Editing Wargame (section)

==Overview==
The exact definition of "wargame" varies from one writer to the next and one organization to the next. To prevent confusion, this section will establish the general definition employed by this article.

*A wargame simulates an armed conflict, be it a battle, a campaign, or an entire war. ''Business wargames'' do not simulate armed conflict and thus fall outside the scope of this article.
*A wargame is adversarial. There must be at least two opposing sides whose players react intelligently to each other's decisions, though there are wargames with solitaire rules to govern the actions of the non-player side(s).<ref>''Wargaming Handbook'' (MoD 2017), p. 21</ref> 
*A wargame does not involve the use of actual troops and armaments. This definition is used by the [[US Naval War College]].<ref name=PerlaNWCdefinition/> Some writers use the term "live wargames" to refer to games that use actual troops in the field, but this article shall instead refer to these as [[field training exercise|field exercises]].

===Setting and scenario===
A wargame must have a ''setting'' that is based on some historical era of warfare so as to establish what armaments, unit types, and doctrines the combatants may wield and the environment they fight in.<ref>{{harvp|Peterson|2012}}: "Unlike abstract games of strategy, all wargames have a setting, which determines the armaments of the combatants and the environment in which they deploy."</ref> A ''historical setting'' accurately depicts a real historical era of warfare. Among recreational wargamers, the most popular historical era is World War 2. Professional military wargamers prefer the modern era. A ''fantasy setting'' depicts a fictional world in which the combatants wield fictional or anachronistic armaments, but it should be similar enough to some historical era of warfare such that the combatants fight in a familiar and credible way. For instance, ''[[Warhammer Age of Sigmar]]'' has wizards and dragons, but the combat is mostly based on medieval warfare (spearmen, archers, knights, etc.). Some are also set in a hypothetical future or counterfactual past, to simulate, for example, a "World War Three" or rebellion of colonists on Mars.

A wargame's ''scenario'' describes the circumstances of the specific conflict being simulated, from the layout of the terrain to the exact composition of the fighting forces to the victory conditions of the players. Historical wargames often re-enact historical battles. Alternatively, the game may provide fictional "what-if" scenarios. One challenge in the design of historical wargames is that the scenarios may be inherently unbalanced and present one side with an unwinnable situation. In such cases, the victory conditions may be adjusted for the disadvantaged side so that they can win simply by doing better than what happened historically. Some games simply concede that the scenario is imbalanced and urge players to switch sides and play again to compare their performance. It is easier to design a balanced scenario where all players have a fair chance of winning if it is fictionalized. Board wargames usually have a fixed scenario.

===Level of war===
A wargame's level of war determines to the scope of the scenario, the basic unit of command, and the degree to which lower level processes are abstracted.

At the ''[[Tactical wargame|tactical level]]'', the scenario is a single battle. The basic unit of command is an individual soldier or small group of soldiers.<ref>{{harvp|Perla|1990}}:<br />"A player's decision level is strategic if his responsibility extends to allocating resources, possibly including economic and political resources as well as military forces, to fight and win an entire war. A player is making tactical-level decisions if he is most concerned about positioning relatively small numbers of men and weapons to apply violence directly to the enemy; that is, to fight battles."</ref> The time span of the scenario is in the order of minutes. At this level, the specific capabilities of the soldiers and their armaments are described in detail. An example of a tactical-level games is ''[[Flames of War]]'', in which players use miniature figurines to represent individual soldiers, and move them around on a scale model of the battlefield.

At the ''operational level'', the scenario is a military campaign, and the basic unit of command is a large group of soldiers. At this level, the outcomes of battles are usually determined by a simple computation.

At the ''strategic level'', the scenario is an entire war. The player addresses higher-level concerns such as economics, research, and diplomacy. The time span of the game is in the order of months or years.<ref>{{harvp|Perla|1990}}:<br />"A player's decision level is strategic if his responsibility extends to allocating resources, possibly including economic and political resources as well as military forces, to fight and win an entire war. A player is making tactical-level decisions if he is most concerned about positioning relatively small numbers of men and weapons to apply violence directly to the enemy; that is, to fight battles. The operational level game is less easily described; here the player is concerned with maneuvering relatively large forces so that they can be positioned to win the battles they fight, and so that those battles can help win the war. In the sense of decision making, then, the level of the game reflects the scope of the players' decisions."</ref><ref>{{cite web |author=James Johnson |date=30 June 2014 |title=The "Four Levels" of Wargaming: A New Scope on the Hobby |website=www.beastsofwar.com |url=https://www.beastsofwar.com/historical/levels-wargames-exploring-scopes-hobby/}}</ref>

===Examples===
* [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/319746/8th-air-force ''8th Air Force''] is a solitaire wargame that simulates the US strategic bombing campaign against Germany in World War 2
* ''[[Flames of War]]'' is a tactical-level historical [[miniature wargame]] that simulates land battles during World War 2.
* ''TACSPIEL'' is an operational-level professional wargame developed in the 1960s by the US Army for research into guerilla warfare.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Lawrence J. Dondero |author2=Rufus C. Ling |author3=Perry F. Narten |author4=Daniel Parker |author5=Norman W. Parsons |author6=Richard F. Patchett |author7=Lawrence S. Simcox |author8=Clarence 0. Smoak |author9=Sherburne Whipple |display-authors=1 |title=Tacspiel War-Game Procedures and Rules of Play for Guerrilla/Counterguerrilla Operations [RAC-TP-223] |year=1966 |publisher=Research Analysis Corporation |url=http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/811508.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170214230242/http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/811508.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=February 14, 2017 |ref={{harvid|Dondero et al.|1966}}}}</ref>
* The [[Sigma war games]] were a series of strategic-level professional wargames that sought to predict the outcome of the Vietnam War.
* ''[[Hearts of Iron IV]]'' is a strategic-level computer wargame set in the mid-20th century.
* ''Wings of War'' is tactical-level recreational wargame that simulates World War 1 aerial dogfights.
* ''[[Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game|Star Wars: X-Wing]]'' is a fantasy wargame whose rules are based on ''Wings of War''.
* ''[[Command: Modern Operations]]'' is a computer program that serves as a platform for users to create and share their own wargame of a hypothetical real world conflict (ranging from the tactical to the strategic level) using its database of units that range from World War 2 to the near future.