I don't even think this is a hot take or a shitpost, I feel like this is actually just largely-agreed-upon fact that chess is just a tabletop war game, albeit even more abstracted than the ones we have invented in the last 50 years
@trinsec@witchfynder_finder You could argue the same about Warhammer. The difference is that there is a lot more variance and the random element means you're dealing with probabilities rather than certainties.
@trinsec@witchfynder_finder Not at all. Memorising statistics, unit abilities, strategies and counters are all key to playing wargames at a high level. On the other hand, chess being played by people who know the rules but haven't memorised possible moves is pure strategy.
Yes, the relatively small moveset of chess shifts the weighting in favour of memorisation, but both games exist on the same spectrum and there are plenty of games that exist somewhere in between. For example, a wargame with a fixed grid reduces the number of possible moves, making it more chesslike.
@trinsec @witchfynder_finder Not at all. Memorising statistics, unit abilities, strategies and counters are all key to playing wargames at a high level. On the other hand, chess being played by people who know the rules but haven't memorised possible moves is pure strategy.
Yes, the relatively small moveset of chess shifts the weighting in favour of memorisation, but both games exist on the same spectrum and there are plenty of games that exist somewhere in between. For example, a wargame with a fixed grid reduces the number of possible moves, making it more chesslike.