If you are anything like me, sometimes you fire up your war game ready to bring destruction to the enemies. But before you can reign hell fury down on your foes you have to take a moment to figure out what you have at your disposal, then you need to figure out what the enemy may have at their disposal – and before you know it you are down the glorious rabbit hole that us wargamers love!

Here is a tool (mnemonic) you might find useful… It’s used by militaries across the world, particularly the British military. The explanations are not ‘doctrinally pure’ as it is indeed just a mnemonic but you should be able to figure it out.

TEPIDOIL

It’s TEPIDOIL, and no it’s not a reference to a lukewarm cup of tea. It’s a tool to assist a commander in understanding a military force, whether friend or foe.

	Rough Explanation	Example
Training	Training and ability of a unit to implement its doctrine.	Often in games, it’s limited to tiers such as ‘Green’, ‘Veteran’, and ‘Elite’.
Equipment	Types, quantity, and capability of equipment.	If I’m thinking of enemy armor, I’m assessing armor stats and if I have enough ammo and capability to penetrate them.
Personnel	The number of people who can help deliver the desired outcome.	How many people do I need to kill, capture, or injure and how many reinforcements will I face.
Infastructure	What buildings, defenses, or obstacles are in the way, and what buildings support the war effort.	Where is the enemy dug in, should I choose another approach and are there any key buildings I need to destroy for the greater good.
Doctrine	Doctrine is an expression of the principles by which military forces guide their actions and is a codification of how activity is conducted.	One of the harder ones as this depends on your human opponent or how the AI is programmed.
Organization	Relationship between the organization and its stakeholders. Also, military structures.	I tend to think of ORBATs here and if a unit has access to something like air support, or arty.
Information	Information is data with context. Knowledge is information applied to a particular situation.	In this instance I tend to think of objectives, what’s mine and what’s my opponents – and do they know what mine are, and do I know what theirs is.
Logistics	The science of planning and carrying out the operational movement and maintenance of forces.	How is the enemy sustained and can I deny or delay their supplies. Easy to fight when they have no bullets.

To maximize the usefulness of this mnemonic good intelligence on your target organization is key, so if you happen to be caught in battle unprepared you might need a scouting force to answer as many of these questions as fast as possible! Intelligence collection plans (ICPs) are a topic perhaps for another day!

Many of you probably use a form of TEPID OIL subconsciously but if this helps (or hinders) please let me know in the comments. For grand strategy games I tend to use STEMPLES – if people would like to learn more about this let me know and I will explain it.

Until then happy wargaming.