Models of defeat

Coalition operations are increasingly effects-based, which means they apply force only as necessary to achieve political and psychological effects. Capture the Flag is a wargaming environment that includes intelligent, autonomous adversaries. Our planner previously focused on two goals: occupying objectives and attrition. But attrition is a means to the defeat of one's enemies, not an end in itself. For Capture the Flag to plan for defeat, it needs a model of defeat. We model the "capacity for conflict" as a leaky bucket: when a unit's bucket is full, it has no more capacity for conflict and it capitulates. Flow into and out of the bucket is modulated by several factors including attrition and heroism. The model is inherently dynamical, so it exhibits the time-dependent behaviors one observes in real conflicts; for example, identical attacks will have different effects on capitulation as a function of their timing.