FREE / LEARN BY PLAYING
Play a turn, then use the rules to explain its consequences.
New to wargaming? Each game includes a guided tutorial.
START PLAYING
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FOUNDATIONAL GAME
Learn how movement, terrain and a die roll change a battle.
1–2 players · Desktop/laptop recommended
Play →Times are planning estimates. Allow extra time for the tutorial and discussion.
Frank Chadwick · VPG 2009
Full credits
ADVICE & VERIFICATION
Deliver relief supplies and decide when to check your adviser's claims.
2 players or solo practice · Desktop/laptop recommended
Play →Times are planning estimates. Allow extra time for the tutorial and discussion.
Original Teaching Wargaming game
Credits and limits
A turn gives players a chance to act, then updates the situation. Each game's written rules set the order.
Find the goal. Check what your side knows and which resources remain.
Select an allowed action. What are you giving up to take it?
Pay the cost and follow the resolution procedure. Roll or draw only if the rules require it.
Update the board. Check whether play continues, then explain what caused the result.
EXAMINE THE DESIGN
Use Peter Perla’s ten elements to examine the game you just played.
The question the game explores and what players are trying to achieve.
The situation, setting and starting conditions players face.
The facts, values and assumptions the game uses.
How the game represents the world and connects actions to effects.
What players can do and how outcomes are decided.
The space, materials and technology needed to run the game.
Who plays, runs and observes the game, and what each can know.
How play is recorded and examined to draw useful lessons.
The habits, expectations and pressures that shape how people play.
Who will use the findings and what they need to understand.
Framework: Peter Perla, Weuve, Markowitz et al., Wargame Pathologies (CNA, 2004). Brief explanations adapted by Teaching Wargaming.
AI & HUMAN JUDGMENT
Try an AI adviser role, or “AI seat,” in a game. Write down what information the adviser receives and what it may recommend, then have a person follow that procedure. Include a possible error: how could a player catch it, and what would checking cost?
Cognitive offloading: delegate a task, such as a calculation, while checking the inputs and deciding how to use the result. Cognitive surrender: accept the AI’s judgment with little scrutiny.
In Last Convoy, ask what you checked before accepting the adviser’s claim. A correct outcome alone cannot show whether you exercised judgment. After play, discuss what checking revealed and whether it was worth the time.
Concepts: Steven D. Shaw and Gideon Nave, Thinking—Fast, Slow, and Artificial (January 11, 2026, working paper). Teaching application informed by Red Teaming Associates’ human-in-the-loop approach. These game prompts are discussion aids, not a validated measure of cognitive surrender.
If AI supplies the plan or explains every outcome, players may miss the practice of weighing evidence themselves. Record your reasoning before receiving advice. Check it against the rules, then explain why you accepted or rejected it.
Teaching Wargaming guidance for classroom discussion. Source: MIT’s Ad Hoc Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training, Report (August 13, 2026), section 2.7, “Augmentation not automation.”
Players decide how to use advice and check whether its evidence supports their choice. A person following an adviser procedure can help you test the role. The exercise cannot establish how a live AI system would behave.
AFTER PLAY
Name one decision that mattered. Separate the player's choice from the rule and any chance result. Then name an assumption the game leaves untested.
Playing can reveal questions worth investigating. A single playthrough cannot establish a real-world prediction.