Questions and answers

A wargaming platform. You take the seat of a decision-maker in a national security crisis, work through it turn by turn in your own words, and get an assessment of the reasoning behind your choices at the end.

No. There are no rules to learn, no units to move and no dice. You read a situation and write what you would do. Experience in policy, analysis or the military helps you play well - it is not needed to start.

The whole run is assessed across five dimensions - problem framing, decision effectiveness, risk management, strategic cohesiveness and context management - each scored on its own and combined into one measure. It evaluates your reasoning, not just the game outcome.

Two things. Research institutions turn a published report into a playable scenario to get their audiences engaged in their work while collecting insights. Educational and training-focused organizations can create custom scenarios to focus on desired problem sets or challenges.

Pricing will be announced after the beta.

Individuals who want to practice strategic decisions and keep a scored record: analysts, officers, students and professionals in and around national security. Think tanks and research organizations that want their reports played rather than skimmed. Consultancies running client-facing exercises, and government teams running their own.

By request. The request form takes a few details and which kind of access you want; requests are reviewed, and invitations go out as rounds of the beta open. If a round is full, the same form offers the waitlist.

Current scenarios run about six turns; turn count varies by scenario. You play at your own pace: you can leave and come back, and the game waits. Each turn you read the situation, consult advisors, and write your decision in your own words; then the world responds. Your evaluation is usually ready within a few minutes of the last turn.

Your first completed play of each scenario is the one that counts toward any leaderboard. You can replay a scenario to improve; the replay is scored for you but enters no ranking.

A board for each scenario and a global standing built from your first attempts, under a pseudonym, once you have completed enough games to rank. Rankings open when the beta scoring review is complete.

No. A game an organization authors is private to that organization: it never appears in the public catalog, and participants reach it only through the organization’s invite link.

The Privacy Policy on the game site says exactly what is kept, for how long, and why.Privacy Policy

We didn’t invent what good judgment looks like here. This dimension is evaluated on concepts drawn from works serious strategists already know. The scoring page lists the three works behind each dimension. Titles are cited for reference. WarPaths is not affiliated with or endorsed by these authors or their publishers.How scoring works

Request access with the research institution option and name the report you have in mind. Once your organization is in, you upload the report, edit the scenario WarPaths drafts from it, approve it, and send one invite link to your audience.For think tanks and research organizations