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.