Ten things I have learnt developing a megagame

I’ve been megagaming now for nearly nine years and a wargamer in some form or another for over 25, since I participated in a Warhammer club at school, where I played Space Marines.

I have recently started to develop a megagame of my own that I plan to run next year (2027) and it has most definitely been an experience. I suspect I will learn much more as I go along, but I want to share my knowledge to help other novice designers.

Anyway, before we start, an introduction to my game.

Next Stop, Greenham Common: A Game of Missiles

In the Berkshire countryside, a short drive from megagame hub Reading, lies a former American airbase called RAF Greenham Common, that has been mostly returned to nature. The old runways are now only visible if you know what you’re looking for, gradually disappearing under plant life. But one part of the site is very much intact.

On the SW corner of the site, lies six large bunkers, buried under enough earth and concrete to withstand a small nuclear blast. Now private property but protected from demolition, they have featured in a number of films and TV shows, including the Star Wars series. But in their former life, they fuelled one of the tensest moments of modern history – by playing host to 96 nuclear missiles.

Next Stop, Greenham Common is about the Cold War of the 1980s, with a specific focus on the Euromissiles Crisis. Growing Soviet intermediate-ranger nuclear capability in Eastern Europe, including the RT-21M missile (known more commonly as the SS-20) and the Tu-22M “Backfire”, NATO’s Western European members worried that they and their local nuclear forces could be destroyed by those weapons alone. This would mean the US having no incentive to respond as that would invite their own destruction by increasingly deadly Soviet missiles for an already lost war. To reassure them, the US decided to restore deterrence by deploying 572 mobile missiles… a move that scared an awful lot of people, including an increasingly paranoid leadership in Moscow, struggling to keep up the arms race and provide for their own increasingly restless population, all while fighting an unpopular war in Afghanistan.

The game is a depiction of this period, where five nuclear powers and their allies must negotiate their way – in more ways than one – through this period without triggering global catastrophe.

1. Research can be a rabbit hole – with the associated health warnings

This is a game where there is a lot of material available out there for the developer – I’ve gone down more than one rabbit hole and added stuff to the game as I have done so. However, the material needs to be treated with the proper caution.

I am also at a slight disadvantage in that while my French and German is good enough to order lunch – even if I did ask for potato juice once in Strasbourg – it doesn’t extend to being able to parse government documents and my year of Russian at university is mainly useful for being able to read Cyrillic. Mind you having all three of those languages does make spy movies more enjoyable.

Firstly, you have a bunch of history books written afterwards that place the whole crisis in its overall context and give you a broad overview of the whole affair. One highlight is Euromissiles: The Nuclear Weapons That Nearly Destroyed NATO by Susan Colbourn, which makes a convincing case that Ronald Reagan wasn’t the nuke-loving cowboy popular culture depicts him as and much of the initiative for the missile deployment came from Western Europeans. There’s also Eric Schlosser’s Command and Control, which while focussing on one missile accident, covers a broad history of American nuclear weapons with more than one revelation that will make your mouth drop open in shock. However, these have all the disadvantages of secondary sources as well.

Then there comes the whole slew of contemporary works written on the subject, where one must watch out for the signs of the author’s politics affecting their views on the whole affair, which to them was a matter of literal life and death. Various open-source reference books like the Military Balance 1980-1981 (the nearest I could get that didn’t cost an arm and a leg) can prove very helpful in drawing up orders of battle, but I still needed to cross-check with other sources, including a website that handily covered nearly all the Soviet armed forces in 1980.

Finally, you’ve got the declassified documents. The CIA has an extensive electronic reading room full of intelligence reports available online. For the UK, the Margaret Thatcher Foundation hosts a massive collection of Prime Minister’s Office files from her time in office.

(I’ve used the line “I’m probably the first person to write a briefing for Margaret Thatcher” to great effect at post-game socials. Also, there will be a free ticket to anyone who volunteers to play her)

I have also made some cross-town trips to the National Archives to view various documents there and even made a Freedom of Information request to the MoD for a file on the Tu-22 “Blinder” … that they currently can’t find.

Speaking of Freaky Blinders…

2. Thinking in two languages is hard

When dealing with the military aspects of the Cold War, one very swiftly must deal with the language problem.

Obviously, a lot of names are in Russian and most of the players are not going to be fluent in the language. I’m not either, although I have studied it to a basic level at university. The main choice here was in what names to use for various organisations, specifically the components of the Warsaw Pact Armed Forces. For the game counters, I’ve gone for the Russian acronyms, like RVSN for the Strategic Rocket Forces that managed the land-based ICBMs. However, I’ve generally used the English names in the handbooks. However, some acronyms, like KGB, were in widespread use and I’ve gone for those. I’m writing a glossary that will include translations.

Then there’s the other two-language issue. Namely the fact that what the USSR called its military equipment and what the West called the same equipment were two rather different things. Because the real names were secret and NATO didn’t want to compromise any intelligence sources, while also dealing with a multilingual alliance there was a massive list of reporting names for “enemy” gear that range from the sublime (“Typhoon”, “Fulcrum”, “Saber”) to the ridiculous (“Blinder”, “Fire Can”, “Sandal”). Then the US threw in a whole bunch of alphanumeric codes for Soviet and Chinese missiles, as well as space launchers.

The choice here has been somewhat simpler. Since the vast majority of public texts from the period use the Western designations, including the Soviet bloc’s own public-facing material, I went for that. For one thing, having two designation systems in a game is a recipe for excessive chaos – even the wargaming community has a tough time keeping track!

3. Writing remains addictive

I have been a writer for over 25 years now, to distinctly limited success (subliminal message to buy my books here) but when you find yourself in a writing groove, you can stay on it for longer than expected. Many times times, I’ve gone in with the approach of “I’ll just do 15 minutes on this game” and am still at it an hour later, with the resultant impact on other tasks, not to mention my bedtime. This especially applies to the research rabbit hole as seen above.

Weirdly, writing about addiction is not an addictive thing.

Also, no AI was used in doing the writing of the various manuals, even though it gets tempting after a while!

4. You need some levity when dealing with a serious subject

Nuclear weapons are nasty things with devastating effects that impact people generations after their use. Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have been rebuilt, but the genetic impact will outlast them all. Those are just “small” nukes too – many of the weapons in my game are a hundred or even a thousand times as powerful. A nuclear exchange today would cause serious problems for humanity in the long-term. With the numbers of atomic devices available for use in 1980 would probably destroy us as a species.

So, to make things a bit cheerier, I’ve decided to learn heavily into the popular culture of the period. I am seeding the handbooks with various references to popular works made in or set during the 1980s, with a prize for anyone who spots all ten. I am also going to throw in some red herrings – references that are close, but not quite there. I’ll also be adding other jokes as well.

5. Maps are not a straightforward process

A work in progress map

This is a game where geography is a key part of the scenario, particularly when it comes to the deployment of nuclear missiles. The SS-20 was deemed a massive threat to Western Europe because its range was such that it could hit anywhere in the continent while parked on the other side of the Ural Mountains, the boundary between Europe and Asia, so mere removal from the former would not be enough.

There are plenty of maps available of the period, the Central Intelligence Agency being a rich source of these. The base layer for the map above literally appeared on a wall in an episode of Ponies!

However, none have all the features that I wanted for a main game map. I wanted a map showing the Soviet military districts and the republics of that country, while also being polar projection.

The process was not a pleasant one to put it mildly and the map I got on my second attempt for £135 is still going to need some work to make it serviceable. Even then, I run into the Germany problem.

Namely, that West and East Germany are packed with units. The Group of Soviet Forces in Germany came in at a full twenty divisions before you add the air units and the Scud brigades. Then you’ve got to throw in the National People’s Army of the German Democratic Republic, with another six divisions and their air units. Any polar projection map to scale that fits all those is going to cover half the hall!

Not wanting to sacrifice the sheer visual presence of the GSFG, a doom stack if there ever was one, I’m going to need a whole map just for Central Region. In fact, I’ve just bought two second-hand maps for a period Third World War game.

As a back up, I have region cards in the style of Machiavelli’s Re-NEEEIGH-ssance. I’ll use that for the Moscow missile defence system. Yes, they had one – still do in fact.

6. Feedback is vital.

I’m neurospicy and over the years, it’s become clear to me that what great ideas I might have in my head might not translate that well to reality. However, you often need someone else to spot that.

I’ve brought Next Stop to two sessions of Chestnut Lodge and the experience, especially on the second session, was rather visceral to be the receiving end of. Especially when my intelligence mechanic was concluded to be a non-starter. It has led me to think some stuff over again and I’ve gone to seek out some more help in developing the game, especially from the American scene, who this might work better with.

What I would really like is a full writing partner, but one has yet to be forthcoming.

7. Units are not easy to choose.

Next Stop is a game about nuclear weapons – and specifically types of nuclear weapons. The Euromissiles Crisis was about one side having a certain type of nuclear weapons, so the other side felt compelled to have them in return… to put pressure on the first side to get rid of that type. “Escalate to de-escalate” isn’t an intervention of the current American administration; the weird logic is much older.

There is, to put it simply, rather a lot of nuclear-capable units out there in 1979. The Soviet Union was fielding no less than five types of ICBMs, with multiple variants of four of those, one of which is essentially a different missile. They would add a further two types to that number before the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Eight lots of missile subs, five types of bombers… the communist state certainly liked to mix and match when it went shopping! The Americans are only slightly better at this.

In my choice of units, I decided to quickly prune some of the small categories. No single-submarine test platforms, no Polish Il-28. The Harrier, while nuclear-capable, wasn’t listed in the Theatre Nuclear Forces examples from the time, so that went, although the three Invincible-class carriers are staying that carried them. I’ve also decided to combine the MiG-23’s ground attack versions with the MiG-27 for a single type.

Now, my Unit database sits at 101 items, although that does include some used by multiple nationalities with entries for each. I worried a bit this might be too much but was somewhat reassured at the variety that turned up in Long Live Death the other day.

8. Nor are they easy to stat.

In a megagame with operational elements, there is a need to come up with stats for the various units. Especially, when some of the units in question are still operational (the B-52 goes on and on) with their true performance still on the secret list.

This is a game where perception is a key factor. The US was scared of the Backfire and wetting their pants over the SS-18. Both fears turned out to be wrong. The Soviet Union got itself into a similar tizzy over Pershing II, with their intelligence officers providing their masters what they wanted to hear, not the facts.

So, I’ve had to come up with four lots of unit data:

The ‘real’ data.
The Western data, which includes the real data for their units and perceived data for the Eastern ones.
The Eastern data, of course vice-versa.
‘Unclassified’ data available for the Chinese, press players and neutrals.

There’s a lot of resources available to help. The Military Balance had an entire section on the Theatre Nuclear Forces, including estimated reliability and availability ratings; the British Ministry of Defence was slipping them intel under the table!

It was also pointed out to me during development that many players are not going to be card-carrying grognards, so it might be a good idea to abstract the statistics for game purposes. Thus, I concluded I was going to have to group the ranges, accuracy and ability to reach a target into categories I came up with five key statistics for each weapon system, using the word “YTRAP” (or PARTY in reverse) as a mnemonic.

9. Counter design is time-consuming.

I hadn’t realised just how much work goes into designing the counters and other items that players will be handling during a game.

Basically, you need to have counters that:

Hold the key information that a player needs to see.
Be visually distinct for each faction.
Have the text be legible on the counters, considering potential colour-blindness issues.
Be of a reasonable size – not too big or too small, especially if you’re dealing with a lot of them.

My first design looked something like this:

Background and text colours would vary for each side. It was pointed out this was a bit too much information and the megatonnage could be dropped. For one thing it wouldn’t be known by all sides.

I am now at something like this:

2 – One of the main drivers of this whole scenario.

I decided early on that the countries would be shown by code letters, using the international vehicle codes used at the time. These are mostly the same as today. Service abbreviations are also included where there will be more than one military player on a team.

L is “launchers”, “W” is warhead”. RM stands for Road Mobile. I have used the standard NATO unit size symbols. Well, they are the standard in modern wargaming and regular megagames ought to learn them.

I will also have all the Warsaw Pact countries in red, NATO in blue, the Chinese in orange and non-aligned ones in green.

10. Game development can be expensive.

Game design is for many clearly something that you do for love, because you’re sure not getting money out of it in most case. Much like my fiction writing career to date, where the most lucrative thing I ever wrote was a factual article on a railway magazine. Also, I won’t be doing this for profit; I intend to give any of that to the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association, which seemed right considering the game’s focus.

The design bit can be costly if you’re not very good at drawing. I’ve got a premium Canva subscription that is running me £340 for the year. My trips to the National Archives involve hitting the daily cap on contactless. I also took a trip up to Hack Green bunker in Cheshire, which involved a pricey Uber trip. I decided to walk back.

The components can add up too. 3D printing ships and submarines is not a cheap prospect; I might not do it. I’ve got some large maps to print, a load of counters to do on foam board, card decks to do…

I imagine all this will run into four figures easily. The question will ultimately be if it is worth it – the cost per run will go down as you do more of a particular game. We’ll have to see…