Players can also speak or gesture to their opponents during matches, hoping to create a false impression about the identity of their pieces or their overall strategy. Certain strategies and tactics, however, allow both sides the chance of securing a better idea of the other's plan as the game progresses. In addition, there are two different ways of winning the game (see below). The game allows only one side's plan to succeed, although a player may change plans during the course of the game. It simulates the 'fog of war' because the identities of the opposing pieces are hidden from each player and can only be guessed at by their location, movements, or from the results of challenges.
It optimizes the use of logic, memory, and spatial skills. The game simulates armies at war trying to overpower, misinform, outflank, outmaneuver, and destroy each other. It is designed for two players, each controlling an army, and a neutral arbiter (sometimes called a referee or an adjutant) to decide the results of 'challenges' between opposing playing pieces, that like playing cards, have their identities hidden from the opponent. Its Filipino name is 'Salpakan.' It can be played within twenty to thirty minutes. The Game of the Generals, also called GG or GOG as it is most fondly called, or simply The Generals, is an educational war game invented in the Philippines by Sofronio H.