The following item was written for PAXsims by Maj Ed Farren (British Army), currently on exchange and working in Canadian Army HQ in Ottawa as a planner.
The cover art which tries to convey the multi-service approach to military operations.
What is the game about?
The game is about managing the military readiness of a fictional global power, Freedonia, over an extended period of time without losing political support, breaking the morale of the military or blowing the budget.
Who are the player(s) representing?
In the single player version the player is the head of the Joint Chiefs of the Freedonian Military. In the multiplayer version each player takes the role of a service chief (Army, Navy, Air Force).
How do the players win?
A better question would be, “how do the players lose” because much like real life this is a game of not losing as opposed to winning. The game ends if any one of three values on the game track reaches the ‘0’ space. These are Political Support which is negatively by not meeting operational commitments; Budget Reserve which is negatively affected by overspending in the force preparation cycle; Military Morale which is negatively affected by extending units in theatres, fast tracking them into another training cycle. If the player(s) manage to keep these values above ‘0’ by the end of the tenth game turn then they have ‘won’. The scale of their ‘victory’ is the combined value of all three tracks at the end.
In a multiplayer game the incentives change. The team as a whole still loses together in the method already described. However, a single service can ‘win’ by coming out on top versus the other two. This is based on the amount of their force they have managed to modernise and how much is not in reserve or storage at the end of the game. This can create a fair amount of competition and interservice rivalry – just like in real life!
What are the components
The game consists of a simple abstract playing area with 6 small boxes around a large central box representing Freedonia. There are a number of markers that sit on various tracks but otherwise there are 23 units (8 Army Brigades; 6 Air Force Wings; 6 Naval Squadrons; and 3 SOF Task Groups. Whilst in real life the size of these forces varies (a brigade is much larger than an Air Wing) they are all worth one ‘Op Value Point’ in the game. Having recently investigated the data for work reasons, the equipment cost of the Army is one tenth that of the Air Force which is one tenth that of the Navy so the counter sizes correlate. Some units are required for certain theatres (like having a Naval Squadron for counter piracy) but can’t be used in others (like Peacekeeping). The true value of military units comes when units of different services are combined in the same theatre or ‘chained’ as Joint or Multi Domain task forces. This creates greater Op Value than having multiple units of the same type as the forces are compliment each others strengths and mitigating each others’ weaknesses (or so goes the theory). Units are also able to be modernized with the latest technology which is a bit of a side quest within the main game. After a recent playtest it was decided to have a marker depicting the progress of the adversary Great Power
The theatres abstractly model countries where troops are deployed to. These are not strictly speaking enemy countries but places in the world where military effect is required. The game makes a binary distinction here between green and red bordered theatres. Green theatres are considered generally benign and tend to have lower Op Value requirements. Crucially two of the theatres start at level 0 meaning no troops are required. The Red theatres are unbenign and generally require a higher Op Value. The red theatres also do not reset their values like the green ones do, unless the player has overmatch (representing successful deterrence and the adversary de-escalating).
The game playing space which uses an abstraction rather than an accurate map. Being able to remove unnecessary ‘detail’ is a vital skill in game design.
What choices do the player(s) make?
The player(s) choose what units to prepare and deploy to operational theatres, what units to place in reserve or storage and whether to extend or fastrack units which causes negative morale. This all sounds very obvious, and I can hear people asking “where is the challenge?” A couple of turns in the player is likely to find they have too many tasks and need to start tasking risk on either their political support, their budget reserve or the morale of their troops. The turn structure is such that player(s) have already made their decision about what to force generate before the next turn’s operational requirements are known. This is a key point in the term ‘Readiness’ – having something ready to use that you do not have a pre-planned use for in case of an emergent threat or crisis. Much of the time having units ready will be a waste of resources. Alternatively the wrong type of unit could be ready, such as an Air Force Wing for Homeland Defence. Of course the easy answer is to have a balanced mix of all unit types but that will be very wasteful. One answer to this is to start putting units into reserve or storage which then frees up cash for force preparation. It does, however, mean that there are fewer units in the cycle to be used. If you wanted easy decisions then this isn’t’ the game for you! Finally there is a pressing need to modernise the force whilst achieving all of the above. At some point in the game the Great Power the player is trying to deter will start fielding modernised forces in increasing quantity and they must match or exceed this to maintain credible deterrence.
Additional rules add more dilemmas to the mix such as a ‘fate table’ to introduce random events (none of them good), alternative starting theatres (anyone for a never-ending Counter Insurgency Campaign); political prioritisation; and new ‘super systems’ that are powerful but eat up twice the budget.
Why did you make the game?
My day job currently has a large focus on readiness: reporting it, measuring it, assuring it and so on. The word Readiness has a troubled meaning (just look at these articles on War on the Rocks). I liken it to the use of the word ‘inconceivable’ in the Prince’s Bride; people keep using the word but they mean very different things when they say it. This can also spread to the metrics, tools and processes which are used to measure readiness. There is a constant tension between objective measurements (numbers of people, working equipment, supplies etc) and the subjective (how soon can they react, how effective can they fight). Within the same headquarters there can be competing interpretations of readiness and forceful disagreements over “what the data means”. Check out this WOTR article by Brad Carson and Morgan Plummer for more examples.
How it can feel in a military headquarters when someone mentions ‘Readiness’
This is not a conventional ‘wargame’ where red and blue physically interact and take pieces off the board. It is more akin to a puzzle game with an automated adversary. Both the Blue political level and Red opposing side are abstracted within a single D6 roll once a turn to determine if a theatre changes its threat value. “But why has it changed?” some might cry, well this is a great point for a discussion on hypothetical what ifs or research into recent past events to see what has occurred that could be relevant to the game. For example the latest Israeli-Gaza conflict has emboldened Iran (represented by the Rogue Regional Power Theatre in the game). Sometimes it is better to model the effect rather than the cause and leave players to come up with the best narrative that fits the bill.
Did you research or refer to any existing games to make this?
Part of the reason this game came about was because of the dearth of existing material on the subject. Most games are concerned with fighting from tactical to strategic level and not managed readiness in peacetime. The closest I example I have is called Logistic Command which has a Cold War themed competition to maintain military capability and the balance of power until the end of the game.
Who is the game for?
There wasn’t really an intended audience but this game is probably not that attractive to hardened grognards looking for some hex and counter action. It is purposefully simplifying what is a professionally complex problem worked on by thousands of military and government officials with multi billion dollar budgets every day. I would say this game is well suited to expose lay people to the concept of military readiness such as junior officers and politicians, academics and journalists who might confuse a military’s size with it’s ability to conduct activity.
Perhaps the game’s enduring utility is exposing the hard choices and trade-offs between morale, money, and operational effectiveness (aka single service interests) that are being wrestled with daily in various offices in national capitals. An observation is that most Defence Policies have a clear prioritisation of tasks which translate into military strategy but when a crisis emerges that prioritisation is rarely referred to. Instead, there is a tendency to chase headlines and promote activity ass the outcome rather than activity to achieve an outcome. Try playing the game with a copy of your nation’s published defence policy and make your judgements with reference to how that document, and then look at the last 2 years of military related news and see if it tallies up.
How do you see this game being expanded?
I definitely think there is room to expand the game but that would probably involve a whole new build – the current version is good enough as an intro game Reskinning the game to a specific flavour is fairly easy – I have already done this for Sebastian Bae’s Indo-Pacific Microgame series. If I was asked to make a more detailed version these are the changes I would explore:
Expand the unit types within services such as types of Brigade for the Army, ISR/Strike/Transport aircraft for the Air Force; Carrier, Surface, Sub-surface for the Navy. This would further exacerbate any unique ‘one and done’ capabilities if an enduring commitment is required.
Make the game map an actual map of the world with spaces for various deployments. These areas could then draw threats from a deck of cards which provide more background context and more specific force requirements and have specific penalties for failure.
Have ‘country profiles’ with different service sizes and unit mixes (see above). For example the United Kingdom is going to have a different profile to Germany or Poland. This can help explore the context of a ‘land power’ vs a ‘sea power’.
Make the game oppositional by creating a Red ‘mirror image’ where they try to generate military capabilities but possibly using a different system such as conscription, mercenaries and use of proxies.
Add a more detailed political layer with elections, policy changes, funding variations and investment/disinvestment decisions to create even more stress on the long term planning requirements.
How do people play the game?
Firstly, they need to head to Analogue Games | Fight Club Intl. (fightclubinternational.org) and then sign up to join the Club before they can get access to the print and play files. There is also a Tabletop Simulator build (as with all our analogue games) so they can skip the printing and sticking and get straight into it.
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