#reds!

This ideal of tight integration between civil and military spheres was a key component of Soviet 'militarization', a process defined by the way in which distinctions between distinct civil and military spheres breaks down, in part, through managerial efforts at national organization.  For many military- and civil- Bolshevik leaders, a society organized for war at all levels was considered paramount for survival in a hostile, capitalist dominated world. So you may be wondering, how does the above commentary connect to Reds!? I think the game design has some implicit assumptions built into the mechanics that nicely mirror what Stone observes in his analysis.  The reinforcement mechanic, for example, allows the Red Player to quickly regenerate Red Armies, but the fact that they come in on their reduced side combined with the tying of total armies reinforced to resources controlled suggests a very tight, but also very draining, marshaling of resources- and these resources are almost always city hexes.  This makes sense, given that depopulation was a common occurrence during this period.  Cities, though diminished in size from their pre-war status, still provided concentrated centers of manpower that the Bolsheviks could draw upon in reconstituting their forces. One can also visualize the sort of mental picture many Bolshevik commanders held in their own heads during this period just by setting up the board and playing through the turns.  As the Red player, you are forced to deal with several fronts comprised of a varied interests that all seek to remove your rule by force.  Even when you think one front is taken care of, another become a flash point.  Even though Reds! gives the White player an ahistorical unity of command (as much as can be had with a chit pull system, but fairly unified nonetheless), that player still feels the push and pull of each front's priorities.  The birds-eye view of the map becomes an undulating give-and-take line of red and white as both forces seize opportunities and flee from concentrated sorties.  When you put all these viewpoints together, you begin to really see how the Bolsheviks could feel that they were under siege from all sides. There is also the issue of how Reds! reinforces the notion held by Bolshevik military thinkers that the 'Future War' would eliminate the distinction between front and rear; even Infantry units can cover a lot of ground quickly, and supply lines can cover quite a distance given a successful sustained push.  Fluidity of fronts, something the Russian civil war was known for, meant that concrete notions of the front and rear were temporary at best.  The fighting force that could most effectively marshall the entirety of resources at their command at any one point stood the best chance of outlasting their opponent in a war of attrition. One factor we do not see modeled in the design is how an increased need for food and other resources for the Bolshevik regime led to the adoption of War Communism, a policy which engendered much antipathy among the peasant population and was a constant source of conflict between Bolshevik forces and the far-flung populations they were seeking to control.  Obviously the game is limited to the conflict side of this period, and does a pretty good job creating a manageable experience of an obviously chaotic situation, however it would be nice to have had some sort of check or cost for the Red Player to continually sustain their forces.  There is also no mechanic to model population flows, and while that would add a fiddly layer of chrome it would also help drive home that this conflict created tangible effects vis a vis city resources and rural unrest. Thus while Reds! may claim to model only a three year conflict, it's mechanics and design provide a measurable degree of insight into the consequences of this conflict and how the lessons learned from this period impacted the development of the future Soviet regime.