Labyrinth: The Forever War is the second expansion to Labyrinth: The Global War on Terror and follows five years after publication of the first expansion, Labyrinth: The Awakening. Like its predecessors, Forever War adds 120 new event cards to the Labyrinth game system, and like Awakening, covers five years of current events (roughly 2015 through 2019). Forever War achieved its P-500 number in just over 2 days on the market, suggesting there is a demand for inexpensive expansions that add value to a base game, and a desire for games that explore recent political and military events. This brief article will provide some insights and considerations when designing a simulation game based on current events.

Source Material

The single greatest challenge in designing a game based on current events is the lack of published material on the topics of interest. Yes, there are countless news articles covering recent events, but often times these provide only brief descriptions, shallow analytical interpretations, and frequently are not updated after publication to correct for new facts being released.

Ongoing Events

As a current event card designer, I am regularly scanning news sources to catch the latest on would be events. My hour-long commute to and from work has me listening to NPR, BBC, or other news radio stations to catch the latest headlines. I then follow that up with lunch-time reading of various online news sources, or perhaps second day coverage as found within Wikipedia. Wikipedia is perhaps one of the best tools for current events game designers, as it frequently will have a page covering a major event and will suggest links to related events, giving the designer an opportunity to patch together trends.

A real-time example of this is the recent attacks upon tankers in the Persian Gulf. COIN series Developer Jason Carr tipped me off to this 13 June 2019 event – he had caught me listening to 80’s music on my commute to work that morning instead of the news! I quickly sifted through the online coverage of the event and we texted back and forth various game effects that could be modeled in the Labyrinth series. We learned through Wikipedia that this was the second series of attacks, the previous four occurring on 12 May 2019. This trend suggested that this type of activity could occur again, giving us enough information to make an event card for possible inclusion in Forever War.

First, we had to decide if the event should be a Jihadist event, or an Unassociated event playable by either side. Initial reporting on the event suggested that this might be a “false-flag” attack and that we should go with the latter, but ultimately the US provided sufficient evidence to lay the blame upon naval forces directed by Iran. We then needed to decide upon the Ops value of the card, with a 1 being likely because of the limited use of forces in this and possible subsequent engagements.

Next, we needed a title and thematic text, which for now is “Strait of Hormuz: Iran closes the Gulf”. Preconditions came relatively easy: “Play if Iran Adversary or a Special Case country.” Artwork was also pretty easy, with several shots of the fire ravaged Norwegian Front Altair showing the dramatic effects of the limpet mine attacks, with flames and smoke rising over a strikingly blue ocean background, and automatic interior fire-suppression water freely flowing out of the gunnels.

Now the actual effect of the event is the trickier part…how to represent an actual incident on the gameboard. In this case, a real or perceived closure of the Strait of Hormuz would reduce the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf and increase the demand for oil from exporters away from this region. Since one path to victory in Labyrinth is based upon the number of Resources at Good or Islamist Rule, an adjustment to Oil Exporter country Resource values is a juicy game effect to model; one that could have a dynamic impact in end game planning!

So we settled on this LAPSING game effect: “Reduce by 1 the Resource value of all Oil Exporter nations within the Persian Gulf (Saudi Arabia, Gulf State, Iraq and Iran) and increase by 1 the Resource value of all Oil Exporter countries outside the Persian Gulf (all the rest). This simple change dramatically impacts the nature of the map, if even just for a turn, making the strategic triangles in the Gulf much less valuable (see my Inside GMT article on this topic called:“First Time Into The Maze: Beginner Strategy in Labyrinth: Awakening”) and control of Indonesia / Malaysia, Algeria / Tunisia, or Nigeria much more important! So, here is the finished card!

This card was designed after we began the second round of playtesting, so it is unsure if it will make it into the game expansion or not, but the exercise described above is basically what we go through in designing current events for Labyrinth near real-time! With events occurring near weekly, the challenge is when to decide to cut-off future cards and save them for a future expansion (see my article on this topics entitled:“Labyrinth: The Awakening Book Ends”), and this brings us to our final topic for exploration, that of relevancy.

Relevancy

In the Labyrinth: Awakening Playbook I described three criteria in deciding if a current event rates being included in the game series or not:

1. Was the event tied to current themes being modeled in the game expansion?
2. Did it have global ramifications that are demonstrable in this simulation?
3. Could it be represented by normal operations in the game or did it require special treatment?

In Awakening we were modeling the effects of the Arab Spring and its subsequent period of Civil Wars on the continuing global contest between Jihadist elements and the West.  In Forever War, the themes are much more dispersed and varied, as follows:

• Growth and then Collapse of the physical Islamic State Caliphate
• Increased Iranian/Saudi Arabian Rivalry and Proxy War
• Government Repression of Expression (Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, etc.)
• Increased Women’s Rights Activism across the region
• Increased Russian and other International involvement in the Middle East
• Incredible violence outside the Middle East from ISIL and others across Europe, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and elsewhere
• Impact of President Donald Trump and his personality on US Foreign Policy
• Continued activity of African Jihadists
• Plight of International Refugees
• Emerging Main-Power Rivalry between the US, Russia, China, EU and the UK
• US ceding some degree of autonomy in portions of the globe in exchange for greater regional security

The sampling of cards below shows that depth and breadth of the events that have occurred recently and how they cover several of the themes above:

So there you have it, the process we follow in designing current events in Labyrinth, playtesting them, then deciding if “should they stay or should they go” (The Clash – 1981)! If you would like to contribute to the dialogue on this topic, feel free to see the dedicated page for new Labyrinth event suggestions on Board Game Geek:  https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1693452/what-cards-would-you-wantsuggest

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