Joe Miranda is widely considered to be one of the most innovative game designers in the country. He is an industry leader in the design of modern low intensity conflict simulations. Currently the Editor of Strategy & Tactics (a leading journal in the military analysis and simulations field), Mr. Miranda has written numerous articles dealing with military and international affairs, giving new insights to subjects as diverse as the German invasion of the Soviet Union in World War Two, to modern cybernetic conflict. A former Intelligence Officer, he lectured in psychological operations and nconventional warfare for the U.S. Army, and was one of the authors of PSYOP, the army’s official manual.

His award-winning games for both the military and entertainment markets include LA Lawless (a simulation of the Los Angeles riots), and Crisis 2000 (a simulation of civil conflict in the U.S. in the 21st century). His games have been converted and used by government agencies to help deal with potential crises. On the entertainment side, Mr. Miranda was commissioned to design (with Tony Zalewski and Hexagon Interactive) five on-line games for Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Entertainment, including: Foundation; Dragon Riders; Mystery; Freedom; and Leonardo’s Legions. He is also responsible for the historical research as well as units and weapons databases for Talonsoft’s CD-ROM game, West Front. Mr. Miranda is the author of Hitler’s War -- a new interpretation of WWII -- and is a regularly featured speaker at the U.S. Air Force Conference on Simulations where he makes presentations dealing with such diverse subjects as asymmetric warfare and information warfare. Mr. Miranda is the designer of Hexagon Interactive’s latest project -- a computer simulation for the Department of Defense, Cyberwar XXI.

Joseph Miranda is currently the Vice President for Design for Hexagon Interactive, for whom he has designed Cyberwar XXI and Crisis XXI. These are cutting edge simulations of modern high-tech warfare and cybernetic operations. He has done freelance design/development work for several other commercial computer gaming companies, including Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Entertainment and TalonSoft.

Joseph is also the editor of Strategy & Tactics, a leading military affairs and simulations magazine. He has designed over 50 published board wargames, and has written dozens of articles on military history, political warfare and cybernetics. Joseph Miranda served as an officer in the United States Army, where he taught psychological operations and other unconventional warfare subjects at the JFK Special Warfare Center, Fort Bragg. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history from UCLA and a master of science degree in criminal justice from California State University, Los Angeles. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California, where he on occasion practices as a cyberpunk.

And now for the unofficial bio...

My first wargames were Avalon Hill’s Stalingrad and Afrika Korps. This was before there was an SPI or third world wargames. I saw them in a hobby store and realized there was a world inside those squarish Avalon Hill boxes. I immediately grasped the system -- units, hexagons, CRTs -- and it has been a continual march ever since. It is amazing how much Avalon Hill could simulate with just that four page rule book.

I started subscribing to Strategy & Tactics with issue 22, Renaissance of Infantry, which is still one of my favorite games as it catches much of the spirit of the era: the evolution of warfare from the late medieval to the early gunpowder era. The real revelation was SPI’s (or more precisely Poultron Press’, as it was known at the time) Barbarossa. Despite the crude graphics and mimeographed rulebook, the game system worked. Barbarossa used double impulse movement, which allowed players to recreate the great envelopments and mobile battles of the War in the East. SPI proved to be a veritable cornucopia of ideas, especially about things such as command control.

When I was in ROTC at UCLA, war gaming was very big. We did multiplayer command games of GDW’s Drang Nach Osten. I also liked the SPI science fiction games, such as Wreck of the Pandora, which actually came down to being a prototype computer game. Alas, their Ares magazine collapsed before they could really push the envelope. One reason I got into game design was that I was not satisfied with current designs on the market. The ignoring of political factors in warfare (from Sun Tzu to Mao Tse-tung) left a gap in the industry. So in 1987 I bugged Keith Poulter and he gave me an assignment.

Nicaragua was my first published war game (with a hefty assist from John Burtt). The game simulates the intricacies of modern insurgency, and a lot of the political systems I developed for it laid the groundwork for future designs.

Anyway, I started editing S&T in 1990. Trajan was my first design as editor. My concept for it was to show warfare from the perspective of a Roman general -- hence the Ptolemaic map and the use of “stratagem” markers. One thing I like is working with authors and developing some new historical perspectives. Keith “Kirk” Schlesinger has been invaluable in developing many of my concepts. Plus the usual host of writers, developers, playtesters, graphics peoples, etc., all of whom are part of the team. For the last several years, we’ve been running a series on the development of airpower. Lots of interesting stuff there. And I’ve also been looking into the Revolution in Military Affairs and cyberwar, the pluses and minuses.

I play many computer games, but still like board wargames. Why? Because of board games’ “reality” (I mean, you can manipulate them in the real world as opposed to pointing and clicking on a monitor); because players can do their own variants; and because board war games are designed much better than many computer games. Anyway, I am using my experience in board wargaming to design some commercial computer simulations, including Cyberwar XXI (modern operational warfare) and Crisis XXI (terrorism and asymmetrical warfare). Both should be on the market in a year or so.

I have at least a couple hundred board wargames. I shop a lot at convention flea markets and such, occasionally finding a classic game, many of which have some unique ideas. They are like frozen frames of design evolution from the past. And I still play Stalingrad. I have been working on a variant (who hasn’t?) which would allow the game to proceed more or less according to the patterns of the original campaign. This means exploitation movement for armor, and airpower. The trick behind my variant is to use rules systems which Avalon Hill used back in the 1960s to keep it all consistent. I attend assorted gaming conventions, especially the USAF’s Connections, the latter being a sort of annual reunion for designers. It shows how seriously war gaming is taken out there. Of course, it’s still a fun hobby, one which educates those who get involved about military history and perhaps futures. I’ll close out by noting that wargaming gives you a chance to create your own world and to make history come alive. The “paper time machine” indeed!

Joe Miranda’s Ludography of Board Wargames

The Austro-Prussian War, 1866
Balkan Wars 1912-13
Balkans 1941
Byzantium
Caesar in Gallia
Charlemagne
Crimean War
Emperor’s First Battles
Empires At War
Fall of Rome
First Afghan War 1839-42
First Arab-Israeli War 1947-49
the Franco-Prussian War
Gauntlet
Germania
Holy War: Afghanistan
Hundred Years War
Indo-Pakistani Wars
LA Lawless
Napoleon’s First Battles
On to Moscow
Over the Top
Reinforce the Right
Roman Civil War
Russo-Turkish War
Savage Station & Olustee
Thirty Years War
Trajan (all Decision Games)
Crisis 2000
GreenLine Chechyna
Redline Korea (Game Publications Grp.)
Cybernaut (One Small Step)
SS Amerika (World Wide Wargamers)
NATO, Nukes & Nazis
Samurai Sunset
Tet ‘68 (XTR)