Road to War: Strategic Competition in the Cold War

Make the decisions needed to generate the right force to deter and if deterrence fails, fights and wins your nation's next war. Fight Club member Sam Katz explains the game system he has 'vibe coded' to act as a long term Force Design/Force Management simulation with periodic 'operations' using Command Modern Operations. Time stamps: 00:00:00 – Intro video 00:00:09 – Introducing Sam Katz and Road to War: Sam explains his Fight Club background, interest in wargaming, and how AI-assisted development helped shape the project. 00:01:10 – Making Decisions Before Deployment: Road to War is framed as a force-design tool for decisions made before forces ever enter the fight. 00:02:06 – Exporting Into Command: Modern Operations: How the HTML-based tool generates Lua scripts that can be pasted directly into Command: Modern Operations. 00:03:44 – The Problem Road to War Solves: The tool puts players into defence planning trade-offs across services, capabilities, budgets, and future threats. 00:04:51 – Alternative Cold War Crisis Example: A hypothetical Turkish withdrawal from NATO creates a Cyprus crisis that tests UK force planning choices. 00:06:03 – Road to War Interface Walkthrough: The GUI shows UK bases, budget guidelines, branch allocations, political accountability, and force management options. 00:07:28 – Procurement Programs and Force Design: Players make long-term choices on interceptors, aircraft purchases, early warning, design timelines, and budget cycles. 00:08:23 – Readiness, Bases, and Modernisation Trade-Offs: The discussion expands into force management, readiness, base closures, refuelling, and operational consequences. 00:09:36 – Why Five-Year Planning Cycles Matter: Five-year turns create institutional inertia, forcing players to live with procurement and posture decisions. 00:10:32 – Why Set It in an Alternative Cold War?: The Cold War setting avoids modern security issues while using well-researched platforms and existing game databases. 00:12:57 – Crisis Draws After Each Cycle: At the end of each five-year period, players face unexpected crises and expected battles to test their force design. 00:14:46 – Operational Planner and Scenario Export: The tool shifts into theatre mode, lets players deploy forces, and exports a turnkey Command scenario. 00:16:00 – Red Forces, Feedback Loops, and Attrition: Sam explains scripted opposition, possible future red-side development, combat logs, losses, and maintenance effects. 00:17:54 – Running Road to War as a Workshop: The tool is positioned as a Fight Club activity, professional workshop, microgame, or longer campaign. 00:22:51 – Alpha Status, Beta Plans, and Alternate Futures: Sam discusses development priorities, multiplayer potential, extended Cold War geopolitics, GitHub access, and closed beta plans. If you like what we do and the content we create please consider buying us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/fightclubintl