Imposed Cost 2026

A short, simple print-and-play game about a situation where a nation's “country team” (representing an overt group of diplomats, banking and venture company representatives, technicians and other experts), in trying to build a series of infrastructure projects in an unnamed Host Nation, faces off against a hostile nation's Special Forces-like team attempting to covertly and indirectly spoil their projects, plans and reputation.

Players will play Action cards from their Networks to build or bollix Projects through adjusting their Time and Budget values. Players can also interfere with the enemy’s Network by revealing or degrading parts of it, and manipulate the attitude of the Host Nation towards either side.

This game arose out of discussions I had several years ago with a long-serving and now retired Green Beret about the revived concept of US Special Forces "Jedburgh" teams being sent to interfere in covert and plausibly deniable ways with the efforts of hostile nations to influence the governments of other countries. That is the setting for this particular game situation, but certainly the target nations could be anywhere in the world, and the overt and covert forces involved could be any pairing you care to name.

Is this method of unconventional warfare actually being waged in the world today, to build "grey zones" that are neither at peace nor at war?

I don’t know, but I've been told... this hybrid war is mighty cold!

—description from the designer