Examinations of wargaming for entertainment, education, and military planning, in terms of design, critical analysis, and historical contexts. Games with military themes date back to antiquity, and yet they are curiously neglected in much of the academic and trade literature on games and game history. This volume fills that gap, providing a diverse set of perspectives on wargaming's past, present, and future. In Zones of Control, contributors consider wargames played for entertainment, education, and military planning, in terms of design, critical analysis, and historical contexts. They consider both digital and especially tabletop games, most of which cover specific historical conflicts or are grounded in recognizable real-world geopolitics. Game designers and players will find the historical and critical contexts often missing from design and hobby literature; military analysts will find connections to game design and the humanities; and academics will find documentation and critique of a sophisticated body of cultural work in which the complexity of military conflict is represented in ludic systems and procedures. Each section begins with a long anchoring chapter by an established authority, which is followed by a variety of shorter pieces both analytic and anecdotal. Topics include the history of playing at war; operations research and systems design; wargaming and military history; wargaming's ethics and politics; gaming irregular and non-kinetic warfare; and wargames as artistic practice.
Author(s): Pat Harrigan, Matthew G. Kirschenbaum
Series: Game Histories
Publisher: MIT Press
Year: 2016
Language: English
Commentary: TruePDF
Pages: 845
Tags: War Games: History, War games
Contents......Page 8
Editors' Introduction......Page 16
Series Foreword......Page 32
Foreword: The Paper Time Machine Goes Electric......Page 34
I Paper Wars......Page 40
1 A Game Out of All Proportions: How a Hobby Miniaturized War......Page 42
2 The History of Wargaming Project......Page 72
3 The Fundamental Gap Between Tabletop Simulation Games and the "Truth"......Page 82
4 Fleet Admiral: Tracing One Element in The Evolution Of A Game Design......Page 88
5 The Wild Blue Yonger: Representing Air Warfaire in Games......Page 94
6 Historical Aesthetics in Mapmaking......Page 102
7 The "I" in Team: War and Comat in Tabletop Role-Playing Games......Page 110
II War Engines......Page 120
8 War Engines: Wargames as Systems From th Tabletop to the Computer......Page 122
9 The Engine of Wargaming......Page 146
10 Design For Effect: The "Common Language" of Advanced Squad Leader......Page 152
11 Combat Commander: Time to Throw Your Plan Away......Page 160
12 Empire of the Sun: The Next Evolution of the Card-Driven Game Engine......Page 172
13 The Paths of Glory Lead But to the Gambling Table......Page 180
14 A New Kind of History: The Culture of Wargame Scenario Design Communities......Page 188
III Operations......Page 196
15 Operations Research, Systems Analysis, and Wargaming: Riding the Cycle of Research......Page 198
16 The Application of Statistical and Forensics Validations to Suimulation Modeling in Wargames......Page 222
17 Goal-Driven Design and Napoleon's Triumph......Page 240
18 Harpoon: An Original Serious Game......Page 248
19 The Development and Application of the Real-Time Air Power Wargame Simulation Modern Air Power......Page 260
20 Red vs. Blue......Page 268
21 Hypergaming......Page 280
IV The Bleeding Edge......Page 290
22 Wargaming Futures: Naturalizing the New American Way of War......Page 292
23 Creating Persian Incursion......Page 320
24 Modeling the Second Battle of Fallujah......Page 328
25 Playing with Toy soldiers: Authenticity and Metagaming in World War I Video Games......Page 334
26 America's Army......Page 342
27 We the Soldiers: Player Complicity and Ethical Gameplay in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare......Page 348
28 Upending Militarized Masculinity in Spec Ops: The Line......Page 358
V Systems and Situations......Page 368
29 Wargames as Writing Systems......Page 370
30 Playing Defense: Gender, Just War, and Game Design......Page 394
31 Debord's Nostalgic Algorithm......Page 410
32 The Ludic Science Club Crosses the Berezina......Page 430
33 War Games......Page 438
34 Troubling the Magic Circle: Miniature War in Iraq......Page 448
VI The War Room......Page 458
35 Wargames as an Academic Instrument......Page 460
36 Lessons From the Hexagon: Wargames and the Military Historian......Page 478
37 Simulation Literacy: The Case for Wargames in the History Classroom......Page 486
38 The Amateur Designer: For Fun and Profit......Page 494
39 Struggling with Deep Play: Utilizing Twilight Struggle for Historical Inquiry......Page 502
40 Model-Driven Military Wargame Design and Evaluation......Page 510
VII Irregularities......Page 522
41 Gaming the Nonkinetic......Page 524
42 Inhabited Models and Irregular Warfare Games: An Approach to Educational and Analytical Gaming at the US Department of Defense......Page 542
43 Chess, Go, and Vietnam: Gaming Modern Insurgency......Page 552
44 Irregular Wardare: The Kobayashi Maru of the Wargaming World......Page 570
45 A Mighty Fortress is Our God: When Military Action Meets Religious Strife......Page 578
46 Cultural Wargaming: Understanding Cross-Cultural Communications Using Wargames......Page 584
VIII Other Theaters......Page 592
47 Wargaming (as) Literature......Page 594
48 Tristram Shandy: Toby and Trim's Wargames and the Bowling Green......Page 612
49 Third Reich and The Third Reich......Page 626
50 How Star Fleet Battles Happened......Page 632
51 Total Global Domination: Games Workshop and Warhammer 40,000......Page 642
52 When the Drums Begin to Roll......Page 662
53 War Re-Created: Twentieth-Century War Reenactors and the Private Event......Page 668
IX Fight the Future......Page 678
54 War, Mathematics, and Simulation: Drones and (Losing) Control of Battlespace......Page 680
55 How to Sell Wargames to the Non-Wargamer......Page 708
56 Wargaming the Cyber Frontier......Page 712
57 The Unfulfilled Promise of Digital Wargames......Page 720
58 Civilian Casualties: Shifting Perspective in This War of Mine......Page 730
59 Practicing a New Wargame......Page 742
Acknowledgments and Permissions......Page 748
References......Page 750
Index......Page 812
