TactiCon 2023 - No more war: Pacifism in strategy games

Is there a space for pacifism in strategy games? How can game mechanics allow and encourage players to adopt peaceful strategies over violence? What are the different approaches to designing games with a peaceful focus and using that to examine the impact of games on players' attitudes towards war and conflict? And finally, is there a potential for strategy games to contribute to wider discussions about peacebuilding and conflict resolution?
Terminal Conflict: store.steampow...
Solium Infernum: store.steampow...
Rogue Command: store.steampow...
Mars Tactics: store.steampow...
Seth Goldberg (He/Him) / The Strategy Informer
At 13 my dad sat me down and taught me my first wargame I was hooked and would study military books constantly (we did not have the internet). I worked in the cooperate development world in most position and in 1999 I joined Origin System/EA to work on Ultima Online. I contracted out to many of the early MMOs and in 2009 I embarked on a series of projects that tapped into Facebook gaming Pirates of Somalia I also developed a system for running completely automated real cash tournaments on anything that could send a score. We used flash games very often. Both of these companies where bought and I took an exit for the startup. Currently I am Semi Retired and doing contract work in the field as well as PR/CM and Design work for Strategy Mill AB who make the game Terminal Conflict. I also run/am The The Strategy Informer which is a series of content folks producing content in various media with the mission to highlight great strategy games.
Chantel (Chan) Cousins (She/Her) / League of Geeks
Chan is the Community Manager at League of Geeks. They are part of the Development Team for games Solium Infernum and Jumplight Odyssey.
Mario Imhof (He/Him) / Feneq
After studying political science and sociology Mario joined the mobile game developer Lotum in 2010, where he learned a lot about different aspects of developing apps and games over the next decade. Taking on different roles over the years.
In 2019 he set out to start something new. With one of his former bosses and now closest friends they started Feneq and have been working on the roguelike RTS Rogue Command since the summer of 2019.
Yuji Nakamura (He/Him) / Self
Yuji is a journalist-turned-video game developer. His next title Mars Tactics is a turn-based combat game exploring the balance between capital and labor in the near future.