Follow Me Tactical Decision Game

[Redleg7]

I think what could be interesting would be to randomize some of the baseline social relationships, so that a player/student would be encouraged to ask the right questions, rather than blindly copy historical approaches that were themselves highly contextually dependent.

Take, for example, the relationship between unemployment levels and support for insurgency. In some conflicts the relationship is positive (unemployment creates grievances and makes it easier for insurgents to hire guns), in some cases there is no relationship at all, and in a few cases the relationship is actually negative (employment generates resources which are funnelled to the insurgents). Similarly, tribes and tribal leaders are very important in some places--and not in others.

A truly effective COIN game would encourage the participant to map the human terrain and be wary of cookie-cutter approaches. However, that is a bit of a departure for game designers--who have tended to work with unchanging physics models in the game engine. Still, it could be quite easily done.

Something along the lines of a COIN SimCity.

[Rex Brynen]

Something along the lines of a COIN SimCity.

That's what UrbanSim appears to be. I haven't played around with the software, but I would be worried if it somehow universalized (say) Fallujah as the model for all urban COIN everywhere always.

[Steve Blair]

That's what UrbanSim appears to be. I haven't played around with the software, but I would be worried if it somehow universalized (say) Fallujah as the model for all urban COIN everywhere always.

And I'm afraid that's what you might see if you went to an all-computer simulation of COIN...depending of course on how dependent you were on the AI. If you used it like a MUD, for example, I could see the utility. The problems begin as soon as you rely on the simulation to provide the majority of the "actors" and even take on the role of factions.

[Rex Brynen]

And I'm afraid that's what you might see if you went to an all-computer simulation of COIN...depending of course on how dependent you were on the AI. If you used it like a MUD, for example, I could see the utility. The problems begin as soon as you rely on the simulation to provide the majority of the "actors" and even take on the role of factions.

Actually, David Earnest (Old Dominion U) had a really interesting article on MMO- type multiplayer approaches to COIN simulation in the Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulations last year.

My own classroom simulation is designed around this idea of a large number of participant interactions. It works well--especially the sense of intersecting agendas and the imperfect information flows that it generates--but it's human moderated, and pretty much takes up 90% of my week when I run it. USIP is designing software to support that type of simulation (the Open Simulation Platform), into which you would then "slot" your scenario and setting. This is all text and basic chat, though--no WoW style maps and immersive VR environment (or, for that matter, Night Elf Mohawk grenades).

[Steve Blair]

Actually, David Earnest (Old Dominion U) had a really interesting article on MMO- type multiplayer approaches to COIN simulation in the Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulations last year.

My own classroom simulation is designed around this idea of a large number of participant interactions. It works well--especially the sense of intersecting agendas and the imperfect information flows that it generates--but it's human moderated, and pretty much takes up 90% of my week when I run it. USIP is designing software to support that type of simulation (the Open Simulation Platform), into which you would then "slot" your scenario and setting. This is all text and basic chat, though--no WoW style maps and immersive VR environment (or, for that matter, Night Elf Mohawk grenades).

Our local brew is reasonably labor-intensive too, but I consider it worthwhile in that our cadets get experience with something other than automated planning processes (or simulated automated planning processes). I guess I've always viewed the computer sims as tools that can be used toward an end rather than an end in and of themselves.

Does USIP have a downloadable version of this up yet? Last time I looked they were still testing.

[Redleg7]

We did an exercise for our Defense Strategic Studies course we did an exercise that incorporated a lot of roleplaying. We used the event capability in Follow Me to trigger the roleplaying. Prior to the exercise we created the areas and triggers for each event. As the cadets conducted their operations events would "pop" based on a trigger, in most cases the trigger was a blue unit entering a specific area. Follow Me has the capability to show jpg, text, audio, or video events.

For this exercise we opted for simple jpg files. Whenever the event fired a graphic would show describing the event, the cadet would decide whethere or not they needed to take action. If they did then they would move to the designated roleplay area.

On the host machine we are able to monitor the events as they were triggered. Whenever one was triggered we would let the roleplayer know so he/she could get into character. If the cadet moved to the roleplayer area the roleplayer would do their thing.

[Rex Brynen]

That's what UrbanSim appears to be. I haven't played around with the software, but I would be worried if it somehow universalized (say) Fallujah as the model for all urban COIN everywhere always.

Update: I got to play around with UrbanSim at I/ITSEC this week, and it's actually a pretty impressive piece of software from what I could see, especially if embedded in a course properly.

[Redleg7]

Hey guys I've created a new Follow Me website. I plan to add a lot more, if anyone is interested in writing an article for the blog portion please let me know.

Here's the link:

Follow Me

I'm still working on the overall look of the site.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

TJ

[Redleg7]

New article on the Follow Me website.


3 Class Technique

FYI there's a new game called Crucible of Command that was designed for the company level. When played in multiplayer mode you could simulate a BN level operation.