Wargaming Weekly #052: Is this the wargame about economic warfare that I’ve been looking for?
My review of “The Shadow Lines” by Viltė Radzytė (designed for her Bachelor’s thesis at ISM University of Management and Economics)
I recently decided to interrupt my current streak of exploring Fight Club International’s collection of Analogue Games to finally try a wargame that I randomly came across on LinkedIn a couple of months ago.
The Shadow Lines is a two-player wargame about US-Iran economic warfare designed by Viltė Radzytė for her Bachelor’s thesis. She’s an Economics and Politics major at ISM University of Management and Economics in Lithuania.
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Why did I play The Shadow Lines?
A few months ago, I explored why economic warfare has been ignored by commercial wargaming.
Shortly after, Ian Curtiss reached out alerting me to Powering Up, his game about navigating the Chinese EV industry. Upon downloading the game files, I could instantly tell that it was definitely an economic wargame but unfortunately, because it requires 6 players and a fairly knowledgeable adjudicator, there was no chance that I could pull off playing it solo. The Shadow Lines is way simpler.
Plus, Viltė designed The Shadow Lines for her Bachelor’s thesis, which I think is so cool! Like I highlighted in my recent appearance on the Riskgaming podcast, with the advent of AI making critical thinking more important than ever, we need to integrate wargames (and games in general) into our education systems all the way from the primary/elementary level to high school to university. This is a prime example!
Why did I struggle with The Shadow Lines at first?
I needed several clarifications from the designer, I’m going to repeat them here just in case you need them in your own playthrough:
- The game is 8 rounds long (as indicated on the turn tracker) not 10 rounds as mentioned in the rules
- I thought both sides needed their own ‘Civilian Support’ tracker since two are provided, but it turns out only one is needed
- If Civilian Support is at 0 at the end of the round, nothing happens, as both sides have equal support
- If the Civilian Support tracker is at 1 or 2 in your favor, you can choose to decrease your Social Unrest or to improve one of your Sectors or Resources
- If the Civilian Support tracker is already at 2 in your favor, you can’t gain more. Instead you increase your opponent’s Social Unrest
- Iran only gets to roll for detection if the U.S. “Exposure” action fails just like U.S. only gets to roll for detection if the Iran “Financial Networking” succeeds
- Rolling for detection depletes the detecting side’s Intelligence as per the “1 intel = 1 dice” guideline depending on how many dice that side decides to use
- It says “Iran rolls for detection by using intelligence” under U.S. “Exposure” vs. “The U.S. can roll for detection by using intelligence” under Iran “Financial Networking” as well as “The U.S. can roll for defense” under “Terrorism” but this is just a typo i.e. rolling for detection is optional for Iran too
- The Coalition boost on the Level 3 Sanctions die roll doesn’t work across rounds i.e. you have to first successfully roll for Coalition again in every new round to qualify for the 5-6 success roll instead of just 6
- Some actions become unavailable when certain Sectors or Resources run out e.g. Iran can’t use Terrorism if Human Rights is depleted and U.S. Coalition and Negotiation become unavailable when there’s no more PPP.
What do I like about The Shadow Lines?
1. It reminds me a lot of my own game, African Election
- No area control, no counters to move, just a bunch of trackers
- The action menus for each player remind me on my own solitaire action menu
- The Sector and Resource trackers remind me on my own Resource trackers
- The Social Unrest and Civilian Support trackers remind me of my own Risk Level tracker
- The only key structural differences are that this one is a two-player while mine is a solitaire and the use of dice to determine action success (more on this later).
2. It has great tension
I found myself scanning the action menu intensely, especially when playing the Iran hand, trying to figure out which action I should take to replenish a depleted resource or recover a wrecked sector.
I held my breath with every action success dice roll. Failing at an attempt of the Exposure action was especially painful for both sides since it comes with serious penalties, moreover after wasting three turns on patiently gathering Intelligence (it didn’t make sense to risk not using maximum intelligence on this action).
3. It has great balance
Iran is easy to degrade but hard to beat.
In my initial attempt, right up until around round 7, I thought the US was assured of the win but it turns out Iran is actually a hard nut to crack! You can check it out on X, LinkedIn or Bluesky.
In my second attempt, Iran once again held out, and even managed to come out comparatively better than the U.S., mainly by leveraging Terrorism and Exposure.
In my third attempt, the U.S. finally managed to win by figuring out mid-game that it could just repeatedly use Level 2 sanctions to take Iran’s Social Unrest to the max (the best part was that this particular action didn’t carry any penalty for failure). I thought I had broken the game!
In my fourth attempt, I decided to test if I had really broken the game by making it strictly Level 2 Sanctions for the US versus Infrastructure for Iran (since this was the only action I could see that could undo the Social Unrest damage without suffering a penalty for a failed action success roll).
It seemed to be working for the U.S. for the first 4 rounds but then Iran’s luck turned around so much that by the end, its:
- Industrial Exports were back to full capacity
- TRP was fully recovered
- ESP was significantly up from zero
- Social Unrest was back to zero
Meanwhile the U.S. TRP and energy sector were completely wrecked!
What don’t I like about The Shadow Lines?
Just a couple of small logistical hiccups:
1. No markers provided to cut out for the trackers (I had to improvise with markers from Spider’s Thread by Walter Kunkle as usual)
2. No turn tracker provided (for the 5 turns per round, would be very useful for sequential mode), only the round tracker for the 8 rounds is provided
Another possible improvement I can suggest is tweaking the victory conditions such that in the case where it’s currently a draw (U.S. Fails and Iran Survives), the winner is whoever scores lower on their Social Unrest tracker (If tied, whoever has Civilian Support advantage wins. If tied there too, then call it a proper draw then!)
What are my top player tips for The Shadow Lines?
SPOILER ALERT! Skip this part if you want to explore the game for yourself from first principles!
For the US:
Trying to win by crippling 4 sectors of Iran is next to impossible in my opinion. Go the Social Unrest route instead, especially if you notice Iran wasting turns on gaining Intelligence for Exposure or any other actions that are not Infrastructure.
So focus on using Level 2 Sanctions as much as possible (don’t bother with Level 3, risk of failure is not worth it), you will cripple three sectors (Energy, Finance & Industrial Exports), deplete one resource (ESP, maybe even TRP too) and most importantly, take Social Unrest to the max (best part is there’s no penalty for failure).
For Iran:
If the US tries to over-use Level 2 Sanctions, go hard on Infrastructure. You’ll have to withstand some bad rolls, may be even for a whole round or two, but when the dice start going your way, this action really pays off big time.
Terrorism is also a solid way to throw the U.S. player off since it raises their Social Unrest no matter what, and even though they can roll to defend against it, scoring that 6 is not easy.
For both:
Secure the Civilian Support advantage in the first round of the game with the Exposure action. Though attempting this comes with the risk of being penalized for failure, if you’re successful, at the end of every Round you’ll get to enjoy the advantage of being able to repair your Social Unrest, replenish a depleted Resource or recover a wrecked Sector and that can make a huge difference overall.
At the very least, your opponent will be tempted to spend actions on trying to undo your Civilian Support advantage and if they do give in to that temptation, that can keep them distracted for a while as you attack their Sectors, deplete their Resources and raise their Social Unrest.
Disclaimer:
However, all the above only work if you’re playing in sequential mode. I think the game is a whole different beast if you have to play it in simultaneous mode where you have to choose all your five actions beforehand, then reveal and resolve them all at once.
I’m actually not yet completely sure exactly how simultaneous mode works especially if one of the actions you choose fails:
· Do you have to move on to the next one or do you get to re-attempt it?
· If you have to move on, what does this mean for the U.S. where Level 2 Sanctions, for example, can’t be attempted until Level 1 Sanctions have been successfully played?
Viltė, if you’re reading this, please feel free to elaborate in the comments!
What wargame design lessons have I learnt from playing The Shadow Lines?
First of all, as mentioned earlier, one of the key structural differences between this game and my African Election is the use of dice to determine action success.
Even though I have been very proud of the fact that I had designed a wargame that didn’t need dice (which I think is key for the business audience it’s designed for), after experiencing the delicious tension of this one, I have decided to borrow rolling for action success in the latest version.
Download and print the full game PDF here to play African Election v2.0
I think the double serving of randomness (picking an Event Card from the shuffled deck and then rolling for success on your selection from the Action Card Menu) will make for a way more exciting (and I dare say, realistic) player experience.
I have also borrowed the idea of including a set of post-game reflection questions that I picked up from playing Readiness by Fight Club International.
[UPDATE on 3rd December, 2025: I have decided to also borrow Viltė’s idea of including an outcome tracking sheet. I think it goes well with the post-game reflection questions]
Secondly, once again, as mentioned earlier, another key structural difference is that this one is a two-player while mine is a solitaire. While I don’t see myself making African Election a two-player game, I’m really glad to have experienced this multiple-trackers-and-action-menu game design template in a two-player setting.
Given how easy I find this template to build, being able to apply it in a proper adversarial contest where a player’s actions affect the other’s tracks not just their own means it can really be applied to build ontologically proper wargames like The Shadow Lines (where it’s player vs. player) not just nominal solitaire ones like African Election, Readiness, Spider’s Thread, and Mr. President (where it’s player vs. environment).
And it’s especially perfect for such economic/business conflict which I feel is massively underexplored. So I’m excited to see what theme I’ll explore with this multiple-trackers-and-action-menu game design template next time round.
What warfare lessons have I learnt from playing The Shadow Lines?
1. Iran is not easy to beat. You can wreck a couple of its Sectors, deplete a couple of its Resources and significantly raise its Social Unrest but that’s not enough. I think the game accurately reflects Iran’s real-life resilience.
2. Sanctions really bite. In my various attempts, thanks to the U.S. gong hard on Level 1 and Level 2 Sanctions, Iran went through several rounds when 2 or 3 of its sectors (Energy, Finance and Industrial Exports) were in the red. Even though this was not enough for the US to win the game, I can tell that in real life, this is really painful to bear.
I’m curious what other economic warfare lessons I’ll pick up when I play the game again and hopefully eventually use some of the actions I haven’t tried so far such as Financial Networking, Mobilization, and Negotiation.
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Lastly… what’s that over there in the Business Corner?
Top AI podcaster Dwarkesh Patel recently hosted OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, who has since moved on and raised $3 billion for his own pre-product AI startup, Safe SuperIntelligence (SSI).
He declared that the age of scaling is over!
My favorite part is when Ilya talks about the brain neuron to explain his research taste: “One thing that guides me personally is an aesthetic of how AI should be by thinking of how people are, but by thinking correctly. It’s very easy to think about how people are incorrectly.”
Yours in hex,
Rwizi.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Rwizi Rweizooba Ainomugisha is a freelance wargame researcher, analyst and designer. With a background of over 10 years in B2B marketing, Rwizi is also a Co-Founder, Co-CEO and Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) at Lupiiya Books - the social finance app gamifying crowdfunding for African startup founders and SME owners.
Thank you so much for playing this game. As for simultaneous version. If you fail sanctions 1 and your next move is sanctions 2 (as mentioned you cannot implement 2 without sanctions 1), thus you must skip that move.