Stromata Blog

If You Want to Look Beyond Next Tuesday

A week from this instant, I’m probably going to be feeling pretty grim about the 110th Congress. But politics – in the U.S. anyway – shares a characteristic with baseball: No matter how bad the last season was, the next one is always full of hope. Just in time to take advantage of the political equivalent of the Hot Stove League, 80Soft.com has released a new, much augmented edition of President Forever, a first rate (and amazingly inexpensive, just $19.95) computer simulation of American Presidential elections. Added are not only the 2008 scenario but also the races for the party nominations, which no game, manual or electronic, has made a serious effort to cover before.

I ordered my copy just a few minutes ago, so this isn’t a review. I will note, though, that the steady improvement in the company’s other products has been impressive. The last before President Forever was Prime Minister Forever – Canada 2006. (I’m happy to say that Stephen Harper got better results than I did.) Others deal with parliamentary elections in Britain, Australia, Germany and British Columbia. So far, however, Israeli politics remain impossible to reproduce using a device as logical as a computer.

Afterthought: How about a cross between two genres – a Palestinian election game in which the opposing parties deploy both ballots and bullets?

Wargame Rambles

One of the great things about wargames is the reminder that our current era, despite the worst efforts of the Leftist-Islamofascist alliance, is a lot safer and more comfortable than most of the rest of human history. (Perhaps that’s one reason why it’s so hard to rouse Westerners to take the enemy seriously.) Here are a few notes on what I’ve been playing or looking at lately:

Your Own Canadian Election

80Soft.com is the only company, so far as I know, that produces computer games about parliamentary elections. Now that Canada is in the midst of another campaign, Prime Minister Forever – Canada 2006 has appeared, the latest in the oddly named series that has also covered recent elections in Australia, Britain, British Columbia and Germany. Comparing it to its predecessor of 2½ years ago, one sees a lot of worthwhile augmentations: minor parties (12 parties in all, with minors ranging from the Greens to the Christian Heritage), a long list of potential endorsers (major newspapers, business and labor groups, grass roots advocates of narrow causes) offering differing benefits (momentum, money, foot soldiers), a variety of forms of advertising, more detailed geographical differentiation (Ontario, for instance, is split into four regions, Quebec into three) and sundry lesser features. With just a little effort, one can customize game elements (e. g., by adding new endorsers, advertising options, key issues or special events) or create entirely new scenarios. The 2006 version comes with recreations of the 1993, 1997, 2000 and 2004 Canadian contests, as well as the current one, giving masochistic Conservatives a variety of frustrations to endure. All of this costs only $18.95 in Canadian money, which is very nearly the equivalent of free.

I haven’t yet had time to play a complete game, though I’ll certainly try to get in a couple before January 23rd. Regarding the outcome of the real life version, I have little optimism. As was readily predictable, Paul Martin’s Liberal Party has adopted Gerhard Schröder’s anti-American hysteria, reinforced by appeals to the most scoundrelly form of patriotism. As David Warren observes,

To be fair, Mr Martin and cronies have more reasons to cling, than the enjoyment of power itself. For if even a minority Conservative government can be formed, there may be three-party agreement to launch corruption inquiries that go far beyond the scope of the Gomery Commission. Billions upon billions are spent annually in other unaudited programmes, crying out for review. Remember this each time the Liberals sound desperate.

The OpinionJournal Political Diary (have I mentioned that it’s a mere $3.95 a month?) has more on Liberal anti-Americanism and the winding tendrils of the party’s corruption:

America-bashing helped to re-elect Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder when they were in tight re-election contests in France and Germany a few years back, and it now appears Canada’s Liberal Party prime minister, Paul Martin, is taking a page out of their playbook. He took advantage of the recent Montreal climate conference to lecture the United States to heed a “global conscience” and adopt strict standards in fighting global warming. This despite the fact Canada has a proportionally worse record than the U.S. on controlling greenhouse gas emissions [nearly twice as rapid a rise since 1990 – ETV].

His swipes at the U.S. in the run-up to Canada’s January 23 election elicited a sharp response from U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins, who told an Ottawa audience that incessant criticism of the U.S. could eventually damage the close relationship between the two countries. “Canada never has to tear the United States down to build itself up,” he said. “It may be smart election politics to thump your chest and constantly criticize your friend and your No. 1 trading partner. But it’s a slippery slope and all of us should hope it doesn’t have a long-term impact on our relationship.”

Mr. Martin seized on the remarks by the U.S. diplomat to retort: “That our friends do not like what we say – well, c’est la vie. I’m going to defend Canada and I’m right on softwood lumber and I’m right on climate change and I won’t let anybody tell me that I should not defend my country.”

It’s worth noting, however, that Mr. Martin has not been that eager to defend all Canadians. Chief among them is Maurice Strong, his former patron and until recently a top United Nations official who has been implicated in the oil-for-food scandal. Mr. Strong was also a key architect of the unworkable Kyoto treaty on global warming.

Canadian journalist Judi McLeod reports that Mr. Strong “has been missing in action” in this election campaign “and you can safely bet” that will continue to be the case until the actual vote. You can also safely bet that if Mr. Martin continues to bash the U.S. over Kyoto, he can expect return fire over his ties to Mr. Strong.

I doubt that the last bet is all that safe. The prime minister and his media megaphones will doubtless denounce criticism of Mr. Strong’s ties to Saddam Hussein as another instance of un-Canadian activities.

Despite hopeful polls showing, for instance, that the Conservatives actually lead the Liberals, however narrowly, outside Quebec (which the separatist Bloc Québécois will sweep) and that 58 percent of the voters think that it’s “time for a change”, I doubt that it will occur to enough to them that the way to get change is not to vote for the status quo. The Schröder strategy worked once in Germany and almost repeated its success. Hence, I am psychologically prepared for another victory of the kleptocrats, whether or not they can be vanquished on my computer screen.

Addenda: 1. A free demo version of the game is available from CBC.

2. The deadline for nominating candidates is January 2, 2006, and the confirmed list will be released on January 5th. As I understand it, 80Soft will then produce a patch with the final candidate list and (probably) other updates and modifications.

Clobbering Schröder on Your Computer

Illness having opportunely forced Jacques “Le Ver” Chirac to the sidelines, Gerhard Schröder has the EU division of the Race to the Bottom all to himself. The strident anti-Americanism that he displayed in his debate with CDU leader Angel Merkel last Sunday was, of course, the product of desperation. Barring an anti-miracle, his party will suffer a massive defeat “after seven years of economic bumbling and unfulfilled promises”. Schadenfreude is uncharitable, but it will be hard to resist on September 18th.

For those who would like to indulge the feeling in advance, Eighty Dimensional Software has just added Chancellor Forever to its burgeoning line of computer simulations of parliamentary elections. Previous games have been set in Canada, Australia, Britain and British Columbia. (There is also one based on U.S. Presidential elections, though I find it less entrancing than its siblings.) The German edition uses the same basic engine with several interesting additions. One is unique to Germany: the preposterous voting system that tries to meld proportional representation with first-past-the-post constituencies and succeeds in aggravating the weaknesses of both. Others are new features that can be retrofitted to the rest of the series, including multiple types of advertising and free television time.

The Deutsches Institut für Public Affairs is credited with assisting in the game’s development. It is presumably responsible for the large quantity of local information built into the scenarios. Disappointing, however, is the absence of real life media endorsements like those included in the British version. Trying to lure Axel Springer or Der Stern to one’s side would make for more flavor and better gameplay than is provided by random, and potentially unbalancing, generic “endorsers”.

In line with conventional wisdom, there seems to be little chance that a coalition of the CDU/CSU and the Free Democrats can avoid winning a majority in the Bundestag, though reaching the voting percentages needed for a high victory point total isn’t easy at all. For more competitive play (and for those who think that it’s bad luck to set one’s hopes too high), there is also a 2002 scenario, in which Herr Schröder can repeat his anti-U.S., pro-Saddam campaign. (This year he’s moved on to defending the Iranian mullarchy’s nuclear ambitions, which doesn’t seem to be playing as well.)

Eighty Dimensional Software’s prices are startlingly low for products of this quality. Chancellor Forever costs only $12.00 (in English) or €10.00 (in German), with discounts for owners of other games in the series.

Eleutheria and Bavarokratia

I don’t believe that it is celebrated in Greece, where March 25th, the anniversary of the outbreak of the anti-Ottoman revolt of 1821, is regarded as Independence Day, but today marks the 173rd anniversary of formal Greek independence. On May 7, 1832, the Ottoman Empire agreed, at the Conference of London, to recognize Greece as a separate nation and give up efforts to reconquer its lost province. The Battle of Navarino (October 20, 1827) had made that outcome inevitable, but the Turks took their time about acceding to it.

The next year, a 17-year-old Bavarian prince, Otto of Wittelsbach, became King of Greece, inaugurating what is remembered as the “Bavarokratia”. It would not be far-fetched to say that his 29-year reign, ended by a coup in 1862, laid the foundations for all that is wrong with the Greek polity today: parliamentary manipulation, nationalistic designs beyond the country’s resources, cynical appeals to religion by irreligious politicians and military intervention in civil affairs, among other evils. Someone (I’d look it up but have a plane to catch) once penned a fantasia in which Lord Byron survived his wounds at Missolonghi and eventually became King instead of Otto. It’s hard to imagine Byron as a ruler, yet Greece might have been better served by some such eccentric choice.

Addendum: Joseph T. Major saves me the trouble of searching with the information that “If Byron Had Become King of Greece” was written by Harold Nicholson and first published in J. C. Squire’s anthology If It Had Happened Otherwise: Lapses Into Imaginary History (1931). Having lamented the lack of wargames on Latin American topics, let me also call attention to another gem from the same collection, H. A. L. Fisher’s “If Napoleon Had Escaped to America”, which, had it really happened, would have ensured a steady stream of games on the Emperor’s South American campaigns.

The Big Blank on the Wargaming Map

Today brings not only the dismal U.K. election (yes, the Tories are doing well as I write, but they don’t deserve – and won’t achieve – victory, while an unexpectedly close result will lead only to the faster accession of the unspeakable Gordon Brown) but also Cinco de Mayo, the great Mexican holiday. Technically it celebrates the victory of Mexican Republican forces over invading French troops at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, an event of very little intrinsic significance. The French resumed their advance later in the year, captured Mexico City in June 1863, and installed the Austrian Archduke Maximilian as Emperor of Mexico. After that followed a four year civil war, which Maximilian lost only after U.S. pressure compelled Napoleon III to withdraw from the conflict.

That Cinco de Mayo eclipses the actual Mexican Independence Day (September 15, 1810) is rather as if the United States celebrated the Battle of Bunker Hill instead of the Fourth of July. Well, that is as it may be. What I want to note here is that Cinco de Mayo was just one incident in the tumultuous, fascinating military history of Latin America, almost all of which has been ignored by Anglophone wargamers. I am aware of only four games in English dealing with any battle or campaign south of the border the didn’t involve gringos: Caseros 1852: The Fate of Argentina (Simulations Workshop, 1998, on the battle the ousted the Argentinian dictator Ortiz de Rosas), the forthcoming Cactus Throne (slated for publication in Against the Odds #15, the war of Emperor Maximilian) and two games on the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay, 1932-35, one from Game Designers Workshop (1973), the other published in Command #12 (1991).

Perhaps the thriving Spanish wargame industry has been more attentive, but I have seen only a magazine game, Libertadores (Soldados y Estrategia #10 (2003)), which recreates eight battles from the Wars of Liberation (1810-1824) using elementary rules and oddly designed counters.

The wargaming map has been filled in over the years with coverage of many an obscure conflict, yet here is a gigantic blank: We cannot refight the continent-wide struggle for Latin American independence or the heroically stupid War of the Triple Alliance or any of the numerous other military landmarks in the history of the southern half of our hemisphere. Were it not for the oft-proven axiom that norteamericanos will do anything for Latin America except pay attention to it, one would be astonished.

Another Reason to Regret That Britain Has Elections

With less than two weeks to go until May 5th, the Conservative Party’s leader has decided, reports the Daily Telegrah, to make an issue out of whether it was “illegal” to depose Saddam Hussein. Michael Howard either does or doesn't think that national security should be subordinated to lawyers’ opinions. If he does, he is grossly unfit to lead a serious government. If he doesn’t, he is what he accuses Tony Blair of being: a man telling “lies” for the sake of winning an election. Regardless of which alternative is correct, his tactic reinforces a dangerous tendency in British public opinion.

For reasons that I’ve outlined before, there is no realistic chance that Mr. Howard will wind up at Number 10 Downing Street. (The latest YouGov poll puts the party standings at 37% Labour, 33% Conservative, 24% Liberal Democrat, which Electoral Calculus estimates would yield 373 seats for Labour, a hundred more than all other parties combined.) He knows that as well as I do. Since he claims to be the successor to Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, could he not at least run an honorable race, saying what the voters need to hear about the Islamofascist threat rather than joining, by clear implication, the “Everything is America’s Fault” chorus? The attack on Mr. Blair for “illegality” is, of course, an attack on George W. Bush for having dared to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq. So much for the Special Relationship between the U.K. and the U.S. that once meant a great deal to Conservative statesmen.

Incidentally, though it means nothing at all, my first complete game of Prime Minister Forever’s U.K. 2005 scenario, in which my version of Mr. Howard adamantly supported the liberation of Iraq, resulted in a dead heat: 232 seats for Labour, 230 for the Conservatives, 120 for the LibDems. If the real-world Tories could look forward to an outcome like that, they would be ecstatic.

Must We Wait for May 5th?

To begin with the unavoidable truth that earnest political analysts will try to ignore for the next 23 days: The Labour Party will win the U.K. election. Manifestos, party political broadcasts, candidate deselections, the Blair vs. Brown undertow and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s emergence as the voice of British small-c conservatism (no, really, per Iain Murray) are just song-and-dance routines to keep the crowd interested until the inevitable denouement – inevitable because the United Kingdom’s gerrymander would make a California Democrat or a Texas Republican blush. A few minutes toying with Electoral Calculus will demonstrate that the Conservatives can win the most seats in Parliament by finishing about six percentage points ahead of Labour. A minimal Tory majority requires about a nine point lead. To look at it another way, if the 2001 vote counts were exactly reversed, with the Tories getting 42 percent and Labour 33 percent (with the same 19 percent for the Liberal Democrats), the Conservatives would get an estimated 325 seats, a four-seat majority. Labour’s 42 percent last time won 403 seats.

What’s more, just in case Messrs. Blair and Brown feel like fixing a sure thing, Britain’s liberalization of postal voting has already led to one local election scandal. The government’s reaction was to tut-tut, and do nothing to prevent its recurrence on a nationwide scale.

The moral is that Michael Howard will not be the next Prime Minister. Therefore, it doesn’t matter whether he is, as John O’Sullivan insists, at heart a supporter of the War on Terror or whether his hypothetical administration would be friendlier toward civil liberties and citizens’ pocketbooks than Tony Blair’s. For completeness, I’ll add that Charles Kennedy won’t emerge as PM either; the electoral map is stacked worse against the LibDems than against the Tories.

There is, nonetheless, a degree of uncertainty: Will Labour win by a large enough margin to enable Mr. Blair to continue his domination of the party apparatus? Or will he be a lame duck, to be succeeded within a year or two by Gordon Brown, the hope of the Old Labourites? Iain Murray, whose ear is much closer to the turf than mine, forecasts a narrow Conservative lead in the popular vote and a much reduced Labour majority in the House of Commons, which will lead to –

one heck of a legitimacy problem for the new Labour government. The last time anything like this happened was in 1974, when Labour formed a government despite having received fewer votes than the Conservatives. Yet it was a minority government, unable to survive more than a few months. That will not be the case this time, barring major defections from Labour post-election (which will be unlikely). Blair will almost certainly fall as a result, Brown will replace him and politics will return to normal following the Blairite interregnum. The Tories will smell blood and be an effective opposition again at last.

Since a parliamentary minority is powerless, an “effective opposition” means one that can dream of winning an election four or five years from now and then trying to undo Gordon Brown’s follies. I wonder whether there will be enough of an England left by then to make the attempt worthwhile.

But enough of this manic optimism. The election does have entertainment value, highlighted from day to day by Guido Fawkes. It has also led to the release of an expanded version of that great computer parliamentary election game, Prime Minister Forever, a bargain at only $14.95. Included are scenarios for last year’s Canadian and Australian elections. It’s a lavishly detailed game, complete with ratings for the candidates in every constituency, and well worth the modest price. In fact, if you take the time that you were planning to devote to watching election coverage and spend it playing PMF instead, you will finish knowing more about U.K. politics and will have a more enjoyable time.

Further reading: David Frum, “Conservatives”:

“Why can’t British voters re-elect Blair now and then reject the [European Union] Constitution later?”

“It doesn’t work like that. A victory for Blair will be interpreted as a victory for EU integration.”

“And a defeat for Blair will be interpreted as a defeat for the pro-war coalition.”

“So, hmmm, as the British say.”

“Yes. Hmmm.”

Briefly Noted: Charlock, Simonsen, Social Security

■ The way that blogs come and go, I feared the worst when The Charlock’s Shade, a delightful blend of book notes and curmudgeonly observations on the state of culture, came to an abrupt halt last December 6th, while “Enoch Soames” was “out as well as about in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.” An ominous place to disappear! Happily, Enoch has reappeared just as abruptly. I take his harrowing account of his hiatus cum grano salis.

■ Redmond Simonsen, whose maps, counters and cover art for SPI have influenced wargame graphics ever since, died of heart failure on March 8, 2005, at the sadly young age of 62. He hadn’t worked in the wargaming industry for 20 years, but we old-timers remember him well. Operational Studies Group has posted reminiscences (page 1, page 2) from inter aliis Greg Costykian, David Isby, Jim Dunnigan, Jack Greene, Rodger MacGowan, Brad Hessel, John Prados, Eric Lee Smith and Kevin Zucker.

Update (4/24/05): The Charles S. Roberts Awards site has posted a detailed appreciation, Alan Emrich & Rodger B. MacGowan, “Our View is Better Because We Stood on the Shoulders of a Giant: Redmond A. Simonsen”.

■ Brendan Miniter’s description of the Democrats’ inchoate Social Security pseudo-reforms, which I noted when it appeared in the subscription-only OpinionJournal Political Diary, is now publicly available, with additional commentary, under the fitting heading, “Worse Than No Reform”. At least a few clever Dems have come up with ways to “save” Social Security that ignore its demographic imbalances while “improving” it in ways that would expand both the scope of the welfare state and the power of the federal government to influence the private economy. Not surprisingly, their ideas are Bill Clinton retreads.

Games in Ancient Iran

Not all the news coming out of the mullarchy involves nuclear weapons programs. The current cynosure of archeological interest is the southeastern Iranian city of Jiroft, whose previously unknown civilization, dating to the 3rd Millennium B.C., came to light only four years ago, when looted artifacts started showing up on the art market. An effort is under weigh to locate and assemble the scattered relics and to conduct professional excavations. There is evidence that the culture extended over a wide area and was in touch with Elam. Some archeologists are convinced that Jiroft is the legendary city of Aratta, which plays a prominent role in three surviving Sumerian narrative poems.

What caught my eye was a Cronaca link to a report of the discovery of five objects that have been tentatively identified as game boards. According to Persian Journal,

Three of these game boards look like eagles, one looks like a scorpion with human head, and the other is a flat board, and all have 12 or 18 holes with similar sizes. . . .

According to head of the archeology team of Jiroft, Yusef Majidzadeh, the holes in the boards, which count to 12 or 18, and their similarity in size indicating that they were most probably used as games by the ancient residents of the area.

It is not yet sure how the boards were exactly used, Majidzadeh told CHN, however, the equal numbers of the holes and the holes all being in one size show that they were games most probably played with some sort of beads.

Jean Perrot, a world-known archeologist and a retired expert of Louvre Museum who has also studied the boards told CHN that boards similar to these, plus some beads, have previously been discovered in the historical sites of Mesopotamia, and their form and structure shows that ancient people used them as games to entertain themselves.

The reference to “beads” suggests a relative of Mancala, but, judging by the accompanying the photographs (which unfortunately have no indication of scale), the holes are too shallow for that type of game. My guess, FWIW, is that, if these really are game boards, they were used for a race game akin to those known to have been played in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. The playing pieces would be pegs, each side perhaps having four (suggested by the four holes positioned in each of the “eagle’s” wings. Movement would be governed by chance (sticks or dice), with the object being to move down the central row of holes and bear off at the eagle’s tail.

Barring an incredible stroke of luck, we will never know the rules to these ancient pastimes, making my guesses as good as anybody’s.