Wargame

A normal wargame is a strategy game in which two or more players command opposing armed forces in a simulation of an armed conflict. Wargaming may be played for recreation, to train military officers in the art of strategic thinking, or to study the nature of potential conflicts. Many wargames re-create specific historic battles, and can cover either whole wars, or any campaigns, battles, or lower-level engagements within them. Many simulate land combat, but there are wargames for naval, air combat, and cyber conflicts, as well as many that combine various domains.

There is ambiguity as to whether or not activities where participants physically perform mock combat actions (e.g. friendly warships firing dummy rounds at each other) are considered wargames. It is common terminology for a military's field training exercises and military exercise to be referred to as "live wargames", but certain institutions such as the US Navy do not accept this. Likewise, activities like paintball and airsoft are often classified as combat sports. In contrast, however, the War Olympics also calls itself "the international army games" and often is referred to as wargaming colloquially.

Escalated conflicts and strategies developed specifically to handle them have always been a part of recorded history, however, modern wargaming was invented in Prussia in the early 19th century, and eventually the Prussian military adopted wargaming as a tool for training their officers and developing doctrine.