Conflict: Middle East Political Simulator

Conflict: Middle East Political Simulator
Cover art
Developer(s)	PSI Software
Publisher(s)	Virgin Mastertronic
Designer(s)	David J. Eastman
Platform(s)	MS-DOS, Atari ST, Amiga
Release	1990
Genre(s)	Government simulation game
Mode(s)	Single-player

Conflict: Middle East Political Simulator, often known as ConfMEPS or simply Conflict, is a turn-based government simulation game developed by PSI Software and published by Virgin Mastertronic in 1990 for DOS, Atari ST and Amiga (with extended graphics). Although the game is no longer commercially available, original designer David J. Eastman has encouraged players to download the PC version from "abandonware" sites.

The game is set in 1997. The prime minister of Israel has just been assassinated, leaving the player to run the country as the new prime minister. The player's objective is to cause the defeat of the neighbouring four states, either by invasion (not necessarily by Israel, as the other states can and do invade each other) or political destabilisation.

Gameplay

A screenshot of the Conflict: MEPS interface

Each game turn represents one month in real time. On each turn, the player decides what diplomatic, espionage and military actions to take with regard to the other countries in the game, and then ends the turn. The game engine then runs and the results of the turn occur (each turn begins with some information about what has occurred in the previous turn being presented as a screen of newspaper headlines).

Each country in the game has a diplomatic relationship with every other country, with that relationship varying from Military Pact (best) to War (worst), through a number of stages. In addition, there is a special relation mode, called "Attack means disaster", which seems to accrue when all nations with the ability of holding nuclear weapons, possess such. Under such mode, all other relation forms become obsolete.

With each turn, the player directly sets Israeli diplomatic policy with regard to the other countries in the game. Diplomatic policy is very simple: Israel is either trying to improve the diplomatic relationship, keep it as it is, or make it worse. The action change in the relationship for a turn depends upon Israeli policy set against that of the other country. Roughly US$100 million is taken out of the monthly defense budget when diplomatic relations are being improved beyond Favourable. If the country's diplomats are acting aggressively toward Israel, relations will usually not budge, even if the player attempts to improve relations. Bordering states, however, will gradually deteriorate relations with Israel upon showing signs of aggression until war is declared. Relations will not improve if Israel has troops stationed at the border. Some countries will stop acting aggressively toward Israel if the player stations a brigade at the border, but this rarely occurs during gameplay. If Israel successfully bombs Egypt or Syria's nuclear facilities, relations will drop one level on the next turn.

Some countries at war with another will be quick to form an alliance with Israel if their relations are within Favourable. As a result, the relation will jump to Profitable (skipping Beneficial) on the next turn.

When a relationship is at Profitable, the player can choose to request a military pact. If this is given, then if Israel goes to war with a country which also has a border with the allied country, that country will, in turn, reduce its relationship to Lamentable and then declare war. (Note, however there is no such obligation placed upon the player, who can simply ignore wars their ally enters into).

When an allied country conquers an enemy state, it will often sever its pact with Israel and progressively reduce relations with an aggressive stance (with the neighbouring countries doing this until war is declared on Israel). If the country's relationship with Israel is Favourable at an aggressive stance, but its stability rate is below Good, it will attempt to keep that relationship level due to its unstable leadership, even if the player attempts to reduce relations. Ordering a successful airstrike on Egypt or Syria's nuclear installations will reduce relations at a much faster rate at this point and lead to war (unless their governments collapse first).

During a war, the player may attempt to offer a ceasefire with the enemy state, or vice versa. Once a ceasefire is signed between the warring states, diplomatic relations will be restored to Satisfactory, but often with the opposing country's diplomats acting aggressively toward Israel. This will once again plunge both countries into war within the next couple of turns.

Espionage

Each country's government has a stability rating. If that rating falls to the lowest value, the government collapses and the country is out of the game. Within each turn, for each country in the game, Israel can choose to work to reduce the stability of the Government, keep it as it is, or increase the stability of the government. Also, each country has a level of insurgency, which represents how well-organized the insurgent forces are. When a country conquers an enemy state, its stability rating is upgraded to Very Solid, making it more difficult to destabilize. When a ceasefire between two countries is signed at the next UN Summit, the country that had the advantage on the last turn has its stability upgraded to Very Solid, while the other is downgraded to Good or below. If a country's stability rating is Weak or below or if the insurgency in the country is at Guerilla Force or better, Israel can opt to consider extreme measures, which are to attempt assassination of the country's leader or start a coup. If this attempt succeeds, the country collapses and is out of the game.

Once diplomatic and espionage policy is set, the player moves on to the military actions. It is not possible to return to diplomacy and espionage once the player has moved to military actions. Israel has two ways of becoming unstable: the Palestinian problem - which can be increased by hostile nations, and insecurity of the Israeli public - which occurs if the player does not win a war within two or more years. If this instability is not resolved, the player faces the risk of being impeached or assassinated.

Military

The player has two tasks to perform: the first is to spend the defense budget; the second is to set military actions with regard to the other countries in the game.

Defense budget

On each turn, the player receives a budget to spend on weaponry. The size of the budget depends on the level of hostility in the surrounding countries; if Israel is at war, or if another country is in the process of reducing diplomatic relations to declare war, the budget is large (US$300 million plus, per turn). If the level of hostility is low, and life is peaceful, the budget is small (US$100 million). As such, the defense budget awarded by the game is an indicator of the policy intent of neighbouring countries. If they are peaceful, the budget will be small; if one or more countries is bent on war, the budget will be large.

Weapons are purchased from the USA, UK, France or a private arms dealer. (Each country sells weapons that it itself produces, except the private dealer, who is a South African providing access to Soviet weaponry.) Each source offers a different range of weapons with different prices and most countries will only offer better weapons once a reasonable number of purchases have already been made (which establishes that a relationship has been built). Not all countries offer all the same weapons; for example, anti-SAM helicopters are only available from the US and the private dealer.

Weapons purchased will usually be available by the next turn, except from the private dealer, which usually takes 1-2 turns to ship. The private dealer's advantage is the ability to sell arms to the player if an arms embargo is imposed on Israel.

Nuclear weapon research

Another factor in the game is the development of nuclear weapons. Each country (except Jordan and Lebanon) can begin and maintain a nuclear weapon development program. One of the main ways to lose the game is for WMDs to be used, which often sets off a global nuclear holocaust. This can present a problem to players, since it can be other countries that use WMDs in their own conflicts against countries other than Israel. It is possible to reduce this possibility by destroying nuclear installations as they arise.

On each turn, the player decides whether to fund nuclear development for that month (it only costs US$20M and so is usually done). Once the player has nuclear weapons ready, they are able to fire them during war at their discretion. Depending on the situation of the war, the player's use of WMDs will either result in an instant victory or a nuclear holocaust, which ends the game in a loss. Consequently, if the player wins a war using a nuclear strike, the UN will impose an arms embargo on Israel, forcing the player to buy arms from the private dealer until the next UN summit.

Each year, Israel can choose to increase or decrease the GDP percentage of the defense budget (it starts at 35%) by 2%, and to increase the size of the Army by two units (which apparently harms the relationship with the USA). Every year, the United States provides economic and military aid to Israel. This varies between nothing and four billion dollars, depending on how good Israel's relationship is with the US.

Palestinian problem

The game also models the problems caused by the Palestinian situation. The "Palestinian problem" is Israel's internal insurgency, just as the other countries have their insurgency and concomitant government stability problem. Other countries presumably can choose to act to stoke Palestinian discontent, and as the player becomes unsuccessful and increasingly unpopular, the Palestinian situation worsens - eventually, this will cause the player to be deposed and thus lose the game.

The player can choose to deploy a brigade to police the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, which is supposed to help reduce discontent. Once a brigade has been deployed, the player can choose "soft" or "hard" tactics. Hard tactics presumably are more effective, but cause international outcry, presumably reducing relations with the US and so affecting their annual military grant.

During the annual UN summit, an offer can be made to form a Palestinian homeland, which permanently removes this problem and improves relations with the USA. The only disadvantage seems to be that if the player goes to war with the bordering country that offered the homeland territory, Israel finds itself at a territorial loss, usually two bars on the war progress meter.

Military actions

Prior to war, Israel can launch precision air strikes against bordering countries. These strikes can be performed on military, civilian, industrial, or nuclear targets. Military, industrial, and civilian targets can only be attacked if the diplomatic relationship with a country is very bad. Military strikes may destroy a very few army units (five main battle tanks, for example). Civilian and industrial strikes are done particularly to reduce diplomatic relationships.

Nuclear targets can be attacked at any time, and doing so retards or even eliminates the development of that country's nuclear program (which then continues as before, but from its reduced development level). However, if the country has a mushroom cloud icon in place of a nuclear installation icon, this means that the country has successfully tested their warheads and the player can no longer cripple their nuclear development. This can happen if the player's order for a nuclear installation airstrike fails in two consecutive turns.

If the diplomatic relationship with a country is bad enough, and there are Israeli troops deployed on the border, Israel can invade, or be invaded. This triggers war. A country can only invade countries with a shared border. The four states neighbouring Israel in Conflict are Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

Libya, Iraq, and Iran are also present in the game, and can invade the countries which neighbour them, but they have no common border with Israel and so cannot be invaded by the player (and do not have to be defeated to win the game).

When a war occurs, certain unit types attack certain other unit types in the opposing army. So, for example, anti-tank helicopters destroy enemy tanks, while losing a certain number of their own numbers in the process (which may relate to the number of SAM units).

Reception

Alan Emrich reviewed the game for Computer Gaming World, and stated that "Conflict is not striving to be a realistic simulation. It is meant to be an amusing exercise in cold war politics set in a futuristic Middle East environment. It is fast playing, easy to learn, entertaining and not to be taken too seriously."

In a 1994 survey of war games, Computer Gaming World gave Conflict three stars out of five, stating that it was "Quick and fun to play" but not compatible with faster computers. (It can be run today using DOSBox.)

External links

• Conflict: Middle East Political Simulator at the Internet Archive
• Conflict: Middle East Political Simulator - site from the designer
• Remake (for MS Windows) by Marco Fera with David Eastman's permission. Version 1.2 published on 2009-02-12.