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On September 10 2009 13:19 cz wrote:
Sorry to be a hater, but the book is really pointless to read for educational or improvement reasons. Everything in it is very, very obvious and is stuff you already know. It's one of those books that the intelligista like to brag about reading/applying but don't realize how worthless it actually is. There is historical value in it, though.
If you disagree I challenge you to quote something from the book that is both useful and not obvious.
Its greatest important lies in its historical significance without a doubt...however...
It's also good to read simply because hearing something you already know once again can help you look at it in a different light. There's nothing wrong with that.
I would punch anyone in the face that dropped an Art of War quote in a conversation, thread, or anything but a paper involving Chinese history and/or philosophy as well, but no need to hate.
EDIT
Also...why the hell is this in the Brood War section?
Oh, and also, beware, readers...ensure that whatever translation this is is a quality one. I took a primer class to Chinese philosophy, and my professor spent many hours throughout the course talking about the many different translations of whatever work we were reading. I don't remember what that situation was like for Art of War, but most reliable translations (and even unreliable translations) are tied to a publisher...so be careful, and take it with a grain of salt.
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United States43188 Posts
On September 10 2009 15:12 cz wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2009 15:11 Kwark wrote:On September 10 2009 14:58 cz wrote:On September 10 2009 14:43 Kwark wrote:
I agree that most of what it says can be deduced logically but I disagree that makes it useless. The way I see it, most bw strategy is obvious. It's a series of choices and if asked at any given time what to do the average D player can work out the correct one. Sometimes you just need someone to say it. I disagree with this. Or at least to the magnitude of it. Most bw strategy is not at all obvious to the level of what The Art of War is. Think of it like this: the average comment in the book is something like "be aware of what your opponent is doing" or "attack when your enemy is weak, not strong". That's not the equivalent of being given a 5 hat hydra build or learning a proper timing window, it's the equivalent of someone telling you "don't fight 12 zealots with your 3 zerglings, save them instead". What constitutes legitimate strategy in starcraft is an order of magnitude or many steps away from what the Art of War gives, which are just basic, very obvious comments. In other words, if I wrote a 30 page book filled with comments such as: "Don't waste your units, but rather save them." "Always try to be aware of what your opponent is doing and try to negate him from doing the same to you." and I said that those comments should help people improve their bw game, I would be laughed off the forum. That's the equivalent of what the Art of War contains, except I used starcraft terms above. In that same sense, that the Art of War might help anyone improve starcraft is also laughable. That said there is historic value and perhaps some sort of pre-game psych value in the book, but as for learning anything new, that's not going to happen. It's a very, very overhyped book of limited to no functional value. I'm not trying to take away from the OP posting a copy of the book, just stating my view on the book itself. Bw really is that simple. I watch replays with bad players all the time and those are the things you say. I'll get them to pause and say "what do you know about his build, what should you do against that". If put on the spot they can either work it out or say they don't know enough. If they don't know I point out they should be scouting and they're like "oh yeah :S". Anyone can work that out if asked. What's harder is to maintain that kind of decision making in game. Seriously, everyone understands the basics, like storm against hydralisk or scourge against corsair. It's the decision making that wins it. You gotta apply the basic logical decision making at high speed to your gameplay. That's how you win bw. Yeah I added a bit more to the post you are responding to, making it a bit more clear what I'm talking about.
We're agreed about the content, it's just logically deduced proverbs. It's just my belief that it's not lack of understanding that holds players back most of the time. They know what to do in theory but they get overwhelmed in the game and make bad decisions.
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It's pointless to create a thread and then ban all criticism of the work it's discussing. Criticism of the work itself tends to lead towards better understanding of said text.
Also, I do agree that a lot of it is obvious, but that still makes certain parts of it very worthwhile to read. Some of it can be very easily ignored for the most part, like the politics of war, how to manage your populace to prevent rebellion/dissension (though interesting for poli-theory), but as long as you have a general idea of what it is you can skip around. The economic parts of the text are probably the most important to a SC player.
I'm still unsure if moral of troops applies to SC players - it certainly does seem to in the case of a someone who gradually gets tired throughout a bo5 series (Bisu comes to mind for certain games).
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China958 Posts
From Chapter VI: Weak points and strong:
11. If we wish to fight, the enemy can be forced to an engagement even though he be sheltered behind a high rampart and a deep ditch. All we need do is attack some other place that he will be obliged to relieve.
If it were so obvious, why are half of D+/C- PvT games lost because P gets to 200/200, doesn't know what to do, so he suicides his army into a well established tank line?
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On September 10 2009 15:45 LeoTheLion wrote:
From Chapter VI: Weak points and strong:
11. If we wish to fight, the enemy can be forced to an engagement even though he be sheltered behind a high rampart and a deep ditch. All we need do is attack some other place that he will be obliged to relieve.
If it were so obvious, why are half of D+/C- PvT games lost because P gets to 200/200, doesn't know what to do, so he suicides his army into a well established tank line?
The vast majority of people consider themselves above average, nowhere is this more apparent than in theorycraft.
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Damn! Thank you going to read this...
Here is quote I though of:
"He who uses protoss, takes life too easy"
"He who uses terran is anti-conformist"
"He who uses zerg is a decision-maker"
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On September 10 2009 15:45 LeoTheLion wrote:
From Chapter VI: Weak points and strong:
11. If we wish to fight, the enemy can be forced to an engagement even though he be sheltered behind a high rampart and a deep ditch. All we need do is attack some other place that he will be obliged to relieve.
If it were so obvious, why are half of D+/C- PvT games lost because P gets to 200/200, doesn't know what to do, so he suicides his army into a well established tank line?
You are saying that the idea of attacking somewhere to force an enemy to leave his well-defended position to defend the attacked place is not an obvious idea / tactic? That was a new idea to you?
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On September 10 2009 15:57 Licmyobelisk wrote:
Damn! Thank you going to read this...
Here is quote I though of:
"He who uses protoss, takes life too easy"
"He who uses terran is anti-conformist"
"He who uses zerg is a decision-maker"
He who plays starcraft, is baller.
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United States43188 Posts
On September 10 2009 16:03 cz wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2009 15:45 LeoTheLion wrote:
From Chapter VI: Weak points and strong:
11. If we wish to fight, the enemy can be forced to an engagement even though he be sheltered behind a high rampart and a deep ditch. All we need do is attack some other place that he will be obliged to relieve.
If it were so obvious, why are half of D+/C- PvT games lost because P gets to 200/200, doesn't know what to do, so he suicides his army into a well established tank line? You are saying that the idea of attacking somewhere to force an enemy to leave his well-defended position to defend the attacked place is not an obvious idea / tactic? That was a new idea to you?
This is precisely my point. Bad players can deduce that concept themselves but they still don't integrate it into their play because they don't bear it in mind when making decisions. The advice is solid, yes it's obvious but most mistakes are obvious, they still get made. It reminds me of when I was playing poker and I put a load of post-it notes around my screen with basic shit on them like "don't bluff someone who doesn't know how to fold". Sure, it's really obvious but sometimes you just need a reminder to keep it in your mind while making decisions.
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On September 10 2009 16:04 lazz wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2009 15:57 Licmyobelisk wrote:
Damn! Thank you going to read this...
Here is quote I though of:
"He who uses protoss, takes life too easy"
"He who uses terran is anti-conformist"
"He who uses zerg is a decision-maker" He who plays starcraft, is baller.
he who is aussie, is always awesome  <3 lazz!
Anyway, here is something we can use in theorycrafting:
5. Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays.
So meaning, it's not about cheesing and waiting for too long to go 200/200 push, but to provide excellent timing when opponents has his pants down is the way to victory
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On September 10 2009 16:08 Kwark wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2009 16:03 cz wrote:On September 10 2009 15:45 LeoTheLion wrote:
From Chapter VI: Weak points and strong:
11. If we wish to fight, the enemy can be forced to an engagement even though he be sheltered behind a high rampart and a deep ditch. All we need do is attack some other place that he will be obliged to relieve.
If it were so obvious, why are half of D+/C- PvT games lost because P gets to 200/200, doesn't know what to do, so he suicides his army into a well established tank line? You are saying that the idea of attacking somewhere to force an enemy to leave his well-defended position to defend the attacked place is not an obvious idea / tactic? That was a new idea to you? This is precisely my point. Bad players can deduce that concept themselves but they still don't integrate it into their play because they don't bear it in mind when making decisions. The advice is solid, yes it's obvious but most mistakes are obvious, they still get made. It reminds me of when I was playing poker and I put a load of post-it notes around my screen with basic shit on them like "don't bluff someone who doesn't know how to fold". Sure, it's really obvious but sometimes you just need a reminder to keep it in your mind while making decisions.
Right but different statements are on different levels of the 'obvious' scale, if everything is obvious. The Art of War is on the very lowest rung of that ladder. While you might be able to deduce everything if you understood how everything worked and had enough time, there's a strategy forum for a reason and any quotes from the Art of War would not be anywhere near the level expected to post there.
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whats obvious to you isnt always obvious to everyone else. its a neat book with alot of history, but i wouldnt use it as a strategy guide for broodwar ;p
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On September 10 2009 15:45 LeoTheLion wrote:
From Chapter VI: Weak points and strong:
11. If we wish to fight, the enemy can be forced to an engagement even though he be sheltered behind a high rampart and a deep ditch. All we need do is attack some other place that he will be obliged to relieve.
If it were so obvious, why are half of D+/C- PvT games lost because P gets to 200/200, doesn't know what to do, so he suicides his army into a well established tank line?
The problem is more that a D+/C- player in PvT is going to feel like there is nowhere they can attack that will force the T player to divert his forces, and you have to get into more complex things like map control, how to gain it, etc. I mean, there's a feeling at some points that your army composition is all wrong when you hit 200 before your first confrontation, and then that you will have no HT or Arbs to break their maxxed out 3/3 push.
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United States43188 Posts
On September 10 2009 16:10 Licmyobelisk wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2009 16:04 lazz wrote:On September 10 2009 15:57 Licmyobelisk wrote:
Damn! Thank you going to read this...
Here is quote I though of:
"He who uses protoss, takes life too easy"
"He who uses terran is anti-conformist"
"He who uses zerg is a decision-maker" He who plays starcraft, is baller. he who is aussie, is always awesome <3 lazz! Anyway, here is something we can use in theorycrafting: 5. Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays. So meaning, it's not about cheesing and waiting for too long to go 200/200 push, but to provide excellent timing when opponents has his pants down is the way to victory
Fabius "Cunctator" (The Delayer) was successful against Hannibal Barca precisely because of his unwillingness to give battle. If turned into a Sun Tzu proverb it'd probably be 'On the subject of fighting a tactical genius while you have strategic advantages, don't'.
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It was written as a guide line for war fare and introduce some of the general concepts during that time. However it is not a model, the rules are there for you to know, how you apply them is up to you.
AFAIK Art of War is not complete; half of the volume of the book are lost through time.
In BW terminology, it will make a D- noob become D+ but it won't make a D+ into A+
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id like to get my hands on the 36 strategems
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United States22883 Posts
On September 10 2009 14:43 Kwark wrote:
I agree that most of what it says can be deduced logically but I disagree that makes it useless. The way I see it, most bw strategy is obvious. It's a series of choices and if asked at any given time what to do the average D player can work out the correct one. Sometimes you just need someone to say it.
The problem is that most of its use comes after the fact, when analyzing what went wrong, and for that you can find a quote to meet any need. It's like Nostradamus' predictions. Yeah, he vaguely described something that happened, but he also said a lot of shit that's irrelevant and even contradictory to itself.
Not that anyone is going to read Jomini for BW, but if you do like reading about the practice of war stuff like Jomini, Clausewitz and Thucydides is way better than Sun Tzu.
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I remember first time I heard and I could read it (a huge part of it or just most important sentences, I don't remember now) with Shogun: Total War.
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Netherlands6142 Posts
I completely agree with cz - by all means read it, it's fun enough and has historic value, but dont expect it to revolutionize your SC play in any way
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Sun Tzu quotes are great for throwing it against some iccup nub that makes a dumb strategic mistake like randomly attacking into tank lines.
Sun Tzu is self evident to us because the idea have been floating around for thousand of years, applied to different things and build up on in detail, which includes BW. It is like reading a book in 2000BC about how 1+1=2. That said, if you are teach someone unfamilar with strategy at all, it is a okay guide.
For skilled strategists in BW, you have to learn the useful ideas from the book long ago to have gotten anywhere and thus it teaches nothing new. It can help as a reminder when one is stuck though.
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EPT
