I hereby dislike chess.

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Zedzero

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Feb 19, 2009
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xmetatr0nx said:
No, you just suck at it. Stop complaining. Either practise or stop playing. Whiner.
I would like to insert: "You just have no tatical skills, therefore you suck at chess, and threrefore you hate it."

It's a about tatics, who is smarter even if you have the same advantage as the oppenent.
 
May 28, 2009
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Housebroken Lunatic said:
Ever heard of the battle of Thermopylae?

Or how about the Battle of Wizna?

The latter of which it went 59 men from the german army for each polish defender. While the polish did lose the battle they caused some pretty significant damage and stalled the german forces for a good long time.

As the battle started the nazis had roughly 42.200 men, and the polish had 720 men. When the battle was over, 680 poles had been killed and wounded while 15.640 men from the nazis had been killed or wounded. Also at least 50 tanks and several AFV's from the germans had been destroyed by the poles.

So. you still question that a 2 man army could stand up against a 25 man army? A ratio of 59:1 like it was at the battle of Wizna is far worse than 12,5:1 now isn't it? : )

Oh and the polish were severly under-equipped compared to the german forces. Keep that in mind the next time you hear anyone making wisecracks against the polish.
Wizna no, but Thermopylae yes. I see your point.

I suppose it's more the fact that I cannot control my own men once the fight begins, and I have to decide their fate via rolls of the dice. I don't like it being purely luck, whilst in those battles you must admit that a degree of skill is certainly needed.
 

Capo Taco

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If you want to learn the strategic skills necessary to do well in a war, try the game Diplomacy. There's a brutal 7 player game where you have to combine people skills with chesslike strategy skills.
 

Capo Taco

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Housebroken Lunatic said:
popdafoo said:
I've said this more times than you can imagine. It just makes more sense. Who needs to spend that much money on inventing and distributing weapons and bombs when you could have a quick game of chess to see who wins?
I'll repeat:

Because war isn't a game. It's about eliminating the opposition from existence.
No that's genocide.
 

DoW Lowen

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Jan 11, 2009
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Arsen said:
Chess has often been called one of the frameworks of many strategists throughout history. Coinciding with this is the belief that it improves one's thinking ability alongside the notion that it shows one how to play thoroughly ahead.

I think this is all rubbish for the following reasons.

1. The game is based upon pure "fairness" and the moment.
2. No strategizing truly goes into effect because it's based on a system of "rules" so to speak. No freedom in being allowed to perform as one may.
3. The game is one big assumption that everyone in life is equal to their adversaries.

Anyone else share this view with me?
Nope, I strongly disagree.

Chess is a game of hindsight and forethought, if you can out think your opponent. You're better than them cognitively and strategy. I can see your argument whereby everyone has the same power, but it comes down to who can utilize more effectively. Not everyone likes chess admittedly, but better you're opponent in it does make you feel a hell of a lot smarter.
 

knight56

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Chess takes a lot of specialized understanding, practice, and study. Being good at tactics does not make one good at chess and vice versea. For a while now in high school I used to be in the top 2% of chess players in the state of Illinois and at the same time my ex-girlfriend destroyed me so bad in checkers that I had to go hide in the corner.

It's also one of the most unfair games in existence. Anyone citing chess as the ultimate example of game balance is fooling themselves.
 

Housebroken Lunatic

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Sep 12, 2009
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KillerMidget said:
Wizna no, but Thermopylae yes. I see your point.

I suppose it's more the fact that I cannot control my own men once the fight begins, and I have to decide their fate via rolls of the dice. I don't like it being purely luck, whilst in those battles you must admit that a degree of skill is certainly needed.
Quite.

But just for arguments sake, in a real battle no general can really claim to have "control" over his men either. Sure we have the chain of command and radio communication, but giving orders in a battle isn't as much as controlling the men as it is giving them general instructions to follow. More often than not, the men on the battlefield have more knowledge of what's going on in their most immediate vicinity, which the general lacks, which means that the grunts will have to improvise a lot during combat. Some times the improvisations will result in groundbreaking victory, other times it might result in humiliating defeat.

The way the Greek forces deployed in the Battle of Thermopylae is a prime example of improvisation. They used the geography against the Persian invaders. While this might seem like a no brainer to most strategists ("Duh! Of course you use the geography against your opponents"), one have to remember the fact that geography and other battlefiled conditions might not always be there to be taken avantage of, it's really a skill of knowing how to find possible advantages to exploit if they're there.

So dice rolls for the men on the ground could be seen as a representation of these facts. That you as the general might be able to order them around and tell them where to move and which enemy to engage, it's still up to them to accomplish these tasks.

But as for Risk I can agree with you on the part that it's an indication of bad game design. Personally I prefer wargames with rules that are a little more advanced (like Warhammer 40.000), where they have taken the "men on the ground improv" into consideration but still made an effort to balance stats and possible dice rolls to be a bit more probable and reasonable than in Risk.
 

Housebroken Lunatic

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Capo Taco said:
Housebroken Lunatic said:
popdafoo said:
I've said this more times than you can imagine. It just makes more sense. Who needs to spend that much money on inventing and distributing weapons and bombs when you could have a quick game of chess to see who wins?
I'll repeat:

Because war isn't a game. It's about eliminating the opposition from existence.
No that's genocide.
No it isn't. I didn't say "eliminat ALL ELEMENTS of the opposition", I said "eliminating the opposition", there is a difference.

Eliminating the opposition means making sure that the enemy finds the very act of opposing to be unsound and too risky. This task is both accomplished by destroying the enemies forces and by crippling the morale of the entire opposing faction as a whole until they surrender.

You can't eliminate opposition simply over a game of chess, and it is an arrogant statement to say that you should. The very act of starting a war means that you are willing to kill in order to eliminate the opposing forces, which means that the civil rules included in a game of chess has been tossed out the window...
 

GrandAm

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Aug 8, 2009
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SharPhoe said:
Just because there are rules to follow doesn't mean you can't still strategize, you know.
I agree, even war has rules. I don't even mean rules set up by nations pre-war. I am talking practical rules. Such as it takes more persons to care for a wounded person than someone point blank killed. Most land mines work on this premise. Anti-personnel mines don't try to kill. Their explosive charge is smaller than a M80 fire work. They are designed to blow off a foot. The hope is it will take three people to get them help, instead of "Bill is dead let's go charge that hill.

The USA M-16 fires a very small bullet. The reason is to wound. It is not to save a life because it is still an obviuosly lethal weapon. But on the battlefield at range maming your enemy requires his comrads to drag him to safety instead of fighting the fight. Plus since the bullet is smaller more rounds can be placed in the mag of the weapon. Allowing a longer continuous fight.

That is strategy. Rook takes bishop, maming your enemy takes more resources from said enemy than killing them. Of course that does not apply to daisy cutters. In their case it is still a dreaded shock and awe weapon.