| David H Li 2004-10-26, 5:46 pm |
| Recently, on a Yahoo discussion group, a poster, in commenting on my
response to another post of his, says the following, inter alia:
I've had a lifelong interest in military history and war-simulation
games. I've read "On War" [by Clausewitz] and translated excerpts from
"Art of War' [by Sun Tzu]. And I've long dreamed of a "universal
wargame" -- a chesslike game which would encapsulate all the salient
principles of war. Unfortunately, others seem more interested in
realistic simulations, which involve too much detail to ever be
"universal."
After responding to that post, I felt that the above quotation contains
a lot of ideas worthy of further exploration. Specifically, the
following issues come to mind:
1) What are "salient principles of war"?
2) How (or, perhaps, to what extent) can these "salient principles of
war" be encapsulated in a "universal wargame"?
3) How successful has Game X been able to encapsulate these "salient
principles of war"?
These questions are best, perhaps, answered in seriatim: tackling the
second question after there is some agreement on the first question, and
tackling the third question after there is some agreement on the second
question.
When tackling the third question, Game X may be substituted by a series
of specific board games or wargames (such as western chess or Xiangqi),
subjecting each to the test in question 2, and giving each a score for
comparison.
Your comments are solicited.
David Li
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