After this thread and the "Terry Jones" thread and then watching my son
play a strategy game on the computer last night (Empire Earth, with the
expansion), I began thinking about the many times he has played the game
and the implications of the way the game plays out on the internet, an how
civilizations and wars play out in the real world.

For those unfamiliar with the game, each player starts out with a handful
of people at the hunter/gatherer stage, slowly growing his/her clan into a
civilization and advancing that civilization to the stone age, bronze age,
Renaissance, space age, etc.

While the goal of the game is basically world domination, initially my
daughters spent their time peacefully building fantastic civilizations,
easily advancing through the dark ages, Renaissance, Atomic age, space age,
etc.  The only military resources they developed were early in the game and
were to protect them against the wild animals that roam the game.  World
conquest wasn't their goal - building a large, well-developed, beautiful
civilization was their goal.

My son (who is the youngest) wasn't as good at developing a
civilization.  The first few times he played, his civilization peacefully
co-existed with those of his sisters.  Eventually, he reached a point where
it annoyed him that his older sisters had these fantastic civilizations
that covered vast amount of territory and he had a small, less advanced
civilization on a small portion of the game map.

During one game a conflict arose over access to a natural resource.  He
needed the resource and one of his sisters wouldn't grant him access to
it.  He started building an army, a navy, and an air force.  He attacked
his sister and as she was unprepared, his military forces wiped her
out.  The he went after his other sister and he wiped her out.

After that game concluded, the days of peaceful co-existence were
over.  From then on there were alliances (sisters against brother), armies,
navies, air forces, and the much slower march of progress of
civilization.  Most of the time there wouldn't be any wars but other times
the game was one war after another.

Next came internet play.  On the internet, where the game play is less
personal, quickly building a strong economy, investing heavily in new
technology, quickly advancing your civilization to the next age, and
building a strong defensive military proved to be very important.

Depending upon the personalities of the other players, the games would be
quite peaceful on one extreme or nothing but battle after battle after
battle on the other extreme.

What is most concerning, however, is how when the civilizations in the game
have reached the point where they have atomic weapons, a small but
significant part of the time the losing player plays the nuclear card and
as his/her last gasp, tries to inflict as much damage on his/her
opponent(s) as possible with nuclear weapons.  Stated another way, a number
of players seem to have an "If I'm going to lose, I'm going to try to take
down as many others as I can on my way down" attitude (hereafter "IIGTL...").

Thus, very often the winning "peaceful" or "defensive" players have to make
a tough decision when they reach the point where they are clearly in
control of the warring player's fate.  They either have to proceed with
wiping out the warring player, or sue for peace or a cease fire and from
then on keep a very close eye on the warring player.  If the winning
players believe the losing player is "normal" person, then the best course
of action is usually to eliminate the warring player from the game.  In the
long run, eliminating the warring player saves the remaining players
significant expenditures of resources and allows the game to continue for a
longer period of time.

However, eliminating a warring player is not always a wise choice.  If the
warring player is one of those "IIGTL..." people, the playing field becomes
either a nuclear waste ground or a never-ending war.  A miscalculation
regarding the psyche of the warring player can have devastating consequences.

Should the winning players decide to NOT proceed with wiping out the
warring player, there is also the risk that the warring player will take
advantage of their desire for peace and use it against them by slowly
rebuilding his/her military, as secretly as possible, and eventually
launching an attack.  Very often the winning players keep bargaining with
the warring player and over time bargain away their position until they are
ripe for an attack.  If the game gets to that point, there is often a
turn-around and the warring party ends up wiping out those who were the
peaceful players.

As my son has learned through extensive play, if you believe you are
playing against an "IIGTL..." personality player, at some point you MUST
wipe out the warring player - even if you know your losses will be heavy
(nuclear strikes), and the sooner the better - waiting only increases your
losses.

So how many of these "IIGTL..." personality players are there?  My son
guessed about 1 in 8, but then that ratio is probably tainted by the
predisposition of certain personality types to have an interest in such
games, and the predisposition of others to have no interest in such games.

I'm sure that governments play their strategy and war games too, and try to
figure out the best strategy to apply in various situations, be they
political or military.  I'm also sure that they, too, have to plan for the
aberrant personality - the "IIGTL..." leader.

So what is the correct course of action in the real world?  If only we
knew.  If only we knew.

John

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *