Connections 2002

Lecture: Stalin's Dilemma

by Russ Lockwood



presented by Dr. Ed Bever

The first surpise was that his educational focus was on witchcraft, which I suppose stands to do him some good with the Harry Potter craze. However, his main approach is a computer game called Stalin's Dilemma, which is a historical-based economic planning simulation (with political and military overtones) concerning the USSR 1928-1942. Students must come up with three 5-year plans to revamp the Societ economy and put it on a good war footing.

The main screen is a mass of numbers--this is, after all, primarily a spreadsheet game. Change a number here and the effects ripple through the rest of the numbers (economy). Thus, feed workers, get more production, which can be used to create more equipment to modernize industry to turn out tanks, etc. Somewhere there is a magic balance, although Bever admits that even he often cannot get the optimum result.

His research into the USSR economy led him to conclude that most wargames and simulations are just short of pathetic when looking at economic models. This is especially true when you get to more free-market economies where decentralized decision making processes are virtually unmanageable.

He notes that he needs to do a better job at assessing students' learning prowess. He has statistics about retention of variouos bits and pieces of information immediately following the use of the simulation. And indeed, his statistics and powerpoint graphs show a definite improvement. He notes that it is not necessarily the most popular assignment, especially when it can be frustrating, but that the challenge may contribute to its effectiveness. However, he's working on a long-term test for retention assessment.

Bio

Dr. Ed Bever - Wargame Designer, Programmer, Educator Dr. Bever earned a Ph.D. in history from Princeton University in 1984. He worked for MicroProse Software from 1984 until 1987, designing the three "Command Series" computer wargames. Between 1988 and 1993 he designed and programmed Revolution'76 for Britannica Software and No Greater Glory for Strategic Simulations, Inc. He also contributed to Intergalactic Development's Universal Military Simulator II. After a brief stint as a commercial programmer, he worked from 1994 to 1997 as a multimedia producer for Grolier Interactive. In 1997 he took a position as an Assistant Professor at SUNY College at Old Westbury teaching European History, including a course on Modem Russia.

More Connections 2002

Back to List of Conventions
Back to Travel Master List
Back to MagWeb Master List of Magazines
© Copyright 2002 by Coalition Web, Inc.

This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com