An Early Multiplayer Game

I was lucky enough to experience one of the earliest multiplayer games. This was carried out at the University of California at Davis in 1972. A young sociology professor wanting to study group behavior set up a huge strategy wargame. He recruited several dozen wargamers, divided us into teams of six players, and gave each team a country to run. Each country had an economy, a foreign policy, military capabilities, and so forth. The economies were built around oil. There were about a dozen countries in the game world, which was represented on a huge hexgrid map. Every Sunday night, we would play one turn. The referees gathered at a secret location on campus containing a large map and telephoned each team at its designated home location. Then followed an hour-by-hour movement, with military units marching forward step by step. During the week, we would conduct negotiations with other countries.

My team played a small mountainous country bordering a powerful industrial nation short of oil. Our own oil resources were too meager to attract the attentions of our mighty neighbor, but we were nevertheless vulnerable. In effect, we were "Switzerland" to their "Germany." Being physics students, we ran computer simulations of the world economy and quickly discovered an impending oil crisis, which would almost certainly force "Germany" to attack "Poland," rich in oil and weak in armies. We therefore set out on a truly bold course of action: We planned, solely on the basis of our simulation, to invade "Germany" just as its armies were deeply enmeshed in a war with "Poland." To cover our sinister intentions, we offered to assist "Germany" in its upcoming invasion. The "Germans" were deeply suspicious of our foreknowledge of their plans, but willingly agreed to the help we offered. We marched into their land and, at the critical moment, seized one-third of their territory.

Their outrage at our betrayal towered over all other considerations. They made peace with the alliance arrayed against them and turned their armies on us. We feigned terror at the upcoming onslaught, begged for peace, promised reparations, if only they would deign to permit us to survive. The enemy, eager to wreak vengeance, accepted our proposal of immediate withdrawal and planned to double-cross us by slaughtering our retreating divisions. At the beginning of the next turn, their advance guards charged over the cease-fire line to be mown down by our entrenched and waiting forces. We had no intention of retreating.

Triple-crossed, mighty "Germany" could think of only one course: vengeance on the perfidious "Swiss." But our calculations proved perfect; caught in a severe oil shortage, the "German" armies ground to a halt, their economy collapsed, and we were left holding one-third of their territory.

Throughout all this, we continued to carry on extensive discussions with the other teams. They were unsympathetic to our bold actions; even though "Germany" was their worst enemy, they had no interest in tiny "Switzerland," thinking discussions with us pointless. Nevertheless, we continued to play the role of pathetic weaklings, garnering reams of diplomatic intelligence, which we in turn bartered for even more intelligence. Our coup against "Germany" convinced the world that we were the espionage capital of the world.

None of this was done with computers. It was all carried out with telephones, maps, and teams of people. The various teams expended huge amounts of time negotiating deals; some of the discussions were carried out over the telephone, but most were done face to face. It was one of the most enjoyable games I have ever played.