How strategic judgment is scored
Most wargames score where you moved the pieces. WarPaths scores the analysis behind the move. The case method, made interactive, for national security professionals. Every game is assessed the same way: five dimensions, each scored on its own, weighted, and combined into a single measure you can be ranked on.
What does a game assess?
A WarPaths game focuses on the reasoning behind your choices — what you perceived, your understanding of tradeoffs, and the appropriateness of your final decisions.
Each turn opens with a hard decision the situation forces on you. AI advisors with their own biases offer competing counsel; you decide, and you answer in your own words rather than from a menu. The world responds, and the situation holds or tips. Play to the end, and the whole run is read across the five dimensions below.
D01Problem framing
Did you read the situation right and ask the questions that mattered?
A decision-maker who misreads the kind of crisis in front of them answers the wrong question well. Framing is where most of the damage is done before any order is given, and it is the part of the record that shows whether you separated what you knew from what you assumed.
We didn’t invent what good judgment looks like here. This dimension is evaluated on concepts drawn from works serious strategists already know:
- On War · Carl von Clausewitz · 1832
- Thinking in Time · Richard Neustadt & Ernest May · 1986
- Essence of Decision · Graham Allison · 1971
D02Decision effectiveness
Did your choices move toward your objective under real pressure?
Choosing is the job. The record shows whether you weighed real alternatives, heard the advisors who disagreed with you, and committed to something that could move the situation toward your objective under the pressure the turn put on you.
We didn’t invent what good judgment looks like here. This dimension is evaluated on concepts drawn from works serious strategists already know:
- Presidential Decisionmaking in Foreign Policy · Alexander George · 1980
- Decision Making · Irving Janis & Leon Mann · 1977
- “Patterns of Conflict” · John Boyd · briefing, 1986
D03Risk management
Did you weigh downside, hedge, and avoid needless escalation?
Every move in a crisis changes the risk for both sides. The record shows whether you saw what could go wrong, hedged where hedging was cheap, and avoided escalation you did not need.
We didn’t invent what good judgment looks like here. This dimension is evaluated on concepts drawn from works serious strategists already know:
- “Is Strategy an Illusion?” · Richard Betts · International Security, 2000
- “Toward an Understanding of Military Strategy” · Arthur Lykke · 1989
- Arms and Influence · Thomas Schelling · 1966
D04Strategic cohesiveness
Did your moves add up to one coherent strategy across the game?
A run of good local decisions can still add up to no strategy. The record shows whether your moves followed from a diagnosis and a guiding policy, or whether each turn started over.
We didn’t invent what good judgment looks like here. This dimension is evaluated on concepts drawn from works serious strategists already know:
- Good Strategy/Bad Strategy · Richard Rumelt · 2011
- The Strategy Bridge · Colin Gray · 2010
- On Grand Strategy · John Lewis Gaddis · 2018
D05Context management
Did you account for the actors, history, and stakes the crisis hinges on?
Your decision has to work for allies, against adversaries, and inside your own system. The record shows whether you accounted for the actors, the history and the stakes the crisis actually hinged on, and how the other side would read your signals.
We didn’t invent what good judgment looks like here. This dimension is evaluated on concepts drawn from works serious strategists already know:
- Supreme Command · Eliot Cohen · 2002
- A Sense of the Enemy · Zachary Shore · 2014
- Perception and Misperception in International Politics · Robert Jervis · 1976
Titles are cited for reference. WarPaths is not affiliated with or endorsed by these authors or their publishers.
What do you receive after a game?
An evaluation of the whole run, usually ready within a few minutes of your last turn and saved to your profile. It shows an overall score on a 0 to 100 scale; each dimension’s level, from 1 to 5, with its weight and a short rationale; an executive summary of how you played; private feedback visible only to you; and highlights drawn from your own turns.
The first completed play of each scenario is the one that counts toward your standing. You can replay to improve; replays stay private.