Conflict simulation at McGill (2026 edition)
It is Winter 2026 term at McGill University and once again I'm teaching my POLI 452 conflict simulation course. The core of the course is eight game design projects, each undertaken by a group of five students. The projects are chosen by me, based on…
Simulation & Gaming (April 2026)
The latest issue of Simulation & Gaming 57, 2 (April 2026) is now available. Editorial How to Leverage Insights From Games and Gamification – the Road Ahead Marlies P. Schijven and Toshiko Kikkawa Research Articles Synergistic Integration of Artificial Intelligence…
Payne: AI and simulated nuclear crises
A recent paper by Kenneth Payne (King's College London) on the strategic behaviour of various LLM AI models in a wargame is receiving considerable attention. Today’s leading AI models engage in sophisticated behaviour when placed in strategic competition.…
CEASEFIRE!
Posted on behalf of Rebecca Sutton (University of Glasgow). Are you an educator or trainer who is interested in using the CEASEFIRE! negotiation skills video game in your course/training? Look no further... The CEASEFIRE! Toolkit for Trainers and Educators is here. Free to download on…
Violent and non-violent death tolls for the Gaza conflict: new primary evidence from a population-representative field survey - The Lancet Global Health www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
20.02.2026 03:07 — 👍 4 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
Connections North 2026 conference programme
The draft programme for the 2026 Connections North professional (war)gaming conference can be found below. The conference will be held on March 14, in Ottawa. The theme this year is (War)gaming Canadian Security in an Era of Strategic Uncertainty.…
The Vassal game engine as a support for modeling digital forces
The following article was written for PAXsims by Philippe Lépinard, Emma Germain-Leclerc, and Andréa Melo. Philippe Lépinard is an associate professor in information systems at IAE Paris-Est, the university management school of…
Good morning. Looking for insights into where and how I might begin writing for any Canadian outlets to tie US / Canadian politics together, and help people here understand WTF happened to the US, and why it's so dangerous even if a full democracy.
07.02.2026 20:00 — 👍 37 🔁 4 💬 4 📌 1
Hybrid warfare and NATO cohesion
Source: WSJ. In December, Die Welt newspaper and the German Wargaming Center of the Helmut-Schmidt University of the German Armed Forces held a wargame examining the hypothetical Russian seizure of the Lithuanian city of Marijampole. The exercise involved 16 former…
CFP: Connections Online 2026
The Connections Online 2026 wargaming conference will be held on 20-25 April on the theme of "wargaming soft factors: moving beyond the kinetics." Wargames have traditionally focused on "hard factors" - movement rates, firepower scores, penetration values. But all…
Serious Game Arcade 2026: Games and Sustainability
The 2026 Serious Games Arcade will take place on 10 June 2026 (at Concordia University in Montreal and hybrid) on the topic on "Games and sustainability." How are games and sustainability intertwined? Or broken? Serious games offer a chance to…
AWL Wargaming Conference 2026
The 2nd Edition of the WARGAMING CONFERENCE AWL will take place at the Military University of Land Forces (AWL) in Wrocław, Poland on 15-17 September 2026. The theme this year will be "Comprehensive Security: Advancing Wargaming in Military and non-Military Domains."…
Assises Françaises d’Étude du Wargaming 2026
The 2026 Assises Françaises d'Étude du Wargaming will take place on 23 April in Lyon. Nous vivons une situation d’imbrication de crises multiples : financières (par exemple celle des subprimes de 2008 dont la crise de la dette publique française est en…
Simulation and gaming miscellany, 26 January 2026
PAXsims is pleased to present some recent items on conflict simulation and serious (and not-so-serious) gaming that may be of interest to our readers. Many thanks to Catherine Philippe and Andrew Spearin for suggesting material for this latest…
Serious Play 2026
The Serious Play 2026 conference will take place at Duke University on 5-7 August. Further details can be found at their website.
@christysomos.bsky.social "Canadian Brig-Gen Robert McBride is the deputy commanding general... for the [US] 11th Airborne. His role in a division waiting to support ICE is a pointed example of how Canadian personnel are caught awkwardly..."
www.economist.com/the-americas...
All the more reason to attend the Connections North professional wargaming conference in Ottawa on March 14. paxsims.wordpress.com/2025/12/01/w...
20.01.2026 21:42 — 👍 7 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 1
Connections UK 2026 dates
From the organizers of the Connections UK professional wargaming conference: SAVE THE DATE! Connections UK 2026 will be on the 8th - 10th September 2026 at Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK To help us plan for this for the conference we are very interested in how you feel…
Some recent wargaming podcasts
The Wargame is a major five-part series from Sky News and Tortoise which imagines how a Russian attack on the UK could play out – and invites real-life former ministers, military chiefs and other experts to figure out how to defend the country. The Army Mad Scientist…
AFTERMATH: A Venezuela matrix game
From the ever-productive Tim Price comes a matrix game about Venezuela in the aftermath of the removal of Nicolás Maduro. Briefings are provided for six actors: the Venezuelan regime, the Venezuelan military and security services, the opposition, the United…
MIT Summer Wargaming Institute
The Summer Wargaming Institute is a four-day "bootcamp"-style program hosted by the MIT Security Studies Program Wargaming Lab on 12-16 July, designed to teach practitioners and scholars how to design and run wargames for research, training, and analysis. Applicants…
Simulation & Gaming (February 2026)
Simulation & Gaming 57, 1 (February 2026) is now available. Editorial We Need Cooperation to Save Our World- and Other Lessons Learned From Gaming Marlies P. Schijven and Toshiko Kikkawa Research Articles Exploring the Usability of Virtual Reality as a Tool to…
🧵In my expert opinion as a researcher of vehicle ramming attacks, what has been publicly described in the video evidence does not support the claim that Renee Nicole Good was attempting a deliberate ramming attack when she was shot in Minneapolis on January 7, 2026. 1/7
08.01.2026 21:13 — 👍 7184 🔁 2488 💬 107 📌 260
Simulation and gaming miscellany, 6 January 2026
PAXsims is pleased to present some recent items on conflict simulation and serious (and not-so-serious) gaming that may be of interest to our readers. PAXsims is made possible due to the generosity of our Patreon supporters. At his Euroblog, John…
Games of War conference, 24 February 2026
The Faculty of History at the University of Gdansk together with Magnus Ducatus Foundation in collaboration with European Humanities University and the Department of Computer Systems and Technologies of Simon Kuznets Kharkiv National University of…
Screenshot of a cartoon: Trump (c.2005) bestrides the Americas, legs akimbo and right hand on hip. In his left hand a baseball bat inscribed “Donroe Doctrine”. The only colour is the red of his tie, hanging long below his belt and to his left. Posted by the “Trump War Room” and reposted by Pete Hegseth, 3 January 2026.
The vanity, stupidity and venality is breathtaking. But the history teachers of the future will be grateful for the evidence.
04.01.2026 10:24 — 👍 19 🔁 4 💬 2 📌 1
We’ve twice run WATU wargames in the museum/bunker, and it was excellent. paxsims.wordpress.com/2023/05/11/w...
02.01.2026 15:59 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Looking back on 2025—and ahead to 2026
Happy New Year to one and all! This past year saw 38,723 visitors (77,451 page views) to PAXsims, down from 56,070 visitors in 2024. The decline likely reflects several factors, including fewer posts during the year (91, down from 113) and the continued…
22.12.2025 23:04 —
👍 180
🔁 40
💬 5
📌 3
My pleasure!
20.12.2025 03:13 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0