The Procurement Bonanza – offside reports

The December 2024 session featured two interesting and thought provoking procurement games… (by Nick Drage)

Future Procurement Game

James brought an interesting science fiction procurement game for us to playtest. Jim Wallman has already written up an excellent description of the game: https://milmud.clwg.org/2024/12/future-procurement-game/ , as has James the designer: https://milmud.clwg.org/2024/12/december-hybrid-session-procurement-bonanza-on-side-and-off-side-reports-by-james-halstead/ .

I liked the world-building and I think that’s something that could be leaned into more thoroughly; from second hand experience of procurement and military procurement, changing requirements during the execution of a long term project is a constant issue.

I think this game could illustrate issues around procurement, and how the different parties with their different outcomes interact, in a way that stops the players being distracted by any real world factors. However in a professional setting you would need to right audience or “executive buy-in” to make it work. As James says in his report this “remove[s] players from real world constraints and preconceived ideas”. That option is often overlooked as designers strive instead for more and more accurate simulations.

James made a great design decision to invent the companies here, so that those with more military knowledge didn’t just have to “decode” the invented names to determine what they were actually referring to. As James says in his report “I designed each country and each weapon system without any real world system in mind as inspiration – they are designed entirely for the game, but I was influenced by real world considerations.” This is key – while I’ve enjoyed previous “disguised scenario” games being played in “Space Afghanistan” and similar to disguise real world knowledge of those areas – I think real world considerations applied to newly imagined circumstances is the most useful and thought provoking format.

While the game worked well with most teams being made of one player, I’m reminded, again, of the excellent Draft Night 3077 ( https://megagamecoalition.com/draftnight3077/ ). That game, when I played it online, had teams made up of relatively distinct analyst / negotiator / executive roles. I think a larger version of this Future Procurement game would benefit from small teams, with some players being very inward focused, and looking at the available military platforms compared to their own military requirements, with another player on the same team looking to get the most out of their inter-planetary relationships for the most efficient production to meet those requirements.

Thoughts for the designer to consider:

• As per James’ own report, I can see their being less room for manoeuvre in later rounds. Rather than add in additional factors later that affect plans made in early rounds, potentially try resolving those later rounds much more quickly.
• As with, well, all games that are played “Open” I wondered if this would benefit from being “Closed”. For example there could be a hidden difference between what a player promised and what a player delivered? Or is the game complex enough as it is?
• Similarly, the mechanisms for research success, or results on the “Technical Gremlins Roll” table, could be kept hidden. Again there’s a tension between players having enough to deal with without having the game itself hidden from them, but also part of a game is exploring how a system actually works in practice – which is true of any kind of military research area I believe, even in imagined worlds.

Star Wars Procurement Game

In a fine tradition of being slightly slower with my offside reports, someone else has explained the game well already. Do read Jim’s thoughts here: https://milmud.clwg.org/2024/12/star-wars-fleet-composition-game/

As Jim says in his report, as one of the Admirals of the Imperial Navy my role in the game was relatively easy. We were preoccupied with ensuring that our own role wasn’t diminished, while also wanting to ensure the Empire was weakened unnecessarily as I did so. The messy technical calculations were left to the contractors putting together ship designs.

In the end it was interesting to take a view beyond all of the negotiations and beyond the work of the contractors. As a dominant force in the galaxy, with no real peer adversaries, we have bigger considerations than which contractor’s ship design might be slightly better and/or cheaper than another’s for the same requirement. So a variety of ships, from a variety of contractors, was the way to go.

Also, as an aside, Star Wars was used for a session at Connections Online last year, working through genuine US military processes to learn about them, as I wrote up here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/planning-destruction-rebel-alliance-nick-drage/ . With the increasing knowledge of these kind of fictitious worlds, the relative lack of bias in descriptions of them, and the lack of government classifications, I see them as a really useful tool for discussing processes or systems without getting mired in specifics.

Thoughts for the designer to consider:

• I like the use of a known fictional setting because it gets everyone into the context quickly, but also this is such a deep setting that potentially you incur the same issues as using a real world context. Where were we in the Star Wars timeline, as that would imply whether we had any peer adversaries or not, and our purchasing decisions should be based on the enemies we expect to face.
• From quick “research” while playing, based on the setting of swc-empire.com, there could be three admirals but each in charge of their own sector, and with a fleet made up of all of the different classes of ship. That’s potentially a more interesting and useful setup, with three Admirals each arguing with each other over the budget they need, but also trying to agree over which ships to buy that suit their three sectors, rather than the Empire creating its own “rag-tag fleet”.
• As with SPS’s “The Assault”, a planning game set in a fantasy universe ( https://www.stonepaperscissors.co.uk/games-free-download/the-assault ), it’s a shame not to see how the decisions made during the game play out. Maybe a quick ten minute session at the end – where fictional threats are rolled up, and rapidly compared to our purchasing decisions?

Overall

While I gather the combination of James’ and Evan’s games was a coincidence, a couple of people commented on how interesting it was to have a “theme” for the entire session, especially to compare two approaches. I agree, and really enjoyed approaching the same subject from two different angles. I don’t know how easy that will be to do in future but it’s certainly something to consider.

Personally, being a remote player in a hybrid game suits me – I like the distance it offers, and the opportunity to think of unusual or over-arching angles rather than getting deep into the game itself.

And also personally, I keep coming back to the idea that gaming relatively common business processes will be an illuminating way to think about them – in the way that any game concentrates your attention on the key aspects of a situation. Jim Wallman ran “This Is Not A Game” at Connections – the professional wargaming conference – about wargame procurement, which the players found illuminating. Even for those who work in a system every day, a game can help you take a step back and see the bigger forces involved.