I HAVE UPPED MY RANK -- NOW UP YOURS!

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Oh, yeah -- that's right, bitch!

UP YOURS!!!

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Oh, yeah -- that's right, bitch!

UP YOURS!!!

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Oh, yeah -- that's right, bitch!

UP YOURS!!!

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Now the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought.

Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.

Thus the highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy's plans;

[Ho Shih puts this very clearly in his note: "When the enemy has made a plan of attack against us, we must anticipate him by delivering our own attack first."]

the next best is to prevent the junction of the enemy's forces;

the next in order is to attack the enemy's army in the field;

and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities.


Therefore the skillful leader subdues the enemy's troops without any fighting; he captures their cities without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field.

With his forces intact he will dispute the mastery of the Empire, and thus, without losing a man, his triumph will be complete.

Hence the skillful fighter puts himself into a position which makes defeat impossible, and does not miss the moment for defeating the enemy.

Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.

O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be without form or sound; and hence we hold the enemy's fate in our hands.

If we do not wish to fight, we can prevent the enemy from engaging us even though the lines of our encampment be merely traced out on the ground. All we need do is to throw something odd and unaccountable in his way.

By discovering the enemy's dispositions and remaining invisible ourselves, we can keep our forces concentrated, while the enemy's must be divided.

And if we are able thus to attack an inferior force with a superior one, our opponents will be in dire straits.

Numerical weakness comes from having to prepare against possible attacks; numerical strength, from compelling our adversary to make these preparations against us.

Knowing the place and the time of the coming battle, we may concentrate from the greatest distances in order to fight.

Though the enemy be stronger in numbers, we may prevent him from fighting. Know beforehand all plans conducive to our success and to the enemy's failure.

In making tactical dispositions, the highest pitch you can attain is to conceal them; conceal your dispositions, and you will be safe from the prying of the subtlest spies, from the machinations of the wisest brains.

How victory may be produced for them out of the enemy's own tactics -- that is what the multitude cannot comprehend.

All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.

Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.

The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.

Factual information about the CC dice:

1. The dice are 100% non-random.

2. They are also 100% unpredictable, and these are two completely separate and distinct concepts.

3. If your brain lacks the necessary intelligence to comprehend that these are two wholly distinct concepts, then I truly pity you.

Details:

If you notice a pattern (or imagine that you notice one), then instead of complaining and suggesting a change in the dice, wouldn't the intelligent course of action be to take advantage of the pattern you see and others don't? That would give you an advantage over your opponents (if you're right about the pattern, that is).

Suppose, for the sake of argument, as a player once claimed, that territories with 2 or fewer armies withstand attack better than other territories. I have NOT noticed this pattern myself, and I'm sure most other players have NOT also. In this case, if you take this "chance" into account and favor other territories to attack, then you would, in theory, win a greater percentage of games. I mention this specific pattern because I think that it is a figment of the above-mentioned player's imagination, but it serves its purpose as an example.

If you find a pattern that is predictable, then keep quiet about it and use it to your advantage. If not, then accept the unpredictability of the dice as being fair to everyone.

All faith in "chance," "randomness," and "luck" is very unscientific and unintelligent, and doesn't apply to the reality of the dice. Your faith in these concepts is 100% whimsical and sentimental, and is not backed by any scientific evidence. The patterns that the dice manifest are produced scientifically, not by superstitious, mythological beliefs like "luck."

If you do your research on the CC dice intelligently, as I have, then you will find that from the first step to the last, the patterns that they manifest are strictly controlled and designed at every point along the way. There is no single step in the process that produces the dice patterns that includes any miniscule element of "randomness" at all -- absolutely ZERO. All the processes that the patterns undergo are 100% by design, without as much as a single exception, right down the line, from beginning to end.

Design, by definition, is 100% non-random.

The fact that they are designed does not mean that the patterns are predictable; in fact they are not predictable, but they are certainly not random: they are absolutely not random in the least bit. They are unpredictable BY DESIGN, not by "randomness."

If you talk out your ass without doing the necessary research first, as most people who post in the CC forum seem to behave, then your lack of intelligence speaks for itself.

We are not cavemen. Such foolish concepts as "luck," "chance," and "randomness" are outdated myths, and none of them exist outside your overly fertile imagination.

Develop the intelligence to comprehend these facts, and behave accordingly.