The Tyranny of Binaries: how wargame rules build narratives

Description:
War is an infinitely complex endeavor waged over vast spaces by entities composed of hundreds of thousands of human beings. Wargames need to be teachable in an hour and managed by two humans. This requires compression. But what does that compression do and how does it shape our understanding? This talk will use examples from history to show how wargame rules impact how we view conflicts and build narratives that we may not be able to consciously see. From terrain modifiers to information flows, it will challenge assumptions and offer solutions to help better capture the complexity of war.
Bio:
Sasho Todorov is a D.C. based attorney with a strong interest in military studies. He engages in both casualty and logistics data projects as well as conflict mapping. His work can be found online, as well as in the upcoming book: The Battle for Kyiv, by Christopher Lawrence.

[@ukaszgrzesik7231]

Absolutely fascinating!

[@armandcingolaniiii1601]

This is an amazing and insightful lecture. His insights and critiques express many ideas I realized but never articulated as I have played games. For example, his insight that the ammunition and not the gun tube is the weapon, expresses why calculation fire by the number of tubes in a unit instead of consumption of ammo produces inaccurate fire values. Of course, this does not explain why most fire produced is wasted when it misses the targets. Although he covers this issue in the information segment. He covers attrition and effectiveness of units. I accept his theory that road nets are determinative of where the battle takes place, and that stacking is an important limitation on unit performance.

[@juliantheapostate8295]

'In forests, you can be infiltrated and destroyed' Joe Hooker crying at Chancellorsville

[@57thorns]

"Twilight imperium", those are rookie numbers. World in Flames is a long board game. But you did upstage that by Campaign in North Africa.

[@williamladine7591]

Your claim about the benefits of terrain in combat makes sense and I don’t disagree with your methods of study for it, terrain did seem to be a major factor in combat in pre-modern warfare. Im by no means an expert on battles pre 1900, however from what I remember there were many battles where I saw people attribute the loss of the attacker to the occupation of key terrain by the defender, a la little big top at Gettysburg. Awesome Lecture

[@pelop100]

algorithm chose you, just like the claw in toy story

[@lentulus01]

Are the stats and analysis behind the casualties in close terrain?

[@f1refall]

This is why wargames with miniatures is superior

[@robertwilson8350]

Hard to do operational or strategic level with miniatures

[@seanmccormick8551]

This was excellent.

[@MrProsat]

Still prefer board wargames to computer wargames

[@mazurbul]

I have the game you are mentioning about the Russian Civil war. It is from SSG magazine.

[@marcsummerlott3965]

That is why the best simulations are the three table judged simulation.

[@stefanb6539]

Ahm ,wait what? Best terrain for defenders is flat land? You are aware, that you diametrically contradict the Eurasian Hordelands theory, about why the Russian Empire wants to get hold of the Baltic Sea, the Polish Gap, the Bessarabian Gap, Crimea, the Caucasus, the Central Asia Corridor and the Tien-Altay Gap ? If campaigns follow roads, as you yourself said, well, flat terrain tends to have a web of roads, while dense terrain usually only has a few bottlenecks.

[@caffetiel]

Counterpoint: Eurasian mud season. As he points out, battles follow roads and take place in and around cities and towns, which are fortified, and the plains provide no cover to the attacker. I'm not sure I entirely buy it yet but I see his point.

[@williamladine7591]

I believe the his claim about the falsehoods of benefits of terrain for defenders was in regards to squad level combat, not strategic military benefits of terrain.

[@juliantheapostate8295]

I think you are correct not just in terms of the tactical level, but arguably, operationally as well@@williamladine7591

[@juliantheapostate8295]

Strategic is not the same as operational, which is not the same as tactical

[@matthiuskoenig3378]

@@caffetiel but thats not about plains themselves about about the mud season. forests in eurasia still have the mud season, russian/ukrainian forests and forest roads get just as muddy as the plains and roads on plains (infact grass restricts mud more than your average forrest floor). plains don't offer the attacker cover, but they don't offer the defender cover either. this means it favours the side with firepower superiority, not the defender or the attacker. In the austro-prussian war the austrians dominated the plains in attack or defense as they had artillery superiority and thus the overall firepower superiority. the prussians won the war in the woods because they had the superior infantry. and as stated plains tend to have more roads than other terrain types all else being equal. this increases the number of places the attacker can attack, increaseing the chance they have have the superior concentration of force and thus the greater their firepower advantage. It also aides the side with the greater ability to concentrate force (typically the attacker) as you can send a larger volume of troops in a given area the greater the density of the road network. furthermore plains are easier for the attacker to mapout than more built up terrain, the more built up the terrain the more local knowledge (and thus useually defender advantage) increases.

[@jonr6680]

Guy must get paid by number of words spoken...

[@johndean8518]

And you must get paid to post moronic comments on the internet.

[@lordofspearton8643]

I was gonna say, I had to stop this talk halfway through because my brain was starting to hurt trying to make sense of what this guy was saying.