Canadian “Civil War”: telling short tales

I’ve been looking into the background of Canadian “Civil War” a bit as I had always been curious about the origin of the game that was the origin of O Canada. It seems to have had a bit of a convoluted past, to fit with its odd treatment of the subject and indeed its very existence.

As I mentioned in the Designers Notes to O Canada:

O Canada is a reboot of Canadian Civil War (designed by James Dunnigan and published by SPI in 1977) via an adaptation of the GMT COIN system. (Funnily enough, a note by a developer in MOVES magazine #33 (June 1977) reveals that the original title for the game was to be O! Canada but “the Canadian Government told us that they already had a game by that name and no, they wouldn’t let us use the title”. This is a reference to a roll-and-move game called Oh! Canada that was published by the Commissioner for Official Languages in 1974 and was distributed to elementary schools to promote bilingualism. Even though I vaguely remember this 51 year old item from my childhood, I didn’t bother asking the Commissioner.)

But there’s more, revealed in a comparate review of CCW and Quebec Libre (designed by Stephen Newberg, the Grand Poobah of Simulations Canada) by David Isby in Fire and Movement #23. Canada-Quebec_in_fm_23 Isby writes:

Canadian Civil War began its existence as 0 Canada, an offspring of the fertile imagination of Terry Hardy, SPI’s former Head of R&D. It was a great, swashbuckling scenario of insurrection and civil war, with only minimal serious thought. The feedback suggestion saw Canada as sort of a vast banana republic of the north, with warring factions looking to seize key weapons and areas. We found all sorts of interesting things — the largest concentration of armor in Canada are 60 Bundeswehr Leopards at Shilo, Manitoba. Imagine them being hijacked to Quebec! Who was going to stop them? And, of course, there was foreign intervention. Why are the French lengthening the runway on the island of St. Pierre in the Gulf of St. Lawrence? Why, to provide a staging place for the French Foreign Legion as it flew in to aid the Quebecois! Of course, there would be the Russians, aiding what Hardy termed the “commie-simps” allying with the separatists – 8,000 Soviet “tourists” flown in, with ASU-85s disguised, as golf carts. The whole idea was conceived slightly more seriously than Space: 1889, but not by much.

No one thought any more of that particular feedback proposal until the issue of Strategy & Tactics containing it finally inched its way across the 49th Parallel. At least one of our Canadian subscribers connected with the news media smelled a story. The Montreal and Toronto papers soon picked it up, and before we knew it, the wire services had ensured that 0 Canada was front-page news throughout the Dominion. SPI was soon besieged with calls from radio stations, magazines, newspapers, far more than in connection with any of our other efforts. While the stories were rather matter-of-fact, some Canadian gamers were, understandably, a bit embarrassed. But SPI, forging ahead as always, decided they could hardly not do the game after all the free publicity it had received. So, before the feedback results (which were eventually to prove rather lukewarm) were in, the design work on 0 Canada commenced.

There were a few problems. First Terry Hardy was rewarded for his R&D efforts by being sacked. This removed the original designer. Then, the copyright on the use of the game title 0 Canada was held by the Canadian Government, and they were not too likely to grant permission. So the game had to move on with a new designer and a new game, Canadian Civil War.

The game had problems with the original design. It was very sketchy — some ideas flying in loose formation. In such cases, the developer usually puts the ideas into a working system. Here, unfortunately, the first developer was untried and inexperienced. He also could not write to save his life. (He was also eventually sacked.) Whether the original design was worthwhile or not is uncertain. What is certain is that the first drafts of the rules were gibberish. I found them as comprehensible as a Sanskrit telephone directory. When I was asked to explain on Canadian television how the game was played (that was an occasion of Canada’s 110th Anniversary celebrations), I had to make up the rules as I went along. Those rules actually weren’t bad, and bore, in fact, a more than passing resemblance to Quebec Libre — another example of great minds thinking alike, or fools seldom differing.

Elsewhere in the Fire & Movement article the pinch-hitter designer James Dunnigan offers his interpretation of events:

The chief impetus for designing Canadian Civil War came from Terry Hardy (for years our token WASP, Republican, Harvard man, football player, and, since his departure from SPI three years ago, a member of our Board of Directors; this makes him my boss, thus assuring my approaching this story with proper decorum). His family goes way back to before the American Revolution. Unfortunately, his folks chose the wrong side and were thus forced to decamp in haste for Canada after the war. A few generations later, many of the Hardys wandered back to the States. But large segments of the clan remain in Canada, and annual reunions are held. Inspired by his constant contact with Canadian politics — not to mention no little emotional involvement — Terry thought the ongoing situation a perfect topic for a game. The proposal did not make it in the feedback, but the response from Canada was huge. And we hadn’t done our “Editor’s Choice” game for the year yet. We decided to take a chance on romance and do the Canadian Civil War. Terry, when faced with the actual prospect of designing the game, pleaded that his personal convictions concerning Canadian politics prevented him from doing the job with the proper professional disinterest; there being no other volunteers, I took on the task. A crash course in Canadian politics (including reading a Canadian daily paper for six months) followed [presumably this paper was the Ottawa Citizen, since Dunnigan referenced an article in the paper for his title with the extra quotation marks – BRT]. More importantly, I relied on a number of Canadian gamers for technical and playtesting assistance. It was a truly international project. I also enjoyed playing the game.

Finally, here is the text of the original game proposal, tucked away in the feedback section of Strategy & Tactics #60 (early 1977), presumably written by Terry Hardy:

Oh Canada! The recent provincial elections brought the Separatist party (Parti Quebecois) to power in Quebec. While some analysts may argue that this election was more of a voter rejection of the Liberal party than a mandate for secession, the facts are thea the platform of the new governing party led by Rene Levesque calls for eventual autonomy from the rest of Canada, with the eventual establishment of a “neutral-socialist” regime in Quebec. What the future holds is anyone’s guess. A peaceful resoluton of the nationalist aspirations of the French-speaking Canadians within the present federal framework is a strong possibility. After all, the Canadians have a history of responsible self-government within the traditional English spirit of accommodation and compromise. It may come to pass that the realities and responsibilities of governing well will mute some of the more strident separatiost objectives. On the other hand a policy of confrontation by Levesque et al combined with a hard-nosed Federal stance will lead to eventual civil war. It’s this prospect that the game Oh Canada! will address. The game will deal the the military possibilities, the structure of the Canadian military establishment and provincial constabularies. It will presume sub rosa aid to Quebec by the USSR and eventual intervention by the USA. The game system will be a hybrid of the Minuteman and Modern Battles sequences. The scale would be weekly game-turns for military events, monthly for political-subversive-guerrilla interaction. The map would cover southern Ontario, Quebec, the Maritimes, northern New York and New England.

The last page of the issue invites reader submissions of local newspaper mentions of SPI and wargames! However, I have not been able to find any of the coverage in the Toronto and Montreal papers that Isby mentions.

However, I did track down a 4-page story appearing in The Canadian, a weekly magazine that appeared as an insert into a dozen city newspapers – the linked PDF is what appeared in the Winnipeg Tribune on October 28, 1978. Titled “C’est La Guerre: a US war game tycoon plots the path of civil war in Canada” by George Russell, it is a real hoot: go and read it, I had forgotten that people used to write like this about wargamers; it’s not so much a piece on the game as a hack-job on James Dunnigan (described as “scrawny, slouching, faintly baldish”) and anyone like him.

ccw wpg 1

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There were letters though, hoo boy… in Strategy & Tactics #62 (May/June 1977, itself containing the controversial game South Africa by Irad Hardy) in the “Big Tsimmis” section of Outgoing Mail, the extended editorial and newsy roundup in each issue of the magazine, Brad Hessel writes:

In last issue’s feedback section the most impotant question to me was the one that asked for your opinion concerning “the wisdom or morality of publishing games on contemporary conflicts.” In part, that question was prompted by letters like the following one from Guy Piedalue, a Canadian subscriber, who objected very strongly to our game proposal Oh Canada:

“I have never been more shocked or disgusted. Your firm seems to think that we in Canada are totally uncivilized and that we think that armed conflict will resolve all our problems. If you feel there is a strong possiblity of peaceful resolution of this problem, then why suggest this game?

By doing so, you are in a sense taking lightly a very serious situation. We in Canada realize the gravity of the situation and do not appreciate foreigners making fun of it, or exploiting it. 

Up to now, we Canadians have managed to resolve our problems without resorting to war. There is no reason to suggest that this will not continue….”

My academic training was in history, and the issue of “contemporary games” brings to mind the philosopical debates of my undergraduate days over the validity of contemporary historical studies. There are a lot of historians who write of contemporary events from an identifiable bias, e.g. the leftist oriented Gabriel Kolko, who has interpreted the Cold War as an US government/ big business inspired plot. Other historians writing about the present less overtly or less consciously have an ax to grind, but the difficulty in achieving “objectivity” vis a vis events that are still unfolding, and which the historiam must, ipso facto, have some interest in, is unversally recognized. And that is completely aside from the problem of obtaining information. Daniel Ellsberg aside, key documents relating to high level decisions, and even more crucial, high level thinking , are seldom available. There are some who maintain, in this light, that any attempt at contemporary historical analysis is irresponsible. The contrary view holds that to ignore contemporary analysis, in view of its pertinence to our lives, is irresponsible.

The argument has obvious applicability to the question of whether or not SPI should do modern games. Personally, I am convinced that such games have imperative validity, just as I strongly believe in the importance and value of contemporary historical analysis in general. An understanding of the world we live in is a moral and practical imperative in modern society, I believe, and attempts to achieve such an understanding command my respect and serious attention.

I take very serious exception to Mr. Piedalue’s statement that in proposing to do Oh Canada we are “taking lightly a very serious situation”. Au contraire, in proposing to examinge the situation in Canada, we are acknowledging its gravity, even as Mr. Piedalue does. I am very sorry that Mr. Piedalue gained the impression that we were making fun, and I can understand his pique at the notion that someone would, but… it simply isn’t true!

Games on contemporary situations do suggest conflicts, but this is not a “suggestions” in the sense of “Oh, what a good idea!” Rather, the suggestion encompasses an attempt to expand people’s consciousness in a serious manner to attend to a possibility which could affect their lives, and which they therefore should be aware of. This is, precisely, the responsibility and the imperative whch is involved in modern historical analysis in general, and contemporary conflict simulation in particular.

Well, that was a lot of retyping on my part, but I do feel vindicated. I wanted to put up some example of someone taking the position that I tacitly took not long after I started wargaming in 1979/80, and which I started to explicitly explore on my own years later when I began to design in 1991… and which have resulted, 34 years later, in my exploration of the changing Canadian political Zeitgeist though it is not the study of kinetic action and foreign intervention that was originally proposed, nor is it quite as heavily abstracted and convoluted as the design that SPI eventually published.

Though I did nick the title, in the end.

Sorry, not sorry!

O Canada: Vassal module now available

https://vassalengine.org/library/projects/O-Canada

Thanks to the efforts of Chris van Sommeren, a Vassal module for O Canada is now available!

Not-free game: O Canada

[EDITED TO ADD:

13 NOVEMBER: A SHIPMENT OF WOODEN BITS HAS BEEN DELAYED… GAMES ARE OTHERWISE ASSEMBLED AND READY… PLEASE ORDER AND I WILL RESERVE A COPY FOR YOU BUT IT MAY BE 2-3 WEEKS BEFORE I CAN SHIP… IF YOU ORDERED ON 12 NOVEMBER OR BEFORE YOU ARE OK AND I WILL BE SHIPPING THOSE ON THE WEEKEND.

14 NOVEMBER: ALL PHYSICAL COPIES HAVE BEEN SOLD. THANKS FOR YOUR INTEREST EVERYONE! WATCH THIS SPACE FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS.

tiny bit of trivia: of the 50 copies made, 31 went to Canadian addresses (10 in Montreal area, guess those guys are planning something), 14 to US addresses, and 5 went abroad (1 each to the UK, Denmark, Spain, Lithuania and the Czech Republic).]

Yes, after a year or two of teasing the time has come to shut up or put up… put O Canada up for sale, that is!

TL;DR:

• 4-player asymmetric game on modern Canadian politics using adaptation of GMT COIN system;
• only 50 copies made;
• nice production  – wooden bits, specially made cards (with many jokes comprehensible only to Canadians) and die-cut counters (no box or playbook though);
• cost is $95 Canadian per copy plus postage to wherever you are;
• email me at brian.train@gmail.com with your details, I’ll figure postage and you pay by Paypal to same email;
• my last essay in the COIN system;
• thank you!
• PS: NO SOLITAIRE SYSTEM – use your giant inside brain!

Well, what can I say about this…

Back in 1976-77 James Dunnigan, “Mr. SPI”, designed a group of “Power Politics” games and I enjoyed all of them… they were all highly innovative and on interesting oddball topics that few or no other designers had ever attempted. They included A Mighty Fortress, After the Holocaust, Minuteman: the Second American Revolution, Russian Civil War, and Canadian ‘Civil War’. The last and definitely not least was done in response to the coming to power of the Parti Quebecois and therefore a plausible and significant shift in Quebec’s place in (or at least partly out of) the Canadian federalist experiment.

The four Factions in the game were representative of four tendencies of political thought in Canada (not necessarily political parties themselves, but certainly including factions within parties):

• Federalists: the belief that the division of power in Canada should favour a strong central federal government;
• Provincial Moderates: the belief that there should be a reasonably balanced division of power and responsibility between provincial and federal governments (somewhat like the status quo);
• Provincial Autonomists: the belief that Canada should remain a federation, but with looser ties and less central federal direction and interference;
• Separatists: the belief that the Canadian federation should be radically restructured to respect the cultural, linguistic, economic and political differences of its regions and become something like the European Union.

It was all very of its time: combat factors on the counters, combat results tables, lots of die rolling and modifiers for all those rolls, etc.. There was also a deck of Political Opportunity Cards for random events and the rules in general were quite loosely written, with several admonitions and encouragements by Dunnigan for players to settle differences in interpretation by negotiation… in a way, an invitation to make it up as they went along! Anyway, I really liked this game (except for the military sequel “National Emergency Game” which seemed just tacked-on, because people expected it to be there) and the new ideas in it, even if I never could find anyone to play it with.

So it was in 2021, in the middle of COVID lockdown, that I had the idea to reboot this game’s premise via an adaptation of the GMT COIN system. I had always felt that this system of asymmetrical political-military conflict could be well suited to a non-violent, power politics situation, and the pieces fell into place fairly quickly! However, in mid-2021 my dad died and I spent the rest of the year and part of the next in executor and associated duties – I returned to the game in 2023-24 and playtested it, though the game was largely in its final form. I spent much of the spring and summer of this year doing the logistic and production legwork to finish it off, and now I am offering it up for sale.

I have made only 50 copies, and that is all I will ever make… it was interesting working through the logistic details but I don’t really want to do it again. The wonky economics of small-batch production and a double-tap of tariffs on the wooden bits (no Canadian suppliers) drove my per-copy production cost up to about $60 each, so I am offering them for sale for $95… which is way undercharging by the Laws of Retail, which set MSRP at 2-4 times the production cost. It’s a nice production though: lots of wooden bits, a large 17 x 33″ colour map, custom made Event Cards and die-cut counters.

This is also my last (planned) essay in the GMT COIN system. Like Volko Ruhnke I am moving on to other things, there is still a lot of creativity being exercised by other designers using this system after 13 GMT-published volumes… but 3 of those 13 have my name on them, so time to go.

I hope you will consider grabbing a copy while they last, and that you will enjoy the game if you get one. If you are still curious, I will of course answer questions but there is a BGG entry here ( https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/458112/o-canada-power-politics-in-the-true-north-1950-203 ) and below are the rules for the solitaire system and the Designer’s Notes:

8.0 NON-PLAYER RULES

No ‘bots. No special card decks. Find friends or play with yourself. Use your free will and imagination; I am not going to make a flowchart for you to try and outsmart.

9.0 DESIGNER’S NOTES

O Canada is a reboot of Canadian Civil War (designed by James Dunnigan and published by SPI in 1976) via an adaptation of the GMT COIN system.

Funnily enough, a note by a developer in MOVES magazine #33 (June 1977) reveals that the original title for the game was to be O! Canada but “the Canadian Government told us that they already had a game by that name and no, they wouldn’t let us use the title”. This is a reference to a roll-and-move game called Oh! Canada that was published by the Commissioner for Official Languages in 1974 and was distributed to elementary schools to promote bilingualism. Even though I vaguely remember this 51 year old item from my childhood, I didn’t bother asking the Commissioner.

I thought this design, based on four factions showing different tendencies in Canadian politics, could be adapted to a more modern system with some additional changes required by the shift to a completely non-kinetic, that is non-violent power politics situation. The COIN system changes every time a new volume in the series comes out anyway; at the time of writing over 13 have been published and I thought it was time it was adapted to a pure politics setting.

Canadian Civil War had a non-representational map with a central “Crisis Zone” and each faction had zones of increasing security and remoteness connecting to it. Victory in the game consisted of controlling enough Constituencies (representing politically motivated people and organizations) and Issues. In O Canada I have created a map of the country with its provinces that can be contested mostly by Blocs and Bases for control of population through largely standard-style politics. Meanwhile, in the Issues spaces “above the map”, Groups representing smaller cells of people fight for control of less tangible goals and accumulations of influence and apparent power.

Canadian Civil War also had an identical force structure for all four factions. (Component note: in the original game the Provincial Moderate faction was orange; in this game I have changed it to yellow because I was using old RISK sets for pieces, and there are no orange pieces in that game!) In this game the Provincial Moderates and Provincial Autonomists are indeed similar, and each faction’s objective is to be more organized and influential than the other since they both represent variations on the historical division of powers in modern Canada. The Federalist faction has more Groups than these two Factions but no Bases; they also have more flexibility in rallying and reorganizing force pieces than the other Factions by being able to convert Groups into Blocs rapidly. This is meant to reflect the backing of a powerful and ubiquitous federal civil service which, like most bureaucracies, is committed to centralization of power and decision making – but also to a vision of the country beyond regional interests. Meanwhile, the Separatist faction operates somewhat like an insurgent faction does in other COIN system games in that they may raise funds and organize Bases more effectively. Importantly, the Separatist victory margin may be more flexibly composed from their choice of 2 of 3 different metrics, and the player has no additional “AND” condition to fulfil to win.

Both FED and SEP factions represent the more determined and extreme ends of the federal-provincial relations debate. So in Agitate operations they eliminate rivals rather than convert them and they may use MOD and AUT “proxies” in Contests via encouragement and manipulation of viewpoints (the damage this does to participatory and compromise-based politics is shown by raising Patronage when they do that). Meanwhile, the MOD and AUT factions which inhabit more centrist territory are better at shifting antagonistic pieces to their alignment in Agitate operations and Subvert special activities.

Another added concept is Patronage. This is a reflection of both foreign government and foreign or domestic corporate influence and the perceived debasement of Canadian “norms” of political practice, where force, subterfuge and demagoguery elbow out principled discussion, deal-making and consensus (whether these norms ever actually existed is a matter for your own base level of cynicism). This is a somewhat “hungry” game in that it is difficult to gain many Resources between Propaganda Rounds so there is a short-term benefit in scoring Resources on the Fundraising Track. Accumulated Patronage will degrade the amount of Resources gained in the Propaganda Round and will eventually make it impossible for Factions to win the game in the final Propaganda Round if it gets out of hand. However, if you snatch enough Resources off the Fundraising Track to let you score an early victory, that won’t matter! Apres moi la deluge….

Finally, I have also replaced the two scenarios of the original SPI game (one on the Quiet Revolution in Quebec and one on the general situation in 1976) with four scenarios, each showing roughly 20-year phases of development and change in the Canadian political scene, from the early 1950s to the near future. The Block and Base markers show the demographic changes over 80 years as the Western provinces gain in population and power. This is now as urgent a political and economic question as was the status of Quebec within Confederation, nearly 50 years ago when Canadian Civil War was published.

Nights of Fire: review in Ludo Storie 05 2025

A very nice review of Nights of Fire in the free Italian-language online gaming magazine Ludo Storie!

Click to access Ludo%20Storie%2005%202025%2011%2012.pdf

Rough machine translation:

Nights of Fire: Battle for Budapest
by Giorgio Urbani

“Nights of Fire: Battle for Budapest” by David Turczi (former game designer of Voidfall and Nucleum) and Brian Train (for COIN fans, he’s the game designer of games like A Distant Plain and Colonial Twilight) immerses players in the dramatic and desperate second week of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, specifically between November 4th and 7th. The game is presented as the second chapter of
Days of Ire: Budapest 1956 (also by Turczi), focusing on the Red Army’s return to the Hungarian capital with the intent of brutally suppressing the uprising. For the Hungarian defenders, this is not a fight for conventional military victory, but a stubborn battle for survival and to inflict a moral and political cost on the Soviet oppressor. \It is obviously a deeply asymmetric conflict where players (1 to 2) controlling the Hungarian revolutionaries fight against overwhelming forces with very clear but very difficult objectives: resist as long as possible, delay the Soviet advance, disable enemy units, and, above all, help as many civilians as possible escape the city.

Their victory is not measured on the battlefield, but in their ability to erode Soviet prestige through civilian flight and prolonged resistance, transforming a military defeat into a moral victory in the eyes of the world. On the other side, the Soviet faction (controlled by a player in “Conflict” mode or by an automated system in solo play) aims to break the insurgents’ morale by eliminating them, arresting civilians before they flee, and establishing garrisons at key points in the city to quell resistance.

The rules offer two distinct game modes. The “Konev” mode (one of the greatest generals of WWII, who actually called upon to crush the Hungarian rebellion in its infancy with Operation Whirlwind) allows a solo or cooperative experience for 1-2 players, where participants work together to resist an assault managed by a dedicated deck of cards that simulates their decisions. This mode is the one I played.The “Conflict” mode, on the other hand, introduces direct competition (for 2-3 players), with one player taking on the role of the Soviet commander, actively planning the repression, while the others manage the Hungarian defense. Both modes can be played in Basic (the one I played) or Advanced mode, the latter introducing greater strategic depth and replayability with additional rules, such as special abilities for certain insurgents (medic, demonstrator) and Objective cards for the Soviet player.

The game mechanics revolve around card management and territorial control on the Budapest map, divided into districts. Revolutionary players use a system based on Operation Points (called Ops) derived from played cards (1 to 3 per turn) to perform actions. These include: Combatant movement, the complex attempt to displace civilians (whose Ops cost decreases with the presence of insurgents in the district), the construction of barricades to hinder the Soviets, and offensive actions such as Ambush or Direct Attack, which will earn Momentum needed to reduce Soviet prestige at the end of the round. In the case of a Direct Attack, there is a risk of a Soviet counterattack, determined by the roll of a die and influenced by the Readiness level, which can lead to the wounding or elimination of the attacking insurgent.
The management of Soviet units differs significantly between the two modes. I played the “Konev Mode” version, where the Soviet AI operates using a dedicated deck and a dice roll, following specific priorities to hit the districts considered “highest threat” (based on a ranking based on the number of
Civilians, number of insurgents, etc.). A small personal note: perhaps it’s because “three-dimensional” games like Thrills, Risk, Heroquest, Starquest, and others like them have had a fundamental impact on my development as a gamer, but I have a real passion for “Dudes on a Map” games and their “cousins,” block wargames (like Nights of Fire).

I believe this type of game is an effective and engaging way to represent the fog of war, the uncertainty, and the tension that characterize conflict situations. Furthermore, I find it aesthetically pleasing to see the game maps populated with miniatures or blocks, representing military units deployed on the battlefield just like in a Headquarters (Figure 3). In fact, a key element of the game is the management of hidden information: the specific skills of the Hungarian insurgents (both local and combatant) and the value of civilians are not always known to the Soviet faction (especially in Conflict mode), adding a layer of uncertainty. The flow of the game is divided into rounds, each consisting of well-defined phases: card drawing, tactical preparation, arrival of reinforcements (from the second round), operations (the heart of the action with alternating turns), adjustments (where prestige, morale, and game-ending conditions are verified), and maintenance (unit resets and timer advances). The game continues for a maximum of 10 rounds or until the game-ending conditions are met, such as Hungarian morale reaching zero, Soviet prestige reaching zero, or the voluntary (the choice I made during the game) or automatic surrender of the Hungarians.

The rulebook is enriched with numerous historical notes (I was particularly struck by the fact
that very few photos of that event exist, because the Soviets used them to persecute many people) and author’s notes, which provide a deep context for the events depicted and the design choices, underscoring the difficulties in translating such an unbalanced situation into a compelling gaming experience.  “Nights of Fire” is an intense and challenging thematic wargame that captures the tragedy and desperation of the Hungarian resistance. Turczi and Train have succeeded in creating a deep gaming experience full of difficult decisions, suitable for both those seeking a tense competitive challenge and those who prefer a cooperative or solo experience against a well-structured AI (and relentless, just like the Soviets and Konev himself were).

Bottoscon 2025

ast weekend was Bottoscon 2025, and a weekend well spent!

I had three new things to show, and got in games of all of them:

China’s War 1937-41, on Friday night… Japanese won on 2nd Propaganda Round because the Chinese forgot to fight them. Thanks to Ben Suan (lower right) for loaning his copy for the game!

Brief Border Wars Volume 2, in particular the Italo-Greek War, Greeks won keeping the Eyeties out quite handily.

O Canada on Saturday night, Provincial Autonomists (me) won narrowly!

It was great to see people I otherwise would not have seen all year, and some new people I have corresponded with but not met… Grant Linneberg from Pushing Cardboard podcast interviewed me (will let you all know later when he posts it, after taking out all the ums and ahs and hacking coughing spells) and lost quite graciously as the Italians and tried out Gravel with me, and Jack Stalica who helped playtest Brief Border Wars Vol 2.

The hotel was nice as always, good location near to a Skytrain station so Akito could come out and visit me in the middle of his day trip to Vancouver.

I won a nice door prize, Greek Tragedy by Patrick Stevens so now I have all three of the games ever designed on the (20th Century) Greek Civil War.

This was the second of two BottosCons (Rob organized one in May for all the Canadians who were not going to Consimworld Expo, and others) and a good one.

New TTS modules: Dislocated and High-Rise

I mentioned a while back that my old computer died, and I got a newer (but still fairly old) iMac.

This one seems to be working quite well, and among other things runs Steam (the old machine was so antiquated it could not be updated any more to keep using it).

So I’ve been trying to get back into making Tabletop Simulator versions of some of my games, after a four year hiatus (and I didn’t know what I was doing then either).

Over the weekend I made such for two of my simpler semi-abstract games, Dislocated and High-Rise.

If you use TTS, come and have a look. And a download if you like.

Dislocated

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3598693972

High-Rise

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3598684444

“Canadian military wants mobilization plan in place to boost reserves to 400,000 personnel”

 

[note: I’ve added a couple of bits to this piece as the story wanders around. See below. ]

[Infantry School Phase III platoon photo, class of 1985. Whether the people in this picture made a career of the military or not (and some had some illustrious careers), they could now all be liable to be recalled to the colours. (Can you find me?) ]

When I first saw the headline referenced in another story online I thought this was science fiction but on reading it I can see the mechanism and how they will likely do it.

Boosting the Primary Reserve from its current 28,000 to 100,000 is doable with effort, would be a good choice (Canada has long been in the minority of nations whose reserve forces are smaller than their regular ones, I’ve never understood why) and is perhaps even sustainable with some basic changes.

But the article, quoted below gives the rest away: the other 300,000 will be the Supplementary Reserve, which used to be composed of the Supplementary Ready Reserve (somewhat recently detached members of the Regular Forces or Primary Reserve who were still fit and declared would serve in an emergency) and the Supplementary Holding Reserve (if the Really Big Balloon goes up, we’ll call you OK?). The Supp Res is now less than 5,000 people because they shut that whole arrangement down quite a few years ago… I may still have the badly copied mass letter that told me so.

So I think much of this “mobilization plan” will actually consist of searching through old databases (may require sifting through boxes of old floppy disks!) for even older names and getting them back onto a big list to make up the numbers. Kind of reminds me of the Mormon church’s rumoured trick of boosting numbers by keeping dead members on their active rolls (not a true story, as it turns out). And there will be no requirement to build training bases or secure equipment or weapons for those 300,000, or even the ability to do so, like the Local Defence Volunteers (later Home Guard) of Britain during the Blitz, we’ll show up as we are, in the event of a newer version of War Plan Crimson being executed.

So I’ll keep an eye on my mailbox; after all I turned only 61 just last month.

Canadian military wants mobilization plan in place to boost reserves to 400,000 personnel

The Canadian Forces has established a “tiger team” to look at how such a massive influx can be achieved, as the current reserve strength stands at 28,000.
Author of the article: By David Pugliese • Ottawa Citizen
Published Oct 31, 2025

The Canadian military has set in motion an initiative to increase the number of its part-time soldiers from the current 28,000 to 400,000 as part of an overall mobilization plan, according to a directive approved by senior leaders.

The directive, signed by Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan and defence deputy minister Stefanie Beck on May 30, 2025, outlines the need to increase the current reserve force from 23,561 to 100,000 and supplementary and other reserves from the current 4,384 to 300,000.
Beck and Carignan approved the creation of a “tiger team” which will work on setting the stage for a Defence Mobilization Plan or DMP to accomplish such a goal. That team will examine what changes are needed to government legislation to allow for such a massive influx of Canadians into the military.

Beck and Carignan pointed out that the plan would require a Whole of Society or WoS effort, meaning that all Canadians would have to contribute to the initiative.
“In order to assure the defence of Canada against domestic threats ranging from a low-intensity natural disaster response to high-intensity large scale combat operations, the DMP will be developed to empower a timely and scalable WoS response by achieving pre-conditions for the expansion and mobility of the CAF,” according to the nine page unclassified directive.

Work on the initiative by the tiger team located at DND’s Carling Campus in Ottawa began on June 4. The Ottawa Citizen made multiple requests to the Department of National Defence and Canadian Forces for comment. No comment was provided.

Other government organizations will also be involved in the initiative, according to Beck and Carignan. “Defence will not accomplish the outcome alone, rather it will necessitate shaping, facilitation and engagement with the Privy Council Office, other government departments and agencies as well as socialization with the Canadian public,” they wrote.

The tiger team will also consult with Canada’s allies, “including Finland which is a recognized leader in this area,” the document pointed out.

Finland has a conscription-based military. Every male Finnish citizen aged 18-60 is liable for military service, and women can apply for military service on a voluntary basis, according to the Finnish defence department website. After Finnish citizens complete their compulsory full-time military service, they are transferred to the reserves. In May, the Finnish government proposed an initiative that would raise the age limit of conscript reservists to 65.

Canadian Forces reservists are volunteers who serve part-time in military units.

The Supplementary Reserve is made up of inactive or retired members of the Canadian Forces who are willing to return to duty if called. It is unclear how the Canadian military will reach its 300,000 goal for such individuals. The document did note that supplementary forces could include “other” reserves but no details were provided.

DND and the Canadian Forces also declined to comment on how ongoing recruitment problems might impact its mobilization plan.

A new report by Auditor General Karen Hogan revealed that the Canadian Forces is not currently recruiting enough individuals to meet its operational needs. “The Canadian Armed Forces continued to have challenges attracting and training enough highly skilled recruits to staff many occupations such as pilots and ammunition technicians,” Hogan said of the report, which was released Oct. 21.

The Canadian Forces has a target of between 100 and 150 days for the recruitment process for individuals. But Hogan’s audit determined that under the current system it takes twice as long. Part of that is because of significant backlogs in the security screening for recruits. It is unclear how the mobilization plan would overcome such obstacles.

The audit also highlighted the military’s current lack of capacity to train new recruits.

In their document, Beck and Carignan noted the Canadian government has called for greater resiliency and autonomy on security matters. In order to achieve that goal, the Defence Mobilization Plan is needed, they added.

The tiger team will also look at the investments needed for the reserves as well as determine how to sustain a 400,000-member force.

The document does not set out the specific criteria for the mobilization plan to be put into action. But it does mention that global security has been dramatically affected by the rise of strategic competition among states.

Some Canadian Forces leaders have claimed that a war between western nations and China or Russia could happen in the near future. In June, 2025, Brig.-Gen. Brendan Cook, the Royal Canadian Air Force’s director general of air and space force development, warned that Canada needed to rearm for a potential war with China or Russia. That war could come between 2028 and 2030, Cook suggested.

In October 2023, the Ottawa Citizen reported on a document issued by then Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre pointed out that Canada is already at war with Russia and China.

 

That briefing note can wait…

[EDITED TO ADD, 10 November 2025]

Oh boy, was I wrong… here is another piece from the Ottawa Citizen of 10 November 2025, same writer with more details.

You have got to be kidding me… I cannot recall any Western nation whose civilian public servants were required to complete regular military training. (If you can, please enlighten me… I did find one mention of a one-week limited training program in the Indian state of Maharashtra for 161 senior civil servants: https://www.mypunepulse.com/pune-army-led-training-at-aundh-military-station-boosts-leadership-and-crisis-management-skills-of-161-state-officers/)

On the other hand, using these people to fill out the cadre of a “Civil Defence Corps” on the Swedish model (seriously, why study Finland’s methods?) that would mostly be unarmed and intended for use in a wide range of emergencies and promote community resilience would be a great idea. See

A Canadian Civil Defence Corps

The fact is, there are a lot of people who are far more useful without a rifle in their hands. And you can’t instil civic virtue automatically in people just by sending to the rifle range or obstacle course once a year.

 

Canadian military will rely on an army of public servants to boost its ranks by 300,000
Federal public servants would be trained to shoot guns, drive trucks and fly drones, according to a defence department directive.

Author of the article: By David Pugliese • Ottawa Citizen
Published Nov 10, 2025

The Canadian Forces is counting on public servants to volunteer for military service as it tries to ramp up an army of 300,000 as part of a mobilization plan, according to a defence department directive.

Federal and provincial employees would be given a one-week training course in how to handle firearms, drive trucks and fly drones, according to the directive, signed by Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan and defence deputy minister Stefanie Beck on May 30, 2025.

The public servants would be inducted into the Supplementary Reserve, which is currently made up of inactive or retired members of the Canadian Forces who are willing to return to duty if called. At this point, there are 4,384 personnel in the Supplementary Reserves, but in the case of an emergency, that would be boosted to 300,000, according to the directive from Beck and Carignan.

While the supplementary recruiting push will “prioritize volunteer public servants at the federal and provincial/territorial level” the entry standards wouldn’t be strict, according to the nine-page unclassified directive.

“The entry criteria for the Supplementary or other Reserve should be less restrictive than the Reserve Force for age limits as well as physical and fitness requirements,” the document noted.

After the initial entry into the ranks, the public servants would be required to do one week’s worth of military training each year but would not be issued uniforms. Medical coverage would be provided for their annual military service, but that time would not count towards their pensions, the directive pointed out.

The training focus would be on “basic skills (e.g. shoot, move, and communicate; drive a truck; fly a drone: etc.)”, Beck and Carignan wrote.

Their directive approved the creation of a “tiger team” which will work on setting the stage for a Defence Mobilization Plan or DMP. That team will examine what changes are needed to government legislation as well as examine other factors required to allow for such a massive influx of Canadians into the military.

Department of National Defence spokeswoman Andrée-Anne Poulin confirmed in an email that participation in the expanded reserve force would be voluntary. “Initial planning has begun to explore how the CAF (Canadian Armed Forces) could contribute to greater national resilience, including leveraging increased readiness from an expanded Reserve Force for defence purposes, in times of crisis, or for natural disasters for example,” she added.

Neither DND nor the military would provide comment on the timelines for the creation of the mobilization plan.

Work on the initiative by the tiger team located at DND’s Carling Campus in Ottawa began on June 4. DND would not comment on whether Carignan and Beck have been briefed on the initial work of the team.

The directive also points to a massive increase in the number of Canadian Forces reservists. The reserves are made up of volunteers who are in current military units. Although they are considered part-time, they are involved in training on a year-round basis.

The current reserve force would jump from 23,561 to 100,000 for the mobilization plan. There are no details on how that increase would be handled.

Beck and Carignan pointed out that the plan would require a Whole of Society (or WoS) effort, meaning that all Canadians would have to contribute to the initiative. That would require the Privy Council Office to lead a government “approach to population engagement to advance servant culture around sovereignty and public accountability,” according to their directive.

“Defence will not accomplish the outcome alone, rather it will necessitate shaping, facilitation and engagement with the Privy Council Office, other government departments and agencies as well as socialization with the Canadian public,” they added.

The tiger team will also consult with Canada’s allies, “including Finland which is a recognized leader in this area,” the document pointed out.

Finland has a conscription-based military. Every male Finnish citizen aged 18-60 is liable for military service, and women can apply for military service on a voluntary basis, according to the Finnish defence department website.

After Finnish citizens complete their compulsory full-time military service, they are transferred to the reserves. In May, the Finnish government proposed an initiative that would raise the age limit of conscript reservists to 65.

DND and the Canadian Forces also declined to comment on how ongoing recruitment problems might impact its mobilization plan.

A new report by Auditor General Karen Hogan revealed that the Canadian Forces is not currently recruiting enough individuals to meet its operational needs. “The Canadian Armed Forces continued to have challenges attracting and training enough highly skilled recruits to staff many occupations such as pilots and ammunition technicians,” Hogan said of the report, which was released Oct. 21.

In their document, Beck and Carignan noted the Canadian government has called for greater resiliency and autonomy on security matters. In order to achieve that goal, the Defence Mobilization Plan is needed, they added.

The document does not set out the specific criteria for the mobilization plan to be put into action. But it does mention that global security has been dramatically affected by the rise of strategic competition among states.

Some Canadian Forces leaders have claimed that a war between western nations and China or Russia could happen in the near future. In June 2025, Brig.-Gen. Brendan Cook, the Royal Canadian Air Force’s director general of air and space force development, warned that Canada needed to rearm for a potential war with China or Russia. That war could come between 2028 and 2030, Cook suggested.

In October 2023, the Ottawa Citizen reported on a document issued by then Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre pointed out that Canada is already at war with Russia and China.

 

[EVEN FURTHER EDITED TO ADD, 12 November 2025]

On the weekend I saw this article in “The Conversation”, an online publication with material from “the academic and research community”. It was written by Ilona Daugherty of the University of Waterloo. 

https://theconversation.com/how-the-canadian-armed-forces-could-help-solve-the-youth-employment-crisis-268433

In it, she writes about the rather spotty content of the new federal budget with respect to initiatives that will actually help youth find jobs, especially in comparison to the much larger amounts of money that will be spent on the CAF. She advocates vastly different and more energetic methods to make the CAF more attractive to young people, with multiple important payoffs.

Not a bad piece but the first comment out of the gate [Dammit Brian, never read the comments! You promised!] was a bizarre item by one “Joseph Balos” who reacted: 

Joseph Balos

Time to stop pretending and build a national service force, now.

Your, already thoroughly exhausted, renewed calls for Canada to “attract more youth” into the Canadian Armed Forces has been tried and failed, more outreach, better marketing, more scholarships, ah you know we’ve tried that for decades, and it has failed again and again.

No amount of slick recruitment videos or patriotic hashtags will change the hard truth: today’s youth, both Canadian-born and new arrivals, are not signing up in meaningful numbers. The volunteer system is exhausted. Many young Canadians simply do not feel drawn to military life, and a growing share of newcomers , and now an essential to Canada’s demographic future , struggle to pass strict security screenings nor feel a strong sense of national military identity to Canada. We have greatly expanded our population but they aren’t “Canadians.”

Canada needs a credible, realistic plan to restore readiness and this means accepting that the voluntary recruitment model no longer meets our national defence needs and therefore we need to shift towards a structured national service.

Here’s the most practical and immediate way to do it: (just follow my suggestion as it’s the best- and I’m an expert) use Canada’s existing public service as the foundation of an expanded reserve and civil defence force.

Public servants already form a nationwide, highly educated, and security-cleared network of professionals. They are organized by department, location, and function. They already have office infrastructure, training facilities, and communication systems in place. Most importantly, they have already passed extensive background checks and are on the government payroll , meaning no need to build a new bureaucracy or conduct large-scale vetting.

By making limited national service mandatory for all eligible public servants, Canada could rapidly establish a Reserve Civil Defence Corps of approximately 150,000 personnel. These individuals would train periodically, learn basic weapons handling, emergency coordination, and command vocabulary, and be assigned to units aligned with their existing departmental or regional offices. In a crisis, whether military, environmental, or cyber , they could muster at their own workplaces within 24 hours, forming the backbone of a national response grid.

This system would complement an active full-time force to be expanded to 100,000, ready for front-line defence. Together, the structure would give Canada both teeth and depth, a professional army supported by a civilian-based reserve with technical, logistical, and administrative expertise.

To respect their service and time, public servants would receive a stipend or credit for training days. But the greater return would be to taxpayers and to national resilience: a trained, organized, and patriotic civil-military partnership rooted in duty rather than advertising campaigns.It’s time to stop pretending that we can “attract” our way out of a structural crisis. Canada doesn’t need slogans we need service and DEFENCE!

The volunteer model has failed. The future of national defence lies not in recruiting posters, but in a smart, mandatory, modernized public service reserve that finally matches the times.

 

I tried to find out more on this Balos guy, since he is a self-proclaimed expert on these things after all – and he did have the buzzwords in full play – but all I could find, anywhere on the Net, was a comment from 8 months earlier by him to another story in The Conversation, advocating annexation of Canada by the US as it would provide us all with family doctors, free up markets and allow us to elect the Prime Minister directly. 

Strange support from an even stranger quarter… is “Balos” even real?

But maybe no stranger than the ultraconservative weirdos who think these bureaucrats with bayonets will be used as some kind of internal security force, a Bolivarian mob for enforcing ideological purity.