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General principles for doing well at a strategy game

• It seems that strategy games basically boil down to simple mechanics:
  • Knowledge of the game tree, that is, knowledge of the extended consequences of both your and your opponent's choices.
    • Examples: Chess
  • Random chance.
    • Examples: Risk
• Game tree
  • Make sure you have a very clear understanding of all of the ways that you can win and lose, and don't lose sight of them.
  • It is extremely important to know what your capabilities / immediate-options are, and what immediate effect taking each of those actions is likely to have.
  • It is also extremely important to be aware of what larger, more-abstract, slower-acting patterns exist in the game, and how each of the actions available to you will affect the extent to which those patterns indicate that you are likely to win.
    • Examples
      • Chess has 'Reuben Fine's 30 Rules of Chess', which are basically more-abstract patterns that have been noticed in chess, where violating one of those 'rules' tends to lead to defeat.
  • In a fight between relative equals, the fight may become one of looking for small mistakes / imperfections in your opponent's movements / actions, and taking some action that reduces your opponent's capacity to fight by some amount. And the duration of the fight becomes a series of encounters like this. In a situation like that, patience becomes important.
  • It's often the case that both you and your opponent will have 'moves' or 'units' or 'soldiers' that you can order at a particular time to take some action against your opponent. And it's usually the case that your opponent will have some way of blocking or avoiding your action. And so 

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