Yes, there is a tremendous amount of material out there and most of it is, frankly, not that useful or easily translateable into a game format. You would think that even order of battle information might be readily useful but it isn't, because in game terms what shows on a board is a measure of capability, not plain numbers.
So it may be all very well to read that the Afghan National Police had an overall strength of 85,000 at some point in time, but that's just a number - you have to dig deeper and see how many of those 85,000 are actually potentially useful at their jobs (not that many, as it turns out). Looking further, you see that the ANA may have large and increasing numbers every year, but also has an annual desertion rate that has been fairly constant at around 25%. So you have to build that into the game as well (we did).
One mechanism in the game is the return of refugees from abroad. Though a complete census of Afghanistan has not been done in over 30 years, it is known that over 6 million people have left the country, and many of them have returned. The Government player has the option of placing Population Returnees markers in certain provinces; thus he is able to change the "human terrain" slightly through governing benignly. I consulted UNHCR material for statistics representing the Commission's best guesses as to how many refugees had settled, and where.
These are just a couple of examples.
Brian
I have a few questions. I'll post each separately so that they can be quote replied so folks can follow each individually.
How did you guys take the raw data and turn it into something in the game? There must have been a flood of information and much of it not exactly written to be digestible in gaming format. For instance, what did the UN's report on refugees tell you and how did you use it?
