Conflict simulation course at King’s College London

[Asid]

Professor Philip Sabin’s course at King’s College London



An aspect of War Studies literature which has hitherto received little academic attention is the corpus of several thousand conflict simulation games published in recent decades.

Read on here: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/warstudies/people/professors/sabin/consim.aspx

[Frankie]

Large room, huge maps, noisy atmosphere, ... the place is alive with people discussing their designs and gameplay. Wish I were there. When I was in my teens, I had in mind a hex wargame that simulated the North Atlantic conflict between u-boats and destroyers. The hexes were in 3D with different hexes representing different depths. I had earlier borrowed my dad's map of Europe (it had the major cities on it as well as oil company facilities) and had spent 4 days drawing hexes on it with his engineering stencil. I then designed my own cards and counters for my Invasion Of Russia campaign. And I played two-player ... against myself! Transferring war gaming and conflict strategy into real life. Nice.

What I noticed from the video was that men outnumbered women by a ratio of 8:1 (my estimate). Also there was more lively human interaction, discussion, eye contact, chatting and exchanging of social skills at the traditional  wargames tables - as compared to those blokes sitting at their laptops who looked totally absorbed in their own world.

[Asid]

Large room, huge maps, noisy atmosphere, ... the place is alive with people discussing their designs and gameplay. Wish I were there. When I was in my teens, I had in mind a hex wargame that simulated the North Atlantic conflict between u-boats and destroyers. The hexes were in 3D with different hexes representing different depths. I had earlier borrowed my dad's map of Europe (it had the major cities on it as well as oil company facilities) and had spent 4 days drawing hexes on it with his engineering stencil. I then designed my own cards and counters for my Invasion Of Russia campaign. And I played two-player ... against myself! Transferring war gaming and conflict strategy into real life. Nice.

It would be great if you still had the game and you could show us pictures. Thanks for sharing your experience.

What I noticed from the video was that men outnumbered women by a ratio of 8:1 (my estimate). Also there was more lively human interaction and exhibiting of social skills at the traditional  wargames tables - as compared to those blokes sitting at their laptops.

Gaming and the military in general is dominated by males. There is more intimate human interaction with board gaming as the opponent is right there in front of you unlike a pc.

Regards