Use case · Education
Wargames as the capstone: professional military education on WarPaths
A capstone wargame puts a student in a seat with real authority and asks for a decision, in writing, every turn. This page is for instructors and curriculum staff in war colleges, staff colleges, professional military education and university national-security programs. On WarPaths the instructor authors the capstone game, and students practice on catalog scenarios during the term.
The capstone, and the practice before it.
Build your capstone game
The capstone is a game you author for your cohort on a classroom account: the seat, the dilemma, the actors, the turns. Students join by your invite link, and you see each student’s answers and scored read by name.
premise or report → outline → your edits → invite
Practice during the term
Before the capstone, students play catalog scenarios on accounts of their own to learn the format and see how their reasoning is read. On this path the evaluation goes to the student, not to the instructor.
What does a capstone wargame have to contain?
A capstone wargame needs five things: a seat with real authority, a decision every turn that carries costs, actors with their own logic, consequences that carry forward, and an assessment of reasoning rather than outcome. An instructor can check a draft against each before signing off.
- A seat with real authority. The student holds a named position whose decisions bind, not an observer’s chair.
- A decision every turn, with costs. Every option gives something up, and the student commits to one in writing.
- Actors with their own logic. Allies, adversaries and institutions pursue their own interests and answer what the student does.
- Consequences that carry forward. Turn three is played in the world that turns one and two made.
- An assessment of reasoning, not outcome. A sound decision can end badly, so the assessment reads why the student chose.
How does a capstone run on WarPaths?
In three stages. The instructor designs the game before the term or module begins, students play it across the module on accounts of their own, and at the end the instructor reads each student’s work by name. The instructor decides what the exercise asks; WarPaths reads how each student reasons.
Stage 1 · Before the term or module
Design
On a classroom account, the instructor starts from a short written premise or from a report, such as a course case, a reading or a policy document, and says what the exercise is for. From there the instructor agrees a brief and then an outline, WarPaths drafts the full scenario, and the instructor edits every turn. Nothing reaches a student until the instructor signs off. Classroom accounts are by request during the beta.
- The brief: the purpose, the objectives, the central dilemma and the number of turns.
- The outline: the student’s seat, the other actors, the advisors, and each turn’s key event and decision.
- What the instructor controls: the seat’s authority, the dilemma, the turn structure and the pace.
- What is fixed: the assessment. A capstone is read on the same five dimensions as every other game.
How scoring works → How an organization builds a game from a report →
Stage 2 · Across the module
Run
Students join through the instructor’s invite link, and each plays a game of their own on an account of their own. Self-paced play means the cohort need not share a room or an hour: a student can leave and come back, and the game waits.
- Private to the course: the game never appears in the public catalog, and the invite link is the only way in.
- Self-paced: each student moves through the turns on a schedule of their own.
- Or in step: the instructor holds the whole cohort at a turn and releases everyone to the next together, so a turn can be debated in class between sessions.
- The instructor sees the cohort by name throughout: who has joined, who is playing and who has finished.
Stage 3 · At the end
Assess
When the games are finished the instructor reads each student’s work by name. The instructor can also download a results file for the gradebook: a row for each student, with the overall score and the score on each dimension. WarPaths scores the reasoning; the grade stays with the instructor.
- For each student, the answers and orders written each turn.
- For each student, the full evaluation: the overall score, each dimension’s level with its rationale, the summary, the feedback and the highlights drawn from the student’s own turns.
- Once five students have finished, the instructor can generate a consolidated read of how the cohort reasoned.
- Students are told this before they play. On joining, each one acknowledges that the organization running the game will see their name, email, answers, survey responses and evaluation for that game, and that everything else they play stays private.
How is a student’s reasoning assessed?
Every game is assessed on the same five dimensions. Each is scored on its own from 1 to 5, weighted, and combined into one score from 0 to 100. The evaluation reads the reasoning the student wrote, not just how the game came out.
Each dimension asks one question of the student:
- Problem framing. Did you read the situation right and ask the questions that mattered?
- Decision effectiveness. Did your choices move toward your objective under real pressure?
- Risk management. Did you weigh downside, hedge, and avoid needless escalation?
- Strategic cohesiveness. Did your moves add up to one coherent strategy across the game?
- Context management. Did you account for the actors, history, and stakes the crisis hinges on?
How long does a game take, and how many students can run it at once?
The catalog scenarios open now run five or six turns, and an instructor who builds a capstone sets the number of turns in its brief. Each turn a student reads the situation, consults advisors who disagree, and writes a decision in their own words; then the world responds. A student who finishes alone usually has the evaluation within a few minutes of the last turn; when a whole class finishes together, the last students wait longer.
There is no session to schedule. Every student plays a game of their own, on their own time, and one student’s pace does not hold up another’s. The Run stage above says how an instructor paces a capstone across a module.
Can students replay?
Yes. A student can replay a catalog scenario, and every play is scored. The first completed play of each scenario is the one that counts toward the student’s standing; a replay is scored for the student and enters no ranking.
That is what makes the catalog good practice during the term. A student can play a scenario, read the evaluation, play it again along a different line of reasoning, and set the two evaluations side by side. The capstone is a different game: the instructor authors it, and a student first meets it when the invite arrives.