Wargaming Weekly #010: What is the truth about deception in wargaming?!
Well... it's one third of "The Tricky Trio of Modern Wargaming"
* THE TOP STORY *
What is the truth about deception in wargaming?!
The Wargaming Deception Working Group Report is now available on the PAXsims website. I didn’t get the chance to really dig into it last week but I shared a quote from it under the “Good game insights” section of the last issue of Wargaming Weekly (thanks to this tweet by Hiroyasu Akutsu, one of the members of this working group).
10 key points on how this vital aspect of military operations should be approached in wargaming, from 30 leading wargaming experts… basically the Justice League of wargaming, except instead of discussing how to stop Darkseid, they’re figuring out how to bamboozle him first. I knew I had to read this report as soon as I saw all the heavy hitters that were credited as contributors.
The report starts with a summary of the 10 key points that surfaced during the working group’s deliberations and in the working papers. I was nodding along in slightly bored agreement until I reached #5, that’s when my eyes lit up!
“Two main types of wargaming deception were identified; (1) modeled deception (in which the effects of deception are built into the game’s instrumentality) and (2) executed deception (in which the players actively try to deceive each other). The wargame designer must understand what type or mix best satisfies the sponsor’s objectives.”
The reason this point got me so excited is that I had two recent, relevant anecdotal examples - one for each type of wargaming deception identified!
- Modeled deception: Littoral Commander (whose rules I have recently been reading through extensively although I haven’t yet had the chance to play) has this type of deception in form of MILDEC units that players can sacrifice to blunt the damage of attacks on other units in their formation. I can’t wait to actually play it and see how this particular mechanic affects my choices. Will I always expend MILDEC units when I have them or will I sometimes hold onto them for later and let the unit under attack take the full damage from the adversary?
- Executed deception: Twilight Struggle (which I have played these last two weekends) has this type of deception in form of throwing your rival off your region of interest when you have a scoring card in the current turn by contesting their vital influence in another region. This is basically how I managed to finally beat Boris for the first time this last weekend (yes, that’s the custom name I gave the Soviet AI player). I had noticed that such deception was how Boris had maxed out their victory points on several scoring cards in previous games where I lost.
Guys, I think I’m a bonafide wargamer now! The fact that I had two salient examples at my fingertips for such a niche academic breakdown of wargaming makes me so happy ‘cause it means I have really progressed beyond my “just watch another GUWS webinar” phase of this journey.
Anyway, another point that stood out to me was the last one:
“Finally, it became clear during the working group that In order to achieve the above, familiarity with a range of tools (such as game theory, psychological and cognitive biases, decision analysis simulation, probability theory, and decision analysis) and how these can be used to manipulate beliefs and decision making, is extremely useful.”
For anyone interested in learning more about psychological and cognitive biases in particular, I highly recommend this cheatsheet by the guys at Growth Design… and their interactive videos too, especially if you’re in the tech startup world (I wrote about them in the last post on my software-focused blog).
All in all, I agree with the key recommendation of this working group report that whenever deception is left out of wargaming, there should be a clear and explicit explanation why. In fact, deception is one third of what I’m now baptizing “The Tricky Trio of Modern Wargaming”.
I think of the intersection of AI, cyber and deception as “The Grand Line” of wargaming – the zone of this ocean where any pirate (read professional wargame designer) worth their salt should be headed with the zeal, hunger and determination of Luffy and his crew. (By the way, I never really got into anime but one of my close friends made me watch One Piece long enough to be able to make this reference!)
In fact, deception is also the second D in the “4Ds of Combined Arms Attack” mnemonic that my armchair general brain has been chewing on for a while now… but that’s an article for another day.
* MORE STORIES *
Jobs in wargaming:
- Are you a PhD student, junior faculty member or early/mid-career national security practitioner interested in using wargaming as an analytic or teaching tool? Apply for the 2025 @MIT_SSP Wargaming Lab Summer Institute! https://x.com/eriklg/status/1878829846308286572 and https://x.com/MIT_CIS/status/1879906460601385354
- CNA is hiring for a Research Analyst to join their Gaming and Intergration team in the Operational Warfighting Division. Staff at this level will be leading smaller/less complex activities or will be serving as an important contributing team member on projects https://x.com/GUWargaming/status/1879157196870533491
- Slitherine is recruiting 2 new team members to join the growing Matrix Pro Sims team supporting Command PE. European Business Development and Brand Marketing roles available -https://slitherine.com/job/postings. Please share to anyone who may be interested https://x.com/Iain_Slitherine/status/1879545395694715109
Games coming soon!
- Clint Warren-Davey continues playtesting Messiah, his Jesus COIN game https://x.com/Clint_Davey1/status/1880895733647507548 and https://x.com/Clint_Davey1/status/1881121097648877612
- Clint Warren-Davey's COIN-inspired game on the occupation of Germany, 1945-48, Werwolf is heading to the printers soon https://x.com/Clint_Davey1/status/1879755196089475165
- Roy Qiao continues playtesting A New Order of Samurai https://x.com/qiao_roy/status/1879188956916662319
- Roy Qiao continues work on his game, Through the Spring and Autumn https://x.com/qiao_roy/status/1880623475100143723 and https://x.com/qiao_roy/status/1880623829556527211
- Roy Qiao is experimenting with a new design for another small game https://x.com/qiao_roy/status/1879645140400435521
- Antony continues work on OCS: The Forgotten Battles https://x.com/MultiManPub/status/1879310968448336247
- Table of organization and equipment (TO&E) editing interface from ORBAT Mapper https://x.com/orbatmapper/status/1878497021755044076 and https://x.com/orbatmapper/status/1879616632458535104 and https://x.com/orbatmapper/status/1880727604220871155
- Iwo Jima: Hell on Earth, a free World War II Print and Play wargame from NEVA Wargames has an upcoming crowdfunding/pre-order campaign https://x.com/nevawargames/status/1879597549969158451
- The People Power VASSAL module is nearly completed https://x.com/PastorJoelT/status/1879748333172085154
- The Old School Tactical expansion, Stalingrad by Mark Holt Walker is now available on Kickstarter https://x.com/MarkHoltWalker/status/1879636191655649285
- Mark Holt Walker is working on the next game in the Armageddon War series, Rising Dragon https://x.com/MarkHoltWalker/status/1879217895047303666
- Upcoming Kickstarter for Task Force Admiral's Physical Edition https://x.com/micro_prose/status/1880026020301959415
- New Cold War by Andoni Orive, published by VUCA Simulations is now on preorder https://x.com/playersaidblog/status/1879881539322020318
Games worth noting!
- In 2023, Savannah Benko, a Georgetown game designer, demonstrated her original, educational wargame about EOD response for South American officers in Lima, Peru https://x.com/GUWargaming/status/1879156572871397458
- Brian Train’s QUICK is a fairly simple game on urban large-scale combat operations by elements of a Division/ Group Army designed to be used by students of the Urban Operations Planner Course (QUICK stands for Quick Urban Integrated Combat Kriegspiel) https://x.com/Stu_Lyle/status/1879106574574379366
- Rex Brynen’s AFTERSCHOCK is a game about international humanitarian relief, the scenario is set in a functionalized country but the details are based on real disasters in Haiti and India https://x.com/Stu_Lyle/status/1879106574574379366
- CGSOC executes the Tactical Application Support Officer (TASO) simulation program. This program develops adaptive leaders who can integrate tactical applications into operational planning https://x.com/ArmyUniversity/status/1879883834813976620
- Brotherhood & Unity by Compass Games is a 2-3 player card-driven game depicting the Bosnian War (1992–1995). Players command Bosniak, Serb, or Croat brigades, navigating historical events, shifting alliances, and military strategies https://x.com/WojennikTV/status/1879939036535816497
- Infernal Machine: Dawn of Submarine Warfare is a solitaire board game that casts the player in the role of inventor/entrepreneur in mid-19th century America https://x.com/gmtgames/status/1879666837195231372
- The Beachhead by Sebastian Bae is a simple, educational micro game highlighting the "tactical will to fight." Players must try to manage the precarious cohesion of a unit together as they fight on contested beaches https://x.com/SebastianBae/status/1880642292736012645
- People Power VASSAL module is live, please be sure to read the module instructions as there are a few things designer Joel Toppen has chosen to do differently in this COIN module versus previous modules https://x.com/PastorJoelT/status/1880324090638266549 and https://x.com/PastorJoelT/status/1880672551342670181
- Red Dragon Green Crescent Deluxe Edition is a strategic-level simulation of hypothetical future conflicts in and around East Asia, the Indian Ocean, and the Middle East. The time frame is the not-too-distant future, roughly between 2024 and 2035 https://x.com/Mountain_Navy/status/1880287198458871808
- Joint All Domain Operation (JADO), a Chinese wargame hat focuses on global confrontation operations and multi-service campaigns in the sea, land, air, space and power grid under high-tech conditions in modern warfare https://x.com/agm84/status/1880320930909679690 and https://x.com/WEsoterica/status/1880760964641108195
* BUBBLING IDEAS *
Good game questions:
- “OK guys, I need some suggestions. I need to do some research on the Punic Wars. Can anyone recommend any videos, podcasts, books or websites? Or some simple board games on the topic?” – Clint Warren-Davey https://x.com/Clint_Davey1/status/1878906111677649358
Good game insights:
- “As a very broad generalisation, games reward two things: 1. Efficiency. 2. Risk/Reward. What we call "euro" games fall are mostly about number 1. What we call "wargames" are mostly about number 2.” – Clint Warren-Davey https://x.com/Clint_Davey1/status/1878536769337172294
- “Students in the @us_sams @ArmyUniversity learn from the stones and play wargaming simulation Go as an analytical tool to understand the perspectives of another nation.” – Mark Greenwald https://x.com/smarkg52/status/1878845740354843135
- “I always love a tactical game that gives me the power to choose what I want to take on the mission. Having to do this during the setup of a mission helps me to understand what the objectives are, what might be needed to more effectively achieve the objectives and how I can support my squad by distributing the load of heavy weapons ammo. Some people don’t like this level of granularity in their games but I really do and that is why I love a game like Warfighter from Dan Verssen Games because you have to choose wisely and cannot simply carry everything that you might need.” – Grant Kleinhenz https://x.com/playersaidblog/status/1879152027525402906
- “Synthetic experiences like playing wargames can help develop knowledge and feedback into a memory that provides the decision-maker experience. Not as strong as physical battles, but actual, useable experience. Synthetic experience, while artificial, provides valuable support for real-world problem-solving and decision-making.” – Roger Mason https://x.com/Stu_Lyle/status/1879106574574379366
- “Second, I wanted players to interact with current, emergent, and future capabilities and concepts. Hence Blue’s force structure is borrowed from the Marine Corps and elements of the other Services, and Red is a mixture of Russia, China, and some non-state violent extremist organizations thrown in for good measure” – Ian T. Brown https://x.com/ian_tb03/status/1874108549871394953
- “One of the metrics I use to get people into card or tt games is "can my drunk friends play this after dinner?" Many rulesets and setups do not pass this litmus test.” – James Salerno https://x.com/jimmysal/status/1878917617530163477
- “How do you give players a sense of theme? By making the game feel like a narrative. For that, you need a few things. First, you need to give players some kind of identity. A character or faction that they are representing. Then, there needs to be a progression in the story - a beginning, middle and end. The board state needs to change in fundamental ways. Not just accumulation of more of the same type of pieces/mechanics. Finally, there needs to be some of drama - the resolution of a conflict, preferably in a way that is unexpected. For this happen, there should be multiple ways to win, so that it is possible for a player victory to come as a surprise. The game can't be dramatic if there is a single way to win which everyone is working towards at the same time. You need a bunch of other stuff too, but this is the fundamental basis of a thematic game.” – Clint Warren-Davey https://x.com/Clint_Davey1/status/1878538236504531068
- “The design goal was to first be fun (thus, I had to exclude some historical aspects as they seemed to make the game a bit boring to play), short-time play (it plays in about one hour), solitaire (so everyone who is interested in the topic can get it and play it without guessing if another player will like if it would be a multiplayer game), and challenging but not impossible to win (here players who played The Spanish Road published at C3i Nr 37 will find some similarities but with some interesting challenges added to adjust it to a naval siege and city assault).” - Daniel Hernández Iniesta https://x.com/playersaidblog/status/1878789760568963274
- “Wargaming is unlike any other game. There are no simple rules for either side and no pre-defined outcomes. There seem to be three major areas in wargaming that I have observed after almost two years in the Halsey Program: the operational environment (the game board) which is driven by the strategic context of politics and a desire to contain conflict, the friendly and opposing forces (the game pieces), specifically what forces exist and how they move, and the third area is the rules of force interaction (combat assessment factors).” - Anthony LaVopa https://x.com/CIMSEC/status/1878940898677121480
- “You know why I say that game design is harder than rocket science? (Especially in turn-based tabletop games.) Because we have GREAT FUCKIN ROCKETS. LOTS OF THEM! Thanks to the abundance of ROCKET SCIENTISTS. I do not feel the same abundance of great games.” – Ben “Manacaster” Kelly https://x.com/ManacasterBen/status/1879481261401440349
- “the article below gets deeper into the Solitaire TacOps system. my goal was to design mechanics that give the opposition the range of tactical approaches one would expect from a live thinking adversary, while adhering to the postures of the historical actors.” – Non-Breaking Space https://x.com/nbsp1618/status/1879538488028405887
- “[a ‘Longest Turn’ card] should be in every game” – Clint Warren-Davey https://x.com/Clint_Davey1/status/1880007333037895775
- “Yo game dev, I simply can't recommend making your own game engine. Unless you want to ensure you likely never, ever release your game. Games take forever to make as it is, and it's tough enough developing / releasing / fixing your game, let alone "custom engines" on top.” – Liam Twose https://x.com/LiamTwose/status/1879860886179123501
- “Ascending Empires isn’t special because it’s a wholly new thing. It’s special because it feels right to handle. I’m not only talking about the flicking, which is plenty good, even great when you land a perfect shot. Rather, the simple appeal of a 4X game that fits into two hours and tickles those pleasure centers when you establish a city in a hard-to-reach spot, beat back an enemy expedition, or surround a floating space behemoth.” – Dan Thurot https://x.com/DanThurot/status/1879935996575510911
- “Hopefully one takeaway from the simulation and its results is that there is room for bilateral cooperation to resolve issues today. That to me is the ideal outcome of our simulations. Cooperation might not be perfect, but the simulations show that there’s room for good diplomacy, even if it also requires military intervention. At the bare minimum level, this simulation left something for participants to think about: What is the cost of nonintervention?” - Ethan Magistro https://x.com/enumura/status/1879900037955891259
- “Played Arcs at 2 player last night. It worked really well. Now that I've played it a few times, I can see that it's a lot simpler than I first thought. My friend picked it up quickly and we played a full game in about 90 minutes. I won, but only narrowly. The thing we both really like about it is that it forces you to fight each other. You compete for cards and captives in the court and need to raid each other for cards, resources and trophies. You can't turtle and you can't play it like a resource-accumulation economic game. You have to be engaged with what the other players are doing, and you need to be competing for very scarce resources. It actually makes me want to get the expansion, now that I have a firm grasp of the base game. Would love to see it at 6 players and with the narrative/campaign mode over 3 games.” – Clint Warren-Davey https://x.com/Clint_Davey1/status/1879758293129986106
- “Was talking to a friend the other day about Dune Imperium: Uprising. He has played it once but didn't like it. The reason? According to him, it's not a real deck builder. The card river doesn't move very much. You only go through your deck a few times, maybe only seeing each new card 1-3 times. So all the deck-building stuff is wasted. And I think he's partially right. I love the game but I think the deck-building takes a back seat to the worker placement and conflict. Still a great game, but really makes you think about the centrality of certain mechanics in a design.” – Clint Warren-Davey https://x.com/Clint_Davey1/status/1879756638095392898
- “If we obtain our own generative AI, the "best use cases" will be using it to produce three things: FITREPs, awards, and OPORDs. None of those things should ever be produced with generative AI.” – Dark Laughter https://x.com/DarkLaughterTDB/status/1879609278132339016
- “Newtonian physics, weather, time are all in the game that makes it a simulation. Simulation doesn't mean complex and realism has nothing to do with blood and guts.” – Old School Wargamer https://x.com/LibertyForAll19/status/1879585391079985511
- “Nobody is more surprised about this turn of events than I am. I had long placed Dean Essig’s Operational Combat Series (OCS) in the category of overly complex wargames I was never going to learn how to play. However, for my planned dive into Korean War games I wanted to focus on logistics and OCS is the series that does logistics in modern warfare. I had planned to start learning OCS with Korea: The Forgotten War but pivoted at the last minute to Luzon. I really enjoyed Luzon but now that I’m starting my first big scenario of Korea, I am having even more fun with all the system’s elements in play. I still don’t intend to play any of the huge 4+ map East Front titles, but I may be developing a bit of an OCS addiction…” – Stuart Ellis-Gorman https://x.com/DrCrossbows/status/1879328125622128973
- “Littoral Commander has an overall structure to organize when specific actions are available – but the game does NOT have a rigid structure for tactical actions. This was a purposeful design choice to enable tactical flexibility in sequence, coordination, and creativity.” – Sebastian Bae https://x.com/mesadeguerra/status/1880584942532600076
- “Another of the great joys that this design has given me is to know that it has been used on several occasions in training workshops for officers of the Polish army in classes of strategy, calculation and analysis of unexpected situations in urban battles.” - Jose Antonio Rivero https://x.com/JRiveroDesigner/status/1880229211518234815
- “Catan cops a lot of hate, partially because it's so dependent on luck and on your initial set up. But one under-stated advantage of Catan is that you can potentially get free stuff (resources) every turn, including other people's turns. So every turn, players are eagerly looking at the map and the dice to see if they get something. Of course there are many other ways of maintaining engagement during other player's turns. But Catan was one of the first to do this. Worth considering.” – Clint Warren-Davey https://x.com/Clint_Davey1/status/1880391232683180205
- “From an educational perspective, wargaming is a key part of our Joint Military Operations department’s operational art curriculum, used to reinforce learning of operational factors and functions,” Compton stated. “From a research perspective, the processes presented in this course are our method when creating analytic war games as directed by the Chief of Naval Operations.” – Jonathan Compton https://x.com/NavalWarCollege/status/1880307388483530875
- “To design a historical game, the most important thing is to have a good map. If the map is good, it's just a matter of removing-adding elements to adapt it to the story you want to represent. Example of a board that I prepared for Steve Bissett's Custer's Last Stand game.” - Jose Antonio Rivero https://x.com/JRiveroDesigner/status/1881000315220373634
- “Another example of how to make a cool map for your game board. I looked for an old original like this one, removed all the excess and added the necessary elements for the wargame. It takes a lot of time searching for maps and tweaking, but the result is worth it. Game Kamikaze.” - Jose Antonio Rivero https://x.com/JRiveroDesigner/status/1881014345678873032
- “We do ourselves a disservice when we don’t use [wargaming] as an apportunity to really stretch ourselves as an institution, as deep theinkers, and just as smart human beings” - Adam Taliaferro https://x.com/AmosFox6/status/1880608170844025012
*MEDIA CRUNCH*
Interviews about wargames:
- Grant Linneberg interviews Ananda Gupta and Mark Herman, and checks out Commands and Colors Medieval and it's new expansion, Crusades https://x.com/cardboardpusher/status/1878819641608257571
- Check out Cody's Top Ten Games that let you do something fun on other players' turns: https://x.com/CodyK76/status/1878956144603058658
Memes of wargaming:
- https://x.com/ADragoons/status/1878881450268688609
- https://x.com/SebastianBae/status/1878797432584356014
- https://x.com/LibertyForAll19/status/1878924253241995621
- https://x.com/PuntoDePartidaC/status/1880227021252645296
Books on wargaming:
- Influence Wargaming Handbook by dstl https://x.com/GUWargaming/status/1878899864248946761
- Wargames According to Mark by Mark Herman https://x.com/DrCrossbows/status/1879698884307636372 and https://x.com/SebastianBae/status/1880266402671784107
Events for wargamers:
- Twilight Struggle International Federation presents The ITS World Cup 2025, the most competitive tournament with 8 games in a weekend - Swiss System. Don’t miss the opportunity to play against the best of the TS World! https://x.com/JasonDCMatthews/status/1879989848158929218
- Join Georgetown Wargaming Society (GUWS) for Social Game day on Jan 25th! All are welcome! https://x.com/GUWargaming/status/1880239954732662958 and https://x.com/GUWargaming/status/1880242475484192918
- PSA on behalf of @morsanalytics—for anyone who may be going to the MORS 93rd Symposium this June 9–12, if you’re interested in giving a presentation go ahead and submit an abstract to WG30 Wargaming by 24 January https://x.com/ian_tb03/status/1879279837275357505
More wargaming newsletters:
- The latest Tuesday Newsday from Armchair Dragons: https://x.com/ADragoons/status/1879270922458456330
- GUWS Newsletter: January 14th https://x.com/GUWargaming/status/1879157196870533491
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Wargaming Weekly is curated, written and published by Rwizi Rweizooba Ainomugisha, a freelance writer, game designer and startup entrepreneur. Rwizi currently serves as Co-Founder, Co-CEO and Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) at Lupiiya Books - the social finance app that is gamifying the fundraising process for young African entrepreneurs. Wargaming Weekly is a curiosity chronicle of Rwizi’s exploration of the wargaming world… for the love of games in general, for the desire to contribute to the growth of wargaming in particular as a discipline, and lastly, for the hope of finding cutting-edge game design innovations to bring back with him to the startup world.
