What a clickbait article. I’m really disappointed. The premise is interesting: win every time using a new strategy. Then, discussion about the concept and prev

What a clickbait article. I’m really disappointed. The premise is interesting: win every time using a new strategy. Then, discussion about the concept and preview of the “systems thinking” mentality. Not too bad (although the bathtub example was a pretty weak way to advocate for systems thinking, maybe that’s just me but it seems even in that example to be an overly reductive and not terribly insightful method of thought, but it was enough to entertain the next section). However, during the discussion of the strategy everything falls apart. “Let the other players fight each other. Win the game every time by not participating and hoping to inconspicuously amass an incredible army such that you can take over half the board and then turn the tide in your favor in one fell swoop.” If this fails the suggestion is then to play the meta game and beg for pity. Not a single piece of data to back up the claim that this strategy wins every time. In my experience it doesn’t. It also happens to be the strategy that most every player headquartered around Russia-Asia ends up playing because you simply cant control that part of the board early on. No “systems thinking required”. The author also claims hoarding cards is “safe” and wont trigger other players to consider you a threat to the balance of the system. Well, that’s just naive either on part of the author or requires other players to be pretty green to not account for the risk card factor. In reality, another player also using systems thinking would immediately identify you as a threat because they would be tracking unit quantity flow in and out for the players on the board and using that to inform their understanding of what constitutes a threat. I think that’s the disappointment kinda summed up: this strategy doesn't work in a game where everyone uses it because it depends on your opponents not paying attention rather than you making strategic moves to win the game. The author does not sufficiently incorporate all the complexities of the game and people to yield a solved game.