Strategy vs. Tactics?

[Zionoxis]

Alright, from the age of 11, I have been pretty lured in by strategy games, RPG's, etc. Now, I am curious as to what others interpret the definition difference is between the two. The dictionary definition says that a tactic is one move in a strategy and I find that in games where I must plan far ahead (chess), my results are not quite as good as I would like them to be.

A big weakness is that though I think many turns ahead, I always have difficulty knowing how my opponent will react. Should I assume he will take the most irritating-to-me action, or am I meant to do a hyper psycho-analysis to figure out which action is the most likely course? I know INTJ's are much better at this planning thing, but I would like to get better regardless.

Basically, I can build a good plan unless people are involved as active variables. Then...things get screwy. How do you other INTP's cope and if there is an INTJ, a breakdown of the basic decision making process would be much appreciated.

 

[Glordag]

Chess is a long time hobby of mine, and I was very much into it in high school. The chess community and chess books tend to describe tactics as "attacking themes" or "surprise moves" or "forced combinations." Strategy is, as you described, long term planning and positional improvement. Tactics involves seeing things in the moment, where strategy is goal oriented.

I don't think INTJs are necessarily better at strategy and long term planning than INTPs. First of all, I'm not particularly sure that MBTI types translate well into a strategic game like chess. Skill in chess, in my opinion, comes mostly down to experience and memorization, which I think are largely independent of personality type. Sure, personality will have a bit of influence, but I don't really think it matters as much as inherent traits like spatial vision and learned things from experience.

As far as improving your strategy, I think a lot of that comes down to how you analyze your past games (at least for chess). Where playing lots and lots of games improves your vision and tactics, I think that analyzing and studying games is where you see strategic improvement. You can think about what personality traits cause your strategic mistakes all day long, but the bottom line is that it will all come down to your ability to reason out the pros and cons of a situation.

You claim that one of your biggest problems is knowing what your opponent will do. I'm sure that's true, but once you reach a certain level of experience with chess, you can really narrow down the number of viable moves your opponent can make. A large part of what separates great chess players and average players is their ability to do just that. An amateur might spend 10 minutes staring at a move sequence that a grandmaster didn't even consider due to his experience of similar positions.

 

[Jean Paul]

I hate chess with a passion.......


GO is a great game in my opinion through.

 

[GreenSky]

I never got into chess but I've always liked strategy games. A strategy that doesn't account for other "active variables" is pretty much worthless. You just need more experience and practice. Analyze and review every game that you play, regardless of wining or loosing. Look for ways to improve, look for your own weaknesses, look for opportunities your opponent failed to exploit.
Once you get to a certain level, you'll realize that at any given moment there are only a couple of meaningful options and at that point you actually begin to strategize.

 

[Dapper Dan]

I've noticed that I'm pretty bad at coming up with plans. Like, I'll take a while to decide on one, and even then the plan will probably change along with the circumstances. In practice, this ends up taking forever as I constantly reassess the situation.

However, if I'm GIVEN a plan or a set of plans, or if I'm very familiar with the strategies being used, I'm pretty good at working within those systems to achieve victory. I guess that's tactics.

 

[DDeath]

I also love strategy games, and also have the same problem with human variables, but thats what happends when you just play with bots, you get too good with them, since they always execute the same moves. I also never got to play much chess, since nobody around me liked it, mostly because they never learned how to play it.

Like Glordag said, its not much a thing of personality, but of practice, like everything else. Start playing strategy games with friends or online. And of course, if you really want to get serious, get some books about that.

 

[kayne]

I am alright at the game. probably a little above average. i think i could be better if i didnt sometimes daydream in the middle of it or get distracted. when i do concentrate on it i can do fairly good.

that said it depends entirely on who you play against as it requires some level of thinking ahead and reading your opponent. i have some friends like one friend who knows a lot of chess plans but cannot execute them ever. another friend who has good ideas as well but can never think ahead and all of his moves revolve around the opponent not moving. i suspect in the case of him it is because he is one the E types i forget which one but the life of the party one that is very much in the now and the moment and rarely thinks ahead for anything at all so its not surprising in chess he cannot think ahead.

so i think personality types can come into play. my friend who has a lot of chess plans and has studied it a bit his problem is he cannot use logic or reason or at least very rarely does he use logic and reason. and there are personality types that dont use logic and reason hardly.

these kinds of types of people that dont use logic or reason too well i will normally destroy in chess with ease unless they just happen to play the game a lot and therefore know a lot about it and are pretty good at it but if they are average then i being INTP and very much logical and anaylitical will pound them into the ground rather fast.

i think the INTP biggest advantage is their anaylzing ability.

that said to go anywhere past average requires study and devotion. but amongst average players i suspect an INTP will destroy the non logical personality types with ease.

Once you get to a certain level, you'll realize that at any given moment there are only a couple of meaningful options and at that point you actually begin to strategize.

this. i havent gotten to this level due to lack of trying and care though i do enjoy chess just not that much. i think breaking this level puts you from average to medium and this requires a lot of work considering nearly every chess plan has been thought of already it is merely a level of memorization at this point something i am not willing to waste time and effort on.