"I think AFMP is a work of genius. I recommend it to military intelligence professionals, and I give it free advertising at my lectures. A great way for soldiers to see what the enemy might be doing to negate their efforts," Garra says. "AFMP also bores me to tears. It's a far better way to learn the subject matter than passive classroom absorption of lecture material, but it's not the kind of thing I want to play for entertainment."
A Force More Powerful may not succeed at entertaining players, but it is the only computer game of its kind. It proves that at least some of the important factors in unconventional warfare can be modeled in a game, and provides a foundation on which other, better games might someday build.
While many aspects of unconventional warfare can be modeled, however, it still poses some unique design challenges. Unlike conventional battles where victory is readily definable (destruction of the enemy, control of key locations, etc.), the criteria for success in irregular warfare are far more nebulous. Irregular wars occur over a wide variety of issues, and combatants adopt very different tactics to suit their particular circumstances. This means that a game system has to be constructed around a conflict. Guillory explains the problem: "You have to establish the victory conditions for each side before you start writing rules. That's completely bass-ackwards to most games, but is absolutely vital in a game about asymmetric warfare. You have to understand what each side wants to accomplish, because that will allow you to scope the tools with which they pursue those objectives, as well as the tools they have to prevent/inhibit the opponent from meeting his."
The tools and objectives of irregular warfare are also very different from what gamers are used to. This demands a different system than that of most war games, where mobility, lethality and defensive strength are the primary variables. In a conventional war game, the player crunches some numbers, assesses the odds and then makes a decision based on those straightforward calculations. That's adequate for conventional battles, but unconventional conflict is not so easily reduced.
Faced with this challenge when designing his own Battle for Baghdad board game, Joseph Miranda uses card game mechanics to illustrate some of the less tangible aspects of asymmetric warfare. "The idea behind card play is to present players a chaotic situation where they cannot simply enter the right numbers into the 'black box' and come out on the other side with the solution. ... In Battle for Baghdad, the cards give players capabilities. But they also interact in different ways. Certain card combinations give geometric increases in powers, while others can be used to counter enemy actions. The critical thing, though, is how the players interact with each other. The cards also are a way to quantify things like intentions and doctrine. And they do so without having to add in a ton of numbers and special rules."
