Still the best book written on professional wargaming – ‘The Art of Wargaming’ by Peter Perla

20 years on, The Art of Wargaming by Peter Perla remains the best book written on designing wargames. It was published in 1990 by the US Naval Institute Press. Remember the term ‘wargame’ refers to the holistic elements of wargaming, not just the simulation; don’t buy this book if you want to know how to code models!

Paste the ISBN 0-87021-050-5 into Amazon or any other book retailer to find it. It’s about £16 ($25) for a used copy. If you are involved in any way with professional wargames you MUST own this book. The sections on hobby gaming might seem irrelevant; they are not (even though they are obviously dated), but many people might wish to skip them to save time. Whether you read them or not, make sure you get to the chapters on designing professional games.

‘Computer Assisted Exercises – A Reference Guide’

Erdal Çayirci and Dušan Marinčič have recently published Computer Assisted Exercises (CAX) and Training – A Reference Guide. This explains how CAX are designed and delivered from a NATO perspective, and is structured as a educational course. It is an excellent book and, being published in September 2009, describes current NATO best practice. Erdal is Chief CAX Support Branch at the NATO Joint Warfare Centre and knows more than anyone else I have met in NATO circles about CAX.

Paste the ISBN 978-0-470-41229-9 into Amazon or any other book retailer to find it. It’s expensive at about £60 ($100) even for a used copy, so maybe only for the committed professional wargamer!

History of Wargames – Matthew Caffrey

Matthew Caffrey’s Jan 2000 article provides one of the most comprehensive studies of the history of wargaming. It is an unbiased account of the good and the bad of historical wargames and a recommended read for any serious student or practitioner of wargaming. It is written from an American perspective, which is very much in evidence during Caffrey’s discussion of late 20th century wargame developments. (Download here)

Wargame design factors – a simple check list

A simple list of factors to be considered as part of a training wargame design (Download here). This does not constitute the outcome of a full design phase; it is just a list of example questions.