Of course, the game-board has the tremendous disadvantage that it presents only a picture, and does not show a real performance; but the more it is used, and the more fleets and game-boards work together, the more accurate the picture will become, and the more correctly we shall learn to read it.
One limitation of the game-board is that it can represent weather conditions only imperfectly--and this is a serious limitation that mayor may not be remedied as time goes on.

The theory of the game-board is in fact in advance of the mechanism, and is waiting for some bright inventive genius for the remedy.

Until this happens, the imagination must do the best it can, and the effect of a certain kind of weather under the other conditions prevailing will have to be agreed upon by the contestants.
The term "war game" is perhaps unfortunate, for the reason that it does not convey a true idea of what a "war game" is.

The term conveys the idea of a competitive exercise, carried on for sport; whereas the idea underlying the exercise is of the most serious kind, and has no element of sport about it, except the element that competition gives.

A war game may be simply a game of sport--and sometimes it is so played; but the intention is to determine some doubtful point of strategy or tactics, and the competitive element is simply to impart realism, and to stimulate interest.