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Showing posts from August, 2017

Wargame: Red Dragon and Doctrine (part one)

Wargame: Red Dragon is a difficult and confusing game on first inspection. For me the game really came together once I started paying attention to real world doctrine. Wargame’s complexity and impenetrability comes partly from its mechanical adaptations of real-world weapon and command systems. The rest of its complexity comes from the employment of these systems effectively, the realm of doctrine. Once a player has a grasp of the unit types, their roles, and the means to command them the player then has to learn how to use their units to win. This means understanding their objectives, creating a force capable of the necessary maneuvers, and executing that plan. In other words, players need a doctrine to play effectively. Diagram of Deep Battle in Action It is a testament to Wargame’s simulation that many players stumble on similar doctrines  to those used by the real cold war powers they are digitally emulating. The most common of these is the Soviet “deep battle” concept. In