Civil War · Modern Warfare

2040: An American Insurgency

2040: An American Insurgency simulates a US civil war in the 21st century. In this 2-player, 3-hour game, the blue team is the Federals, agents of the government in Washington. The red team is the Rebels, militia groups trying to seize control of states, highways, and cities. The conflict spreads across the entire continental US, from Miami to Seattle and from Los Angeles to New York.

2 players180 minheavy difficulty

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About the game

What is 2040: An American Insurgency

Two scenarios are presented. One depicts a rebellion that emerges from rural areas in the Midwest and South. The other puts the rebellion in urban areas along the coasts. As such, the game is open to multiple interpretations of future politics in the US. The game was designed not to make political statements of one kind or another, but rather to accurately model counter-insurgency operations in the continental US, regardless of who the rebels happen to be.

Many of the game mechanics are familiar from the existing body counter-insurgency sims. The resources and operations available to the two players are different; the insurgency is depicted as an asymmetric conflict. Gameplay is card-driven, however with events depicting situations that may arise in the US context. For example, if a civil war to occur, the Supreme Court is likely to make rulings that affect the conflict. Therefore, there are SCOTUS cards involving the Second Amendment and the government’s ability to make arrests. Other uniquely American features include truck stops as information networks, police brutality events, and the sports-entertainment complex.

While some of the game’s mechanics are familiar, 2040 brings many new mechanics to the table. For example, there is a fully fleshed-out social media system that affects the power of the rebellion. The Rebel player does his recruiting and fundraising through the internet, so that Federal online control measures can dramatically reduce the Rebel’s money and troop levels. This net-based conflict adds a third dimension to the insurgency, one that has not been extensively modeled in previous commercially-available simulations.

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