We indeed live in a time of miracles and wonders. over the last two years the world has completely changed. The cold war is not only over, but the "Evil Empire" is now gone. I for one, would never have predicted this. But in early 1990, I wrote a game about the events in Europe in 1989: "Solidarity: The decline and fall of the Soviet Empire." This MG was run as a PBM in the second year of EGG. In light of recent earth shaking changes I feel this might be a game worth looking back on. Here is the matrix as it appeared In EGG 5, February 1990 ... COMMUNIST BLOCK 1. The Iron Curtain 2. The Warsaw Pact 3. The Red Army 4. The Kremlin 5. The Ghost of Stalin 6. Centrally controlled economies 7. Waste and Inefficiency 8. Glastnos/Peristroika POLAND 1. Solidarity 2. The Pope is Polish 3. Martial law did not solve any problems CZECHOSLOVAKIA 1. The Prague Spring of 1968 2. Western Oriented 3. Past History of strong democracy ROMANIA 1. Fanatically loyal to Stalinism 2. Oil Rich 3. Ethnic unrest In Transylvania YUGOSLAVIA 1. Independent of Moscow 2. Ethnic unrest THE WEST 1. Democratic 2. Strong Capitalist economies 3. The NATO Alliance 4. The Rule of Law 5. Political descent is common 6. Decision making is slow and tedious TACTICS 1. Non violent demonstrations 2. Riots 3. Military Solutions 4. Diplomatic Solutions USSR 1. Gorbachev 2. The KGB 3. Ethnic Unrest 4. Ethnocentric Russians CHINA 1. Tiannamen-Square 2. Under Martial Law 3. The Cultural Revolution 4. The Ghost of Mao EAST GERMANY 1. The Berlin Wall 2. The German Question 3. Discontented Youth HUNGARY 1. The 1956 uprising 2. Magyar Nationalism 3. Record of going against Moscow BULGARIA 1. Loyal to Moscow 2. Has always been poor 3. Racial Hatred of Turks THE USA 1. The leader of the "Free" world 2. The International Policeman 3. "Better dead than Red!" 4. Big military with Nukes WESTERN EUROPE 1. The Common Market 2. working toward a united Europe 3. World Wars 1 and 2 4. The Green Party EMOTIONS 1. Fear 2. Anger 3. Shame 4. Friendship 5. Love GOALS 1. Reformists: Reform the USSR 2. Conservatives: Preserve Stalinism 3. Eastern Europeans: Establish Independence 4. The West: a. Spread Democracy and b. Maintain Stability Obviously, the world no longer looks like this! But in January 1989, it did. Poland and Hungary started off the changes in the winter of 89. Solidarity was relegalized and held talks with the government. Hungary took down its section of the Iron Curtain (its border fence of barbed wire). China burst into protest in Bejing inspired by Gorbachev's visit, which was crushed by the Ghost of Mao. (My game starts at this point). Over the Summer, thousands of East Germans fled to the west through the hole in the curtain. By fall the communist governments of Eastern Europe realised that they could no longer look to the USSR for support. Civic Forums came to life everywhere. The Berlin Wall was torn down and Romania had a revolution. And Gorbachev sat back and did nothing. In 1990, Gorby found that even without Eastern Europe, his reform moves were still being blocked. Widely publicized diplomatic actions kept him popular in the west, but both the conservatives and reformists back home were less than satisfied. The Invasion of Kuwait diverted everyone's attention well into 1991, but again showed the USSR's Inability to control one of its former client states. By 1991 Gorby was leaning heavily towards the conservatives in the Communist party. I thought he might resort to the old Institutional answers that Russians have used for over a hundred years - The Army, and The Secret Police! But he didn't. By the time the Coup was attempted, the old answers no longer worked. The non communists were able to win, and the Soviet Union is now looking for a new name. All of these events were not predicted by the "experts" but in hindsight they all make sense (given what happened). In this way history worked out a lot like the way MGs do. We are literally making up history as we are going along. It is not as predictable as some history teachers would have us believe. Certain arguments that were made in the game raised doubts in the players, but now turn out to have come true... A certain Col. Dmitry mutinied against Kremlin orders while serving in an occupation force in Czechoslovakia. Vince Zahnlie wrote to say that Red Army officers would never do such a thing! Then a certain GENERAL Dmitry published a book blasting the Soviet Military for its many problems. Once again, during the coup, Red Army units refused to support the conservatives in their take over bid. Late in the game the Russian Republic seceded from the Soviet Unionl This seemed foolish at the time, but has subsequently happened. Continued hard line policies by the conservatives lead to open civil war in the USSR. This has not happened there yet, but it has happened in Yugoslavia. Finally a coalition of Ukranian nationalists and communist reformers called for a new federalism in the union that would allow the republics to be fully autonomous. I believe Vince blasted this move. Now it seems to be happening. This does NOT mean that MGs are psychic in their ability to predict events. That would be a foolish position to take. What the MG did do was to free up the thinking of the players to try out "foolish" ideas, to see if they could make sense. One argument builds on another and soon the outcome seems inevitable. It is of course a matter of coincidence that the PBM worked out in part like events have. But because the game showed how such events might sensibly happen, we do not have to be as amazed by the news as other people are. POLITICAL MATRIX GAMES "Solidarity: the decline and fall of the Soviet Empire" is nearly two years old, but it is run in basically the same way as all other MGs are run. Since then I've done a lot more work political MGs. They now look like the next area which can be an Intermediate level game. So far I've tried out the following experiments ... An MG used to back up the between game events of an RPG. (by the way this has been picked up by the local RPGers in their own games). A political/military game set in ancient mesopotamia, where a political matrix and a military campaign matrix were laid out together so that a player could either do military actions or be a political animal. An ad hoc MG using the same matrix as was used above to play a game about the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. And most recently, an MG about corporate warfare in a dark future. Political MGs do not need figures, instead they focus on the way politics works. So, instead of moving little men around on a map, political MGs are about controlling power. At the moment I am viewing power in the following ways ... Setting the political agenda about what should happen next. Acting on the political agenda (ie funding a program). MakIng political alliances with power groups Gaining political offices (positions of advantage) Arguing to change the rules on how situatiosn should be resolved. And, dropping out of the MG to role play or board game out actions that are better handled by other types of games. (like role play adventures, court trials, or debates) This is still a little too complicated to make sense yet, but the experiments are moving it along. By 1993, I hope to be able to take a military/political MG to a convention. I like the French Conquest of Algeria, since it combines French politics at its dirtiest, with famous and colorful military units like the French Foreign Legion, and Zouvas. This could also set the stage for doing a French Revolution game that covers the Reign of Terror, and all that counter revolutionary stuff that standard wargames just don't do justice to. AFTERWARDS Solidarity opened up the MG to gaming out recent political events with very little effort. Now there is a possibility for making an intermediate level MG that can allow players to do this for a wide variety of political situations. This is not strictly speaking a wargame. It would be just as possible to play out a game on the civil rights movement, or even a congressional debate on why lead figures should be outlawed as an environmental hazard. The possibilities... Back to Experimental Games Group # 16 Table of Contents Back to Experimental Games Group List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1991 by Chris Engle This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com