The Art of War

If you're like me you've thought about what your life would be like if you were born in another time. Clearly they didn't have VBA scripts to write in 500 BC, after all, so I'd have to have some other way to make a living. Would I be a farmer? A miscellaneous grunt in some army? Would I die of malnutrition at a young age? Would, as my name suggests, I be the page for some gallant knight? (With my luck I'd probably be the guy in charge of knocking the coconuts against each other.)

I just finished reading Sun Tzu's The Art of War (yay free books on the Kobo!) and I now know what I should be if I'm transplanted way back in time... A military strategist! I'm sure it's just a result of playing so many board and video wargames but the themes discussed in the book just made complete sense. Information is powerful. Spreading misinformation is really powerful. Make sure you have a food plan. Be nice with the people you conquered. Letting a dragon get into the volcano means you lose. High ground is awesome. Flooding the enemy out is hard. Setting stuff on fire is scary. Your boss can set the overall goals but you have complete control of what your men do. There is such thing as acceptable losses.

Ok, that dragon part is just from Titan and not from the book. 

The book actually reminded me a lot of the game Romance of the Three Kingdoms III for the SNES. I didn't own the game, but I rented it probably a dozen times. An interesting aspect of that game was that you had individual saved games (which would generally be saved over by the time I re-rented it) but you also had an overall metagame where you could build leaders and they carried over between games. So each time I would rent the game I'd add more and more people to this overall pool of dudes who would show up randomly in games. I like the idea that some guy who rented the game could have Nick Page show up to his empire and ask for a job.

In the game you started from an individual city and built up an army under a few leaders who had their own strengths and weaknesses. You had to keep the people of your city happy while at the same time making them pay you taxes in gold and food. Then you could go out invading in a series of tactical battles. One of the coolest parts was one of your leaders could challenge another leader to a single combat duel in combat as his action instead of making a normal attack. If they declined then their army lost some morale and might run away. If they accepted then maybe one of you would die. Often you'd just wound them and the enemy side would lose all the units under his control. Then at the end of the fight you could try to recruit him (and his units) to join your team. 

Maybe you let him keep his units and fight the next battle with him... And then maybe he switches loyalties and goes back to the other team! Alternatively you could send a leader off as a spy to join another empire... if you ended up in a fight with that empire, and they were using your leader... He could switch sides! Very 'Art of War'esque.