Wargaming Small Wars (merged thread)

[AmericanPride]

If I were tasked with designing a COIN simulator, this is what it would look like:

1) Sand-box mode: an established framework to define player interaction, simulating a country similar to the Arab states; preferably a browser based system to mitigate admin bias, but a text-based game would be effective also.

2) Each player would control a faction; there would be kinds of factions: political, paramilitary, and conventional military. Factions would be measured a credibility variable. More on that later. Factions would have a prescribed set of policies/causes which can be changed at great cost to credibility.

3) Each faction type would have unique options and units. Player action would take place through these units. There would be many unit types with different capabilities, but each will be measured by common variables such as loyalty, leadership, religion, ethnicity, etc. This would allow for a wide combination of units (i.e. a US military faction and native military faction would share an Infantry unit type, but with different variables for them) and different kinds of interactions. This also allows factions to take on various shapes as the game develops. Some units could also be made available/unavailable depending upon a faction's policy/causes. Units can be killed, captured, turned, etc. Better units cans be recruited/assigned/purchased with higher credibility.

4) There would be one country divided into regions, each region with different population elements defined by similar variables as units. This would make it more difficult for Faction X to operate in Region Y if it does not share with it a common identity. However, this can be mitigated (or exasperated) by a faction's credibility rating. The greater the differences between factions and the population, the more credibility is required to operate effectively. Each region will also have a prescribed set of "wants" similar to a faction's causes/policies.

5) Holding local and national government positions (through units) would give factions more options; i.e. guiding infrastructure projects, lawmaking, etc. These options will also have an impact on a faction's credibility.

6) If two or more player actions contradict (i.e. how to use a common resource or defining local policy), the decision always rules in favor of the unit with more (fire)power (for better or for worse).

7) Game runs in real-time. No pauses. No time to think unless the player was able to create sufficient space and privilege for himself. Game ends when active players agree to call it quits.

[BayonetBrant]

If I were tasked with designing a COIN simulator, this is what it would look like:

(snip)

You might want to include some succes criteria and/or goals for each faction. Are they all after "control of population" or are they after something different? Maybe they're after 'removal of another faction' or 'control of a certain area' or 'resource'...

You need to define success criteria/victory conditions FIRST and then look at the capabilities available to accomplish it for that group. And it wouldn't be the first time a group tried to accomplish something completely outside its capabilities...

[AmericanPride]

You might want to include some succes criteria and/or goals for each faction. Are they all after "control of population" or are they after something different? Maybe they're after 'removal of another faction' or 'control of a certain area' or 'resource'.

That would be measured by the prescribed policies/causes. Depending on the intent of the simulation (training or otherwise), the player can define them upon joining, or the game gods can define them (or a mix of both). The player would then be free to shape his faction however he thinks is most effective for fulfilling the cause(s).

EDIT: Over the next couple of days, I'm going to start learning PHP. A basic COIN simulator will be an interesting project down the road.

[Ron Humphrey]

If I were tasked with designing a COIN simulator, this is what it would look like:

1) Sand-box mode: an established framework to define player interaction, simulating a country similar to the Arab states; preferably a browser based system to mitigate admin bias, but a text-based game would be effective also.

2) Each player would control a faction; there would be kinds of factions: political, paramilitary, and conventional military. Factions would be measured a credibility variable. More on that later. Factions would have a prescribed set of policies/causes which can be changed at great cost to credibility.

3) Each faction type would have unique options and units. Player action would take place through these units. There would be many unit types with different capabilities, but each will be measured by common variables such as loyalty, leadership, religion, ethnicity, etc. This would allow for a wide combination of units (i.e. a US military faction and native military faction would share an Infantry unit type, but with different variables for them) and different kinds of interactions. This also allows factions to take on various shapes as the game develops. Some units could also be made available/unavailable depending upon a faction's policy/causes. Units can be killed, captured, turned, etc. Better units cans be recruited/assigned/purchased with higher credibility.

4) There would be one country divided into regions, each region with different population elements defined by similar variables as units. This would make it more difficult for Faction X to operate in Region Y if it does not share with it a common identity. However, this can be mitigated (or exasperated) by a faction's credibility rating. The greater the differences between factions and the population, the more credibility is required to operate effectively. Each region will also have a prescribed set of "wants" similar to a faction's causes/policies.

5) Holding local and national government positions (through units) would give factions more options; i.e. guiding infrastructure projects, lawmaking, etc. These options will also have an impact on a faction's credibility.

6) If two or more player actions contradict (i.e. how to use a common resource or defining local policy), the decision always rules in favor of the unit with more (fire)power (for better or for worse).

7) Game runs in real-time. No pauses. No time to think unless the player was able to create sufficient space and privilege for himself. Game ends when active players agree to call it quits.

The majority of these reflect a particular application that my former place of employ was trying out. They are a reasonable way of approaching the issue and offer a lot of good developmental steps towards an even more in depth program. The ultimate goal would be that it should be able to be small enough for smaller groups to work yet be able to expand in scope and detail to the point at which some of the products would be able to interact with existing training systems.

Et All: I would think there are enough simulations of everything from economy, to peace negoatiations to admit that such a thing is definately doable. The very fact that it needs to avoid silver bullets makes it more so.
I think the real questions are the following.

Is it affordable? (not only in the sense of cost but also in consideration of is it worth it)

Who should build it? (this really would determine whether what you get is what you need. Way too many issues with those building it having a somewhat biased approach on whats important vs whats extra. This however is probably unavoidable)

[AmericanPride]

The majority of these reflect a particular application that my former place of employ was trying out. They are a reasonable way of approaching the issue and offer a lot of good developmental steps towards an even more in depth program.

That's interesting because the points I outlined constitute the framework my buddies and I are using to build a simulation of the Dune universe. We're building the game using PHP coding which apparently can do anything. It's cheap (but not so easy).

Is it affordable? (not only in the sense of cost but also in consideration of is it worth it)

I've always wondered what makes military simulators expensive (off-hand, I read somewhere that to operate a carrier in a simulation runs up to a million dollars a day). That's absurd. Is most of the cost in the hardware? I've found very sophisicated online simulators that are very cheap to make and operate.

[nichols]

It appears that there is a mis-perception about simulations in regards to small unit training.

The large simulations are generally expensive because there is a hugh contractor tail that is needed to support an exercise.

Games that you buy off the self at Walmart do not meet requirements for training.

Current thread in getting military small unit simulations is buying/developing editors that allow the end user to change the game.

Open APIs to allow third party AI insertion without having to go back to the original game developer.

Currently the Corps is fielding DVTE suites (32 laptops per suite) to each battalion.

While doing a neo op with an off the shelf AI package will effect the outcome of the scenario.......placing a system in the hands of the small unit that can be adjusted as needed will end up being part of the change over with the advanced party from the replacement unit.

The ability to modify the AI to meet current situations on the ground with the ability to take pictures of individuals and put them in game; think about the effect this would have had if we were doing that since 2003.

9 Innings at Quantico touches on the DIME aspects.

We are much closer than some think we are to getting a COIN sim.

Current draft infantry T & R Manual specifically call for simulation use to the point where it gets crp ratings.

Gen Mattis is driving JFCOM full blown into the sim world, I get reps from JFCOM & NATO attending progress review meetings. Hell, I briefed MGen Skare (Swedish) two Fridays ago on what we're doing.

Ultimately Gen Mattis wants a holodeck; yes, it is getting funded but it's gunna take some time

[nichols]

Portions of the last brief that I gave.

[nichols]

More slides

[nichols]

The slide with ALTS is an example of where we are plugging in a differnet company's voice/speech recognizer/culture AI into VBS-2 via an open API.

Now the Marines have to talk to the avatar...just imagine it talking to a native that doesn't understand english (I was trying to go the Dr Doolittle theme song foute....but I ran out of steam).

[Jason Port]

As you can see from Mr. Nichol's slides and from reading others works on this subject, we as a nation are not too far away from a technology and tactical perspective. We have the lessons learned, and the tech is not too far off. We simply are not good at the political side of this -

1. The knowledge and the data - We have smart people working around the country on this topic and we have the data from the current operations which could be used to create a real time left seat right seat (Pull all of the combat events for the game AO up to 24 hours ago and use them in the sim)

2. We have the models - There are smart folks around the country who have already modeled these pieces. They were built for similar programs and need to be extended.

3. Systems facilitated engagements to minimize player count - With time compression, white teams who play multiple roles and system applied parameters against their character performance, we could achieve effectiveness without an army of white team players. e.g this one OC runs 10 insurgent cells, but the system applies factors for leadership, tactics, etc.

4. Language-based issues - There are translation systems today which need extension to make this succeed, but this is critical. While conducting field interrogation in Bosnia, my translator failed to convey my tone, which results in no intel. Big impact on the outcome. But we are not that far away from making this part of the sim, but it must include understanding of the tonality of the speaker as well as the language itself.

5. Mixture of math and chaos - 2nd Life brings some value in this way as I believe it applies a little of the math and a little of the interpersonal dynamic to the equation. Unlike Marriage, when you respond off the cuff, the sim marriage allows you to put on your best or worst face. We need to eliminate playing the sim how we think it should be played and play it first how we would really play it in real life. Then, learn from where we made mistakes. This is not about getting virtual tail in a virtual bar.

6. Another author mentioned targeting the CPT and above. However, most of COIN is at CPT and below in the near term, and that is a key area to address in these sims. The Marine Corps really gets the fact that their Squad Leader is a key player in COIN and is clearly investing in it.

HOWEVER, politics is killing us. As a systems developer, I have seen no less than four Requests for Proposal for similar games and simulations, all by different agencies (and I haven't even looked at Dept. of State or USAID.) In turn we are spending a ton of money, which this auspicious group could in fact develop the requirements for over a few beers, and some war stories.

Because we cannot seem to cross lines, we are missing a crucial aspect which hasn't been discussed here at all - the impact of the global community on COIN, and how we "game" this into the Sim. What impact does the Asian World Bank play? Department of State? If you are the military sim developer, you might forget to include these in the day-to-day operation of the Squad Leader, until they build a factory where you wanted to build a soccer field. Or until the DoS rep mis-speaks and tells the tribal leader that the guys daughter looks like a hairless goat.

I submit at the end of the day, the factors you all have pointed out should be consumed into a white paper and submitted into the hands of the nearest congressperson, for endorsement and funding, under the Executive branch directly, so as to remove the interagency domain protection shenanagans.

[JT Clark]

If there was one thing that everyone at the recent COIN Leaders seminar took away, it was that the COIN CoG, IPB and ops planning processes can be modelled and gamed with only a few MS Word and Excel based tools.

I don't necessarily disagree that sims might have their place and should be investigated, but they aren't necessary to the fundamentals.

[Rex Brynen]

Because we cannot seem to cross lines, we are missing a crucial aspect which hasn't been discussed here at all - the impact of the global community on COIN, and how we "game" this into the Sim. What impact does the Asian World Bank play? Department of State? If you are the military sim developer, you might forget to include these in the day-to-day operation of the Squad Leader, until they build a factory where you wanted to build a soccer field. Or until the DoS rep mis-speaks and tells the tribal leader that the guys daughter looks like a hairless goat.

While harder to do in an AI-based electronic sim, this is relatively easy to do as part of a human-moderated RPG. One can imagine a scenario, for example, in which you're a company commander tasked with an AOR that includes several potential development and reconstruction project. In addition to maintaining security in your corner of Swjitsan, you and the local PRT (or whoever) need to:

1) Work out local aid priorities

• Who do you ask? There is a local village council, but it is dominated by members of certain clans/families, and steers you towards projects that favour their group.
• Certain subaltern groups (women, for example) also aren't represented in local government, yet have a better idea of day-to-day needs (health, education, water, waste disposal).
• The Swjistani central government has other ideas on priorities, some sensible others motivated by politics of rent-seeking opportunities.
• Aid agencies and NGOs have other ideas, based on what it is the usually do, or based on their own needs assessment data. Moreover, some of the available money is locked into particular budget envelopes, and all of it has different time-frames, bidding, and reporting requirements.
• Non-USG agencies have a significant portion of the potential cash.
  

2) Who executes? Many of the local contractors and corrupt, and many are linked to particular clans and political factions.

3) Rebuilding the school seems one of the clearer priorities, but there are problems.

• The old principal has local support, but was associated with the old authoritarian regime. He is also brother of the police chief.
• Principal appointed by central government is skilled and qualified, but belongs to other ethnic/religious group.
• Local conservatives rail against coeducation... yet it is far more cost effective than rebuilding two separate schools. Curriculum proves politically divisive.
• The central government wishes to use the school to service children in outlying villages, but there is local opposition to bringing in kids from other ethnic/religious groups. Some outlying villages in someone else's AOR.

4) Reconstruction projects become priority targets for insurgents, both politically and military. You could easily integrate some electronic SIMs at this point, having participants convey aid personnel, guard the new facilities against attacks, etc.

5) Etc, etc.

[Ken White]

for the update...