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  1. #11
    Librarian
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    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.
    Last edited by MaltonNecromancer; 07-19-2011 at 09:50 AM.

  2. #12

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    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.

  3. #13
    Iron Father
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    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.
    http://paintingplasticcrack.blogspot.co.uk

  4. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by MaltonNecromancer View Post
    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.

  5. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by MaltonNecromancer View Post
    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.

  6. #16

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    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.
    Last edited by Nabterayl; 07-19-2011 at 11:07 AM.

  7. #17

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    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 [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002"]some naval exercises in 2002[/URL], resulting in the loss of a US carrier group with minimal effort.
    Ask not the EldarGal a question, for she will give you three answers, all of which are puns and terrifying to know. Back off man, I'm a feminist. Ia! Ia! Gloppal Snode!

  8. #18
    Shas'o
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    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.
    When you do something right people wont be sure that you've done anything at all.

  9. #19

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    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.

  10. #20
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    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.
    I'M RATHER DEFINATELY SURE FEMALE SPACE MARINES DEFINERTLEY DON'T EXIST.

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