Your No 1. Resource Site for Tactics, Strategy and Diplomacy
Used in Risk Board Game and in Real Life

In this article you will be introduced to the Defeat Strategies of the Thirty-Six Strategies.

Strategy 31: The beauty trap. (The tender trap, use a woman to ensnare a man.)

Strategy 32: The empty fort strategy. (Mental trap; empty a fort to make the enemy think it is filled with traps.)

Strategy 33: Let the enemy’s own spy sow discord in the enemy camp. (Use enemy’s own spy to spread false information.)

Strategy 34: Inflict injury on one’s self to win the enemy’s trust. (Fall into a trap; become baited.)

Strategy 35: Chain together the enemy’s ships. (Never rely on but a single strategy.)

Strategy 36: If all else fails, retreat.

In this article you will be introduced to the Proximate Strategies of the Thirty-Six Strategies.

Strategy 25: Replace the beams with rotten timbers.

Strategy 26: Point at the mulberry and curse the locust.

Strategy 27: Pretend to be a pig in order to eat the tiger. (Play dumb.)

Strategy 28: Remove the ladder when the enemy has ascended to the roof. (Cross the river and destroy the bridge.)

Strategy 29: Deck the tree with bogus blossoms.

Strategy 30: Make the host and the guest exchange places.

In this article you will be introduced to the Chaos Strategies of the Thirty-Six Strategies.

Strategy 19: Remove the firewood under the cooking pot. (Remove the stick from the axe.)

Strategy 20: Catch a fish in disturbed waters.

Strategy 21: Slough off the cicada’s shell. (False appearances mislead the enemy.)

Strategy 22: Shut the door to catch the thief.

Strategy 23: Befriend a distant state while attacking a neighbour.

Strategy 24: Obtain safe passage to conquer the Kingdom of Guo.

In this article you will be introduced to the Attacking Strategies of the Thirty-Six Strategies.

Strategy 13: Startle the snake by hitting the grass around it.

Strategy 14: Borrow another’s corpse to resurrect the soul. (Raise a corpse from the dead.)

Strategy 15: Entice the tiger to leave its mountain lair.

Strategy 16: In order to capture, one must let loose.

Strategy 17: Tossing out a brick to get a jade.

Strategy 18:Defeat the enemy by capturing their chief.

In this article you will be introduced to the Enemy Dealing Strategies of the Thirty-Six Strategies.

Strategy 7: Create something from nothing.

Strategy 8: Secretly utilize the Chen Chang passage. (Repair the highway to take the crude path.)

Strategy 9: Watch the fires burning across the river.

Strategy 10: Hide a knife behind a smile.

Strategy 11: Sacrifices the plum tree to preserve the peach tree. (Sacrifice the silver to keep the gold.)

Strategy 12: Stealing a goat along the way. (Take the opportunity to pilfer a goat.)

Thirty-Six Strategies is basically a collection of strategies on battle scenarios in Chinese history and folklore, predominantly of the Warring States Period and the Three Kingdoms Period. The story goes back to Wáng.

Wáng was a Chinese general who lived around 500 A.D. in the time of Emperor Gao. At some point Emperor Ming came to power and decided to execute many members of the royal family. He was afraid that they would threaten his reign and target him directly. Wáng was worried that he will be on the black list and will be the next target and so he rebelled. The son of Emperor Ming became scared of the rebels and decided to escape. Wáng, upon receiving this news, famously said,

“of the thirty-six strategies of Lord Tán, retreat was his best, you father and son should run for sure".

Everyone must have a strategy. Even though everyone agrees on this, knowing exactly what this means has never been clear. There have been many attempts in examining this concept in more detail and various researchers and philosophers such as Sun Tzu and Clausewitz have contributed significantly.

There seems to be a need for a Theory of Strategy that identifies the most important elements and concepts related to a strategy. At the end of the day, the intention is to know what you may do given a set of circumstances. A good system is a system that asks you interesting questions. By attempting to answer those questions, you will construct and understand your strategy in a better way.

Recently, there has been some attempt in this regard. An article by Gregory D. Foster under the title of Towards a Theory of Strategy attempts to provide the building blocks of this theory. Foster aims to define a theory that capture the essence of strategic decision making. The core of his theory is summarised in this article along with examples for Risk board game.

Contents

This article is part of a series of articles that show you how to win in any competition, including Risk. In the previous article you were shown how to be in command of your own mind. Control the mind and you can control everything. Here, the focus is on your opponent's mind. You will learn how to control it or even break it.