t43462:
It was an article in Defense News, circa 1998 or 1999, that alerted me to its use as a training tool. When I read the article, I had just taken a look into StarCraft at the time.
So, being a staff college graduate, I went back, put StarCraft back on the PC, got out my "principles of war" flash card, and began to mess about with the game as Terran. I think the USAF instructors made an excellent choice for a teaching tool, truth be told.
The Rock Paper Scissors model was a great success, eh?
A bit off topic, but I preferred at the time the Warcraft II model for illustrating to my young son some of the problems of joint warfare.
In that game, using more or less the same game engine, you had land, air, sea, and undersea as well as resource issues to balance as you tried to put together a plan and counter whatever you were up against. You also had to, depending on the map, often use amphibious assault as a means to achieve one's ends. The addition of oil patches in various parts of water on the game maps, and the need to defend one's oil patch if one wanted to build all of the right naval vessels really brought the resources fight to the fore.
Blizzard returned to their simpler game model in Warcraft III. It was more like StarCraft in that the maritime element was removed from the game. They added other stuff to increase the importance of leadership/generals/personalities/ and you can still see that influence in games like Defense of the Ancients and League of Legends. (The latter of which I have been talked into playing with my son ... that's a fun little diversion, but beware! It eats time like a hungry bear.)