12 Years Ago I Almost Took Over The World
Looking back on a very realistic Political Science Simulation
Disclaimer: As the title indicates, this series of events took place 12 years ago, and any deviations from the ‘accurate’ narrative are completely un-intentional. For convenience, please categorize and view the following contents as one person’s anecdote. The combination of distance of time works for and against the attempt: looking back allows for honest criticism of personal conduct, but also enables nostalgia and selectively telling a version which makes the main character look good. With these acknowledgements up front, I feel a lot more comfortable getting into the key striking, mind’s eye re-living of what happened as Knife Party Abandon Ship blasts away.
Starting With The End
With the semester essentially over, finals week done, and the game in the Political Science class wrapped up, I wanted to have a sit-down with Professor Mack and talk about what went down. He was about five or six years older than me, an earned PhD and definitely with the type of mind to enjoy strategy concepts whether chess or Sino-Slavic relationships. That being the case, dropping in to talk with the door closed was a mutually assured DMZ. Besides, he had mandated office hours and the bright sun made it feel kind of cinematic during our wrap up chit-chat.
He wanted to hear from me how I did what I did, and I wanted to hear from him how he interpreted what he saw in the grand scheme of things.
“In the other class, after I distributed the course materials, talked over the concept and explained the rules of how to get the bonus points, it was easy.”
Dr. Mack had this kind of look of frustration.
“It was a manipulation though, what they essentially did was look at the rules on the page and come to a total consensus to group together to maximize all points.”
That kind of surprised me, how about 30 people could all go together on what was essentially collusion in contrast to the spirit of the game. He could see my reaction. He almost laughed.
“How they managed to get it done over the entire semester is actually a thing of beauty, I will give them credit idealistically. They pulled off a utopia.”
“So nobody wanted to stand up in the canoe huh?” was something I wondered.
“That got me too. The collective incentive to stick with the program gave them all a long-term perspective, in that it was long enough to see the full semester as the scope.”
“I think they missed the point of the game,” I said, genuine in that belief.
“Your class was a lot more work. Do you know how many calculations I had to run every time you had a military offensive? I spent a lot of late nights on math thanks to you.”
“Hey man you set up the world and the conditions given. We were one turn away from having the entire globe under the command of Rül, right?”
“So…yeah…let’s talk about that…start from the beginning of the semester.”
I WILL PWN YOU
At the beginning of that Spring semester of the early 2000s, I was still pretty heavily involved in the online Half-Life DM/Team DM and Adrenaline Gamer community. This means I was probably one of the best trash-talking, freelance mercenary mentality computer junkies in any given room at the time. Only a small subset of people can truthfully claim to have participated in local and or regional LAN parties, and I was one of those hardcore committed gamers. The point of any game is to win.
On my own, I wanted to be a one man wrecking crew.
But as a part of a team I had trouble keeping up with the best of the best. Only as a ringer slumming it did I look good by comparison. In those situations I could carry a team on my back for the sake of victory.
So as the last semester of my Bachelors was coming together, I picked out an Intro level Political Science class. The reasoning was I knew how to study and write papers by now, I wanted a high grade, and filling in the elective hours pool should be in subjects which interested me. For comparison, one of the other classes I chose was INTRO TO PIANO because I wanted to re-learn how to read sheet music. Oh, and the timing also meant I was 21, and fully legal to buy and consume alcohol, which should be kept in consideration as the rest of the story unfolds.
Survey Says…
Welcome To The Jungle Baby!
At the start of the course following a general introduction, Professor Mack had every student take a one page, 10 or so question survey. He didn’t disclose it at the time, but the survey was a standardized method to identify our general outlook proclivities. Liberally minded folks would tend to group in one way, Conservative minded folks in another, et cetera. That’s how Dr. Mack’s world leadership setup took shape at the start.
In the next class, Dr. Mack went over the general outline of the simulation, a turn-based type structure with the class divided into five different nations. We’d have 10 turns once things got started. He took the time to have us all stand up and get grouped to make some quick personal introductions; teams averaged five to a group.
From there he dropped off folders unique to each nation describing the strengths and deficiencies within several categories, along with an overview page of global context. In brief, our group got dealt a country that had many industrial resources and a preference for a strong leadership structure. Other countries had mineral riches but also dynamics which favored more open democratic or republic type leadership. In the global context handout, everyone learned that there were shared and unique challenges — environmental concerns, disputes over borders and mining rights for gold, that sort of stuff.
Looking at my group, I was the oldest and without getting too excited, easily the most interested in the whole concept. It didn’t take long for us to sort out who would do what, and I was unopposed in volunteering for leader. Oh, and according to our resources, we should probably go ahead and pick Military Dictatorship to maximize the setup, right? No big deal? Cool!
The next week we all turned in our country names, the structure that we’d be using, and our first resource uses. Rül was the name of our nation. The others will be given fake names from the phonetic alphabet just so I don’t accidentally use their real ones — so the other four were Bravo, Foxtrot, Lima, and Tango. Once the simulation got started, Dr. Mack let us go ahead and start practicing some diplomacy.
Apparently in the simulation, the two nations of Bravo and Foxtrot shared a border mountain that resembled the Kashmir region dispute. Apparently Bravo’s government interests were “enslaving” many Foxtrot nationals to work in the gold mines. At the start, Foxtrot’s government wanted both their people back, and control of the gold mines in the mountains, but Bravo’s government disputed anything was wrong. That was the official stance.
When things got started, it was very easy to focus on internal issues — how to allocate resources and where to invest. Unlike Bravo and Foxtrot, Rül had no “built-in” issues and could take the first turn to simply feel things out. As a regional strength, Rül was courted by both Bravo and Foxtrot to try and form an alliance. Take sides.
Getting Real — Really Interested in the Simulation
The first week of negotiations were kind of feeling out the simulation, trying to balance what was known publicly against the private information that each nation could obtain for their own use. With the appeal of having Rül on their side, both Bravo and Foxtrot made contact in their unique ways. We were all living in a world that was ours for the making.
Foxtrot wanted complete capitulation from Bravo — all persons returned and the entire mountain region determined in their favor. Bravo came forward acknowledging Foxtrot’s position, but noting that unless Foxtrot gave monetary relief for the return of the gold mining region, Bravo’s country would be unable to afford food and face social collapse. Bravo told Foxtrot they would agree to giving back the people and the region on some conditions, basically aid relief. Foxtrot demanded it all, no kickbacks.
So sitting on the conflict for the first turns made sense — wondering how Bravo and Foxtrot might plead their cases in the public. Without objection from my team I spent heavily on spying to see if the publicly reported numbers were reflective of reality, all the while putting our nation’s labor to work building military equipment. It kept them busy and happy.
What the information delivered on the next couple turns revealed was that Foxtrot was enjoying a healthy black-market influx of stolen gold which was about half the revenue of what Bravo was getting as the official mine operators. Look at the wrinkle closely on paper and you can see why Bravo claimed to give up the operation would be disaster — it’s not that they weren’t willing to do such a philosophical good, but that they couldn’t rationalize their own destruction in the process. It was this understanding that helped the government of Rül decide behind closed doors to see if Foxtrot would bargain when confronted in private.
As the leader of Rül I went over to the Foxtrot group and let them know that I had information about their issue with Bravo and would be available to help broker peace and compensation. The Foxtrot group responded with sheer arrogance, claiming their moral high ground meant they didn’t have to negotiate with anybody, especially Bravo group. I countered by mentioning that Rül was still considering their official position, but that apparently didn’t matter — they wanted everything, and they were real jerks about it to be honest. They wanted to play hard ball.
I went back to Bravo’s leader, Ricky, and told him that I saw what he was talking about when it came to Foxtrot’s idea of negotiation, and how I did some spying and learned they weren’t really being honest. He used that as an opportunity to build trust by sharing some of his own spying information about Lima (building an Air Force) and volunteering to be an ally if only Rül would support Bravo in their standing against Foxtrot. Without consulting my advisors, I made the deal.
Put Up or Shut Up
Around turn five, both Ricky and me were tired of listening to Foxtrot trying to be the un-elected leader of a global coalition to shame the Bravo nation into giving up the mountains. Bravo had quietly avoided building up military strength by giving Rül resources with the deal that Rül’s military would only act in concert with Bravo’s interests. The other nations, Lima and Tango, were so geographically and resource independent they weren’t particularly interested in dealing with anything other than trading oil for food. They simply didn’t care about the Bravo-Foxtrot-Rül dynamic.
That being the situation, and with only minimal input from the rest of the Rül team, other than assurances our points would be maximized, Foxtrot was invaded. Rül’s military attacked every strategic point using air and artillery munitions and allowed the minor Bravo infantry to invade and assist in the occupation of Foxtrot. After turn six was done and the dust settled, Rül and Bravo had overtaken 95% of Foxtrot’s land and infrastructure.
What was left of Foxtrot’s leadership was contained within one town, and told that they would be allowed to participate as a government in exile with what minimal resources they still had.
Turn seven started with a wash of money and resources and new issues — it’s one thing to depose a nation’s leadership, but another to be able to sustain an occupying force. Once the money started raining, the Rül team was a lot more interested in participating, especially because they could start to tell that other classmates weren’t too happy with them. The Foxtrot group was getting really chippy. Lima and Tango were somewhat nervous, but I did some chatting to let them know it was more about the Bravo situation.
After that whole posturing about how they were so morally superior and refused to negotiate with anybody and it cost them most of their nation, Foxtrot didn’t change their ways. They kept up their protests, accusing Bravo and Rül of being terrible and trying to get Lima and Tango — both on the Rül payroll by then — to rise up and fight the biggest power on the block out of altruism. While Rül was trying to lead a coalition to unify through sharing the spoils of exploiting a resource rich prize, the disgraced Foxtrot leadership just wouldn’t shut up about how they were innocent victims. That’s when we eliminated them for convenience, and by we, I mean I asked the rest if anybody would really mind. I did learn a valuable lesson though…
When staring at the barrel of a gun it’s not a good idea to be demanding
Everybody Shoots In The Firing Squad
So I made sure when Rül decided to finish off the Foxtrot group that it would be a unified objective. I got commitments from Lima’s Air Force and Tango’s Navy each send in munitions, even though it was Rül’s war machine that ensured annihilation. Leaving just the shred of dignity for Foxtrot was a calculated move, for sure, and allowing them to tie their own noose was a hunch I had felt might play out. It was Ricky with Bravo who had really brought it to my attention, and being the strongest power had advantages.
As the turns progressed and Rül led everybody in trying to get the most of all the remaining points, the Foxtrot students shot daggers from their eyes. No points for them. All the while they made it clear that they felt somehow they had been wronged by the world and everybody else, not that their actions and attitude had anything to do with the way they were treated. Tango started to wonder if they were getting enough in the whole exchange. As of turn 10, Tango was on the cusp of being invaded by Rül and Lima with the understanding Lima would repay Rül’s military intervention with monetary kick-backs gleaned from the spoils of Tango’s overtaking.
When the points were tallied, each of the members of Rül got the most points possible in the class simulation, closely followed by team Bravo, then Lima and Tango. They were not as many as the class that gamed the system just to maximize their outcome, that’s true. However, the points gained were earned, and in some ways, taken from others who wanted them dearly but were unable to make it happen.
Back In The Office At The End
“So the way you placed on the survey was as a moderate — you weren’t one way or another and that’s how your team on Rül was put together,” Dr. Mack told me.
“That figures considering they didn’t really ever dispute my guidance or plans.”
“They were the easiest going group,” Dr. Mack pointed out.
“Huh, how about that…I got into a group that didn’t have powerful leadership and used that to my advantage then?”
“Looks like it,” he replied.
“Yeah, it does. You know we would’ve taken over Tango if we’d had one more turn.”
“Probably…”
