Designing wargames for what the models miss.
Most wargames never break because hidden stabilizing assumptions prevent it. Here's how to find and remove them before the real world does.
E. SokolovHow to design wargame roles and adjudication rules that turn deep subject-matter expertise into a liability, surfacing the blind spots experts can't see.
E. SokolovMost red teams are unconsciously rigged to fail. Here's how to design adversarial roles that actually threaten your Blue Cell assumptions.
E. SokolovHow to design wargames that surface the gap between an institution's mental model and reality, before that lag triggers a catastrophic failure.
E. SokolovMost wargames fail not because players make wrong decisions, but because they never articulate the assumptions driving those decisions. Here's how to fix that.
E. SokolovHow to design wargames that force players to engage with the options, threats, and outcomes they've already decided are impossible.
E. SokolovMost wargames lock players into historical doctrine. Here's how to design for the moment an actor stops following the script.
E. SokolovMost wargames model systems in isolation. Here's how to design exercises that surface cascade failures before they happen in the real world.
E. SokolovLearn how to build wargame mechanics that expose the hidden cost of overconfident intelligence estimates before they fail in the real world.
E. SokolovHow umpire bias and poor adjudication design can kill anomaly detection in wargames before it starts.
E. SokolovLearn to design wargame roles that surface overlooked risks through players who predict correctly but lack institutional credibility.
E. SokolovHow Lt. General Paul Van Riper's unconventional tactics in MC02 exposed critical blind spots in military wargaming assumptions.
E. SokolovWhy most wargames fail to surface the events that matter, and what design choices change that.
E. Sokolov