Blast from my Past: The New Map Game (2005)
Sunday, March 13, 2011 at 12:03PM 
Event was held in the spring of 2005. Jeff Cares' firm, Alidade, in Newport, ran the game with me as head judge.
Four teams (US as Old Core rep, China as New Core rep, Brazil as Seam State and Iran as Gap), and we had about 12-15 players on each team (the people who signed up for the event) Jim Fallows came and observed the China team throughout.
We had a dinner the night of day one, where I did my big PNM brief. Then full day of play, where I previewed Blueprint at the end. Then half-day the final day, where Steve DeAngelis and I did a combo from the stage discussing the emerging partnership between the New Rule Sets Project and Enterra Solutions. Months later Steve bought my company and me along with it.
The game itself extended about a decade or so into the future, with various moves every X years.
I wrapped things up with comments on day three. The Alphachimp guys were drawing throughout. Here's the one they drew for my closing comments:
Thinking of my ongoing criticism of Obama: we came out of the exercise saying we wanted something that's Carter-like but with Reagan's backbone (I had mentioned Reagan, but the artist put down Dole), or a Republican Carter administration. Interesting to consider now with Obama: just a bit more Reagan and he'd probably be about right for the times. The other big lesson: China refused to get in a war with the US - no matter the scenarios we threw at the China team. It was one of my many data points that said, China will disappoint at a near-peer competitor--as far as the Pentagon is concerned.
Odd tidbit: years later we find out that one of the participants is one of those sleeper Russian agents finally unearthed and sent back home a while back.
The New Map Game site is still up and have all these drawings, links to press stories, gamebook and final report.
Click here to download the final report.
Reader Comments (1)
I have fond memories of that game. A unique and thought-provoking experience, and I would like to think pretty accurate. I found it interesting that even though the U.S. could "win" by promoting global stability, it would still feel like we "lost" somehow. Discovering that our greatest national challenge was to have the confidence to realize that if others rise it doesn't necessarily mean our fall.
I hadn't heard about Russian sleeper agent in attendance! I would be curious to know who it was...