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Beralih ke Bahasa IndonesiaAnswer a few questions and get the Art of War stratagem for your situation, or discover which of seven master strategists you are. Free, 5 languages.
The Art of War Strategy Finder
Wondering what someone else is doing instead? Counter-Stratagem Finder →
How to Use the Strategy Finder
Pick a lens
Choose "Find your move" to get the stratagem for a situation you're in, or "Which strategist are you?" to discover your strategic temperament.
Answer honestly
Six quick questions for the advisor, nine for the strategist quiz. There are no wrong answers — the result only reflects what you choose.
Read your result
Get your stratagem (with two alternates) or your strategist archetype — with strengths, blind spots, and their signature stratagems.
Explore & share
Follow any stratagem to its full page, switch language any time, or share your result — the link reopens exactly what you got.
The 36 Stratagems as a Decision Framework
Strategy you can hold in your hand
The Art of War and its companion, the Thirty-Six Stratagems, have lasted, the one for some two and a half thousand years and the other by name for over fifteen hundred, for a simple reason: they turn the chaos of conflict into a small set of recognisable shapes. Sun Tzu's treatise is the philosophy — win before you fight, know yourself and your opponent, shape the ground before the battle is joined. The Thirty-Six Stratagems are the tactics — thirty-six memorable moves, most of them four-character idioms and many with a real historical origin, grouped into six sets that run from a position of strength ("winning stratagems") all the way down to desperation ("stratagems for desperate straits"). This tool is a way to walk into that library through the side door: instead of reading all thirty-six and wondering which applies to you, you answer a few honest questions and it points you at the move that fits.
Two lenses on the same classic
The finder offers two lenses. The first, "find your move," is situational: it asks where you stand, what you actually want, and what the other side is like, then weighs your answers across the thirty-six and surfaces the stratagem — and two alternates — that best match. Weaker and looking to escape? It points you at the empty fort or the strategic retreat. Stronger and ready to press? It reaches for besieging Wei to rescue Zhao, or capturing the ringleader. None of it is mystical; it is a transparent scoring of your situation against what each stratagem is actually for.
"The stratagem you need is rarely the cleverest one — it is the one that fits where you actually stand."
The second lens, "which strategist are you," is about temperament rather than situation. It maps your instincts onto seven of history's great strategic minds — the philosopher Sun Tzu, the improviser Zhuge Liang, the opportunist Cao Cao, the endurer Sima Yi, the gambler Han Xin, the avenger Goujian, and the sage Fan Li, who knew when to walk away. Each appears in the historical record with a recognisable style (Sun Tzu's own life rests on a single, much-doubted biography), and each is paired with the stratagems they are remembered for. It is a mirror, not a horoscope: the result reflects the answers you gave, and reading your strategist's strengths and blind spots is a way of seeing your own.
Both lenses lead back to the same place — the full library of stratagems, each with its origin and its modern application, in five languages. For readers across Southeast Asia and the wider world, the appeal is the one that has kept these ideas alive from ancient China to the modern boardroom: strategy is not about force, it is about fit. The right move depends entirely on where you stand, and this strategic tradition is, at heart, a long meditation on reading that ground before you act.
Supreme excellence is breaking resistance without fighting
The 36 Stratagems are grouped into six sets, from a position of advantage down to desperation.
Thirty of the stratagems are four-character idioms (chengyu) and the last six are three characters; many borrow a real historical episode, others a proverb or an image.
Sun Tzu's Art of War is traditionally dated to around the 5th century BCE — roughly 2,500 years old.
One of its best-known lines, in Lionel Giles's 1910 translation: “supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.”
The seven strategists in this tool all appear in Chinese histories, from Sun Tzu to Fan Li — though Sun Tzu's life is known only from Sima Qian's brief biography, which critics have doubted since the Song dynasty (Giles 1910).
Han Xin won at Jingxing by fighting with his back to the river — leaving his troops no retreat.
Defeated, Goujian kept a gall bladder by his seat and tasted it at every meal so as never to forget (Shiji, ch. 41); "sleeping on brushwood" was added by later tellers, and the two became the idiom 卧薪尝胆.
Fan Li helped win a kingdom, then quietly withdrew and became a legendary merchant.
“Empty fort,” “borrow a knife,” “retreat is best” — the moves read like a strategist's toolkit.
This finder is deterministic — your answers alone decide the result, and they stay in your browser unless you share a link to the result; only an anonymous count of strategist results is kept.
Frequently Asked Questions
- It is a free, interactive way into the classic Chinese strategy canon — Sun Tzu's Art of War and the Thirty-Six Stratagems. It has two modes: an advisor that suggests the stratagem for a situation you describe, and a personality quiz that matches you to one of seven famous strategists. Everything runs in your browser and links back to the full stratagem library.
- Each answer you give favours a handful of the thirty-six stratagems — for example, choosing "weaker" and "get out intact" weights the desperate and escape stratagems. The tool sums those weights across your six answers and shows the top-scoring stratagem plus two alternates. It is fully transparent and deterministic: the same answers always give the same result, and it explains which of your choices drove it.
- Yes, in spirit — it maps your temperament and instincts onto seven historical strategists, each with a distinct style. It is meant as a mirror and a bit of fun, not a scientific instrument: the result simply reflects the answers you chose, and it is a lens for thinking about how you approach conflict, risk, and patience.
- All seven appear in Chinese histories: Sun Tzu, the theorist behind the Art of War, though his life is known only from Sima Qian's brief biography; Zhuge Liang, Cao Cao, and Sima Yi from the Three Kingdoms era; Han Xin, a founding general of the Han dynasty; and Goujian and Fan Li from the Spring and Autumn period. The portraits are illustrated interpretations — no likeness of these ancient figures survives — and each is paired with the stratagems they are historically associated with.
- No. There is nothing mystical here — it is a deterministic tool that scores your own answers against a body of classical strategy. It does not predict the future or claim any supernatural insight. Think of it as an interactive index into a 2,500-year-old book, not an oracle.
- They are a collection of thirty-six Chinese strategic idioms — moves like "besiege Wei to rescue Zhao," "the empty fort," and "retreat is the best." Thirty are four-character phrases and six are three characters, many with a historical origin, and together they are grouped into six sets by the situation they suit, from holding the advantage to fighting from desperation. This tool links every result to the full stratagem, with its origin and modern application.
- That is exactly the spirit in which the stratagems are read today. Each full stratagem page includes modern applications in business, negotiation, career, and everyday situations. They are frameworks for thinking about competition and cooperation, not literal instructions — and the advisor is a light way to find the one that maps to a situation you are actually facing.
- Five: English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Malay, and Indonesian. You can switch language at any point — including on your result — using the buttons at the top of the tool, and the full stratagem pages are available in the same languages.
- No personal data is collected. Your answers stay in your browser. A shared link to an Advisor result is the exception: it carries your answers in its address. The only thing recorded is an anonymous tally of how often each strategist archetype comes up — a single counter, with no identifiers, no IP, and no answer data — which powers the "X% share your result" figure. That is it.
- Every result links straight to the stratagem's own page, and you can browse the whole set at the 36 Stratagems library or read Sun Tzu's Art of War chapter by chapter. Each stratagem page carries its historical origin, a plain-language explanation, and modern applications, in all five languages.
Method & sources
How it computes
Two questionnaires. The advisor sums the editorial weights of six situation answers over the 36 stratagems and returns the top three, ties going to the stratagem the earlier answers weighted first; "why this fits" lists only the answers that weighted the top pick. The strategist sums nine temperament answers over seven archetypes, ties going to the rarer one. Weights are RECATOOLS editorial judgement, not a procedure in either text (StrategyFinderKernel).
What this tool implements
- Six sets of six in the received order — 勝戰計, 敵戰計, 攻戰計, 混戰計, 並戰計, 敗戰計 — with the stratagems numbered 1 (瞞天過海) to 36 (走為上) as in the 1941 printing; thirty names are four characters and six (31-36) are three.
- The Art of War (Sunzi, traditionally dated to the 5th century BCE) and the Thirty-Six Stratagems (received text 1941; the saying it is named after is recorded in the 南齊書) are separate works far apart in time. Where the finder sets a stratagem beside a chapter, that pairing is a reading aid, not a claim either text makes.
- Quotations are checked against the texts: the Chinese of 〈謀攻〉 against the Wikisource transcription (不戰而屈人之兵，善之善者也), the English against Lionel Giles's 1910 translation (Project Gutenberg #132), and the strategists' stories against 史記 chapters 41 (Goujian and Fan Li) and 92 (Han Xin, 背水陳).
- Translations of the stratagem names are RECATOOLS' own; von Senger (1991) and Verstappen (1999) differ on most of them, so the Chinese, the pinyin and a literal gloss sit beside every English name for checking.
- Scores are additive editorial weights and the result is deterministic: advisor ties go to the stratagem the earlier answers weighted first; strategist ties to the rarer archetype (Fan Li, Goujian, Han Xin, Zhuge Liang, Sima Yi, Sun Tzu, Cao Cao), so no temperament is swamped by a common one. A shared link that names an answer the questions do not offer opens the start screen.
- Answers stay in the browser. The only thing recorded is an anonymous count of strategist results, which drives the "% share your result" line.
Sources
- 孫子兵法 (Sunzi, The Art of War), 13 chapters — Chinese text (Wikisource transcription, read 2026-10-19): https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%AD%AB%E5%AD%90%E5%85%B5%E6%B3%95
- Giles L, trans. Sun Tzu on the Art of War. London: Luzac; 1910 — Project Gutenberg #132 (ch. III; the introduction on the doubted biography): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/132
- 司馬遷《史記》卷四十一〈越王句踐世家〉— 置膽於坐 … 飲食亦嘗膽也; Fan Li's departure and fortune as 陶朱公: https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%8F%B2%E8%A8%98/%E5%8D%B7041
- 司馬遷《史記》卷九十二〈淮陰侯列傳〉— Han Xin's 背水陳 at 井陘: https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%8F%B2%E8%A8%98/%E6%B7%AE%E9%99…
- 三十六計 (Thirty-Six Stratagems): anonymous. The received text is the booklet printed in Chengdu in 1941 from an undated manuscript bought at a bookstall in Binzhou (邠州, now 彬州, Shaanxi) — thirty stratagems of four characters and six of three, in six sets of six. Wikisource transcription: https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E4%B8%89%E5%8D%81%E5%85%AD%E8%A8%88
- 蕭子顯《南齊書》卷二十六〈王敬則傳〉(c. 537) — the earliest attestation of the phrase 檀公三十六策，走是上計: https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%8D%97%E9%BD%8A%E6%9B%B8/%E5%8D…
- von Senger H. The Book of Stratagems: Tactics for Triumph and Survival. Gubitz MB, trans. New York: Viking; 1991. ISBN 0-670-83962-0.
- Verstappen SH. The Thirty-six Strategies of Ancient China. San Francisco: China Books & Periodicals; 1999. ISBN 0-8351-2642-0.
Abridged — the full review record for this tool runs longer than the list above.
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