Guy describes ravaged-meta without actually knowing it.

So, sorry i cannot translate. its too much.
will work on more complete summary soon.
Basically this guy is a professor for economy but his main field is game-theory. He explains a certain chinese stratagem and explains it with this scenario: a city, land on one side, steep cliffs and water on the other. He then goes on and explain how the ravaged-team-meta is, i strongly suspect without knowing actual clusterpot meta. He then closes with the best possible defense according to game-theory:
All sides have to be defended in proportion to how hard it is to sneak in. So "that it doesn't matter for the attacker where they attack." Note that that doesn`t mean it`s the perfect strategy overall. It is just the best strategy if you don`t want to get killed by ships on ravaged. Or in general want to avoid being pincered.
I am not sure if this is 100% true, but it seems very logical and very likely to be a good way. (OFC the game is more complex, and that defense is just 1 aspect between many others)

I just found his accuracy to be a curiosity, hilarious and shareworthy.

The 36 Stratagems are a treasure trove of ideas for any strategy game, possibly even better then my usual go to art-of-war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-Six_Stratagems

I have Harro Sengers Book right behind me in the shelf, makes for entertaining reading because it's mostly short (1-3 pages)anecdotes about the application of the stratagems. Not sure if there is an english translation but there are loads other of books about them.

" Note that that doesn`t mean it`s the perfect strategy overall. It is just the best strategy if you don`t want to get killed by ships on ravaged. Or in general want to avoid being pincered. "
It is the BEST STRATEGY BASED ON HAVING NO INFORMATION about the enemies troop deployments. Classical minimax i.e. you try to minimise their maximum gain (because if you defend hard at some point and weak on the other one, the enemy can choose the weakest/most profitable spot, so your job is to simultaniously present the lowest profitablity to all possible attack routes the enemy has). Once you have information about enemy troops deployments you can change accordingly (i.e. if you have sufficient radar coverage/scouting you dont need static def at the geo, because you can react to attacks in time)


As for the game Masper posted, as well as his comments/the quote in them (though made in jest), they're spot on.
I certainly got a bit lucky (and Randy got too playful/ didnt take me serious enough after he held 2/3 of the map), but the whole game is based on a strategy/plan I devised months ago for possible tournament games against randy/godde, which in turn is somewhat based on a few of the Stratagems, in particular this one:

2.5 (Sacrifice the plum tree to preserve the peach tree) //Sacrifice early map control to avoid raider-phase which Id most certainly loose, instead try to get up a (tank-)army capable of killing the main asap. Note that while Im heavily falling behind on eco/total value at the start Im always ahead on army value.

And then 1.2(Besiege Wèi to rescue Zhào) and 1.4 (Wait at leisure while the enemy labors) go into the whole, ignore the front line base and rush around the flanks.

Or from Randys perspective, he ignored AoW Chapter 3 (3.2 When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men's weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength // 3.6 There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.)


ps.@ Masper the only thing tender about me is the texture of my cakes :-)

pps. @ Anarchid, if you have kids send them to my tutoring school, I actually teach basic war theory if there is interest. Alternatively look at the courses from the philosophy department of your local university, they sometimes teach warphilosphy/military doctrines though from a very theoretical PoV.

Well said, Professor bloa.