Talent, Luck, Context and Perspective on Success: a disaggregating simulation using Risk
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We propose a controlled simulation within a competitive sum-zero environment as a proxy for disaggregating components of success. Given a simulation of the Risk board game, we consider (a) talent to be one of three rule-based strategies; (b) context as the setting of each run with opponents' strategies, goals and luck; and (c) perspective as the objective of each player. Success is attained when a first player conquers its goal. We simulate 100,000 runs of an agent-based model and analyze the results. The simulation results strongly suggest that luck, talent and context are all relevant to determine success. Perspective – as the description of the goal that defines success – is not. As such, we present a quantitative, reproducible environment in which we are able to significantly separate the concepts, reproducing previous results and adding arguments for context and perspective. Finally, we also find that resilience and opportunity might be examined within the simulation provided.
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