage in terms of firepower, so his advantages negate your advantages.

I only worded the last sentence like that because I thought it was funny.

This is really a straw-man argument. I never addressed the assertion that outflanking is a free win. I never suggested otherwise. I didn't phrase my argument in overly-strong terms, as you suggest, and offering a position in milder terms doesn't constitute an effective rebuttal.

The fact is that outflanking doesn't necessarily confer an advantage. Any advantage. At all.

It might, but it might not, and taking it as a general rule that it does (as you do here) is exactly the sort of error that comes from relying too much on classic military strategy.

This is not a good argument, Darklink. It really says nothing relevant to the issue at all.

[DarkLink]

Actually, your argument was a misrepresentation of the texts, and your reply missed what I was trying to say.

You sound like you're saying the source shares the blame for giving bad advice, because it advised the players to outflanks. Thing is, that's not what a good book on strategy would do. Or to be more precise, it's only one of a very large number of things that it would recommend as part of victory, and not always the right thing to do. Books like the Art of War go into great detail on when and why you should try to outflank, and how you should go about it.

The problem is not with the idea of outflanking itself, it's with the execution of that maneuver. The Art of War never says 'outflank just because you can'. Outflanking is just one of may options available, and isn't always the correct one.



Speaking of fallacies, your argument is actually a genuine strawman. Your line of reasoning for arguing against military texts seems to be this: 1) military text says outflanking is good. 2) outflanking doesn't always win. 3) ergo, military texts aren't very useful, because they don't always work.

You are misrepresenting the texts, and using that to dismiss the text. No text like the Art of War claims to be a simple checklist of "do this to win". They do say stuff like outflanking is good, but they don't claim that execution is unimportant, nor do they claim you should do it just because you can. They're saying, "if you do it right" you can get a big advantage. Your argument relies on ignoring that "if you do it right" part.





The 'auto-win' part of my statement is really irrelevant. Nor is my statement actually about the effectiveness of outflanking. If all you're getting out of my previous statement is an accusation that you think outflanking is an auto-win, then skip that part and read it again. I posted because of the funny sentence I put in there, but if you want to get serious and start throwing around accusations of logical fallacies and irrelevance you could at least actually read my comment for its actual content.

Even disregarding that, your statement against mine is self-contradictory. You claim that texts share the blame when their strategies don't work, presuming that they take special claim to aid in victory, then turn around and say that they don't take said claim. So which is it? Do the texts claim to ensure victory, and thus share the blame and should be ignored? Or is the blame solely on the players due to chance and misuse on the behalf of the players who lost, because the texts don't claim to be an auto-win. You claim to believe the latter, yet your argument relies on the former.




And if you're trying to say that outflanking is useless, you are incorrect. It is less useful in 40k than in real life, because there are no rules for crossfire and such, but it is still quite useful for controlling your opponent's movement and the like. But just like any other tactic, you have to execute it well if you want it to be effective. As Scott Adams says; "an idea is only as good as its execution. The idea itself is worthless."

[Bean]

Actually, your argument was a misrepresentation of the texts, and your reply missed what I was trying to say.

I addressed what you said word for word. If you meant to say something other than what you said, you're doing it wrong. ;)



You sound like you're saying the source shares the blame for giving bad advice, because it advised the players to outflanks. Thing is, that's not what a good book on strategy would do. Or to be more precise, it's only one of a very large number of things that it would recommend as part of victory, and not always the right thing to do. Books like the Art of War go into great detail on when and why you should try to outflank, and how you should go about it.


I'm saying that if a source offers you advice and it turns out to be bad advice, that source deserves some blame. Even if the advice might be good in some situations, if it's not sufficiently qualified, it still deserves some blame.

The outflanking example was hypothetical.

As it happens, though, the Art of War does not go into great detail on when and why you should outflank or how to go about it. That's just not true.



The problem is not with the idea of outflanking itself, it's with the execution of that maneuver. The Art of War never says 'outflank just because you can'. Outflanking is just one of may options available, and isn't always the correct one.


Sure. This doesn't really refute or even actually address anything I've written.



Speaking of fallacies, your argument is actually a genuine strawman. Your line of reasoning for arguing against military texts seems to be this: 1) military text says outflanking is good. 2) outflanking doesn't always win. 3) ergo, military texts aren't very useful, because they don't always work.


No, that doesn't resemble my argument at all. Another strawman from you--and a hilariously hypocritical one.



You are misrepresenting the texts, and using that to dismiss the text. No text like the Art of War claims to be a simple checklist of "do this to win". They do say stuff like outflanking is good, but they don't claim that execution is unimportant, nor do they claim you should do it just because you can. They're saying, "if you do it right" you can get a big advantage. Your argument relies on ignoring that "if you do it right" part.


No, I'm not. You're either far less literate than you appear or you're intentionally misrepresenting my argument. If it's the latter, please stop.

Seriously, go back and read my posts. If this isn't just a lie, you have critically misunderstood what I'm saying. I know I've written a lot, but there's really no excuse for a failure of this depth.



The 'auto-win' part of my statement is really irrelevant. Nor is my statement actually about the effectiveness of outflanking. If all you're getting out of my previous statement is an accusation that you think outflanking is an auto-win, then skip that part and read it again. I posted because of the funny sentence I put in there, but if you want to get serious and start throwing around accusations of logical fallacies and irrelevance you could at least actually read my comment for its actual content.


Fair. I didn't realize that you just didn't mean part of what you were saying.



Even disregarding that, your statement against mine is self-contradictory. You claim that texts share the blame when their strategies don't work, presuming that they take special claim to aid in victory, then turn around and say that they don't take said claim. So which is it? Do the texts claim to ensure victory, and thus share the blame and should be ignored? Or is the blame solely on the players due to chance and misuse on the behalf of the players who lost, because the texts don't claim to be an auto-win. You claim to believe the latter, yet your argument relies on the former.


There's a difference between claiming to aid in victory and claiming to guarantee victory. As it happens, the Art of War does the latter, but I never raised that fact as a point in any of my arguments.

Your conflation is obviously flawed. It is not self-contradictory to blame a source for offering bad advice while simultaneously acknowledging that the source doesn't claim that its advice guarantees victory. You don't have to guarantee victory to offer advice, and advice that doesn't guarantee victory (but merely purports to aid in its pursuit) can still be bad advice if it fails to actually fails to actually aid in the pursuit of victory.

And, again, the Art of War actually does guarantee victory. Ironically, it does so in a line you yourself quoted in another thread:

'It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle."

Of course, this is good advice, but it also falsely guarantees victory. I didn't raise this as a point, because the fact that it falsely guarantees victory isn't really relevant, but it is highly amusing, given the circumstance.



Sorry, Darklink. I generally respect your posts, but this is irrational garbage. You consistently (and blatantly) misrepresent my positions, offering obviously flawed versions and attacking those as if that effort were somehow relevant. That's what a straw-man fallacy is, and you've committed several, here, including falsely characterizing my argument as one. Your logic is consistently, fatally flawed, and you have failed to make even one single point, here, that is both valid and legitimate.

Please try again. Or, really, if this is indicative of the quality of input you're going to make in the future, please don't. This sort of thing doesn't help anyone.




And if you're trying to say that outflanking is useless, you are incorrect. It is less useful in 40k than in real life, because there are no rules for crossfire and such, but it is still quite useful for controlling your opponent's movement and the like. But just like any other tactic, you have to execute it well if you want it to be effective. As Scott Adams says; "an idea is only as good as its execution. The idea itself is worthless."

Oh, and I didn't say anything that even resembles that. I know you couch this in a conditional, but you're still just making stuff up.

After all, if you're trying to say that kidnapping babies and selling their organs on the black market is a legitimate and ethically sound business plan, then you're incorrect.

[DarkLink]

I really could say the same to you, since you seem more interested in attacking my posts than discussing them, and we could sling mud over this all day, but I don't want to get into a pissing contest, especially if it's going to get petty. Half of the argument is over nitpicking sweeping generalizations, which is really pointless. Once you go down that road, everyone just gets pissed off at each other and nothing good comes from it.





So, backing up, but keeping with the outflanking example:

You have military text A, which says outflanking is a good strategy. Poor players, like in your example, will fail to take advantage of the strategy, in part because they don't know anything more than just "outflanking is good".

In this particular case, the Russ is not a very mobile unit, making it too slow to effectively outflank. While it has good firepower, it requires LOS which was blocked due to terrain. On top of that, the Russ isn't scoring and can't assault. Since it was too slow to maneuver into a good position, wasn't able to shoot effectively, and can't score or assault and thus force you to deal with it at some point you could just ignore it.

If the player had studied more of the strategy books more carefully, he probably would have come across something that stated that, in order to effectively outflank you have to be able to get the unit into place (either by speed or infiltration of some sort), and that the unit had to be able to actually threaten the enemy in some way.

It would take a bit of experience to realize that 6"+D6 movement is fairly slow, and to recognize the weaknesses of the Russ with regards to shooting, LOS, assault and scoring, so studying the rules and playing games is still vital.




So we can agree that you need experience and understanding of the rules to properly pull off a strategy like that, or really any strategy in general. You need to know tactics in order to pull things off. We can also agree that an understanding of various strategies like outflanking gives a player options for facing a wide variety of opponents. Understand both the strategy and the tactics, and you can face anything from Driagowing to Razorback spam to the Green Tide and have a chance at victory.






The disagreement is over the source of knowledge regarding strategy; are texts like the Art of War useful for imparting strategic understanding to a player? You maintain no, because you don't feel that generalized strategies carry over well to specific cases.

I believe that, yes, general study of strategy does help in specific cases. It doesn't have to be the Art of War specifically. I mean, I never have actually read it. I'll use a couple other examples in this case, though.





First off, the 9 principles of war that I mentioned earlier: Mass, Objective, Offensive, Surprise, Economy of force, Maneuver, Unity of command, Security, Simplicity.

Several are irrelevant to 40k, namely Unity of Command and Surprise, since there's only commanding officer (the player) and the only surprising thing in 40k is the randomness, which you don't control. Simplicity is also of minimal value, unless you're really good at confusing yourself.


As far as outflanking is concerned, everything else plays a role, which I'll outline below:
Mass: You need to have enough durability and firepower in both your main force and your outflanking force to accomplish the mission. This depends on your opponent's units as well as your own, and requires you to know the capabilities of both you and your opponent's units. This also ties in with one of the USMC's Leadership Principles; Employ your unit in accordance with its capabilities.

Objective: You need to have a clear reason for outflanking. Maybe it's to claim/contest an objective. Maybe it's to bypass some of your opponent's army and hit his backfield units (imagine you're facing Driagowing, for example).

Offensive: If you can threaten your opponent from multiple angles and deny him the ability to spread out and maneuver, you can put the pressure on him. Armies that benefit greatly from their ability to move quickly while still shooting, like BA Razorbacks and DE vehicle spam lists, will be hindered if they're trapped in a corner. If you can slow your opponent down enough by hemming him in, you put him on his back foot and can prevent him from threatening your Capture and Control objective, for example. Outflanking is one way to accomplish this, assuming you stick to the other principles mentioned here.

Economy of Force: You don't want to allocate too many units to either your main or your outflanking force. Send enough stuff to get the job done, and use anything that's left over to either act as a reserve, provide security, or accomplish a different objective. You have to be effective enough to get the job done, with a minimal amount of waste.

Maneuver: By hemming your opponent in by outflanking, you prevent him from maneuvering into position himself. You have most of the board to work with, he doesn't. On the other hand, you don't want to weaken yourself by spreading out too much, otherwise your opponent will be able to focus on one part of your army and destroy you piecemeal.

Security Each of your units has to be able to deal with any enemy threats that it will encounter. Similarly, you want to put your outflanking forces into a position where they threaten your opponent in a way that he cannot effectively deal with them.



By going over these points, you can, with an appropriate amount of experience and understanding of the rules, allocate the right units to the right place and utilize them effectively. This certainly doesn't replace rules knowledge or experience, but it opens up options for dealing with an opponent effectively. Going over these points, all of which are purely theoretical and come from military theorists and texts not unlike the Art of War, you can develop a plan to deal with your opponent more effectively.

Even though the 9 principles are very generic, you can use them for anything from 40k to leading actual troops into battle. The abstract theory presented here can be applied to just about any game involving strategy, regardless of the specific details of the rules.






Another quick example, imagine you are facing Driagowing. You just happened to have watched 300 the other day. While 300 isn't historically accurate, you still know the basic idea of what happened: A small, elite force held a pass because the terrain favored their heavy armor over hordes of light infantry, until they were betrayed and trapped in a corner when the enemy outflanked them.

So you look at Driago and friends, and realize you can pull a similar trick. Driago can only move in one direction, and he's too slow to redeploy, so you split your army. Driago goes after one half, which you do your best to keep alive, while your other half goes around Driago and hits the backfield. Take out those psyrifle dreads and razorbacks full of min-maxed squads, and all that's left is Driago. There's your strategy, and it's straight out of the history books.







None of this means it's easy to pull off, and none of it invalidates the need to know the rules and have some experience with what works and what doesn't. But it undermines the fundamental idea that studying generic texts about strategy or battles that seem to have little relevance to a modern world with big guns is useless.

A mastery of strategy is just as important as a mastery of the rules, and texts like the Art of War can potentially be used to help. Even if all they do is getting you thinking along the right lines, it helps you. Sometimes the smallest nudge in the right direction can turn a mediocre player into a good one.

Doesn't have to be the Art of War. In fact, more recent stuff is probably much more relevant because they've had thousands of years to work the details out and build upon the original ideas. But either way, texts like that are far from useless.


Edit:
And the Driagowing/300 example? I've played several people who would have really benefited from that line of thinking. They were so concerned with Driago and friends that they wasted their whole army trying, and failing, to kill him. Even so much as saying "y'know, you can just try and avoid him and kill my other stuff" would have opened up their options a lot, and made the game a lot tougher for me.

[Bean]

First of all, this is a much better post, Darklink, and I appreciate it. I'm going to respond to it in depth, when I have a moment to sit down and do it, but for the moment, let me address one minor point:


In this particular case, the Russ is not a very mobile unit, making it too slow to effectively outflank. While it has good firepower, it requires LOS which was blocked due to terrain. On top of that, the Russ isn't scoring and can't assault. Since it was too slow to maneuver into a good position, wasn't able to shoot effectively, and can't score or assault and thus force you to deal with it at some point you could just ignore it.

There's a little more to it than that; the issue is slightly more fundamental.

It's not as though the Russ were heading towards a good spot on the board and was just too slow to make it. The Russ wasn't heading anywhere useful at all. The player believed not only the it was heading somewhere useful but that it was somewhere useful--that being on a flank had some intrinsic worth.

It didn't fail to move into a good position because it was too slow. It failed to move into a good position because the player had derived a false notion from classical military strategy and wasn't even trying to get it into a position that was actually worthwhile--because he thought the position it was in was worthwhile, and was so blinded by his (admittedly poor) knowledge of classical military strategy that he couldn't properly evaluate the position for its actual benefit.

There's a pretty big difference between a unit being too slow to outflank effectively and outflanking not being a viable strategy at all in that situation. The latter was the case, here.

[Bean]

You have military text A, which says outflanking is a good strategy. Poor players, like in your example, will fail to take advantage of the strategy, in part because they don't know anything more than just "outflanking is good".


Agreed so far.



In this particular case...


I discussed this part in my last post.




If the player had studied more of the strategy books more carefully, he probably would have come across something that stated that, in order to effectively outflank you have to be able to get the unit into place (either by speed or infiltration of some sort), and that the unit had to be able to actually threaten the enemy in some way.


It does seem likely, yes--though I don't think I've ever actually read a book of military strategy which really discusses this.



It would take a bit of experience to realize that 6"+D6 movement is fairly slow, and to recognize the weaknesses of the Russ with regards to shooting, LOS, assault and scoring, so studying the rules and playing games is still vital.


Agreed.



So we can agree that you need experience and understanding of the rules to properly pull off a strategy like that, or really any strategy in general.


I do agree, yes.

Well, I'd qualify by saying that, in sort of a theoretical sense, experience isn't really necessary--just knowledge of the rules and logic. But sure. Experience can be pretty helpful, and everyone I know relies on it to some extent.



You need to know tactics in order to pull things off. We can also agree that an understanding of various strategies like outflanking gives a player options for facing a wide variety of opponents.


I don't really agree that you need to know "tactics" in order to pull things off. However, it's possible that this is because what I mean by tactics is something different from what you mean by tactics.

What I mean when I say tactics are consistent, generalized decision-making schema. Things like, "flanking" or "denied flank" or "everything in reserve" or even "ignore the deathstar" can be tactics, and they are tactics if you treat them as things unto themselves. If you look at the board thinking, "should I flank with this unit?" you're treating flanking as a tactic in the sense in which I use the word--you're applying a generalized scheme to your decision-making process.

You don't need generalized schema in order to "pull things off" or make good play decisions. Understanding them doesn't necessarilly give a player more options for facing a wide variety of opponents than not understanding them would.

In fact, every decision to which the application of a tactic might lead you is one to which you could always have come without the tactic. More-over, the application of schema can only limit the options you allow yourself to consider--that's what they're for, after all.

It's not impossible to gain new ideas through the analysis of tactics or other schema, but it's simply not accurate to say that they are necessary. Indeed, their role is inherently one of limitation--and if you are a good player, that doesn't really help you.


So, no. We don't really agree on all of those points.



The disagreement is over the source of knowledge regarding strategy; are texts like the Art of War useful for imparting strategic understanding to a player? You maintain no, because you don't feel that generalized strategies carry over well to specific cases.

I believe that, yes, general study of strategy does help in specific cases. It doesn't have to be the Art of War specifically. I mean, I never have actually read it. I'll use a couple other examples in this case, though.


That is one point of disagreement, yes.

I do maintain that generalized strategies about things that are not 40k don't carry over well to specific cases in 40k. Essentially, any such generalized strategy must be so far removed from its actual meaning that you are not really left with the same thing at all--you're left with something that you created yourself. At best, you might say that the original strategy was a source of inspiration, but you simply can't take anything that constitutes a strategy from classical military history and apply it to 40k. Every time you try to do so, you necessarily end up applying something that is not the strategy you began with.

Really, this point is made pretty obvious when you consider other texts that revolve around handing out advice. Think about a cookbook. A cookbook has exactly as much to say about playing 40k as The Art of War--which is to say nothing at all. It's certainly possible that you could read in a cookbook something that inspires you to come up with a generally worthwhile 40k tactic, just as it's possible to read in The Art of War something that inspires you to come up with a generally worthwhile 40k tactic.

However, if someone were trying to get good at playing 40k, you'd never say, "go read a cookbook." So, why would you say, "Go read The Art of War?" You can come away from either with some worthwhile insight into 40k, but that's not sufficient. Neither consitutes a good way to learn to be better at 40k, because neither actually talks at all about playing 40k--or anythign that's even particularly similar.


However, there's another point of disagreement--and that is that I don't think you should be using tactics at all. They'll never lead you to good conclusions you couldn't have come to without them, and they will sometimes lead you to conclusions that are bad. Even generally worthwhile schema (and lets be fair, it's highly unlikely that you'll never use any during your play career) should eventually be discarded or their influence over your decisions minimized if you want to become a top-end player.



I'm going to skip responding your example, because everything I'd need to respond to your example I've already written.

[Bean]

Two more points:



None of this means it's easy to pull off, and none of it invalidates the need to know the rules and have some experience with what works and what doesn't. But it undermines the fundamental idea that studying generic texts about strategy or battles that seem to have little relevance to a modern world with big guns is useless.

I never said that studying generic texts about strategy or battles is useless. I said it isn't a good way to get better at 40k. I stand by that, and this doesn't really undermine it.



A mastery of strategy is just as important as a mastery of the rules, and texts like the Art of War can potentially be used to help. Even if all they do is getting you thinking along the right lines, it helps you. Sometimes the smallest nudge in the right direction can turn a mediocre player into a good one.


This I particularly disagree with. A mastery of strategy is really not nearly as important as a mastery of the rules. If I master master the rules, I can figure out everything I need to know to make good decisions from there without ever gaining a mastery or even a basic knowledge of classical strategy.

If I master strategy but fail to master the rules, I'll never really know whether my strategy will actually produce, in the game, the results I want it to produce. Without mastery of the rules, mastery of strategy is of limited and unreliable value.

To become as skilled a player as it is possible to be, one must be a master of the rules.

However, being a master of classical strategy is not in any way required.

Now, if you mean by "master of strategy" something other than "master of classical strategy" then you're going to have to define your term.

[Hive777]

Bean, it looks like the discussion in the thread I started and the discussion in this one are overlapping a bit.

I'm interested in what you say in your last post: "However, there's another point of disagreement--and that is that I don't think you should be using tactics at all. They'll never lead you to good conclusions you couldn't have come to without them, and they will sometimes lead you to conclusions that are bad. Even generally worthwhile schema (and lets be fair, it's highly unlikely that you'll never use any during your play career) should eventually be discarded or their influence over your decisions minimized if you want to become a top-end player."

If I understand you correctly, the better player/strategist/what-have-you is not the player who focuses his/her time on developing specific plans or procedures; instead, it's the player who spends his or her time learning precisely how the system works. That is to say, it's something like learning about a car by taking it apart and studying it on a mechanical and engineering level instead of just learning how to drive it in specific condition sets.

And that would include knowing how your codex works on a mechanical and engineering level, so to speak, because that's the better way to know what to do when you have to adapt to changing or new conditions--i.e., models or rules you haven't seen before or don't know that much about, different abilities, and so on--instead of just having a set of tactics to fall back on.

[Bean]

Bean, it looks like the discussion in the thread I started and the discussion in this one are overlapping a bit.

I'm interested in what you say in your last post: "However, there's another point of disagreement--and that is that I don't think you should be using tactics at all. They'll never lead you to good conclusions you couldn't have come to without them, and they will sometimes lead you to conclusions that are bad. Even generally worthwhile schema (and lets be fair, it's highly unlikely that you'll never use any during your play career) should eventually be discarded or their influence over your decisions minimized if you want to become a top-end player."

If I understand you correctly, the better player/strategist/what-have-you is not the player who focuses his/her time on developing specific plans or procedures; instead, it's the player who spends his or her time learning precisely how the system works. That is to say, it's something like learning about a car by taking it apart and studying it on a mechanical and engineering level instead of just learning how to drive it in specific condition sets.

Essentially, yes, but your analogy is a little off.

However, I would stress that driving a car and playing 40k are, as activities, fundamentally dissimilar in a way that is relevant to the discussion.


If you want to learn how to drive a car, you're better off just driving it a lot. No question there.

If you want to learn how a car works, you're obviously better off taking it apart and studying it on a mechanical and engineering level than you are driving it, but knowing how a car works is passive--it doesn't involve decision-making, and isn't analogous to playing 40k at all.

So, back to driving a car.

Driving a car is essentially a motor skill--it involves reflex and reaction, responding to stimuli, usually without conscious analysis. When you practice driving a car, most of what you're doing is building the procedural memories--what is sometimes called "muscle memory"--that you need to manage the routine reflexive tasks involved.

However, this element of the driving activity is obviously not analogous to 40k--being good at 40k doesn't really rely on procedural memory at all.

Driving sometimes involves conscious analysis and decision-making. In this, though, knowing how the car works can often be quite helpful (and that effort you probably didn't put into tearing the car apart and studying it would, thus, likely come in handy). This sort of decision isn't common for the average person, but it's not unheard-of, either. If your gas-light comes on, knowing how the gas meter works will help you figure out how much gas you have left. If your check-engine light comes on, knowing how your check-engine light works can help you evaluate whether you need to stop driving your car right now or sometime later in the week.

Of course, some of these decisions (like the gas decision) can be made from experience, but that really brings us around to the main reason that this isn't a particularly good analogy:

I'm not talking about experience vs. analysis, here. I'm talking about schema-based decision-making vs. free-form decision making.

When you're driving your car, you use tons of decision-making schema--we might even call some of them "tactics," and this isn't a bad thing. For one thing, some decisions while driving have to be made very quickly, and there's no question that schema help you make decisions faster. For another, excellence in driving isn't required--just competence. If you follow a schema and it produces a slightly less fuel-efficient result, for instance, no-one really cares.


40k, however, does not require you to make decisions quickly. There's really no need for time-saving shortcuts in the decision-making process (which is all that schema, or "tactics," are). Second, you're not just trying to be adequate. You're trying to make the best decision possible.

A schema is a way to help make decisions faster, and it usually comes at a price--they encourage you to ignore possibilities that they don't cover. Here's an example from driving:

You see other people around you put on their brakes and begin to slow down. When deciding how to respond, you might apply the following schema: when other people brake, you should consider braking as well. It's a good schema; it almost always leads you to the conclusion that you should brake, and that's almost always a good conclusion. More-over, since the situation is time-sensitive, the utilization of the schema can be important in the interest of braking quickly enough.

However, that schema discourages you from considering other options--like simply driving off the road to avoid the braking cars. This is fine when you're driving, because driving off the road to avoid the braking cars is usually a bad idea, and (more importantly) even if there is some other alternative that is better than braking, it's very unlikely to matter much if you forgo it--even if going off-road would get you to your destination faster and without any negative consequences, it just doesn't matter that much, and safe is better than sorry.

In 40k, though, there's no time-sensitivity. The benefit of using the schema (time saving) isn't really important, the goal is to produce the best possible result--not just any adequate result--and sometimes the best option is driving around the other cars (metaphorically speaking, of course.)

So, in 40k, unlike in driving, the use of schema is not desirable. You don't need them, and they come with a potential downside.

This is what I was saying. It's not really a matter of experience vs. analysis--schema can come from either. It's a matter of whether this sort of schema are good for you at all in 40k, and I think the answer is no--regardless of where they come from. The analogy, then, is flawed because schema are good for you when you're driving, and this is because driving and 40k have very different sets of goals and restraints.


Interestingly, if you're playing in a tightly-timed environment (for example, some Warmachine/Hordes tournaments use chess clocks) schema can be helpful as time-saving tools--and I find that I sometimes have difficulty in this sort of timed event because my habit is to avoid utilizing them. For 40k, though, I find that I always have enough time to make decisions without the application of "tactics" to the problem.

Any evaluation of the efficacy of a particular move must include all of the relevant aspects of the system in order to be legitimate. That same evaluation, can be entirely legitimate without any grounding in specific, preconceived plans or procedures.

[Lucian Kain]

False

[pathwinder14]

What I take away is this:

Conventional thinking results from repeating the steps of successful unconventionalists.