Balance of Terror for Teams — a competitive strategy session for 10–40 people

Split the room into teams

Each team runs a great power in the same world, at the same time. They make real decisions in their own words, the AI runs the consequences, and nobody finds out how it lands until everyone has committed.

Not all seven powers have nuclear weapons. All seven have to live with the ones that do. You need as many teams as you have people for — the engine plays whichever countries nobody takes, so a three-team session still happens in a world of seven great powers.

Four steps

Split the room: two to seven teams, each drafting a great power first come, first served. Play the quarters: six, eight or ten rounds of a timed briefing, a plan and a simultaneous resolution. Watch it land: everyone commits blind and the consequences arrive together, on the big screen. Read the verdict: every team gets a scored report and you get the whole session written up.

Nobody arbitrates

There is no facilitator and no human judgement anywhere in the loop. The same engine judges every team identically, so nobody can argue the result — which is exactly why the debrief lands. You control the clock and nothing else: extend a quarter, resolve early, pause for a break.

What lands afterwards

Every team gets a tombstone, a rank and score breakdown, and a doctrine profile scoring eight dimensions — force posture, time horizon, transparency, escalation appetite, alliance orientation, domestic priority, consistency and crisis instinct — computed from the orders they actually gave, plotted against the rest of the room. Plus their full war record and the single pivot that decided their session.

You also get the whole-session report: how it unfolded, the turns that decided it, who ended on top and why, and what this particular group's play says about how they decide under pressure.

Questions

How long does it take?

Two to three hours for a standard eight-quarter session, plus about fifteen minutes of setup and however long your debrief runs.

How many people?

Ten to forty, split into two to seven teams of any size. Three to five people per team is the sweet spot.

What do we need?

A laptop or phone per team, wifi, a room, and ideally a screen or projector for the war room. Nothing to install.

Can we do it remotely?

Yes. Teams play from anywhere; put the war room on a shared screen and it works the same.

Is there a facilitator?

No, and that is deliberate. The AI resolves every team identically with nobody arbitrating, so results cannot be argued with. You run the clock.

Do we need to know anything about geopolitics?

No. Every power's position, strengths and pressures are briefed on screen.

Can somebody start a nuclear war?

Yes, and it is the most memorable thing that can happen in the room. The session does not end — the world is devastated, the culprits take an enormous scoring penalty, and everyone plays on in the world they made.