January 28th, 2026
Who shall be the players in the game? I can’t have 218 — even the group I had in the original BoP was too big, so the player never really had any familiarity with them. I’d like to have some groupings of states. Here’s my first cut:
USA
China
Russia
Japan
India
Taiwan
EU
Mercosur
But this does not cover small countries, so I’ll have to use groupings of countries, such as ECOWAS and Mercosur, and concoct some fictional groupings.
How to proceed? I think that the first step is to determine the number of players I want in this game. Too few and it misrepresents the complexity of the situation. Too many and it’s unplayable. I think it should be between 7 and 15.
So here’s the above list with some organizations (real and fictional) added:
USA
China
Collective Security Treaty Organization (Russia, Belarus, Armenia, et al)
Japan
India
Taiwan
EU
Mercosur
ECOWAS (The Economic Community of West African States )
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Brunei, Myanmar, Malaysia, Laos, Philippines, Singapore)
Gulf Cooperation Council
*Association of African Islamic States (AAIS)
*SubSaharan Economic Community (SSEC)
That’s 13; I think it’s comprehensive enough yet manageable by the player.
Onward.