Given the number of games that have appeared since the early 60’s, when this hobby started in earnest, one would be hard-pressed to find an area of major importance that has not been covered. Both the French and Russian Revolutions spring to mind, although there is a rather serious game on the former published in France. Interestingly, both of those subjects carry with them some heavy, PCish baggage, as witness the furor the French left raised over the film, “Danton”. Just as interesting, and just as rocky a PC road as those two, is the American Indian Wars of the late 19th century. Aside from some dismal Custer games of some age - the cornerstones for proving the Custer/Rorke Theorem - and a somewhat more interesting attempt at gaming the flight of the Nez Percé (SimCan’s I Shall Fight No More, Forever), there is nothing on this half-century of what many people consider to be just another example of genocidal conquest. Perhaps as a result, as a wargaming topic the American Indian Wars have remained virtually untouched.
In many respects, therefore, reviewing a game that focuses on lesser known or controversial events is a challenge. Under these circumstances, design assumptions are often difficult to examine in an unprejudiced fashion because of the lack of prior games to use as a litmus test. To make it even more difficult, Avalon Hill's recent release of Richard Berg’s Geronimo, a multi-player game covering the American Indian Wars from 1851-1890, turns out to be a game system with few, if any, antecedents.
If an unfamiliar (and one-sided) campaign presents the game reviewer with a challenge, I can only imagine the difficulties facing a designer. Added to the obvious challenge of breaking new design ground in Geronimo, Berg also had to at least acknowledge some of the controversial nature of the subject. All of this has been met head-on, and after playing Geronimo, reflective gamers will feel as if they have participated in an engaging, fast-paced drama, while watching a high-speed, cultural train wreck.
Typical of most AH games, component quality is excellent. Geronimo sports a mounted map board of the Western (soon-to-be) United States, from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean. State and territorial boundaries are the only game-specific features of note, although the territories are divided into “Plains” and “Mountainous”. Each state/territory possesses survival points (for the Indian players) and statehood points (a threshold to be reached for the US player). Mountain ranges, rivers, and large bodies of water are shown but have no direct effect on play.
The 450 or so counters range from plain, for simple markers (settlements, railroad progress etc.), to outright spectacular for the US Commander pieces, with each of these consisting of a life-like portrait of each man. Rounding out the mix are troop and war band strength pieces in blue (US) and red (Native American). They all come in a variety of sizes and shapes, from the teepee-ish triangles for Indian villages to the disc-like towns and settlements.
Two separate decks of cards are included in the game. The Tribal Deck contains 32 cards representing 28 significant tribes of the era. Each card has an attractive, sepia photo of a prominent chief or warrior in addition to game information, wherein each tribe is rated for survival, size, battle skill, evasion, and aggression. Needless to say all tribes are not created equal.
Survival ratings indicate how robust the individual tribes are, relative to the territory they are in. Towns, settlements, mines and railroads all reduce an area’s survival points, as do the endemic and relentless killing of the buffalo in the plains states. These facts, combined with the deleterious influence of other tribes, can raise the specter of starvation quickly for most tribes. A few tribes (very few) have excellent survival ratings, and merely "starving them out" is not a viable strategy. The Apache, in particular, seem to possess survival skills that border on super-human. Size indicates the number of battle points a particular tribe may have … quickly reduced by adverse battle results and survival problems. The Sioux, Arapaho, and Comanche are particularly large, with the Sioux, by far, the largest.
The Battle Rating is used as a die-roll modifier in combat; most tribes are 0 with a few +1's thrown in. The Sioux, Cheyenne, Comanche, and our robust Apache friends possess +2 ratings, while the war-weary Assiniboine are -1. Evasion is used by a tribe to avoid attacks that are launched on those unfortunate enough to be in areas other players covet, eventually the entire board in the case of the US player. Here again, most tribes possess modest evasion capability with a few tribes being particularly tough to pursue… those pesky Apache being the toughest. Tribes also have an Aggression rating, which reflects their probability in participating in a Massacre.
Chief and commander counters accentuate the innate characteristics of the respective tribes or US forces. Both sides’ leaders posses combat DRMs, Evasion (Indian) or Pursuit (US) ratings, and Aggression values. US forces are also quite capable of participating in massacres. In fact, troop columns under the command of such notables as Custer and John Chivington seem to do little else with their time. The leader counters tend to be very important, as Nelson Miles can run down even the most elusive of tribes, and a Teton Sioux War Party led by Red Cloud and Crazy Horse is a force to be reckoned with.
The second deck of cards in the game consists of 49 "Shaman" cards. These cards are used by players to inject historical as well as more generic and/or unpredictable events into play. The entry of most important historical events, such as the Civil War, the Mormon Column, invention of the telegraph, deployment of the Gatling Gun, and the Springfield Rifle, is governed by the Shaman deck. Cards also bring on bad or good weather, buffalo hunters and a host of other random events (mostly bad) to bedevil players. It is primarily through the Shaman cards that the '57 Chevy-like chromium aspect of Geronimo comes through.
The 32 page rules book is well illustrated and interspersed with design and historical notes. The descriptions of play, as well as the detailed explanation of what each Shaman card does, were very helpful. We found that getting right into the game was possible with few troubles, although figuring out exactly what you’re supposed to do to win is a challenge. Best of all, the rules book has an excellent section at the end containing extensive historical notes and an annotated bibliography. It's a shame more game designers don't add bibliographies to their notes, Avalon Hill is to be applauded for this feature. [Ed. See, Don! I told ya.]
The only debatable aspect to all of this is the game designer’s obvious adoration of George McDonald Fraser and the “Flashman” series of books. Even though I consider "Flashy" my alter-ego, using these wonderfully entertaining books as a source of any note is questionable.
[Ed. Not only are Fraser’s books voluminously annotated and glossed, but I found “Flashman and the Redskins” to be as even-handed and accurate an evocation of Indian life as any of the other sources listed.]
Geronimo also includes the expected player-aid charts. The charts are serviceable, but I do wish there were three or four player reference cards instead of the two provided. The game is clearly designed for 3 or more players in mind and it would help if each had his or her own chart.
The most ingenious thing about Geronimo is that every game turn the players switch sides randomly. Only one player gets to be the US player, and the Indian players (up to 4) get to select 1 or 2 tribes to play that turn with the person having the fewest victory points getting first pick, sort of like the NFL draft. An additional number of tribes are randomly assigned, depending on the number of Indian players present. For example in a full, 5 player game each Indian player controls a maximum of 5 tribes, depending on how many are still around. Victory points are tallied each turn by each player based on how "successful" he or she has been with that particular side. While controlling US forces, a player gains VP's by turning territories into states by expanding his presence and then protecting his settlements, mines, and railroads from Indian attack. Eventually, the sheer presence of western civilization will eventually destroy the Indian. In practice, this all works quite well.
Lest anyone think otherwise, the end result is never in doubt, at least not historically. The US will subjugate the Indian forces, either exterminating them or removing them to reservations. US resources, especially in the last two-thirds of the game, are simply overwhelming. However, even with all these riches available, the random-player system cleverly insures that US policy is unstable and variable, mirroring 40+ years of Washingtonian political shilly-shallying. One turn will have the Army prosecuting a campaign against the Kiowa; next turn, the players switch and the fellow controlling Custer last turn now is trying to save the brave Kiowas from extinction! In our play we found US players tended to concentrate on trying to focus on one or two tribes a turn to knock them out, lest the present U.S. player be stuck having to control the victims, next turn, in a severely weakened state. This all adds to Geronimo’s aura of studied viciousness.
Play rotates around the table with players playing, or discarding (which negates your ability to do anything), a Shaman card while conducting actions with their respective tribes or Army forces. Indian players are continually trying to draw a "bullseye" on their fellow Indian players (drawing fatal U.S. attentions), while preserving their own tribes’ existence. Thus, the game system reflects quite well the fact that the U.S. forces were, in reality, fighting several dozen, separate and mutually hostile nations, rather than prosecuting a cohesive war.
Early in the campaign game U.S. forces are quite modest. After the Civil War, the forces at the disposal of the U.S. are overpowering, which is a good thing, US-wise, as, by this time, there are countless settlements, railroads, towns, and mines to be targeted by the Indian players, success at each of which garners Indian VPs. As if the game wasn't random enough, U.S. force composition depends on a dice roll and prior Shaman card play. (Tangentially, learning when and how to use one’s Shaman cards is often the key to victory.) In one of our games I finally got to be the U.S. player on turn 6, after having had several tribes exterminated while under my control. Revenge would soon be mine. I then proceeded to roll an extremely low number for new U.S. troops, putting me in the position of being happy just to protect what prior players had gained.
Indian players earn victory points by successfully raiding US resources, winning battles against both US and Indian opponents, and by preserving the tribes under their control. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that adroit Indian players spend a significant amount of their time beating up on other Indians. We found that, whenever anyone got "way ahead", all the other players would frequently pig-pile to bring his VP total down, creating even more of that aura of viciousness mentioned above. The unfortunate, long term effect of this is that the former leader’s tribes usually were exterminated, thus reducing the overall Indian chances in later turns.
One interesting feature is that Indian players can be "financially convinced" by U.S. players into sending their tribes to the reservation, via Treaty. Otherwise tribes are forced on to the reservation only when they are near extinction. This treaty occurs with a mutually agreeable number of victory points being transferred from the U.S. to the Indian player. What prevents two folks from getting together and essentially "fixing" the game is that other players may play one or more of the particularly nasty "Agency Corruption" cards at any time later in the turn. These cards reduce the Indian player’s VP gain substantially, along with Indian players’ enthusiasm for such things.
In addition to the multi-player (3-5) version, the game also has two-player and solitaire versions. The Solitaire version is really more of a historical learning tool than a game. If you are interested in the subject, just running through a couple turns of the game by yourself is instructive. However if you are really looking for a solitaire challenge, look elsewhere, as Geronimo never really tries to be solo-ed as a game. The two-player version lacks the competition between the Indian players, and, therefore, much is missing. The message here is that this is a multi-player game and the other versions are not the primary focus of the design.
As far as play balance is concerned, this game has it. There are so many different possibilities involved that everyone seems to be in the game at all times. The one feature that could prove to be troubling is if one player got to be the U.S. player more than two (maybe three) times in a row. A coherent U.S. strategy coordinated over several decades and Presidential administrations would undoubtedly result in an early demise of the Indian. Luckily, this is more of a possibility than a probability. And like most multi-player games, player chemistry is key and more important than generally recognized. As for historical play balance, the game greatly favors the U.S.. It is simply impossible for the Indian to hold back the “white man”. The designer doesn't really try to dodge this fundamental hurdle, nor should he.
One key plus for Geronimo is that it is not overly complex to play, although there are so many options for a player when his turn comes around, that the decision-making process can be more complex than the actual rules. The Shaman cards are more or less self-explanatory, the charts helpful, and the rules clear. The subject is generally well known to most and the pace is lively. For those not willing to endure the not insubstantial length of the full campaign, there is a satisfying “basic” game, covering the years of most of the action and completable in an evening.
Geronimo should appeal to players who enjoy other multi-player games, in addition to more traditional wargamers. It is very enjoyable (and instructive), even though the subject is, without question, one of the great tragedies of recent time.
CAPSULE COMMENTS:
Graphic Presentation: Excellent.
Playability: Relatively accessible in terms of understanding the rules, although the number of choices available to each player at any one time makes for some difficult decision-making.
Replayability: The cards and system randomness insure maximum replayability.
Historicity: Considering the scope, impressive.
Creativity: To quote John Leggatt, ex-editor of “Lines of Communication”: “How does Richard come up with some of this stuff?” [Ed. I call Mark Herman.]
Wristage: Not overwhelming.
Comparisons: Pretty much unlike any other game out there, and there is nothing on the subject.
Overall: Unusual, vicious, enjoyable and insightful.
from AVALON HILL
One 22” x 24” mounted map; 3 Sheets of 450+ variously-shaped counters; 2 Decks of cards; Rulesbook; 2 Player Reference Charts. Boxed. TAHGC, Baltimore MD. $39
Back to Berg's Review of Games Vol. II # 19 Table of Contents
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© Copyright 1994 by Richard Berg
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