Wargaming Failed States

One of the sources for creating near future wargame scenarios is the Index of Failed States. Warfare in the current world seems to be more a question of failed state militias and clan conflict than the full scale mechanised-industrial warfare of the twentieth century.

The failed state index map is show above. The world is divided into four conditionsL

Green: Sustainable
Amber: Stable
Orange: Warning
and
Brick-Red: Alert

The factors used in the judgements are as follows:-

Social
Mounting demographic pressures.
Massive displacement of refugees.
Widespread vengeance-seeking group grievance.
Chronic and sustained human flight.

Economic
Uneven economic development along group lines.
Severe economic decline.

Political
Criminalization of the state.
Deterioration of public services.
Suspension or arbitrary application of law.
Security apparatus operating independent of the law.
Rise of factionalized elites.
Intervention of external political forces.

It is interesting to look at the states deemed to be 'sustainable' because it raises severe questions about the methodology. Some are inarguable - Finland, Scandanavia, Canada but the choice of some of the others are less convincing.

Australia: The vast majority of the population lives in a handful of large cities separated by huge distances and life is marginal. Global climate change will have disproportionate impact.

Germany: Facing depopulation and a demographic time bomb.

Iceland: Broke.

Ireland: Broke, mass emigration of young skilled people and still threatened by simmering ethnic conflict.

Of course, there are always problems of reducing multi-dimensional data to a single number.

We are familiar with the Spanish Civil War but the activities of the Freikorps and their role in the destruction of the Weimer Republic and the rise of Nazism seems to be largely forgotten now.

I have just finished Nigel Jones superb book on the history of the Freikorps (and other German militias) and their transformation into the brown shirts and SS.

One of the signs of a stable state is that the state has the exclusive control of mass violence through state controlled institutions. In contrast failed states always exhibit private armies in the form of non-state controlled militias of one sort or another be they political, religious ethnic or simply clan-based that are capable of challenging the state's monopoly of mass violence. The Carlist militia of a previous post are a good example.

Of course it helps enormously if the bulk of the population regard the state's monopoly of violence as legitimate but that is not essential. Stalinist Russia showed itself to be remarkably stable.

I recently saw a Texan tea-party militia waving guns at a political rally at the Alamo. Tourists were taking their picture and the militia was boasting that they were showing foreigners what a free country looked like. Hmm..

Of course it would be a wild exaggeration to compare American patriot militia to the Freikorps for all sorts of reasons not least because the patriot militias do not seriously challenge the American State's monopoly of mass violence. Any militiaman waving a hunting rifle who fondly imagines that he could survive ten seconds of combat against the regular army is utterly delusional. Also American militiamen just plain do not have the mind-set of the psychopaths who came back from the German trenches in 1918. To put it bluntly they are protesters not natural killers and their guns are political props.

So the failed state index is a useful scenario-inspiring tool but read about the Freikorps before you take it too seriously.

Short Reviews

The Great War
This is essentially 40K tweaked. If you want to play 40K using WWI models then fine but little thought has gone into what made WWI such a terrible experience. The problem is that 40K is heroic fantasy combat with added guns. WWI was the first industrial-scale war between major powers that used massive firepower. Not recommended.

Gladiator
This is a rework of the Lord of the Rings system. As a skirmish system it is not entirely inappropriate for gladatorial combat but, equally, it's not especially atmospheric either. The LotR system is not great for ritualised (sport?) one on one combat. The book is full of useful and interesting information and has nice scenarios and campaign systems and can be recommended on that basis but it needs  more specific game mechanics. Recommended with reservations.

Hammers Slammers Hardback - Rules of game design

The revised harback edition of Hammers Slammers that incorporates all the various updates is in preperation.

The pick shows a draft of a page.

I do not claim to be anything other than an amateur game designer as it was never my day job. However, I have had a number of games published commercially with a degree of success and I do have some thoughts on what makes a successful game. So I have put them below.









1. KISS - Keep it simple stupid. This is the most important rule. Complexity and detail do not increase realism, whatever that means. Every extra rule adds exponentially to the grit in the machine. The rules of chess are so simple that even a computer can play yet no one has come up with a better game. Less is more.

2. It's a game. Repeat that to yourself. Games by definition are based around game theory - i.e. there should not be a single best strategy.

3. You are providing entertainment not setting an exam. If it ain't fun it ain't a game.

4. Ask yourself a key question - What is the game about? Decide, focus on it and stick to it.

For example, Hammers Slammers is about David Drake's iconic SF books - that is armoured cavalry warfare in colonial wars. That immediately tells me what matters in the game. It has to be a fast-moving vehicle game where the tanks are king and infantry abstracted. The player must be able to field decent numbers of tanks so complicated tank damage rules are out. Colonial warfare as depicted by Drake involves multiple tech levels AND multiple skill levels. The latter has to be as important, no more important, than the former.

My Game Designs

I am still having a mass clearout in preperation for a move to a smaller house. I have come across my various commercially published game designs over the years. In the last few years, i have been mostly into miniature games.




Back in the early 80s, I was a PhD student (mathematical ecology). My first child was born and my wife had to give up her job in Central London to look after her (we commuted in from the north Kent coast). Desperate for money, I got in to designing computer games. The best selling was the Fourth Protocol, the world's first icon-driven computer game.



I started out by designing board wargames. Not much money in it and the boardgame market collapsed in the early 80s.