Co-Founders of the North is a multi-player strategy game developed for the Managing Strategic Change course to teach concepts of the factors involved in making a strategic decision.

 

In the game, students take on the role of “co-founders”, so named for their joint pioneering role in building up an island. Each student has different objectives to fulfill in order to win the game. The gameplay requires students to collaborate and cooperate in order to further their respective objectives.

 

The objective of the game is to accumulate the most allegiance points and become the most influential faction at the end of the game, through the efficient use of resources and strategies. Each game requires a different strategy to win, as the conditions students encounter will vary.

 

Students would have to work with one another, balancing the points they get with the income that each building provides. The islands also provide strategic benefit by conferring bonuses and penalties to buildings built on them. Students can collaborate with each other to achieve common goals, or make strategic decisions to deny other students of their resources.

 

 

Co-Founders of the North is played in class, after the concepts in the game have been taught, to give students an example of how it is applied. A key feature of the game is that students need to constantly make strategic moves according to the changing environment and other students’ moves. As such, the game cultivates long-term investment planning and risk management skills. It is currently also being used in the Managing in a VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) Context course and the Managing Strategic Change course.