Inklewriter and interactive (simulation) authoring

At the Chronicle of Higher Education today, Anastasia Slater has an article/review of Inklewriter, a free online app for interactive story-writing:

Last week, Inkle Studios released “Future Stories,” a curated collection of stories produced with its interactive story development tool. This slick iPad app features the tech behind Frankenstein, an interactive adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel by Dave Morris. Play through any of these stories for a while and you’ll see everything from straightforward choices of action to complex moral dilemmas and experiments. You can also check out many experiments on the web, including Emily Short’s Holography–she’s also written some thoughts on inklewriter as a platform.

While Inform 7 (as discussed last week) uses a parser interface based on interpreting a broad range of user actions (get lamp, open door, look at book, etc.), Inklewriter uses an interaction model similar to ’80s Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks, which recently came back into print and made the transition to eBooks. However, it goes beyond any of the simple page-shuffling models of those past books in part because it can keep track of decisions and variables from the user’s actions.

The resulting story is web-based, but you can pay a small additional amount ($10) to have the interactive story exported to a Kindle ebook with embedded links.

Having played around a little with it online, the system would have considerable potential for building serious educational and training modules, making it relatively easy to build text-based versions of something like the Inside the Haiti Earthquake with a series of branches choices that allows users to explore first, second, and third order consequences of various strategic or operational choices.

MEJ: Gaming Middle East Conflicts

One of the important challenges of promoting conflict simulation as a tool of analysis or experiential learning is that of broadening the conversation beyond the existing gaming community to other professional colleagues. Consequently, I’m very pleased that the latest issue of the Middle East Journal (Winter 2013) has published a review essay of mine that examines “gaming Middle East conflict” through lens of four fairly recent boardgames: Oil War—Iran Strikes, Persian Incursion, Battle for Baghdad, and Labyrinth.

The review can be found here (pdf posted with the permission of MEJ).

“Unstable Gulf” playtest

Back in November I drew up a set of modified rules for the wargame Oil War—Iran Strikes. In this “Unstable Gulf” variant, the Coalition player must contend not only with Iranian military intervention in a future Iraqi civil war, but also with growing political protests in several Gulf countries. My point in proposing this variant was not only to add more political content to what is otherwise a very traditional, force-on-force boardgame, but also to add a new series of operational challenges and choices that highlighted the fundamental linkages between political objectives and the employment of military force. From the perspective of gameplay, I also wanted to create some action outside the Kuwait bottleneck around which so much of the game otherwise focuses.

This week we finally got a chance to playtest the result. Once again I was playing Iran, while my son David was playing the Coalition.

As usual, we started by determining the contours of the civil war in Iraq. This is what the map looked like, before we tested for the loyalty of Iraqi units and militia:

…and this is what it looked like afterwards, with the green counters indicating pro-Iranian units. The loyalist units near Baghdad were a problem, since I had hoped to capture the city quickly.

As per the variant rules, the Coalition player was also faced with opposition protests in Kuwait, Dahran (Saudi Arabia), and Manama (Bahrain). Those in Bahrain are particularly dangerous: not only are protests more likely to occur there, but they can also escalate rapidly. One of the variant random events even generates a test for a full-scale uprising the country that can topple the monarchy and potentially gain the Iranian player victory points. Consequently—and as in real-life—the GCC needs to think about internal security as much as it does about Iranian troops.

On Turn 1, I decided to stoke the fires of political protest in both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia through covert IRGC al-Qods Force destabilization operations, using the revised covert action rules in the game variant. Unfortunately, both attempts went poorly. My teams were captured, and exposure of an Iranian connection caused the demonstrations to fizzle.

My third al-Qods operation was more successful, subverting the loyalist Iraqi militia unit in Baqubah with large offers of cash and causing it to switch sides. This allowed Iranian military forces to approach Baghdad quickly, seizing the Iraqi capital.

To the north, the Kurdish “capital” of Irbil also fell quickly, although the nearby city of Mosul took somewhat longer to secure. Iran now had three of the four victory points it needed to win.

I decided not to deploy Iran’s airborne or marine forces in the first few turns of the game. Under the rules these become much more difficult to use as the game continues, reflecting the growing strength of Coalition sea and airpower. In the regular game of Oil War there is thus a strong incentive to use them early. However, my hope was that the Shi’ite majority in Bahrain might eventually rise up against the regime—at which point, Iranian troops could be landed to “protect” the new government from any GCC counterattack.  Under the modified rules, the Iranian airborne and marine forces would gain a landing bonus under such circumstances.

I also toyed with the idea of landing these Iranian forces near Dahran to slow any GCC efforts to aid the Bahraini government. In retrospect that might have been useful. However, under the variant rules it would have come at the political cost of aborting any further protests in Saudi Arabia, and increasing the level of military commitment to the Coalition.

Sure enough, new protests soon erupted in Bahrain and in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The Coalition diverted three divisions of Saudi troops, plus a contingent from the UAE, to help put these down. To maximize their effectiveness, they often used deliberately brutal tactics. While these made their efforts more successful, the sight of GCC troops firing upon anti-government protesters weakened US support. On several occasions US ground reinforcements were delayed as a result.

Within Iraq, Iranian troops consolidated their control over the Baghdad area, clearing out the last pockets of loyalists. Others moved south, to the Kuwaiti border. I did not attack Kuwait immediately, however. Doing so would have increased US resolve, dampened any protests in Kuwait, and freed up Saudi troops to enter the country. At this point I was still hoping that the protests in Bahrain would rebound in strength. Consequently, al-Qods Force operatives made it a top priority to provide covert assistant to friendly elements of the Bahraini opposition.

The US, however, decided to force my hand. Backed by airstrikes, two US brigade combat teams launched an attack out of Kuwait against Iranian troops in the south, destroying several divisions of Revolutionary Guards. I counterattacked immediately, inflicting heavy casualties on the Americans, and slowly pushing back Kuwaiti and later Saudi troops. One Saudi column entered southern Iraq in an attempt to turn my flank, but was destroyed.

I was careful not to cross the border into Saudi Arabia itself—under the modified rules, doing so would have brought to an end any new protests in the country. In the “Unstable Gulf” variant, such political calculations often shape military strategy.

A sandstorm struck, slowing Coalition efforts to reinforce their positions. I also used my al-Qods Force teams (reinforced by an additional team from Hizbullah via the Lebanese Complications event) to try to sabotage transportation facilities and thus slow the arrival of US troops. On one occasion the team was detected by an alert sentry and killed, but a few days later another enjoyed somewhat greater success.

GCC troops continued to play whack-a-mole with protesters in and around Bahrain. Motivated by the Wahhabi zeal random event, Saudi troops again used brutal tactics against Shi’ite protestors to slowly regain the upper hand. Once again, this didn’t help US efforts to build political support at home for an expanded American military commitment.

However, the GCC gamble paid off. When a full-scale uprising did eventually come via the Bahrain Erupts random event, it was weak and quickly crushed. My hopes of a Shi’ite liberation (and Iranian intervention) were dashed. With so few protests still active, not even the Social Media random event could reenergize the opposition.

Things were going rather better for me around Kuwait, where I continued to push back Kuwaiti and Saudi troops. American reinforcements continued to trickle in only slowly. I was certainly glad that so many GCC troops were tied up suppressing protests to the south.

At this point I still had two Revolutionary Guards divisions in reserve. I was reluctant to commit these to operations—under the variant rules, they might be needed to suppress any demonstrations at home should there be a political backlash against the war.

US air power was taking its toll, however. Iranian movement was increasingly interdicted, and slowed to a crawl. In Kuwait, US airstrikes inflicted heavy damage on my formations as they approached Kuwait City.

As if that wasn’t enough, a Marine Expeditionary Unit launched an amphibious attack to the north of Kuwait City. It pushed back several Iranian divisions, and pinned others to prevent them from moving south.

Between this and the defence-in-depth offered by newly-arrived Saudi troops it seemed unlikely that my troops would break through before the game ended. In desperation, I ordered my Iranian airborne and marine units to make landings south of Kuwait City.

The result was expected, given coalition air and naval power. My forces were destroyed before ever reaching their assigned landing zones.

And so the game ended. Iranian troops had reached the very gates of Kuwait City. However, they clearly lacked the firepower to dislodge the two US brigade combat teams that defended it, while additional US reinforcements continued to arrive. It was a draw.

How did the “Unstable Gulf” variant play? I have since made a few small rule tweaks and clarifications based on the playtest, but in general we were both pleased with how well it worked. The addition of a political overlay to the game added a whole new series of strategic and operational trade-offs for both players. Much more of the map was at play in this version compared to the standard game, with GCC troops having to contain political protests across a wide area. The game modifications somewhat tilted play in favour of Iran  during our game, compared to the original rules. However, this is offset by the fact that, in the variant, any potential Turkish and (post-Asad) Syrian intervention arising from the random events phase is always on the Coalition side—unlike the original rules where the Turks can come in on either side, and the Syrians always join the war as Iranian allies. Finally, the Iranian player can potentially lose victory points by suffering heavy casualties, and then having insufficient forces on hand in their strategic reserve to deal with any subsequent anti-war protests by the opposition.

In addition to the link at the top of this page, a pdf copy of the variant rules (minus the development notes in the original blogpost) can be downloaded here.

Review: Persian Incursion

Persian Incursion. Clash of Arms Games, 2010. Designers: Larry Bond, Chris Carlson, Jeff Dougherty. $71.50.

* * *

This is among the games that has been sitting on my shelf for far, far too long, awaiting the opportunity for a proper playtest. I finally got around to it last month—and, as you’ll see in the review below, I found it both to be problematic as a game but insightful as a military simulation.

A Sample Game: OPERATION “LDBICATCSPFAB”

Frustrated by the apparent ineffectiveness of sanctions and viewing Iran’s nuclear program as a growing threat, Prime Minister Netanyahu gave the order: Israel would attack. Operation “Lovingly Detailed but Incredibly Complex and Time-Consuming Strike Planning for a Boardgame” would seek to inflict heavy damage on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and thereby convince the Islamic Republic that there was little point in continuing its nuclear programme into the future.

Not knowing how much time the international community would permit them to complete the task, the Israeli leadership emphasized to IDF planners that first strike needed to be as decisive as possible. Additional tankers were procured to assure that more than 120 Israeli aircraft—F-15s and F-16s, Shavit ELINT platforms, and Eitan drones—would be committed to a long-distance mission via Jordanian and Iraqi airspace. Some aircraft would be allocated to suppressing the air defences that the IAF would encounter en route, and still others to escorting the strike packages. Most, however, were heavily laden with bombs intended  for three major targets: the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, the heavy water plant and reactor at Arak, and the deeply-buried uranium enrichment facility near Qom. Improved EGBU-28C “bunker-buster” bombs were obtained to facilitate penetration of the underground centrifuge halls at Natanz and Qom. Insufficient aircraft were available to target the uranium conversion facility, zirconium production, and fuel manufacturing plant at Isfahan on this first strike, which would have to await a return visit.

Initially all went well, with an electronic/cyber attack partially disabling Iran’s air defence network. The SEAD missions were partly successful, but one lucky S-200(SA-5) battery escaped damage, and then was even luckier still when it managed—against all odds—to successfully engage an IAF F-15, shooting it down.

For the most part the obsolete Iranian air force could offer little substantial resistance. However, two patrolling Iranian F-14 pilots detected the strike mission headed for Natanz and managed to shoot down one Israeli F-16 with a long-range AIM-54 Phoenix missile before they were destroyed. No sooner had they done so than a flight of four Mig-29s took advantage of the distraction to close the range, downing a second F-16 before also being destroyed by the Israeli escorts. One IAF pilot survived and was captured by Iranian troops, providing Tehran with a minor public relations coup that it would later exploit. IAF planners had considered the option of allocating more aircraft to escort and fighter-suppression missions, but had opted to maximize the ordnance that could be delivered on target.

The damage from the Israeli attack at Natanz: heavily damaged, but not quite destroyed.

The air defences at the target sites proved less of a hindrance. While the GPS jammers that Iran had installed at its sensitive sites confused some of the Israeli bombs, most found their marks. The facilities at Qom and Arak were completely destroyed, while Natanz was heavily damaged.

As the Israeli aircraft left Iranian air space, they were once more intercepted, this time by small numbers of F-5Es and F-7M fighters. These were quickly and easily downed long before they had closed to within range of their own much inferior air-to-air missiles.

Although Iranian air defences had been lucky, the bombing was largely successful.

In the court of international opinion, however, the Israeli did less well. Perhaps it was Israel’s refusal to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or open its nuclear facilities to international inspection; perhaps it was the impressive skills of Iranian diplomats; or perhaps it was astute card-play and some very good dice rolls, but within a matter of hours and days it was clear that there was little support for a continuation of military operations. Jordan emphasized that it would not allow its airspace to be used again for an attack, and the northern route (through Turkey) and the southern route (through Saudi Arabia) were equally unavailable. Even the United States seemed unhappy at Netanyahu’s unilateral move.

While domestic support for the government remains (top track), high, the international community is less approving (middle tracks). However, the attack and subsequent Israeli sabotage activities are slowly undermining Iranian resolve (bottom track)

Iranian retaliation was swift but largely ineffectual. Salvos of Shehab-3 missiles were fired at Israel, although only a handful made it past Israel’s Arrow-2 and Patriot PAC-3 ballistic missile defences, and these did little real damage. Twice Iran partially and briefly closed the Straits of Hormuz to signal its displeasure, but these actions only antagonized the international community and were quickly abandoned. Hizbullah and the northern border with Lebanon remained eerily quiet.

For its part Israel—unable to launch another airstrike because of the negative attitude of Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States—instead launched a serious of night-time special forces raids against key Iranian economic infrastructure. These had considerable effect over time, aggravating the domestic economic and political problems of a beleaguered Islamic republic already under severe pressure from international sanctions.

In the end, however, it wasn’t enough. The regime remained in power, undeterred, and committed to rebuilding its  damaged nuclear infrastructure . Israel’s gambit had failed to win more than a brief respite from the perceived Iranian threat, and at the cost of greater international isolation.

Game Review

And thus unfolded our playtest game, which was played using a slightly tweaked version of the “real world” scenario in the game. It was unusual in that Israel able to launch only a single attack (most games involve several), largely due to some very lucky Iranian diplomatic dice. The Iranians were lucky too in managing to shoot down any IAF aircraft, let alone three. The overall outcome was actually quite realistic, both in terms of the damage inflicted to Iranian nuclear facilities and the diplomatic challenges to Israel of sustaining an extended unilateral military campaign.

Persian Incursion comprises one 17×22″ map, 280 cardboard counters, two decks of cards, data cards for all major aircraft cards, game rules, a target folders (including satellite photographs of each major site), and a background briefing package, and dice. It really consists of two interlinked games, one modelling an Israeli airstrike, and the other representing the broader diplomatic-political context within which military action occurs.

As suggested in the account above, the airstrike part of the game is extremely detailed, with the Israeli player having to quite literally decide on the precise loadout and target of every single aircraft in every single strike, escort, or SEAD package. Since many buildings are individually profiled, some sites include more than thirty different aim-points. The range and probability to hit of every type of air-to-air missile, surface-to-air missile, anti-radiation missile, and guided bomb used by the combatants is rated, as is the effectiveness of each aircraft type. Planning a single attack can take the Israeli player up to an hour—during which time the Iranian player has little do besides practice his rhetorical condemnations of Zionist aggression. Once an Israeli strike arrives on target, the effects must be determined by rolling dice for every single bomb. Since this could conceivable involve a few hundred rolls, it provides another extended period when the Iranian player watches while uttering angry Farsi threats of revenge.

Conversely, the political-diplomatic component of Persian Incursion is a highly abstracted. The changing political position of the various international actors determines how many political, military, and intelligence points a player collects at the start of each turn. These in turn are expended to conduct military operations or to attempt to influence domestic opinion of key regional and international states. Attempts at political influence are carried out through the play of cards, each of which has general labels like “collateral damage,” “spin control, ” or “careful planning,” and each of which affects different target countries to different degrees. Unlike airstrikes, the card play runs proceeds at a rapid pace.

Our play test game was quite exciting in the end, with Israeli special forces raids bring the Iranians perilously close to the point of political defeat before the game ended. However, the ponderously slow airstrike process is problematic from a game design point of view since it exclusively engages only the Israeli player most of the time. Some of this detail is unnecessary too: I’m not convinced there is a real need to have separate aim points for every single building (although it does highlight the need for some targeting redundancy in real-life strike planning with pre-programmed GPS-guided weapons), while the rules of anti-aircraft guns are entirely superfluous given that the IAF almost invariably drops its guided bombs well outside the AAA engagement envelope. Indeed, had our game included the usual several Israeli airstrikes instead of just one, I have a sneaking hunch my opponent would have called it a day before the game ever finished. In an attempt to speed both strike planning and adjudication, the game designers have released several rules modifications that simplify targeting and allow for faster resolution of bombing effects. In similar fashion I also put together my own revised set of target sheets targets that I will likely use in future games, and there are some useful player-made spreadsheets and record sheets available at BoardGameGeek.

The other military options available to players—Iranian ballistic missiles, Israeli special forces operations, terrorist attacks, closing the Straits of Hormuz—are much less complex. The game does not, however, include any option for Iran’s close Lebanese ally Hizbullah to launch major attacks against Israel in retaliation for Israeli attacks on Iran. Indeed, Hizbullah is only briefly mentioned in the  background briefing package, where it is peculiarly placed in the section on the Palestinians. While I don’t believe Hizbullah would necessarily become involved in the fighting after a single Israeli strike, the chances of it doing so would increase if Israel were to launch a sustained campaign. From a game perspective, it certainly would be more interesting for the Iranian player if there were some sort of substantial Hizbullah option that forces Israel to divert its air assets to hunting Hizbullah rocket launchers, but risks a weakening Hizbullah’s military and political status in Lebanon.

Persian Incursion as a Serious Game

How useful might this game be in educational or other “serious game” settings? It certainly has considerable potential, but only if used in certain ways.

This is not a game that can be easily played by students. It is far too long and complicated for neophytes. The asymmetry in role demands and the long delays while Israel plans strikes also would render it highly unsuitable.

On the other hand, the core airstrike game “engine” is excellent, covering everything from the effectiveness of various weapons platforms and ordnance to electronic counter measures, aircraft readiness rates and maintenance, ground control interception, Iranian air defence zones, decoys, and the hardening of targets. The game engine is easily tweaked too, in most cases by simply changing certain ratings or percentages. Playing through a strike or a full game offers considerable insight into the complexities of mission planning, as well as the capabilities and limits of the two militaries. One could even use it to model a potential future “Syrian” route to Iran, predicated on the declining effectiveness of Syrian air defences as the civil war there intensifies.

Given this, the best way of using Persian Incursion in a serious game setting would be with multiple players and an assigned division of labour, some focused on the political side of the conflict and others wholly devoted to military staff planning. One wouldn’t need to use the diplomatic-political subgame that the designers have developed—a standard negotiations role-play or seminar crisis game format could do equally well, or even better if the major international community actors were included too (although this could conceivably also be handled by the game controllers/white cell). The Israeli military staff planners would need to keep detailed tasking orders ready to go for when their political leadership required it, updating this as developments and resources changed. This would also generate some interesting internal dynamics between the political/diplomatic and military components of the Israeli (and Iranian) teams, especially when the politicians wanted more than the military could deliver, or when military hubris might cause it to over-promise mission results, leaving diplomats to make the best of a bad situation. Throughout, only the game controller would really need to know all of the rules, using these to adjudicate the effects of each strike.

An implementation of the game something like this (but exclusively weighted towards the military element) was undertaken by the folks at the “War College” at the 2011 Origins Game Fair—you can see a sample of this in the videos above and below.

Overall Assessment

If you are a serious gamer interested in this era and issue, Persian Incursion is certainly worth buying, but probably best played with the quick strike rules unless the Iranian player has enormous patience and/or something else to busy themselves with while the Israeli plots plots targets, strike packages, and weapons loads. If you’re an inexperienced wargamer, this is not the best game for you. If you are an instructor thinking of using it in the classroom to examine the challenges of airstrikes and preemption and have enough gaming experience to handle its complexity, the game could be very useful—provided you are willing to put in quite a bit of effort in to modify it for your particular needs, and provided you do so in a way that keeps much of the complexity “under the (adjudication) hood” and away from the participants.

If time allows, I plan to give the game a try with students (and possibly a Middle East intelligence analyst or two) in the coming months. If so, I’ll report the results here at PAXsims.

Review: Oil War—Iran Strikes

Oil War—Iran Strikes. Decision Games/Modern War magazine/Strategy & Tactics Press, 2012. Designer: Ty Bomba. $30.00 (including magazine).

Iraq’s 2014 parliamentary elections had been deeply divisive, marred by sectarian tensions and political violence. While the winning al-Iraqiyya party had drawn on both Sunni and Shiite voter support, many Shiites had voted instead for al-Dawa, the Islamic Supreme Council for Iraq, or the Sadrists. Prime Minister Iyad Allawi had thus depended heavily on support from the Kurdish parties to maintain a majority in parliament, which only further angered the Shi’ite opposition parties. His relations with neighbouring Iran were marked by mounting tension too, as Tehran grew increasingly concerned at the new government’s efforts to strengthen ties to the United States. 

A little over a year after the elections, Iraq’s unstable politics tipped into crisis when a senior Shiite cleric was assassinated in Najaf by unknown gunmen. As each side accused the other of complicity, angry street protests erupted in the southern part of the country. Some security units mutinied, siding with the protesters. Fighting broke out as ISCI and Sadr militias joined with rebellious security forces to battle those loyal to the Baghdad government. Iran threw its political weight behind the opposition, providing them with weapons and money.

Washington hurriedly dispatched US military personnel to Irbil at the request of the Kurdish Regional Government, hoping that such a deployment would deter further Iranian interference.

In Tehran, however, the move was seen as a further provocation. On 17 August 2015, the Supreme Leader announced during his al-Quds Day speech that Iran “could not and would not allow brotherly Iraq to once more fall into the clutches of an evil tyrant and his Satanic puppeteer.” The following day, a “Popular Provisional Government of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq” was announced in Basra. It called for both a popular uprising against Prime Minister Allawi’s government, and for  ”support for the people’s Islamic revolution in Iraq.”

Hours later, the first Iranian combat units crossed the border into Iraq. For the fourth time in less than four decades, the Gulf was at war.

And so it was (and with very considerable political embellishment on our part of the game’s otherwise very brief scenario description) that we began our first game of Oil War: Iran Strikes, included in issue #2 of Modern War magazine. I was playing Iran and its Iraqi allies, whereas my son David was playing the US, Iraqi loyalists, KRG, and Gulf Cooperation Council countries. While random events make it possible that Syria or Turkey might enter the war too, that didn’t happen in our game.

The game comprises of a 22×34″ map, 228 counters, and a 16 page rulebook. It bills itself as “an update and expansion of the classic old-SPI Oil War game from the mid-1970s,” and while there are very significant differences in game mechanics (notably with regard to air power and airlift/logistics), it nonetheless does very much have that classic 1970s wargame look-and-feel. Iran wins if they can capture four capital city hexes (Baghdad counts as two), while the US wins if it can hold the Iranians to only two—although these victory point requirements can change as the game progresses. Unites represent fairly generic brigade, divisional, or even corps formations, while each turn represents three days of real time.

The Game

The game starts by determining the loyalty of Iraqi military and militia units: will they side with the government, or join the Iranian-backed revolt?

In the Baghdad area, to the west, and in Kurdish areas to the north most units refuse to join the uprising. In the south, the revolution was more fortunate, with many of the red militia counters flipping to their green, pro-Iran, side.

The Supreme Leader has approved my war plan. One column of our forces would cross into Kurdistan and secure Irbil. Our main force will liberate Baghdad on behalf of the Popular Provisional Government of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. A third force will take up positions along the Kuwait frontier. Finally, in a daring move, Iranian paratroops and marines will land in Qatar, in a risky attempt to destroy the CENTCOM forward headquarters at al-Udeid Air Base. If successful the assault will throw American reinforcement plans into chaos—and secure us additional victory points both for Doha and destroying the American facility.

DAY 1: Iranian forces, lead by elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) units, soon reach the outskirts of Irbil and launch a successful assault in Baghdad. Units headed towards the Kuwait border are slowed, however, by the stubborn resistance of a single loyalist brigade of Iraqi troops. (Picture right: Iran’s opening move—note the one red counter in the south blocking the black IRGC units).

Iranian airborne troops en route to Qatar are intercepted and shot down. Iranian marines to make it ashore, but are eliminated by Qatari and US troops after a bloody battle.

The US sends elements of an airborne Brigade Combat Team to Irbil to reinforce the city’s Kurdish defenders.

DAY 4: An Iranian assault captures Irbil, eliminating US troops there. Iranian offensive actions along the Kuwaiti border achieve little, however. A US Marine Expeditionary Unit arrives to reinforce Kuwait.

The US heavy Brigade Combat Team based in Kuwait begins localized counterattacks, inflicting heavy casualties. Iraqi loyalist troops regroup west of Baghdad.

DAY 7: Coalition airpower begins to make itself felt in a substantial way, slowing Iranian movement. Mosul falls to Iranian troops. However, a surprise counter-offensive by Iraqi loyalist troops retakes northern Baghdad. Saudi troops begin to reinforce Kuwait positions along the frontier, and threaten to turn the western flank of the Iranian advance.

We forgot, at this point, that the rules don’t permit Saudi troops to enter Iraq. Oops.

DAY 10: Iranian forces, including mass human-wave assaults by Basij reservists, once more recapture Baghdad. A strong force of Iranian mechanized troops counterattacks against the Saudis, pushing them back. US airborne elements deploy to strengthen Saudi positions.

DAY 13: Iranian troops continue to move south to reinforce their faltering attack against Kuwait. However, a second US MEU arrives as the build-up of US forces continues.

DAY 16: A major assault by US troops against IRGC forces in southern Iraq is unsuccessful. However, with their movement interdicted and their supply lines under growing US air attack, the combat effectiveness of Iranian troops is declining. A US medium BCT arrives in Kuwait.

DAY 19: A call by the United Nations Security Council for a ceasefire is briefly observed by both sides, who use the lull to reinforce their positions.

DAY 22: Supported by airstrikes, US forces lead a major counter-attack. While Marines, airborne forces, the medium BCT and allied troops eliminate IRGC forces west of Kuwait, the heavy BCT cuts through the Iranian frontline to the north. (Picture, right: IRGC forces west of Kuwait surrounded and near elimination, while US forces also push on to Basra. Strictly speaking the small Bahraini, UAE, and Qatari contingents fighting in the area shouldn’t be there, but at this point we had decided to further relax the geographic restrictions rules in order to see some real Gulf Cooperation Council cooperation.)

DAY 25: Iranian Basij reinforcements deploy to protect Basra, but it is too little, too late: the US heavy BCT fights its way into the city, capturing it. Other US forces move north to join the American spearhead.

DAY 28: As the Iranians draw up a new defensive line south of Baghdad, the Americans push northwards. With their movement and supply lines under constant US air attack , however, Iranian units can only move slowly. For their part, US forces find their progress northwards slowed by both the terrain of southeastern Iraq and various pro-Iranian militia units along the way.

And thus the game ended with the end of Turn 10.. With Iran holding three victory points (Baghdad x2, Irbil) but needing four, the result was a draw.

The Game Review

Oil War—Iran Strikes offers a very general and easy-to-play representation of a future strategic environment, and certainly doesn’t make any claim to offer the much finer-grained military detail of, for example, Gulf Strike (3rd edition, 1990) or the intricate airstrike targeting of Persian Incursion (2010). Airpower is modelled through the simple but effective expedient of gradually reducing the mobility and combat effectiveness of Iranian units as the game progresses, although the US/coalition player is also allowed to conduct one air strike per turn against a stack of enemy units. Supply rules are simple too, depending on a combination of geographic restriction (for the Coalition) and control of key transportation nodes (for Iran), rather than any requirement to trace lines of supply back to a supply source.  To represent the superior command, control, intelligence, flexibility and maneuverability of US forces, American units are allowed to ignore enemy zones of control and freely maneuver around them. US units may also choose to act at any point in the game sequence, including part way through the Iranian player’s movement or combat.

The scenario is also far vaguer than I’ve painted above, simply suggesting either a “near future—2013 through 2017—in which the Iranians may indeed have developed some kind of military nuclear capability” and harbours regional hegemonic ambitions, while the US has fallen back into a more isolationist posture, or, alternatively, a “possible Iranian reply to a US and/or Israeli precision aerial campaign against their nuclear facilities.” Oil War rather overestimates, in my view, the ability of the Iranian military to launch major offensive ground operations much beyond its borders, and especially Iran’s ability to mount airborne and seaborne operations across the Gulf. Then again, if it didn’t do this it really wouldn’t make for much of a game.

As a game, I certainly enjoyed it. The themselves rules are brief and straight-forward, although in a few places they could be more clearly written. (There are also a few errors in the rules or on the tables printed on the map, so be sure to check the errata). Since some aspects of the military campaign become rather predictable—Baghdad always falls to Iran, Kuwait always becomes a critical objective and choke-point, Iran usually tries a surprise amphibious/airborne operation against Qatar or Bahrain at the start of the war— so I’m not sure how well it would stand up to too much repeat play. A game takes about two hours.

The accompanying Modern War magazine contains a short game design commentary, a backgrounder article on Iran and the military balance in the Gulf, and unrelated articles on the fighting at Fire Support Base Mary (during the Vietnam war), the Israeli order of battle at the Battle of Chinese Farm (during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war), and profile pieces on various weapons systems.

Useful in the Classroom?

There are some insights that might be gleaned from student play of Oil War, especially with regard to the security concerns of the GCC countries—although the game’s abstraction of air and naval power might be rather limiting in that regard. It does highlight the challenges facing the US in rapidly reinforcing Gulf allies with ground forces, and why Washington has chosen to pre-position American military equipment in the region. The game doesn’t really have much political element at all, besides randomly-generated events.

Where I think the game would be most useful, however, is not so much in whatever specific strategic insights it might or might not offer, but in how easily students could learn the basic game mechanics, play it, and then be invited to modify Oil War to reflect more detailed scenarios or highlight particular operational and strategic challenges in the Gulf. For example:

• Some of political and alliance assumptions could be rewritten. It is hard to imagine the Turks entering the conflict on the Iranian side, for example, as the present rules allow. Similarly,  a future post-Asad Syria would likely lean heavily towards the anti-Iran coalition, and have much less in the way of military forces to contribute.
• The random events could be changed. (Random event #11—“The 12th Imam Appears”—is a particularly problematic rendering of both Shi’ite religious belief and Iranian politics.)
• The game could be transformed from a two player game into a three player game, with the separate but allied players controlling US and Gulf Cooperation Council forces. If combined with slightly differing victory conditions, this could lead to some quite interesting coalition challenges.
• The political setting could be changed to imagine a somewhat less stable Gulf—with pro-democracy protesters in Kuwait, and a restive Shi’ite population in Bahrain and the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia. Protests might erupt in towns and cities, requiring the GCC player to divert military resources to quickly quell them. In turn, violent repression of reformist protests might adversely affect US willingness to assist its Gulf allies.
• The current randomly-generated system of US reinforcements could be changed, so that it requires more of the preplanning associated with current US security guarantees for the region.
• Finally, elements of the movement, combat and supply system could be changed.

The point here is that because of its topical contemporary focus and ease of play, Oil Strike could work rather well as an “introductory” strategic game intended to get students thinking about game design in general, as well as how best to represent the contours of possible future security challenges in the Gulf. If time allows, I might even post a three player/Gulf protests variant to PAXsims.

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Update: You’ll find my “Unstable Gulf” variant of the game posted here. It is still a two player game, but could easily be played with three (Iran, US+Turkey, GCC+Syria).

Review: Peterson, Playing at the World

Book review: Jon Peterson, Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People, and Fantastic Adventures from Chess to Role Playing Games (San Diego: Unreason Press, 2012). 632pp + bibliography and index. $34.95.

Despite its lengthy (and slightly misleading) subtitle, Playing at the World is really about one thing: the evolution, development, and impact of the roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons from its earliest precursors to the late 1970s. Yet this narrow focus is, at the same time, both far-reaching and exhaustive in its treatment of the subject. Peterson masterfully tells the story of D&D in the broader context of wargaming since the 18th century, in reference to the gaming subculture and networks that shaped it, and with due attention to both the economics of the nascent RPG industry and the key personalities of the day. He does this, moreover, in exquisite detail and on a foundation of truly stunning primary research, with copious footnotes and an extensive bibliography that runs the gamut from original game design notes through to rare hobby newsletters and fanzines to historical texts and academic analyses. The result is a thoughtful, erudite, yet highly readable book that should be viewed as a seminal contribution to the history of an important gaming genre.

The book itself is divided into five main chapters, plus an epilogue. The first chapter  explores the immediate context in which D&D was born. This includes the rise of wargaming clubs, wargaming of the medieval and the fantasy settings (including the publication of D&D’s precursor rules, Chainmail, cowritten by Gary Gygax), Dave Arneson‘s Blackmoor adventure campaign of the early 1970s, and the collaboration between Gygax and Arneson that produced the three-booklet original edition of Dungeons & Dragons (1974).

In the next two chapters, Peterson shifts focus to explore the inspirations for D&D. Chapter 2 thus examines the medieval fantasy genre, and the literary influences that would shape the emergence of RPG classes, equipment, and scenarios. In Chapter 3, the book traces the historical evolution of wargaming from the late 18th century onwards, and in doing so demonstrates the emergence of game design elements and concepts that would be incorporated into D&D and similar games.

In Chapter 4, the focus shifts once again, this time to the notion of role-playing itself, and how campaign games embed players in imagined world. In large part this is told through the lens of significant wargame club campaigns, some of whose participants were (or would be) influential figures within the broader hobby. Chapter 5 then returns to continue the story begun in Chapter 1, recounting the popularization and expansions of D&D into the mid- and late-1970s.

Finally, the Epilogue to the book shows how the fantasy RPG genre would make its first transition to computer games. This is in many ways the least satisfying part of the volume, taking the reader no further than the late 1970s and Zork. Then again, by this point the page count is already up to over 600 pages of meticulous analysis. Anything more and the book might be reclassified as a two-handed weapon (doing the same d6 damage as every other weapon in original D&D—but increasing to d10 by the time of the 1975 Greyhawk supplement).

For many readers the analytical value of the book will happily complemented by the sheer gaming-geek-pleasure of being transported back to the era of early D&D, reading about the first origins of the thief character class, or seeing once more the advertisements for the 1970s Miniature Figurines “Mythical Earth” wargaming figures (a set of which is still packed away in my gaming closet—minus the hobbits, which have more recently been converted to hungry undead children for gaming the near-future zombie apocalypse). Make no mistake about it, however: Playing the World is a serious piece of cultural and intellectual history. While the author apparently chose to self-publish the volume so as to retain full editorial control (and, doubtless, to avoid an editor’s insistence that he shorten his manuscript), I worry that this might make it less likely to appear in public and university libraries where it rightly deserves to be. Readers would be well advised not only to put it on their own Christmas lists this season, but to suggest it to their local collections librarian as well.

Jon Peterson’s “Playing at the World” blog can be found at http://playingattheworld.blogspot.com.

Vogt: A Methodology to Assess UrbanSim Scenarios

Brian Vogt has kindly allowed us to upload a copy of his recently-completed MSc thesis at the Naval Postgraduate School on “A Methodology to Assess UrbanSim Scenarios.” In it, he examines whether the choices and feedback mechanisms in the counter-insurgency software UrbanSim actually support its intended learning objectives:

Turn-based strategy games and simulations are vital tools for military education, training, and readiness. In an era of increasingly constrained resources and expanding demand for training solutions, the need for validated, effective solutions will increase. Appropriate performance feedback is an important component of any training solution. Current methods for designing and testing the performance feedback provided in turn-based simulation are limited to well-structured problems and do not adequately address ill-structured problems that better replicate problems facing military leaders in today’s complex operating environment. This thesis develops and explores new methods for assessing the feedback mechanisms of turn-based strategy games. Using UrbanSim, a game for training strategic approaches to COIN operations as an exemplar, this thesis developed and explored two unique methods for evaluating the reward structure of the UrbanSim scenarios. The first method evaluates different student strategies using a batch-run method. The second method uses a reinforcement-learning algorithm to explore the decision space. These scenario evaluation methodologies are shown to be able to provide insights about a game’s performance feedback mechanism that was not previously available. These methodologies can be used for formative evaluation during game scenario development. Additionally, these evaluation methodologies are generalizable to other training and education games that focus on ill-structured problems and decision-making at discrete intervals.

Brian offers some excellent insight into feedback mechanisms in military training games in general, as well as in the specific case of UrbanSim. He runs large numbers of iterations of possible strategies in the game, so as to assess whether UrbanSim rewards (with success) what it is supposed to (doctrinally), and whether the “reward signal is strong enough for the learner to differentiate between optimal and non-optimal strategies.” He finds that:

From the perspective of evaluating the fielded UrbanSim scenarios, it appears that the unstated, but assumed, training objective of rewarding students that conduct exclusively legal actions is properly rewarded. The training objective of emphasizing the doctrinal principle of ‘‘Clear, Hold, Build’’ did not stand out very clearly. However, it appeared to be in the range of acceptable solutions. The fact that the Build, Build, Build strategy was also in the range of acceptable solutions is not desirable because it reinforces the notion that you can be successful if you ignore the enemy and allow them to operate and you can still be successful in the scenario. The 4th training objective that wants the students to demonstrate that a mixture of lethal and non-lethal actions is better than exclusively lethal or non-lethal was not supported. Non-lethal actions were more strongly rewarded than the mixed approach and the lethal actions. This may be closely tied to the fact that the enemy units in the scenario do not affect the simulated environment enough to replicate the danger of ignoring enemy units operating in the area of operation.

As the thesis notes, the study is all about the feedback and rewards inherent within the game itself, and not about how it might be used instructionally. Obviously, it is better if the cues that the games provides to a player most closely align with course content and educational objectives. However, understanding how the game may, at times, misalign or send unclear signals is also extremely useful from an instructional point of view, allowing corrective action to be taken by an instructor (or even providing discussion opportunities for post-game hotwash and critique).

Brian mentioned he would welcome feedback on the thesis, his methods, and findings, so be pleased to add comments below.

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Biographical note: Brian Vogt was commissioned an Armor Officer in 1996.  He served as a tank platoon leader, support platoon leader, and tank company executive officer in 1st Cav Div, Ft Hood.  Then, following the Armor Officer Advanced Course, he served as a Brigade Plans Officer in 2nd Inf Div, Camp Casey, Korea.  Subsequently he was a brigade current operations officer in 3BCT, 1AD, Ft Riley.  Took command of C/1-13AR in Baghdad in June 2003.  In August 2004, took command of HHC, 3BCT, 1AD for the second deployment to Iraq.  Upon redeployment in April 2006, became a FA57, Simulations Operations officer and worked in TCM-Virtual Training Environment at Ft Leavenworth.  Following CGSC in June 2010, he started classes at the Naval Postgraduate School in the MOVES Institute.  He graduates in September 2012 and will be stationed at Ft Eustis, VA.

Jeremy Antley on 1989: Dawn of Freedom

The website Play the Past always has great material on “the intersection of cultural heritage (very broadly defined) and games/meaningful play (equally broadly defined)”—which is why we feature it in the RSS feed here at PAXsims. Most recently, Jeremy Antley examines the boardgame 1989: Dawn of Freedom (which we reviewed here), and in the process makes a couple of important points about the way in which we intellectually engage with games themselves.

First, Jeremy rightly emphasizes that to understand a game one must experience it. As he puts it, “games are kinetic objects that surrender the nuances of their design only through active operation.  Just as you cannot fully understand the feeling of riding a roller-coaster by sight alone, so too will the integration of a games play-design mechanics elude you if you do not engage with the game on its own terms.”

This is true not only for what might be termed (to use the kinetic metaphor) as the “physics” of the game, but also especially for its “metaphysics.” By this I refer to the many intangible ways in which its game creates the experience of play, such as the sense of excitement that it generates, or the degree to which rules, player interactions, and physical presentation all combine to create an immersive sense of being elsewhere (whether that be in in Eastern Europe as communism falls, exploring  derelict spaceship, or anywhere else that a game seeks to depict). Even games that don’t aim at immersion in a historical or imagined world derive much of their value from things like the social interactions they encourage among players, something that is hard to envisage from the rules alone.

Second, Jeremy emphasizes the extent to which our ability to understand the features, designer’s intent, and played experience of a game is greatly enhanced today by a vibrant community of online discussion. BoardGameGeek, ConSimWorld, and other sites provide opportunity not only for player discussions and reviews, but also for thoughtful interaction with designers themselves. The result is a truly rich array of perspectives, experiences, and analysis.

For more of Jeremy’s thoughts on games, history, knowledge, and understanding, visit his blog Peasant Muse.

Review: 1989—Dawn of Freedom

1989: Dawn of Freedom. GMT Games, 2010. Game designers: Ted Torgerson & Jason Matthews. Game developer: Bruce Wigdor. $65.00

It is 1989, and popular protests and uprisings have swept across much of Eastern Europe. In Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria the old communist regimes have been swept away. The Baltic republics are well on their way to independence. In Poland and East Germany the contending forces remain more finally balanced, while in Romania the regime appears to have an upper hand. Pro-democracy activists in East Germany take a desperate gamble, hoping to translate their narrow lead in popular support into a successful campaign to unseat the dictatorship. In the ensuing power struggle, however, they fail: for the third time in less than a year, the East German regime survives. The failure reverberates across Eastern Europe, bringing to an end—for now at least—further hopes of political reform.

And so it was that, as the forces of democracy, I lost my first session of GMT’s recent boardgame 1989: Dawn of Freedom. Although I had overturned communist regimes in three countries and nearly toppled the Polish government too, my third high-profile setback in the Deutsche Demokratische Republik had cost me dearly.

Game Contents and Play

1989 is a two player card-driven game, in which one player plays the role of various communist regimes seeking to maintain power, while the other represents democratic forces seeking to topple them. The game contains a good quality mounted map of Eastern Europe, two sets of cleanly-punched counter sheets, a deck of 110 “strategy cards,” a second deck of 52 “power cards,” a rule book, and two dice.

Game play is similar in many ways to GMT’s very popular cold war-era boardgame Twilight Struggle (2005)—hardly surprising, given that both were co-designed by Jason Matthews. Each turn the players are dealt a hand of eight strategy cards. They then alternate in playing a card each, either for its operations value or for the event (and associated effects) printed on it. When eight such rounds have been played, new cards are dealt to top up each player’s hand. As the game progresses, the initial “early year” strategy deck has first “middle year” then “late year” cards added to it, thus assuring that key events occur in a loosely semi-historical sequence.

Two sorts of actions are possible when a card is played for operations points: a player may either place “support points” on the map in an effort to secure key locations, or undertake “support checks” to try to reduce the other player’s support (and possibly build their own). Locations are each associated with a particular domestic constituency (workers, farmers, students, intellectuals, the church, bureaucrats, or elites), each of which can offer advantages during power struggles.  Certain locations are also denoted as “battlegrounds,” and have additional importance in scoring victory points.

“Power struggles” are where political competition for the destiny of each country  comes to head. Each player receives a number of power cards, depending on the number of locations they control in the country. These are divided into four suits (petitions, strikes, marches, and rally in the square) plus constituency leaders and wild cards. The competing players then play a sort of modified “go fish” card game. The result determines the outcome of the power struggle, which—if the democratic player wins—can also result in regime change.

The game ends after ten turns, or when one player reaches 20 victory points.

The card-driven nature of 1989: Dawn of Freedom, in which the historical contents of the strategy cards help to drive both the game and its narrative, makes for immersive game play. The process by which power struggles are played out as a cardgame-within-the-card-driven-boardgame makes for nail-biting tension, even if the cards are really abstractions that—apart from the names of the “suits”—do not especially match with any actual political process. The rules are relatively straight-forward, and the rule book clear and easy to read.

I had two quibbles with the game, one minor, the other more substantial. My minor quibble related to the two possible operations a player can conduct, namely placing support points and undertaking support checks. While the former was clear enough (representing the organizational and mobilization efforts by the two sides as they seek to expand their power bases), it wasn’t clear to me what real-world process a “support check” was supposed to represent. It certainly wasn’t a clash with the opposing side, since it presented no material risks to the player undertaking it. Instead, it simply seemed to be a copy of the “realignment” operation that players can make in Twilight Struggle. I definitely would have preferred an operations choice that related to something the contending sides actually did (or perhaps even asymmetric options, different for each side).

My major quibble with the game was the way in which it models the domino effects of East European regime changes—or rather, the way it doesn’t. Toppling a regime may score you victory points and end further power struggles in that country, but it doesn’t have any particular effects on game play in the remaining communist countries. However, during the actual historical transformation of Eastern Europe, the “demonstration effect” of regime change in one country emboldened populations in other communist countries too, boosting their morale, weakening the deterrent effect of regime repression, and generally giving populations an expanded sense of new political possibilities.

Perhaps the designers didn’t want to create a runaway train effect, whereby the democratic player could establish unstoppable momentum by the mid-point of the game. However, in our game I found it a bit odd that successful revolutions in three communist countries had no discernible effects in the other three.

That having been said, 1989: Dawn of Freedom is certainly a very enjoyable game. Game play is interesting and nuanced. It is also immersive and exciting. 1989 is likely to become one of those games I frequently play, and I would certainly strongly recommend it to those interested in the genre or the subject matter.

Instructional Potential

This being PAXsims, we’re interested in more than just the game value of a game, however. What of the potential use of 1989: Dawn of Freedom in an educational setting? Here too my assessment is very positive.

The game plays relatively quickly (about three hours), and is relatively easy to learn. The historical description on the cards (expanded upon further in the rules) would certainly acquaint students/players with the key historical developments of this period. While two player games can be problematic with larger classes, the game could easily be adapted for team play in the way that we early suggested for GMT’s “global war on terror” game Labyrinth. Indeed, given the many similarities between the two games, much of what we have earlier suggested for using Labyrinth in the classroom (here and here) would equally apply to 1989.

• Students could be asked to play the game through, and then write a critical evaluation (based on class readings, lectures, and outside research) of how it depicts the events and political dynamics associated with the fall of communism in Eastern Europe—much as one might write an academic book review. Such an assignment would challenge students to think critically about how the actual processes of repression and regime change might beset be captured within a set of game rules.
• Students could be asked to suggest new rules or events (strategy cards), outline their proposed game effects, and justify these with reference to actual historical processes.
• Students might be asked to play this and several other games of revolution and political change, and then design their own game of a completely different case.

As a scholar of the Arab world, I was particularly struck by the potential to use a modified version of the 1989 game system to design a game about the 2011-12 “Arab Spring.” There are many parallels between the two periods, especially with regard to the role of demonstration and domino effects. On the other hand, ongoing Arab political transformations were not occasioned by the declining power of a regional hegemon, unlike the pivotal role played by changing Soviet policy in the 1980s. Moreover, while the Arab Spring has involved East European-style mass protests in many cases (Tunisia, Egypt), it has also seen heavily militarized civil wars, with a degree of overt (Libya) or covert (Syria) external involvement. The transitional processes in some Arab countries (notably Libya and Yemen) are also even more uncertain than those Eastern Europe. Addressing those aspects in a game would require some substantial changes to the 1989 game system.

In short, 1989 could be used not only in teaching about the fall of communism, but also to generate some interesting educational and analytical perspectives into the decline and fall of regional authoritarian orders more broadly. Indeed, I may try using it in that way in a classroom setting during this coming academic year. If and when I do, I’ll certainly report the results back here as PAXsims!

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For further discussion of 1989: Dawn of Freedom, see the game listing, reviews, and forum at BoardGameGeek.

UPDATE: Also, game co-designer Ted Torgerson has offered some thoughtful responses to the points I raised in the review, so be sure to read the comments section too.

Learning about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through simulations: The case of PeaceMaker

Peacemaker (2008) is a computer game produced by ImpactGames, in which players seek to bring about a successful negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the guest blogpost below, Dr. Ronit Kampf (Tel Aviv University) and  Dr. Esra Cuhadar Gurkanyak (Bilkent University) examine the impact of  the game on the attitudes of Israeli, Palestinian, Turkish, and American students, and find it to be” an effective teaching tool concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for both parties to the conflict and third parties.” For further information on their research and findings, also see their conference paper here.

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We examined the effectiveness and usefulness of technology as a pedagogical tool in teaching conflict resolution. There is very little research on this question and none of the assessments involved a cross-cultural experimental study. We conducted a cross cultural experiment in four different national groups (i.e., Jewish-Israelis, Palestinians, Americans and Turks) using PeaceMaker, a computer game simulating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We were specifically interested in the following questions: Does the game affect participants’ acquisition of knowledge about the conflict? Does the game contribute to attitude change regarding the conflict? Are there any differences in terms of knowledge acquisition and attitude change between participants that are direct parties to the conflict (i.e., Jewish-Israelis and Palestinians) and those that are third parties (i.e., Americans and Turks)?

In PeaceMaker, a player can assume the role of the Israeli Prime Minister or the role of the Palestinian President and engage in a series of decisions with the aim of satisfying constituents on both sides of the conflict. The game can be played in English, Hebrew or Arabic on calm, tense or violent conflict levels, differing in the frequency of events that appear on the screen and are beyond the player’s control. In order to deal with these events a player can select actions pertaining to three main categories: security, political and construction, each branching into a variety of sub-categories (e.g., checkpoints, speeches). In order to resolve the conflict in the game, scores for both Israeli and Palestinian sides must reach 100 points each. If either score drops below -50, the player loses the game.

167 undergraduate students of political science participated in the study, including 38 Turkish students from Bilkent University, 50 Jewish-Israeli students from Tel Aviv University, 39 American students from the School for Overseas Students at Tel Aviv University and 40 Palestinian students from Bethlehem University.

After being introduced to PeaceMaker, the participants filled in a short questionnaire focusing on knowledge questions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and attitudes toward the conflict. The students were then asked to play the role of the Israeli Prime Minister and the role of the Palestinian President in random order. After playing the game twice, participants filled in a second short questionnaire, almost identical in content to the first questionnaire with the exception of a few additional questions regarding participants’ experience with the game.

Resolving the conflict in the game

Overall 33% of the participants resolved the conflict in one role and 11% of the participants resolved the conflict in both roles. In the Israeli role, 8% of Turkish participants resolved the conflict, 21% of American participants resolved it, 32% of Israeli participants of Jewish origin resolved it and 40% of Palestinian participants resolved it. In the Palestinian role, 30% of Turkish participants resolved the conflict, 23% of American participants resolved it, 34% of Israeli participants of Jewish origin resolved it and 40% of Palestinian participants resolved it.

3% of Turkish participants resolved the conflict in both roles, 10% of American participants resolved it in both roles, 16% of Israeli participants of Jewish origin resolved it in both roles and 15% of Palestinian participants resolved the conflict in both roles.

Explaining conflict resolution in the game

In both roles, participants that were more knowledgeable on the conflict  successfully resolved the conflict, while those that were less knowledgeable were not as successful.  Thus, in line with our expectations, participants that are direct parties to the conflict (Palestinian and Jewish-Israeli) resolved the conflict more successfully in all situations compared to the third parties (Turkish and American).

Political attitudes, the order of playing the Israeli role and the Palestinian role (which one is played first), gender, religious affiliation, average number of weekly hours playing computer games and average number of weekly hours spent online did not explain successful resolution of the conflict in the game for the Israeli role and for the Palestinian role.

PeaceMaker aims at a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, envisioning Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace. Therefore, we examined whether support of a two-state solution explained resolving the conflict in the game. Results suggested that support of a two state solution did not explain resolving the conflict in the game for both Israeli and Palestinian roles. In other words, participants opposing a two state solution resolved the conflict in the game no less than those supporting it. 55% of the Jewish-Israelis, 40% of the Americans, 35% of the Palestinians, and 32% of the Turks that played the game supported the two-state solution.

Action type in the game

We examined whether the four groups (Jewish-Israeli, Palestinian, Turkish and American) differed in the action type they took in the game (Security, Political or Construction), separately for the Israeli role and for the Palestinian role.

The only significant result was obtained for security actions in the Palestinian role. Jewish-Israelis took the highest proportion of security actions, while Palestinians took the lowest proportion of security actions. The Turkish participants and the American participants took more security actions than Palestinians but less than Jewish-Israelis.

Game effects on attitude change

Turkish and American students became more impartial toward the Gaza operation (i.e., Israelis and Palestinians are equally right regarding the Gaza operation) after playing the game, while Jewish- Israeli and Palestinian students did not change their attitude toward the Gaza operation after playing the game. Jewish-Israeli students thought that Israelis are somewhat right regarding the Gaza operation, while Palestinian students thought that Palestinians are somewhat right regarding the Gaza operation. In addition, the four groups did not change their attitudes concerning key issues in the conflict (i.e., Jerusalem, water, security, refugees, settlements, borders) after playing the game.

In sum, the game had an effect on the attitudes of third party students only with regard to the Gaza operation. This may be because of differential familiarity of the issues especially for third parties. The Gaza operation was a recent event at the time of the study which received extensive media coverage and public debate as opposed to other issues. Participants, considering their age, might be more familiar with this issue and therefore the game has a limited impact on attitude change.

Game effects on knowledge acquisition

All participants acquired more knowledge on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a result of playing the game. After playing the game, American participants acquired more knowledge on the conflict compared to Turkish, Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian participants, but the latter two groups already held in the beginning high levels of knowledge on the Israeli-Palestinian situation, so did not have much more to gain.

In sum, although the game increased the level of knowledge for all groups significantly, the effect was again stronger for the third parties to the conflict. Overall, the game was an effective teaching tool concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for both parties to the conflict and third parties. Even with the Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian participants that are already knowledgeable about the conflict, it had a positive effect. Despite the limited effect on changing attitudes, increased knowledge acquisition by itself is an important outcome considering our earlier finding which suggests that the level of knowledge is highly correlated with the ability to successfully resolve the conflict. PeaceMaker is a teaching tool that is useful to introduce conflict assessment and resolution skills in a sophisticated and context rich simulation.

Ronit Kampf 

Esra Cuhadar Gurkanyak 

Agent-based modelling and the US troop surge in Afghanistan

The latest issue of the Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation 9, 2 (April 2012) is now out. Most of it is devoted to technical discussions of “Resuability, Interoperability and Composability in Air Warfare Simulations,” but it does also feature an interesting and well-written piece by John Sokolowski, Catherine Banks, and Brent Morrow on “Using an agent-based model to explore troop surge strategy.”

In October of 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan and replaced the Taliban government. Since its overthrow, the Taliban has pieced together and waged an insurgency to retake Afghanistan, and that insurgency has gained momentum and grown in strength while the United States/North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) effort shrank in size to about 55,000 troops in 2007. A wide range of factors contributed to the insurgency, ranging from socio-cultural to economic to political. This research applied an in-depth study of Afghanistan to an agent-based model to determine if a military troop surge emphasizing a focused security effort could be successful in battling the growing insurgency within Afghanistan. An agent-based model was created and validated against the strategy and situation on the ground in Afghanistan that existed in 2007. Three experiments were conducted representing surges of 50%, 200%, and 400%. The results indicated that a surge of 200% or greater of the existing size force would be necessary to reduce the size of the insurgency, but that a surge of only 50% (50,000 more troops) would not bring about any significant changes as compared to the existing strategy. These model results provide insight into the potential success of various sized troop surges in Afghanistan that implement a focused security effort.

The piece is, unfortunately, behind a paywall, so you’ll need a subscription to JDMS to access the while thing. The core political-military dynamics of their model, however, are captured in the diagram on the right (click to enlarge). These in turn provide the context for the pseudo-tactical model, in which the insurgent and coalition agents fight it out, with detection ranges, a version of the usual Ph and Pk (probability of hits and kills), and probabilities of collateral damage (which in turn affect local attitudes) all modelled. Unlike some of the work done in the technical M&S field, the piece is written in language that is likely to be clear and accessible to those working in very different, non-quantitative areas.

A number of questions might be raised about the model that the authors have developed. One could endlessly quibble about the key variables they have identified, and in some cases whether the relationships always have the directional values they impute to them (for example, deployment of the Afghan National Army—and even more the highly corrupt Afghan National Police, which they don’t model—can sometimes have negative effects on local attitudes, in cases where they are either seen as abusive and predatory, or because they attract Taliban attacks in areas that might otherwise be quiet). However, those criticisms hold true for any game design, and in general my own general reading of conflict dynamics in Afghanistan suggests that quite a bit of it sounds intuitively right.

The authors do validate their model, using open source reporting of changes in Taliban numbers and adjusting the model until it fits the historical record. I’m not sure that their estimates of insurgent “density” are robust enough to provide much validation, however. Moreover, to increase calibration they manipulate only a few of the variables and relationships in the model in order to provide a match against this single indicator. To my mind, that doesn’t provide very strong validation of the underlying model itself.

The simulation attempts to draw conclusions about the relationship between an increase in coalition troop strength in Afghanistan (“the surge”) and the strength of the insurgency. In this, the authors are refreshingly realistic about the limits of agent-based modelling in illuminating policy questions (emphasis added):

The purpose of this study was to provide a means of assessing if the implementation of a military troop surge designated toward a focused security effort strategy might reverse the trend of the growing insurgency in Afghanistan. The strategy using the United States/coalition/Afghan National Army troop strength of about 101,000 soldiers has failed to defeat or even stop the growth of the Neo-Taliban insurgency. This research sought to add some insight into whether or not a surge with a specific role could work within Afghanistan.

…The results of these experiments indicated that a surge of 400,000 or 200,000 troops will reduce the size and strength of the insurgency, but a surge of 150,000 troops would not. These results are not definitive or absolute, but give insight into the possible outcomes of a surge of the given size based on a model built using careful research. This research represents a tool for analysis in the decision process to determine if a surge should occur. It is not the answer to the question of whether a surge would be effective.

In my view, however, they’ve both overstated and understated the value of their analysis. Given the great many assumptions built into the model, I’m even more doubtful than they appear to be that the outcome of the experiment provides useful policy guidance. On the other hand, I think they could do far more to highlight the potential contribution of the experiment as a heuristic device—that is, as a way of helping decision-makers think about a large, complex, wicked problem. As Gary once put it, the article would be even more interesting for a broader audience interested in insurgency and counterinsurgency  if there was less seer and more sage in its approach to the material. The model might offer some insight, for example, in why a limited surge might not work; what key indicators and metrics might be useful in assessing the effectiveness of increased coalition troop strength; or even what variables or nodes seems to have an especially important effect on outcomes. In other words, I think the article would be all the more interesting if rather than simply reporting experimental results, it also highlighted what the construction of the model itself may suggest about conflict dynamics (or our understanding of conflict dynamics) in Afghanistan. It would have also have been useful to report some of the more detailed simulation findings about how particular variables changed under different coalition troop strengths, or which relationships other than troop strength seemed to be most important to outcome.

Still, for the many readers of PAXsims who are interested in such issues but are rarely exposed to either agnet-based modelling or work in the M&S community on political-military issues, it is certainly worth a read.

Review: Sabin, Simulating War

Review of: Philip Sabin, Simulating War: Studying Conflict Through Simulation Games (London: Continuum, 2012). 363pp. USD$34.95 hc.

Professor Philip Sabin is a highly regarded military historian, well-known for his MA course on conflict simulation at King’s College London. His 2009 book Lost Battles: Reconstructing the Great Clashes of the Ancient World was an innovative examination of warfare in classical antiquity that combined scholarly analysis with a set of wargaming rules that allowed a reader to refight the battles studied in the volume. His most recent book, Simulating War, examines the art, science, and practice of military simulation more broadly. The result is both an excellent read and a very important contribution to the study of contemporary wargaming.

Part I of the volume briefly surveys the historical evolution of the field, discusses the theoretical challenges of modelling warfare, and highlights the educational utility of wargaming in the classroom. It also explores the research requirements of game design and the use of wargames as a tool of research itself. The treatment of these topics is both judicious and thoughtful: experienced gamers and game designers will find much to agree with, while those new to wargaming will benefit considerably from the insights that Sabin offers. In Part II the focus shifts to the mechanics of game design, with chapters devoted to components, game mechanics, and the playtesting and refinement of game designs. Part III provides examples drawn from Sabin’s own game designs, with the reader able to follow through why game systems were designed in particular ways to render particular relationships. Additional information is provided in five appendices. The book and website provide rules and components for no less than eight playable games. Ongoing discussion is also possible via an associated Yahoo group.

Despite its title, Simulating War does somewhat limit its treatment of the subject in three respects. First, it primarily focuses on military boardgames, reflecting the author’s long experience using such games (and the design of such games) as an educational and research tool. Digital wargames, Sabin notes, tend to hide most of their assumptions about conflict dynamics “under the hood,” making them inaccessible to most users and difficult to modify. Miniature wargaming rarely goes beyond the tactical and grand tactical, and while visually more appealing also tends to be less useful in highlighting operational and strategic issues, or otherwise illuminating the key lessons of historical battles. Because his interest is generally focused on  historical and contemporary conflict, there is little attention to role-playing games (although an element of this dynamic potentially enters into his multiplayer political-military simulation of the Second Punic War). There is some reference to the rapidly growing academic literature with regard to digital gaming and game studies/ludology more broadly, although it tends to be rather incidental to the discussion.

Second, the sort of conflict being discussed and modelled in most of book is traditional force-on-force warfare. Much more attention is therefore devoted to issues of attrition, terrain, dispersion, and tactics than to the broader social and political processes that conflicts might also involve. Readers interested in civil war or contemporary peace, stabilization, and counterinsurgency operations, for example, may find themselves wanting more on how one might model such non-kinetic aspects of warfare, especially in cases where the political dynamics at play are more important but even less well understood than the military ones.

A third characteristic of the book is the extent to which it is very much written from the author’s personal experiences as a military historian. Much of the discussion refers to particular examples from his classroom experience at KCL, design issues in his games, or lectures to (and gaming with) military staff. In this respects the book offers a somewhat narrower scope than Peter Perla’s seminal work The Art of Wargaming (1990).

In my view, the benefits that flow from these self-imposed constraints far outweigh any disadvantages. They allow the various elements of the book to be grounded in personal experience. The approach also facilitates a very effective linking of design, research, and pedagogical issues, which in turn are further highlighted through the author’s discussions of  the design decisions and philosophy represented in the games included in the book. The author’s repeated attention to the trade-offs between simplicity/parsimony and realism/explanatory power in conflict modelling is especially illuminating, and cuts to the very core of what historical and social scientific theorizing is all about. While it is rare to find an academic work that is so heavily written in the first person, the approach offers an engaging way of highlighting the effectiveness of serious wargaming as an experiential teaching technique.

Simulating War deserves to be widely read, not only by hobbyists, but also by game designers, other wargame professionals, military historians, and others called upon to teach about warfare and conflict (whether in university, military, or other professional settings). It may be a marketing challenge, however, to get non-gamers to pick up a copy. As nice as a discussion at PAXsims, Boardgamegeek, Consimworld, or various wargaming blogs might be, one hopes that this work will also find equally positive reviews in academic and professional journals too. I, for one, would heartedly recommend it to both grognards and academic colleagues alike.

simulations miscellany, 6 March 2012

Some recent gaming news that caught our eye here at PAXsims…

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At Foreign Policy Magazine, Michael Peck offers five reasons why video games are lousy propaganda. His piece spins off from the ongoing saga of American ex-Marine/ex-game designer Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, whose espionage conviction (and death sentence) in Iran has now been sent for judicial review, but the issues he raises are much broader:

Who could blame a CIA spymaster for pondering whether games could be used to demonize Iran or vilify Venezuela? And who says that only governments could do this? One can imagine interest groups surreptitiously funding a game in which environmentalists are portrayed as lunatics or ecoterrorists, or where characters casually mention that America needs to drill for oil. With product placement already a feature of video games, political messaging is inevitable.

Yet before gamers see men in black lurking behind every virtual shadow, let’s put down the Mountain Dew and take a deep breath. Video games have significant drawbacks as purveyors of propaganda.

I’m not entirely sure I agree. Leaving aside the Hekmati issue (which we’ve discussed before at PAXsims), I do think that digital games can play a potential role in politically influencing a player in ways intended by a designer. I don’t necessarily think, however, that the way to do this is through major software releases with high development costs, but rather through something rather less expensive and ambitious.

A case in point might be the online “budget simulator” that the government of British Columbia has released in order to inform citizens about the challenges of balancing the provincial budget. That simulation has subsequently been criticized by some for its presumptions and the editorial comments it offers on player choices, with political opponents labelling it as a “propaganda exercise” intended to build public support for the government’s preferred fiscal approach. (h/t to Brian Train for pointing out both the simulation and the subsequent criticism for us.) I rather liked the simulation, but it does seem unlikely that the BC government would have sponsored it if they didn’t feel it would work to their political advantage. Total cost of the simulation: $18,630.

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While on a Michael Peck-related theme, I should mention that Michael had a piece back in January at the Training & Simulation Journal on military simulations in an era of budget cutbacks that we forgot to link to, as well as (another) review of the boardgame Persian Incursion in February. We just can’t keep up with him.

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A GrogNews, Brant Guillory offers some thoughts on the perennial debate over games versus simulations, and their contribution(s) to education and training—complete with diagrams, no less! It is all very sensible too.

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Paul Vebber asks the question “how long does it take to put on a wargame?” at Wargaming Connection. Jon Compton then nails it with the right answer in the comments section: “it takes as much time as you have….”

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Electronic Arts has made it official: SimCity will be back. The trailer for the forthcoming version was announced at the 2012 Games Developers Conference this week. You absolutely should never judge a game by the pre-release cinematics, of course—but if they are anything like the eventual game play, it looks great. The game is slated for release in 2013.

The Afghan Provincial Reconstruction game

Today a group of volunteer students from my POLI 450 (Peacebuilding) course at McGill University helped me playtest the Afghan Provincial Reconstruction game produced by LEC Management. The game was designed by Roger Mason (LECMgt) and Joe Miranda, with input from Eric Patterson at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University and COL Eric Wester at National Defense University.

A full description of the game by Mason and Patterson will be appearing in a forthcoming issue of Simulation and Gaming, but the basics are fairly straightforward. The 12 players each in the game belong to three different groups: the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRA), NATO, and the fictional “World Church Union.” While the WCU is meant to represent faith-based humanitarian NGOs—the game originally grew out of a symposium on religion and military affairs—in practice they pretty much function in the game as a generic NGO or collection of NGOs.

The game is played in front of four display maps. Three of these represent Afghan provinces, while one represents the national situation. One player each from GIRA, NATO, and the WCU sit at the national map, receiving resources at the start of each turn and allocating these and other assets to their counterparts in the provinces. Each provincial map, in turn, will also have a player each from the GIRA, NATO, and the WCU. The players utilize the resources the receive to try to complete various development projects.

The objective of the game is to stabilize Afghanistan by gaining influence and completing projects. If Afghanistan’s “National Stability Index” rises above a certain point, everyone wins. However, group players can also win if their group completes all their assigned projects (for example, all WCU projects are completed), while provincial players can win if all GIRA, NATO, and WCU projects in a particular province are completed.

Sound simple? Well, there are complications. The allocation of resources by the national players to the provinces can be the subject of considerable bargaining, especially as players try to allocate scarce resources in ways that create synergies and optimize effects. The provincial players need to build influence with local powerbrokers before projects can go ahead—in the game this is represented by a triad of a local government official (malik), a local religious leader (mullah), and a local council of elders (shura). There are random event cards at both the national and provincial level that can create all manner of complications for the various players’ plans, ranging from suicide bombings to religious backlash to cholera outbreaks. The Taliban and hostile warlords make an appearance, damaging reconstruction efforts. al-Qa’ida might even take hostages. The various bad guys can be dealt with, but that usually requires a combination of local influence and military assets provided by the national-level decision-makers. Of course there are never enough resources to go around. Intelligence matters too, sometimes giving players an opportunity to look ahead to the next event, and prepare accordingly.

As is evident from the summary, the Afghan Provincial Reconstruction game is not meant to be a detailed simulation of actual Afghan combat and development operations. Indeed the province “maps” aren’t really maps at all, but rather identical displays with different names on them. The possible random events and game dynamics and project costs are the same for each province too. Anthropologists could endlessly quibble about the abstract model of local power dynamics. However, this isn’t what the game is about. Rather, it is trying to capture some of the difficulties of stabilization and development efforts in nonpermissive environments, with a particular focus on the challenges of resource allocation and coordination. So how does it fare in this?

Judging from student reaction, it was a considerable success. Resource allocation discussions soon became noisy, even heated. In some provinces actors worked together well, while in others there was a little more tension and a little less sharing of information and resources. Successful programs were rapidly undone by adverse events, and the tension was quite palpable when it came time to flip the event cards each turn. In one notable case, some miscommunication resulted in a failed SAS hostage rescue mission in Khost, creating a crisis of confidence among local power-brokers. In Kandahar, an aid convoy was ambushed. All manner of things complicated the lives of the Kunar provincial team, with the increasingly stressed NATO official there suffering from what seemed to be a simulation-induced case of PTSD.

In the end, however, the players manage to achieve an impressive “Total Victory,” pushing the National Stabilization Index up over 100 for two successive turns. Hurrah! Whether this was due to innate skill, good luck, the insights generated by my POLI 450 lectures, or the security-and-development facilitating powers of Angela’s Pizza we were unable to determine.

Although the facilitator manual suggests that a game can be played in two hours, ours ran significantly longer than this even though we didn’t need to play through the full eight turns. This included some time for briefing the rules at the outset, however, as well as pizza distribution. I’m not sure I would have wanted to hurry it along any faster, however, since the player discussion and strategizing were the most important part of the process.

We also ran into a few cases where the rules seemed unclear, or where the rules seem to say one thing but the event cards suggested another. This was quickly resolved by divine intervention, however.

Finally, the game also generated a number of ideas for tweaks and add-ons. Far from being a weakness,  I view this very much as a strength: unlike a digital game, a “cardboard” boardgame is easily modified. Next year, therefore, we are likely to roll out our own version 2.0 with an active Taliban player, rather than having all opposition activity generated by the event cards. Doing this will allow us to explore adaptive-counteradaptive cycle of insurgency and counter-insurgency. It will also generate even more tension into the classroom setting, thereby further encouraging student engagement.

I’ve invited student participants to add comments below, which some may choose to do. I certainly would like to thank them for all participating—I was impressed at the turn-out on a slushy, wet Saturday morning! Thanks are due as well to my co-facilitator Tommy Fisher, who took a break from designing anti-corruption and financial intelligence simulations (and surviving our gaming group’s ongoing zombie apocalypse) to help us out.

For further information on the game, contact LECMgt at info@lecmgt.com.

Peacekeeping the Game

Peacekeeping the Game is  a relatively simple 3-4 player boardgame developed by Michael Goon (Yeshiva University) that explores the challenge of long-term peace building in fragile and conflict-affected countries:

Political science students face the difficult challenge of understanding the obstacles to resolving intrastate conflict. Often, instructors will use negotiation-based role-playing simulations to model arduous discussions between the warring groups and intervening parties. However, the long-term challenges of directing peacebuilding and ensuring security are equally important parts of intrastate conflict resolution that remain unaddressed in current simulations. The design of simulations with board-game-like rules for teaching about intrastate conflict has also been unexplored. This paper lays out a new type of simulation with board-game-like rules that present realistic obstacles to students as they try to balance the various needs of their assigned state. A detailed discussion of the significance of each of the game rules and potential applications of the simulation is included.

The abstract above is from his article on the game published last year in International Studies Perspective—and, while the journal itself is behind a paywall, there’s a text version of the piece on his website. Moreover, you’ll also find a full version of the game rules there, together with various game aids. On the website he notes the following learning objectives:

• Understanding strategic planning and risk taking faced by leaders in post-conflict societies
• Evaluating the role of peacebuilding and reconstruction in conflict resolution
• Understanding insecurity and uncertainty in conflict resolution
• Exploring the importance of a long-term peacekeeper presence in the gradual reduction of militarism
• Understanding vulnerabilities in peacebuilding
• Understanding uncertainty in elections, including the potential for extremism
• Considering the difficulty of transitioning from a welfare state to market economy
• Exploring the role of external actors in conflict resolution, including the potential for third parties to sabotage peace

In its conceptualization and approach, Peacekeeping the Game explicitly draws from from Roland Paris’ excellent book At War’s End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict. This is especially true in the way that it views the relationship between economic and political transition,  in the focus on the importance of sectoral institution-building, and in the view that a rush to premature elections can be dangerously destabilizing.

It is a clever game design, and worth looking at for several reasons.

First, it is impressive how much the designer has packed into a few play sheets and a couple of pages of rules, with a game that only needs a few tokens (pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters) to play. The website also supplies a useful debriefing sheet to maximize  learning outcomes from the game. As a “cardboard” (or paper) game, it is also easily modified by instructors for their own purposes.

Second, the game also illustrates how games can embody a theoretical model of social, economic, and political process—in this case, a particular perspective on the dynamics and challenges of liberal peace building. While I don’t entirely agree with some of that analysis, Paris’ work is both thoughtful and thought-provoking, and required reading in my own graduate seminar.

Finally, as Goon correctly notes in his article, most peacebuilding simulations focus on the immediate dynamics of negotiation and conflict settlement rather than the longer-term processes of reconstruction and institution-building addressed in his game. Consequently, it fills an important niche.