The most important lesson is to plan out your steps before jumping into the fray. Survey the terrain for strategy and catalog your actions and options, an those that you need to unlock.
In short, war games are great for strategic thinking development, which is something that you’re never really taught in university. 🙂
Alpha Centauri is a classic too. Bought it on gog.com and replayed it. It is still awesome and a timeless game. It taught me the importance of investing in fundamental sciences and that these investments pay off much latter but so much more.
The most important lesson is to plan out your steps before jumping into the fray. Survey the terrain for strategy and catalog your actions and options, an those that you need to unlock.
In short, war games are great for strategic thinking development, which is something that you’re never really taught in university. 🙂
My favorite is Starcraft. I’ve intensively played that for almost 5 years. The lessons I learned, among others, are:
1. If you want to be a pro, fight with pros. Play against good players makes your better. Play against bad players makes your suck.
2. You can choose only one race in the game. But to be great, you have to know how to play all races.
3. When you win/lose, you win/lose consecutively. I don’t know why. It’s statistic. So try to learn your period.
What Civilization I, II, III, IV taught me, or reinforced for me:
Winning is not necessarily about having more resources than the other guy, but about using them more effectively.
Having the right allies is important.
Don’t piss off people who are more powerful than you if you can help it.
I recommend the game “The Guild 2” and its expansions. It’s truly a game of life.
You all your ways to win, no matter what it is good or bad.
I recommend a quick game (or two – it’s hard to stop after just one 🙂 of Dice Wars. http://www.gamedesign.jp/flash/dice/dice.html
Alpha Centauri is a classic too. Bought it on gog.com and replayed it. It is still awesome and a timeless game. It taught me the importance of investing in fundamental sciences and that these investments pay off much latter but so much more.