I’ve made a sort of promise to myself that every wargame I do will have some consideration of the impact of the conflict on the civilian population and supporting civilian infrastructure. In some games it might be centre stage, in others somewhat abstracted, but I always want players to be aware that urban environments are there because of the people, and many of those people will still be around when the battle hits.

• See My Urban Games for the initial ways in which I’m covering the civilian impact
• My video presentation at ConnectionsUK 2023 looks at my emerging model of civilian impact, and how I’ve started to implement that in City & CEMA. Slides will be uploaded post CUK.
• I’ve been lucky enough to conduct a number of interviews with member of the International Red Cross’s forces armées et de sécurité (FAS) team, and related staff who focus on the civilian impact of urban warfare. Their reports are a great resource and as well as incorporating my learnings from them into games and the thesis I might try and pull them into a separate paper. One particular term of theirs that I like is “reverberating effects” rather than just “collateral damage” to emphasise the knock-on effects and feedback loops that mean that effects may be felt in ways, time and space well beyond that originally considered.