COIN dynamics

COIN: counter insurgency

Diagrams are way of communicating complex ideas. You might remember this diagram from around a year ago, it was published in the New York Times and quickly picked up as how complex the problem is.

Diagram of US COIN strategy in Afghanistan

Not intended for general media syndication is really only of interest to analysts skilled at looking at these kinds of complex networks. It was part of a larger document that in context made a lot more sense. It's even colour coded for guidance. Quite often it was ridiculed for being overly complex. How can anyone make sense of this?

Stepping back and embracing complexity can yield better understanding. Douglas Adams embraced these ideas in the 1980's with his Dirk Gently series, the idea that if you pull on a thread you tug on the universe.

OK, nice flamboyant ideas. What does this have to do with our simulation?

In Combat-Helo the "Side A" campaign has the same goal as this digram; "Increase popular support for the Afghan government" via a factional conflict in which you play a singular role. My task has been to examine these kinds of documents, identify game entities and feedback loops. I don't want to take away some of the mystery of how it's going to work in game so I can't talk too much about how this works. The military part of the strategy is only a very small part of the infamous digram which is where we focus our efforts.

For player actions to have a 100% positive outcome three things must happen in the duration of the players assigned mission (in order of practical difficulty):

• Negative r factions adopt neutral disposition.
• Neutral r factions adopt supportive disposition.
• Retain support of existing friendly factions.

r = reputation with faction

All mission events by player and AI factions are processed this way, AI factions influence each other without direct player interaction.

When coding the campaign functions I needed a way to visualise three degrees of separation for the different factions (three pertaining to how populations or battle units are organised). Going with 3D network diagrams seems a logical choice so this week I'll be implementing a function to do that.

Taking a leaf from "Next War" on the ZX Spectrum, the end of phase command options allow earned, rare or one-shot influences over the whole battlefield.  Some of these need to be turned on their head in order to satisfy gaming conceits. Here's an example of some command options (only available to players marked as a commander, which is by default the group leader or host but transferable or jointly held).

• Request Aid from High Command (schedules resupply of hardware if available)
• Divert Resources to Local Services
• Bribe Faction for support (cheaper to pay faction to not shoot at you than exchange fire all day)
• Train local security force.

Low coalition casualty rates enable increases in coalition funding available each campaign cycle. High casualty rates increase political pressure (decreasing command options). Events which result in factional casualties are processed accordingly and directly influence the board. Factional standings at the end of the campaign cycle will be reflected in any gifted 'specials' or available command options.

Through the command options you can influence the three main processes that contribute to the Side A goal. These metrics weight event outcomes:

• Development
• Governance
• Security

The latter being the focus of our game via your regular sorties on patrol and engagement missions. Hopefully that gives you some insight into what I've been doing this week, turning these ideas into a working design and prototype code before adding them as functions to the command tent terminal.

And also gives you some idea as to how our game within a game works. It has board game potential which is usually a good sign.