Whenever someone brings
up old Windows,
I think back to a game that I had as a
kid, Balance
of Power. It was originally developed on the Mac, and had a
windowy, mousy interface, so the PC port shipped with its own copy of
Windows 1.0, on two 5¼" floppies.
As I was googling around in nostalgia, I came across Chris Crawford's online version of the
book
about the game. I haven't finished reading it, but so far it's
great, with detailed analsyses and historical examples of the
real-world political phenomena represented in the game.
It's also really funny in parts. Here's a bit about the religious
component of insurgencies:
Westerns may think of religious insurgency in terms of recent [1985
-xach] expressions of Islamic extremism, but religious factors played
a large role in insurgencies during the Reformation and were the
primary expression of insurgency during Roman times. It is not that
religion exerted life-and-death influence over people's hearts and
minds in these societies; it's just that churches were the primary
locus of social activity in these societies. Were a major insurgency
to form in the United States, it would probably be based in shopping
malls.
There's an informative passage about the role of simulations and
the role of games. For simulations:
The military has used simulations since their creation in the
1830s by a Prussian staff officer. On a large table with markers
representing military units, officers consulting a detailed manual of
rules maneuvered their armies in imaginary campaigns. The training
value of such simulations was scoffed at by other armies until 1866
and 1870, when the Prussian army smashed first the Austro-Hungarian
army and then the French army in two stunning campaigns. The rest of
the world very quickly adopted the use of military simulations.
For games:
A game is to a
simulation as a painting is to a blueprint. A painting of a house gives you
an emotional impression of the house; a blueprint of the house tells the
carpenter exactly where to put the windowsill. A game is no mere
approximation of a simulation or a lower-quality version of a simulation.
Instead, a game focuses on presenting broader, less quantifiable concepts.
One would not use a painting as the basis for building a house, nor would
one use a blueprint to convey his feelings about the house in which he
spent his childhood.
Sprinkled throughout are historical examples of the game concepts
(insurgency, coups, international crises, etc), with statistics about
success and failure, and their impact on the design of the game
formulas. For example, after discussing the successful riotous revolts
in Haiti, Iran, and Poland, he concludes:
These examples of successful popular revolts are the exceptions, not the
rule. Civil unrest is the norm in many nations of the world and it boils into
the streets with depressing frequency. In all three of the above-cited cases,
(Haiti, Iran, and Poland), the leadership refused to acknowledge the
seriousness of the situation until it was too late. The reason for such a
callous attitude is the frequency of civil disorder and its usual lack of
issue. Most of the time, the police crack down and the crowds disperse after
venting their rage. There have been some 10,000 riots in the last forty years;
about 100, or 1% of these, yielded a change of executive. Little wonder that
political leaders seldom see civil disorder as a threat to their jobs.
The last chapter is all about the development of the game itself.
It's interesting to see a world where a guy can write an abstract,
brainy geopolitical strategy game, for the Mac, on his Lisa, and
eventually, with much difficulty, find a big audience for it.
So go
read it! It's part 1985 time capsule, part far-ranging but
easy-reading geopolitical power history, part game design philosophy,
and part game development journal. The style is accessible and
informative. And it's free!
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