User:Majere723/Games Report

A Reflective Analysis of Four Political Simulations Alexander Sanyshyn

Throughout the course of this module, we have played many different games in different styles that simulate different political situations. Each game has its own strengths and weaknesses, from how fun and easy it was to play, to the effectiveness of the mechanics, to its effectiveness of the game as a political simulation and the strength of the political lessons learned. Bellow I will look at four games – Monopoly, The War on Terror, Vietnam 1955, and 1776 – and look at each of their strengths and weaknesses.

The game of Monopoly is simple and easy to learn. The game includes almost all of the necessary rules on the game board and cards used to play the game, making it very simple for people who have not played the game a lot to see what the rules are and to aid players along the way. Because it is a very social game that forces players to interact with one another through buying, selling and paying rent, it is also a very fun and sociable game to play.

While Monopoly was originally designed by Elizabeth Magie Phillips (as The Landlords Game) to be a tool to teach people the evils of capitalism and benefits of socialism, it is almost always today viewed as a pro-capitalist game that reflects the virtues of 1950s American capitalism. While it is still possible to view the anti-capitalist message of Monopoly if the game is viewed through the correct lens, this message often gets hidden beneath the mechanics and sociability of the game. To demonstrate the evils of capitalism, Monopoly has each player take the role of a real estate developer. Players race around the board to buy and develop property, and then make money buy charging other players rent when they land on their properties. The game encourages players to be greedy and to make as much money as possible – to “get rich or die trying”. Players are also encouraged to take risks in buying and developing expensive properties, but can suffer severe consequences by doing so if they spend more money developing these properties than the net gain that the properties will provide them with.

Monopoly demonstrates how the capitalist economic system with private property in real estate leads to one person, or a small group of people, controlling all of this property and setting high rent rates which others cannot afford and forces them to go bankrupt. The game demonstrates that this system will create a small group of very wealthy individuals, while the others suffer and go bankrupt. This, unfortunately, is much easier to see by being one of the loosing players in the game, rather than the winner. The greatest flaw in Monopoly is that the role it forces players to take on in order to win is actually the loosing role in the simulation. The game encourages people to make lots of money and screw over other less fortunate players in order to win. While playing the game, the best role to have is the successful capitalist because that is the role that wins. However, according to the political simulation, the capitalist is the one that looses. The game forces people to think like capitalists, and therefore become the “enemy”. The greatest way to improve the effectiveness of Monopoly as a political simulation would be to tell players from the beginning what its purpose is and make them aware of its true nature. If players are not aware that the game is trying to teach them the evils of capitalism by forcing them to become capitalists, they might assume, as a result of the games rules and mechanics that it is actually teaching them the opposite – how to be good capitalists and make lots of money.

In contrast to Monopoly, The War on Terror was not a simple and easy game to learn and play. While its humorous, tongue-in-cheek nature could have made it a very fun, sociable game, its complex rules made it hard to enjoy. While the game was visually intriguing it was tedious and boring to play.

The War on Terror suffered mostly from having too many rules and having too many pieces. Each turn, a player had to roll the dice, draw cards, buy terrorists, buy cities, use cards to attack other people, etc. Each player’s turn took too long and created boredom while playing. This also made it very difficult to get into the game and enjoy it. Because the game had so many rules, it was also difficult to tell which side was winning and which was loosing until the very end. This helped to disengage players from the game because they didn't have any motivation to win.

The War on Terror seeks to model the “War on Terror” that arose as the primary consequence of the September 11th attacks. Players can buy and support terrorist cells that they can then use to attack other players. However, since any player can control any terrorist cell, the terrorist units that a player supports can turn against them and attack them at any time. Players could also wage war on other empires and attempt to spread their empire over the entire globe. Because The War on Terror is more of a satire of the actual “War on Terror” and not intended to be a real simulation of it, it does not simulate the actual war realistically at all. The game places far too much importance on the amount of oil that each territory possesses. Because of this, oil becomes the primary motivating force behind each player’s decisions, whether they are playing as an empire or as the terrorists. While this may be a somewhat realistic interpretation of the real events that transpired, the games use of oil seems like more of an attempt to make fun of the real war on terror that to actually simulate it. The spinner and “evil empire” aspect of the game serve no real important purpose in the game, other than to satirically lampoon George Bush and his “Axis of Evil” speech. Overall the game comes off as being more of a large joke than an actual simulation. Because The War on Terror was too complicated in its rules and not enjoyable to play, it fails to be a successful game. Even if the rules were improved to make the game more enjoyable, The War on Terror would also fail to be a successful simulation because it is not a realistic interpretation of the actual events, but rather an abstract take on them in order to make fun of the events and the ideology that surrounded them.

One of the most interesting and most fun games played during the semester was the Vietnam 1955 role-playing exercise. Because the role-playing exercise had very few rules – only a sheet with victory points for each team – the game was extraordinarily simple to learn. While at first the lack of rules made it a bit difficult to understand exactly how players were supposed to approach the exercise, players quickly picked up the basic premise and were able to effectively play the game. Because Vietnam 1955 was a role-playing activity, players were forces to interact with one another. This created a very fun, sociable game. Because Vietnam 1955 was a role-playing game with very few rules, the game was very flexible. Players had to talk and negotiate with other teams in order to achieve certain goals in the game. The way the victory points on each sheet were designated also helped to push certain teams to act in certain ways. For example, because each team got victory points for doing so, the teams formed alliances that created two factions within the exercise – the “free world” and the “Soviet Bloc”. The umpire also helped to push players into performing certain actions. The free, relatively rule-less nature of the game also meant that the game could change its rules and focus quickly, and depart easily from the history it was based on. This is exactly what happened during the game played during class.

Vietnam 1955 was for the most part a very realistic game. Because players didn’t know the victory conditions of each of the other teams, they did not know what the other side was planning and what their motivations for acting in certain ways was. As stated above, the victory conditions of the game also realistically motivated the teams to separate into the two different Cold war blocs. While at times certain actors on opposite sides more easily that should have been realistically expected (specifically the French Indochinese and the Viet Minh) the exercise also for the most part realistically simulated the tension and animosity between the two sides, and especially between the two nuclear powers of the United States and the Soviet Union.

The biggest flaw in the exercise was the lack of real world consequences in the decision making process. Because players didn't have to worry about the actual consequences of a nuclear explosion, it was much more acceptable to threaten to use these weapons in the game than it may have been in real life. Similarly, because players didn't have to take into account the consequences of war, such as cost, effect to the civilian population and the lives of real soldiers who would be killed in battle, it was much easier for players to make the decision to go to war that it might have been otherwise. It is important to note, however, that these are not flaws specific to Vietnam 1955, but flaws that are intrinsic to the nature of simulations themselves, which are designed so that the events can play out without having to worry about these consequences. Although the victory points in Vietnam 1955 to a certain degree attempted to dissuade players from taking actions like this that would have catastrophic consequences in real life, it is impossible to completely get rid of the effect that the lack of real world consequences has on the game.

Overall, Vietnam 1955 was a very good game. It was fun and sociable to play and effectively simulated the events and decision-making process of the roots of the Vietnam War. While there could be a few small changes to the exercise to enhance the atmosphere of the game, such as giving players name tags with badges or flags, including a map of Vietnam to enhance the visual experience, or having certain players act as the press and media and give the events of the simulation a particular spin, the game doesn’t need any improvements.

1776 is an Avalon Hill war game that seeks to simulate the American Revolutionary war. The games pieces and mechanics– the hex board, counters, dice, and combat results table – work very well in achieving this simulation. The game was also easy to learn and fun to play. Since the game is designed as a two-sided military conflict meant for only two players, it did not facilitate team play as easily as other games that were played and was not as sociable. However, this did not detract from the enjoyment of the game. To simulate the war between the Americans and the British, 1776 uses a map of the American northeast (or the entire colonial America if the full version is used). Players move their military units across the board and try to capture key cities their victory points. The British have a much larger and more powerful army, but move slow than the Americans to represent that they do not know the American landscape as well as the colonists do. By contrast, the Americans have a smaller, less powerful army to represent the lack of military training that most of its members had, but the American forces are able to move quicker that the Brits in order to run away from them. Pieces must also realistically take longer to cross difficult terrain, such as mountains and rivers that they would crossing open ground.

The main political lesson of 1776 was how to learn effective military strategy. It teaches players how to locate their troops effectively and how to time attacks correctly. It also teaches them that they need to sacrifice certain troops and areas of the map in order to achieve their overall goals. One great flaw in 1776 is that it is not specifically about the American Revolutionary war. One could simply take the same pieces and mechanics and exchange the map for a different one – maybe Waterloo, for example – and would have a brand new game. The game doesn’t take into account any of the political factors of the revolution, only the military factors. 1776 could be improved by somehow making it more specific to the Revolutionary War. There could have been some inclusion of the different political factions of the war, such as loyalists and rebels, the slave-holding south and free north, etc. It also could have included factions from other nations that were involved in the conflict, such as the French or the Native Americans. Finally, a way to incorporate the way the political climate of the time affected the military campaign of the war would improve the game. This could possibly be cards that and bonuses that effect the outcome of dice rolls.

Overall, most of these games were fairly good political simulations and rather fun games to play. Out of the games described above, the best – both in terms of how fun it was to play and its effectiveness as a simulation – would have to be Vietnam 1955. It was easy, fun and very realistic. The gamed modeled the events leading up to the Vietnam War very well. Monopoly was also a very good game. Though it was fun to play and easy to learn, its political message is quite often hidden, which represents a serious flaw to the game as a political simulation. However, with changes to make that message more explicit, it could be a very good simulation. Similarly, 1776 was a fun, easy to learn game that modeled the late 18th century warfare and decision making very well, but its setting in the American Revolution was inconsequential. Improvements to make it more explicitly about the American Revolution and including the political factors involved would make it a much better game. By far, the worst game was The War on Terror. It was far too complicated and fussy, with too many rules that were difficult to learn. It also did not work very well as a political simulation and put its role as a work of satire far ahead of any practical use it has to simulate the actual events of the “War on Terror”.

Majere723 10:58, 7 April 2011 (UTC)