Attack, Defense, and Playstyles

As noted in The Basics, Attack is focusing on winning and defense is focusing on not losing. That means that in order to win a game you must attack at some point in time. The main thing that makes an offensive player different from a defensive player is the timing of the attack.

"Militarists avoid the full and strike the empty, so they first have to recognize emptiness and fullness in others and themselves." Du Mu, The Art of War

A defensive player first waits until he sees vulnerability to attack. An offensive player is confident that he has sufficient resources to win and thus attacks first based on that confidence. Neither of these methods are necessarily wrong or right; it is mostly a matter of preference. Because you have to wait and assess the opponent to play defensively, patience is essential to victory in that style of play. So it is very common that a patient person will adopt a defensive playstyle and a less patient person will adopt an offensive playstyle.

"You see the inner conditions of opponents by means of their external formations. The inner condition of the formless is inscrutable, whereas that of those who have adopted a specific form is obvious. The inscrutable win, the obvious lose." Du Mu, The Art of War

I want to recommend that you practice both offensive and defensive play. Being skilled in defense allows you to think like a defensive player thinks. This is a very good thing for an attacker because not only do you know your plans, to a degree, you also know your opponent's plans. Having played defense before, you will be able to make convincing fakes and feints, so as to make your defensive opponent become vulnerable. Likewise I recommend defensive players to give offensive play a shot. This will help you to know what types of attacks you need to defend against as well as what types of fakes and feints to look out for. By continuously practicing both offensive and defensive play, you will be increasing your ability to be formless. Once you are formless you may find yourself switching styles in the middle of a game, playing offensively one game and defensively in another, or being a hybrid at all times.

Which brings me to the topic of the offense to defense ratio. After having played so many competitive games, I began to examine how often I was using offensive maneuvers and how often I was using defensive maneuvers.  From this observation I formed a ratio  to quantify my playstyle. By quantifying something that is abstract or qualitative, you gain the ability to apply mathematics and study statistics about it. After about a year of observation, I settled on a 70:30 offense to defense ratio. This number represents how prone you are to use each maneuver of combat. After I formed this ratio and began to study it, I made some very surprising conclusions.

Formlessness would be achieved when your playstyle appears to be 50:50. When I was younger I was very defensive in every game that I played. I attempted to use my memory to give my younger self a number, which I eventually settled as being around 30:70. Between then and now I gave several attempts to be formless, a perfect 50:50. Every time I tried this I failed but, being young, never tried to make a conclusion as to why. Now that I understand a lot more of the factors involved, I have come to a valid conclusion.

Games and competitions are designed by people. As such there are often design elements that prevent you from being formless. The designer(s) of the game might have strongly favored the concept of full offense vs full defense and as a result attempting a mixture of strategies will be unfocused and very difficult to win with. There is also the concept of the metagame, or  a set factors that are not directly in the game but do have strong influence. The modern metagame is a noun that usually refers to the way that players play in a certain area or a certain time. In one country ping-pong players may be very defensive and in another, very aggressive. While a formless style of play may work in one metagame, it may be very difficult to work in a metagame where the average player is very focused and concentrated on one style.

So with these factors and many more in play, formlessness is to be aimed at but it it not always practical. You should first examine the game thoroughly and then decide if your normal playstyle is something that you can adopt. I have found that in most games I play, I am either 70% offensive and 30% defensive or vise versa. Those are styles of play that, in most games, are not too unfocused but also not completely predictable.

But enough of all this pure theory crap. I'm sure there's somebody out there who wants to read about stuff that specifically applies to the game he/she plays. In my next entry I'll discuss how the use of my preferred playstyle has helped me to make a formidable, but completely original Magic: The Gathering deck.

The Basics

Welcome to my gaming strategy blog! I'd like to start out by laying out the basics, what I consider to be the most critical parts of strategy. These are not guaranteed to be correct in every situation or game, but they are a general guide to what you should know.

1. Attack and defense are the two basic types of maneuvers. Attack is focusing on winning and defense is focusing on not losing.

2. To win and to not lose have equal value. This means attack and defense also have equal value. Successful attacking means progress towards winning and successful defending means your opponent makes no progress towards winning. Both are essential to overall victory.

3. While you are attacking, your defense is lowered and while you are defending, your attack is lowered. Imagine you have a forcefield around you that lets nothing in or out. In order to attack your opponent you must first lower that forcefield for an instant, which makes you vulnerable to be attacked. On the other hand, while you are defending with your forcefield, you will not be able to attack freely.

4. "Defense is for times of insufficiency, attack is for times of surplus." -Sun Tzu
I'd like to rephrase this for a little clarity: In times of insufficiency you should defend, in times of surplus, you should attack. I rephrased it mainly because it might have misled people into thinking that attack is only for times of surplus and likewise defense only for insufficiency. In a situation where both you and your opponent are equal (like in the beginning of the game) either option is fine. Also it is not bad to defend when you are in a time of surplus.

Defending in times of insufficiency is crucial to good strategy. The purpose of defense is to fend off attacks from your opponent until you see a vulnerability and then strike. The vulnerability is bound to show up because of the idea in #3; your opponents must make themselves more vulnerable in order to attack you.

5. "In ancient times skillful warriors first made themselves invincible, and then watched for vulnerability in their opponents." -Sun Tzu
I'd recommend following this same order, it worked for them and it surely works for me.
"Invincibility is in oneself, vulnerability is in the opponent. Therefore skillful warriors are able to make themselves invincible, but they cannot cause opponents to be vulnerable." -Sun Tzu
This is the main reason defensive players like defense. You cannot force your opponents to attack and become vulnerable. Therefore patient players prefer defensive playstyles because they aim to out-wait and frustrate the opponent into attacking, thereby exposing vulnerabilities.

So far, so good? I tried my best to not use any game-specific examples so that anyone can understand the points I'm making. Nobody is perfect and we all have a lot to learn from someone else, so please feel free to leave comments, suggestions, start debates, anything. In my next post I plan to address attack and defense on a more broad scale and discuss my thoughts on playstyles.