The Art of War, where can I learn this?

So I'll be honest: I've pretty much ignored anything to do with military strategy my whole life. But I got my first little taste of it in WAR (especially on BfB nights), and I found I really enjoyed it there.

Looking ahead to GW2 it sounds like we'll get to do some RVR as a family again. I'm between games twiddling my thumbs atm, and had this idea - maybe I could study up on military stratgies and tactics.

Anyone know of an easy, even entertaining way for a total beginner like me to learn this stuff? Learning from a game would be awesome, but I'm not against cracking open a good book if you know one. Thanks!

Any RTS (Real Time Strategy) can help if you want to learn from a game. Command & Conquer, Empire Earth, Age of Empires are some of the many RTS games to choose from. Plenty of books over the centuries to choose from if you wanted to go that route. WWII movies can help but that might be a little more tricky. Hope that helps get ya started.

I think the lesson isn't really about battle tactics. Its about human behavure and not only knowing what your enemy will do but also how to lead your enemies into doing what you want them to do. Understanding the driving force behind your foe is the most important thing to learn. Gojiberries for example was an ego leader. All you needed to do was lead his arrogance until he thought he could not be beaten. Then you trick him to attack where you want him to and ambush. His arrogance is your ally. He will likely sacrifice security for showmanship and will leave his flanks unguarded. The other type that is easy to beat is greed controlled leaders. Simply offer the something tasty and take everything else. Trade them 1 for 5. If your troops are greedy pitch a higher level of temptation which require teamwork. If you go to my profile I have several blogs about leading and controling your opponent. There's an old Irish saying. Irish deplomacy is the art of telling someone to go to hell in a way that they look forward to the trip. Convince your enemies to make the move you want them too. Once you command the battlefield on both sides you own the war. Now I must admit, my training is a bit less conventional. No military experience. Most I know from the art of war is westley snipes was in the movie. Most of what I know is from playing football, international film, fps & rts games, dealing with teens and egos, a violent childhood, and my exwife. Not conventional to say the least.

For a man that calims his knowledge of Sun Tzu comes from westley snipes thats a pretty good summary. 實而備之，強而避之，怒而撓之，卑而驕之，佚而勞之，親而離之，出其不意，攻其不備。 If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected. From experience, half your team will be racing about smacking what ever is nearest. There will be a few bright sparks that know the zone and objectives, listen to them while your learning. Protect your healers.

A great game to learn some basic strategy is any of the Total War games. You get great specific battlefield fights where you eventually learn how to beat each opponent because each faction has their own strengths and weaknesses. You also get the large campaign scale map of the Turn based strategy. Medieval II is my favorite and I'm sure it's really cheap now

I'd thought this exercise would gain me something like the battlefield equivalent of "lore". I'd be out RVRing and all of a sudden I'd see a maneuver and think, wow, that's like XYZ tactic at [insert famous historical battle here]. Something to add depth to my gaming experience. From your responses I can see there's a whole practical leading-in-RVR side I hadn't considered. Ben, great examples in your post -- it's eerie how close they match the Sun Zsu version Cargan quoted. I'll check out your oRvR Leadership series, I'm sure there's tons I can learn there. Don and Schaab, thanks for the game ideas. I was looking at Total War: Medieval II on Steam the other day, wondering if it would teach me tactics from real, historical battles as well as give me those "lore" flashes in RVR. Unit types always seems to be such a big part of tactics, so I didn't think a game with a lot of mech or air units would be right for me. TW:M2 sounds like a good bet, so I'll check it out. thanks!

» Edited on: 2012-02-01 05:52:55

Don't think my training is conventional either. Think herding cats in a computer game is easy, try it in a live action game. LOL I've learned what I know from a variety of reading, gaming, etc. Like stated above it boils down knowing your enemy and even the personalities of your own team. I always got a kick out of how I could pull off stuff in a live action game just like one of my friends. He would have all the funs, I would always have the luck of being awarded things by the rulers. Life is series of battles. Definitely most are not life or death, but each will give a choice of improving or destroying something in life. Here's something that still happens - you are a woman dressed in business suit with skirt and heels. You drive a car into a garage due to leaking antifreeze. You tell them you need a new hose, the y-shaped one that connects into the manifold/block. You get looked at like you have five heads. Several minutes later they come out all apologetic telling you to be right and even telling you a price close to what you quoted. Us engineering, farm raised girls don't fit the norm if we definitely were the tomboy growing up. Breaking what the norm is for whatever situation will always catch people off guard. Figuring out the norm (ie the lemming effect) in RvR and then blowing their minds with a change to it, works all the time. Pandora comes to mind. MUWHAHAHHAHA! So let them see the box and then surprise them with what is really in it!

Most of my tactical experience comes from the Warhammer Tabletop Game, but I would class that as the complete opposite of an easy source. It's an evil, time consuming, expensive hobby. If any of the strategies I learned from that came happen to apply to Guild Wars 2, I might write up an article. It probably also doesn't help that my favourite military quote is - "No battleplan survives contact with the enemy." Much of the strategy in Guild Wars 2 will no doubt depend on the overall game mechanics and abilities on offer, so focussed tactics like the old Pandora manoeuvre we won't be able to accurately develope or predict until closer to release - but these sort of things basically boil down to a simple "What do we want to achieve?" and "What can we do with the tools at our disposal to achieve it?". I can definately echo what Ben/Foghladha has said about it all boiling down to human behaviour, and highly reccommend reading up on any of the Guilds old articles on that subject, as in WAR, managing player morale was easily the single biggest deciding factor in overall victory or defeat. We are not a well trained military force, we are not committed to the task by geography, and the general PuG (pick-up-group) has no ties of loyalty. Players have real life commitments outside of game - the slightest misfortune and your forces numbers can drop like flies, while the promise of impending victory will keep them playing "Just 10 more minutes" for hours on end.

. . . would you like to play a game? <3 hehe is what popped into my head :P