Wargame SITREP 230621 N3 Ops – Fantasy Political Violence, Bias, or New Game Mechanisms in 2040: An American Insurgency (Compass Games, 2023)

During the Kickstarter campaign for 2040: An American Insurgency (Compass Games, 2023) The Players Aid Blog posted an interview with designer Edward Castronova. Several of the questions revolved around the framing of the game and the seemingly obvious—and unavoidable—political overtones of the theme:

Grant: What “historical period” does 2040: An American Insurgency cover? What is the narrative chain of events that has led to this fictitious civil war?

Edward: The chain of events are happening around us right now. It startled me when, around 2017 or so, people started talking about arresting their political opponents. There was also a lot of this talk around the 2020 election and it is going on now. Not taking sides here, it’s just what I keep hearing. If you’ve studied revolutions around the world, you know that using physical power in the political game is extremely dangerous. Once people start thinking that’s how it’s going to go, it becomes a race to see who gets the jump on the other side and starts the mass arrests first.

The game doesn’t tell this backstory, it begins when the shooting starts. But the backstory would be that one side or the other, red or blue, gets a lockhold on government, whether it be through information control, narrative dominance, legal and physical threats, arrests, what have you. The point is, the *other* side thinks it A) has the sympathy of much of the population, but B) cannot make that sympathy show up in election results. That gives the motive for seeking power through some means other than elections.

…

Grant: How have [you] tried to avoid making political statements?

Edward: First, by having both rural and urban scenarios. Second, neutral language on cards. For example, there is the Race card. This is America, so there has to be the Race card, right? But it doesn’t say anything. From the standpoint of the mechanics of American civil conflict, it really doesn’t matter what is being said about race. It only matters that some political actor or other has decided to bring up the race issue. We all know that political actors of all stripes can make hay from the race issue. The power projection enabled by America’s racial issues is all the game cares about. So the card says nothing.

In other cases, there may be a slight political angle but I tried to have fun with it. The Flying J card talks about information networks among truckers. I really don’t think that’s a big deal, but it’s one of those only-in-America aspects.

The Player’s Aid Interview with Edward Castranova

Those answers didn’t sit well with some who called out the designer and game as one aimed at those “who fantasize political violence in the USA” and asserted the game is an example of unconscious bias.

WHAT IS UNCONSCIOUS BIAS?
Unconscious biases are prejudices and stereotypes individuals have about certain groups of people that they aren’t consciously aware of having. These biases may exist toward people of various races, ethnic groups, gender identities, sexual orientations, physical abilities and more.

builtin.com

Now that I have 2040: An American Insurgency in hand, I feel that I can judge the game on my own. Warning: If you read on some may not like what follows. Welcome to free speech.

A hobby gaming legacy of “fantasy political violence”

Before I look too deeply at this new game, I reviewed some of the other games in my collection that—because I own and play them—apparently made me one of those “people who fantasize political violence in the USA” long before 2040: An American Insurgency landed on my shelves.

Old-New World Order

Would you be surprised to learn that one of the oldest Steve Jackson Games (long before Munchkin) is all about conspiracies, secret societies, the New World Order, and UFOs yet is foundational to the protection of free speech online in the U.S.? That’s thanks to the oldest American political game in my collection, Illuminati (Steve Jackson, Steve Jackson Games, 1982). This game is described as the “Satirical game of the masters who secretly control every group in the world.” To better understand the game one might (or might not) want to read The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. As the authors explain, the book grew out of a question: “Suppose all these nuts are right, and every single conspiracy they complain about really exists?” The history of the publication of Illuminati is so wild it includes U.S. Secret Service raids of the Steve Jackson Games offices searching for evidence he was trying to hijack the 911 emergency call system. Truth be told, everyone who dearly loves the constitutional protection of free speech should be proud of Steve Jackson and Illuminati:

On March 1, 1990 the offices of Steve Jackson Games in Austin, Texas were raided by the U.S. Secret Service as part of a nationwide investigation of data piracy. The initial news stories simply reported that the Secret Service had raided a suspected ring of hackers. Gradually the true story emerged.

More than three years later a federal court awarded damages and attorneys’ fees to the game company ruling that the raid had been careless illegal and completely unjustified. Electronic civil-liberties advocates hailed the case as a landmark. It was the first step toward establishing that online speech IS speech and entitled to Constitutional protection…and specifically that law-enforcement agents can’t seize and hold a BBS with impunity.

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF.com)

2012 Military Coup

The second “American Conspiracy” wargame in my collection is Crisis: 2000 by Joseph Miranda and published in Game Fix magazine in 1994. So how was Crisis: 2000 received nearly three decades ago? Here are distinguished wargame designer Brian Train’s thoughts in a 2004 review found on BoardGameGeek:

Designed by Joe Miranda and developed by Keith Schlesinger, two people noted for their solid work. The main thesis of the game is that in the near future, the government of the United States will face organized, violent opposition from its own people as it becomes less and less representative, and more and more intrusive and authoritarian. The plausibility of something like this actually occurring depends on your personal politics and how you view the State of the Nation; however, in the accompanying articles and sidebars Miranda does give the reader a lot to think about.

…

Crisis 2000 will of course not be to everyone’s taste, but it is a solid, simple, exciting design on an unusual subject. I highly recommend this game as an enjoyable (if somewhat subversive) way to spend an evening with a politically-motivated gaming friend.

Brian Train, “User Review”

Of all the ratings on BoardGameGeek for Crisis: 2000 my own was probably the most political: “Interesting subject matter…in essence a post-Cold War lost generation (anti-Clinton?) game.” Here I was certainly framing my views of the game in light of a particular professional journal article printed around the same time Crisis: 2000 was published. Then-Lieutenant Colonel Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., a Staff Judge Advocate in the U.S. Air Force, was the co-winner of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 1991-92 Strategy Essay Competition with his entry “The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012.” Originally printed in the Winter 1992-93 issue of Parameters, in the introduction the author tells us the intent of the story:

The letter that follows takes us on a darkly imagined excursion into the future. A military coup has taken place in the United States—the year is 2012—and General Thomas E. T. Brutus, Commander-in-Chief of the Unified Armed Forces of the United States, now occupies the White House as permanent Military Plenipotentiary. His position has been ratified by a national referendum, though scattered disorders still prevail and arrests for acts of sedition are underway. A senior retired officer of the Unified Armed Forces, known here simply as Prisoner 222305759, is one of those arrested, having been convicted by court-martial for opposing the coup. Prior to his execution, he is able to smuggle out of prison a letter to an old War College classmate discussing the “Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012.” In it, he argues that the coup was the outgrowth of trends visible as far back as 1992. These trends were the massive diversion of military forces to civilian uses, the monolithic unification of the armed forces, and the insularity of the military community. His letter survives and is here presented verbatim.

It goes without saying (I hope) that the coup scenario above is purely a literary device intended to dramatize my concern over certain contemporary developments affecting the armed forces, and is emphatically not a prediction.

Dunlap, “The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012”

In 2007 Victory Point Games reimplemented Crisis: 2000 as Crisis: 2020. Once again, Brian Train made a comment on BGG, writing “I like both Crisis 2000 and Crisis 2020, the latter is a good development and expansion of the former.” If one looks at the BoardGameGeek ratings for Crisis: 2000 and Crisis: 2020 one finds few “political” comments; most comments revolve (positively) around the game mechanisms and the asymmetry of the forces.

The Original American Insurrection

Harold Buchanan purposefully chose the title of his COIN series game, Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection (GMT Games, 2016) to be provocative and show the “American War for Independence” or “American Revolution” is also easily (rightfully? better?) viewed through the lens of an insurgent movement. Mr. Buchanan openly makes this argument starting on page 40 of the Playbook.

My revelation over that first game of Andean Abyss was in the face of the obvious. I was looking at a topic I had studied with great interest for years, viewing it from a new perspective—as an insurgency. After more research on the period, I quickly became comfortable that the terms “insurgent” and “insurgency” were used to explain the problems of the British Empire in America.

Harold Buchanan, Liberty or Death Playbook, p. 40

GMT Games is preparing to release the third printing of Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection. Apparently there are more than a few gamers out there that don’t mind fantasizing political violence…at least in 18th century America.

Unpleasant topics

Around the same time as The Player’s Aid interview of Mr. Castronova, Harold Buchanan posted a Discord discussion that turned into a roundtable on the San Diego Historical Games Convention (SDHist) site regarding unpleasant gaming under their Conflicts of Interest (CoI) journal banner.

The prompt: 

Historical boardgames often tackle difficult, unpleasant, or unconventional topics like war, slavery, the economics and social structure of exploitive colonial economics, human rights abuses, terrorism, piracy, dirty politics, and medieval social systems, as a few examples.

As a game designer facing the paradoxical linkage between unpleasant issues and fun gameplay, what sorts of topics would you find most difficult? How do you decide whether to tackle a difficult topic? And when you do, what do you abstract out and what do you include in the game?

“Designer roundtable: Gaming the Unpleasant,” SDHist, April 19, 2023

Of the several respondents, I am once again drawn to the thoughts of…Brian Train. As Mr. Train starts, “CoI’s first question seems to assume that there is a paradox between unpleasant issues and fun gameplay that is unresolvable. I do not agree that this is so, because there are games that present well in both aspects.” He goes on to opine:

The question about where to draw the line of what is okay and what is not okay to play (and by extension, design about) is THE perennial query about the morality of the hobby of civilian wargaming itself. And it’s one which will never stop being asked or answered.

I think any line someone decides to draw about what they will and will not consume is obviously a personal choice, and we should respect it like any personal choice. I also think that it says more about the consumer than anyone else, and it’s up to them, not the designer (or the author, or the film director), to be able to state where they drew that line and why … if and when anyone ever asks.

But the reverse is also true; designers can choose what they will or will not produce. And it’s incumbent on them just as much to be able to explain themselves: what influenced the work and why they felt led to create it.

Brian Train, “Designer roundtable: Gaming the Unpleasant”

Political prediction or fantasy?

In the interview with The Player’s Aid, the designer of 2040: An American Insurgency claimed, “The game doesn’t tell this backstory, it begins when the shooting starts.” Section 1.0 Overview, however, reveals two different “road to war” scenarios:

April 2040. The President, now in her third term, announces a major government effort to crack down on “trouble in the countryside.” The newly formed Federal Security Agency sends a convoy of agents into the Kentucky backcountry to seize a cache of stockpiled of assault rifles. But when the convoy approaches Lexington, it encounters a roadblock. Pickup trucks filled with armed civilians sit astride the roadway. Determined to push through, the agent in command orders his convoy to stop and deploy. Tensions rise. Then someone—nobody knows who—fires a shot. Both sides open up. People fall. The Second American Civil War has begun.

April 2040. The President, now in his third term, announces a major government effort to crack down on “trouble in the cities.” Protests erupt and crowds form in cities all across the country. In New York, a particularly enraged crowd threatens Wall Street. The newly formed Federal Security Agency goes in, setting up blockades to protect the Stock Exchange. Rocks and bottles fly. A Molotov cocktail destroys a FSA vehicle. Then a shot rings out. People on both sides fall. The crowd erupts in righteous fury. It surges forward. As the barriers begin to break, the agents race to their SUVs, barely escaping with their lives. Within an hour, much of the financial district is in flames. The Second American Civil War has begun.

1.0 Overview

If you see a dire prediction of the future, recognize that in order for either of the April 2040 game scenarios to occur at least two significant political changes are required between now and 2040; the repeal of the 22nd Amendment which limits a President to two terms and the formation of a national police force.

I would argue that the background of 2040: An American Insurgency is a not savvy take on future trends in America. As one friend of this blog pointed out in an email exchange [paraphrasing their comments], the background conditions fail to account for existing/ongoing demographic trends that can easily be projected out two decades from now. In particular, the design seems to lack a realistic national-level context of transportation, economics, and regionalized marketplaces. The result is the game board dramatically skews the regions into 1980s-era stereotypes that are largely out of date now…and almost certainly will not be existent in 2040. The friend’s conclusion: “The underlying scenario grafts 2024 social trends onto 1980s population dynamics and expects us to believe it’s 20 years from now, which is just lazy.”

American insurgent COIN

In some ways I feel Mr. Castronova would have give a better explanation if he had used the text in the rulebook to explain himself rather than the responses he gave to The Player’s Aid. In the later part of the overview in the rule book, he does a better job answering what Brian Train seeks to hear—”what influenced the work and why they felt led to create it.”

2040: An American Insurgency simulates a civil war in the United States in the mid-21st century. The game uses mechanics that will be familiar to players of COIN-style games. However, it adds new mechanics to deal with the internet and social media. Driven by these new communications technologies, the conflict provides interesting challenges for both sides.

This is not a game about American politics. It does not take sides in any argument. The game’s only goal is to provide mechanics wherein a Rebel faction may fight a Federal faction in 21st Century America. Following standard wargaming practice, the government is blue and the rebels are red. No connection to current politics is intended. However, the game does provide two scenarios. One involves revolution of rural areas against urban areas; the other involves cities rebelling against the countryside. Players may make of this what they will.

1.0 Overview

“The game’s only goal is to provide mechanics wherein a Rebel faction may fight a Federal faction in 21st Century America.”

1.0 Overview

COIN operated

Just what “mechanics”—or game mechanisms—does Mr. Catranova provide to reach his “only goal”? Like many COIN-style titles 2040: An American Insurgency is a card-driven game (CDG) where cards can be played for either the event or for operations points. Each faction has a set of operations that will likely sound familiar to veteran COIN players.

Federal Operations	Rebel Operations
10.3.1 Tax	10.2.1 Fundraise
10.3.2 Deploy	10.2.2 Recruit
10.3.3 Move	10.2.3 Unrest
10.3.4 Hunt	10.2.4 Move
10.3.5 Pacify	10.2.5 Attack
10.3.6 Secure	10.2.6 Surge
10.4.1 Reserves	10.4.1 Reserves

Several of the Rebel Operations are dependent on the internet, depicted in the game using rule 10.1 Internet Operations (Net Ops). Basically put, Net Ops is a process to determine how many and which particular spaces will be affected by some operations played by the Rebel player.

The Rebel player also uses a Rebellion Power Track which is a graphical display of the strength of the rebellion. The power rank is driven by The News (9.0). The 2040 News Cycle Display shows the Active Stories that add up to the Rebel Power. Other news stories are ready in the Story Pool. [As an aside, if there was a place in the game for the designer to make political commentary the News Stories would be a good place to do so. But when one of the 20 news stories in 2040: An American Insurgency is “New Game Released” I don’t know just how seriously to take the designer here.]

There is another operation available to both sides, 10.4.2 Social Media. This operation moves the Social Media Track which shows which side has a Social Media edge. The Social Media edge is used as a tie-breaking mechanism and an important factor in Rebel internet operations.

Both factions also have access to another new operation, 10.4.3 Hack. A successful hack has one of several effects to chose from:

1. Intelligence allows you to inspect your opponent’s hand of cards.
2. Theft reduces your opponent’s resources.
3. Denial of Service (DOS) hacks the opponent’s headquarters (HQ – information capabilities) and affects the Rebellion Power Track.
4. Restore Service removes a Hacked marker placed by DOS.
5. Secure shields your HQ from a hack.
6. Invade removes an opponent’s shield placed by Secure.

COIN events

When it comes to the events on the cards, the one that seems to be capturing the most attention is the “Race Card.” This is card 85 of 94 found in 2040: An American Insurgency. Here is the card:

The grey card color indicates this is a Neutral Event/Card. Per rule 5.1, when playing a Neutral Card the player can chose to do the Ops (2 Ops point in this case) or play the Event. Importantly, since this is a Neutral Card, if it is played for Ops the opposing player DOES NOT get to play the event. For a event card name that seems highly provocative the actual gameplay effect is, well, underwhelming.

[Looking through all 94 event cards, I also tried to find examples of unconscious bias. What I actually found was (conscious?) tongue-in-cheek stereotyping in cards like Youth Uprising (Rebel 48) or Life Expectancy (Federal 22) or the Amish (Neutral 89).]

COIN with change

When I look at 2040: An American Insurgency I see a game where a designer is trying very hard to make a 21st century COIN game with new game mechanisms to address the internet and social media. To be frank, the background used in the the game setting is nothing near a realistic potential future unless there are significant, unforeseen, maybe even impossible shifts in political, social, demographic, and economic trends. In my opinion, the setting of 2040: An American Insurgency is best described as an unrealistic setting created to showcase new game mechanisms for COIN.

I am actually more surprised the critics of 2040: An American Insurgency are calling out the game for politics and not because it lacks cute wooden bits like any “real” COIN game includes. Nor does the game include Bots for either faction to enable solo play. The presence of an errata sheet, prominently found on top of the components when the box is first opened, immediately had me worried as to what other production issues I would find. Alas, there are a few annoying ones like repeated sections in the rule book that indicates another editorial pass was needed.

A literary device

After looking at the package in hand, I invite the critics of 2040: An American Insurgency to perhaps consider viewing the game in the words of now-retired Major General Dunlap as “a purely literary device intended to dramatize” but one unpleasant potential American future. If you see this as a political prediction, well, I guess we have a different opinion.

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Feature image courtesy Benjamin Franklin

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