I think, though, the point Nathan makes still has
some validity. There are certain things - especially
in non-Western subjects - that get asked as a sort
of "staple" Chinese literature, etc. question.
Because people tend to learn only things they hear come
up (much like we all do in various subjects), some
answers almost arbitrarily become "canonical" while other
are dismissed as too hard.
Why always ask
"Aristook War" - which I've never heard of outside of quiz
bowl, but never "Cortina's War," which we almost put on
the exam in the American history survey I'm currently
TA-ing? Why Tanizaki Junichiro but never Endo Shusaku?
Why Naguib Mahfouz but never Nawal el-Sadaawi or
al-Mutannabi? (admittedly there's a Nobel Prize there) The list
goes on...
Brian
P.S. - Romance of the
Three Kingdoms (SPOILER) gets pathetically easy after a
while. The computer is way too scared to attack, and
will never leave the rice unguarded. Meanwhile, when
you attack it, it sits in the cities and tries to
burn you even when you're obviously inflammable for
the month. Because it won't divide units to occupy
castles and usually goes after your army anyway, you can
defend simply by running aimlessly around.