Business Games Part 2 - Conflict: The Middle East Political Simulator
July 14, 2006 | Filed Under business games
In this political simulator, you are the Israeli Prime minister. It is 1997 and the Middle East tension is high. What do you do? Try to cool things down and win the Nobel Peace Price, or mobilize your troops and risk nuclear catastrophe? Manage weapons, economy, the issue of Palestina and international relations on behalf of the state of Israel.
This may not be your typical business game. But remember, economy is how to manage scarce resources. In war, this becomes even more important. These days I think this game is both extremely entertaining and interesting about the dangers of domino effects in the Middle East.
Background of game
The game was created by Virgin Interactive and published in 1990. I discovered it through the excellent abandonware site The Underdogs.
Screenshots from the game
The easy on the eyes and simple graphics makes the game a pleasure to play. 
You have to be proactive in this game, if not the bombs start flying and you lose the upper hand. The game has lots of random elements, if you play it twice it does not lose its value. The many delicate dilemmas you are facing gives you an inspiring and interesting game experience. If you are the aggressor in the region you will face problems in acquiring new tanks and fighter aircrafts because your suppliers in USA, France and Britain hesitate to sell to you because of pressure from their governments. You are then forced to buy more expensive weapons from underground suppliers.
Download
Manual of game (Made available by The Underdogs)
The first part of my business games series was about a text based game from 1982 where you had to rise from mailroom clerk to CEO.
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8 Responses to “Business Games Part 2 - Conflict: The Middle East Political Simulator”
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Conflict is the only most interesting political game ever created.
I wish it had a newer version.
as you know israel and the arab countries is a microcosmose of the world facing nuclear threats (Iran) and fanatic grilla (hizballa) and bomb terrorists (palestine). It could have been nice to choose the future by making yourself the israeli prime-minister.
If you happen to know on a political simulator like Conflict please inform me to liran_ye@yahoo.com
I just gave this a go - I lasted 16 months, established a puppet government in Lebanon, destabilised Jordan Syria and Libya - and then the Iranians nuked Iraq and it was all over. Bugger.
Hi,
I created a Mac port of Conflict called ‘Conflict For Mac’. So all you mac users can enjoy it. Its available here: http://entropy.textdriven.com/pages/conflict_for_mac
Money Matador: Keep up the good work. I am looking forward to Business Games Part 3
Have you tried Capitalism 2?
I mean’t part 4, I started playing wall $treet raider many years ago. The DOS version was great.
Hi Paul, I’ve played Capitalism 2, it is pretty good. Great to see that you make the game available for Mac users!
;-)I must tell you this - yesterday, I managed Lebanese coup d´etat, I crushed Syria (with help of Iran or Iraq - I don´t remember), then Jordan was defeated by another Iran or Iraq, and then…war against Egypt started. Well, I was heavily overwhelmed, I had no chance, but probably JUST before my possible defeat - Egypt had been attacked by Libya and I WON. I simply LOVE this game;-))!!
i can’t download the game because it said to insert disk 2 help me
email to me at bigman741@hotmail.com
I had this game waaaay back in the 90’s, when my box had an 8086 processor, DOS 3.1, 640K RAM, and the only drives were two 3.5″ diskette drives. But it was a blast. I miss it.