I’ve been pretty unkind to Doc Decision over the life of BROG II … not without reason, though. Chris appears to have so little insight into why people buy wargames, and even less on how to publish them, that one wonders what he’s doing here? You want an example? He publishes a remake of SPI’s old clinker, Napoleon’s Last Battles - a game which has about as much feel for the Napoleonic era as Parcheesi - and leaves all the ratings for the Imperial Guard off the counters!! It is thus with no little fanfare that I state, unequivocally, that Phil Eklund’s Lords of the Sierra Madre is one of the best games I’ve played in years … if you can understand what the rules are trying to tell you and assuage your anger at Decision’s failure to bring to them any sense of organization or coherence. Remember that Samsonite commercial, where they gave some luggage to a rather testy gorilla, who proceeded to show its worth by failing to trash it despite insistent and persistent attempts? Then you know what I’m talking about here. I reviewed the original version of LSM about two years ago and made the same pronouncement. I was, however, talking about a quite different version of the game (one that can be obtained direct from Phil, entitled Pancho Villa, or something like that). This LSM covers the economic opportunity and political and military chaos of Northern Mexico in the decades prior to WWI, an operational game into which they have now folded the tactical system I discussed in BROG #7. And if you don’t find that fascinating as subject matter, you will once you’ve played the game. Graphically, LSM is a mixed bag, with most of the mix quite edible and crunchy. Ignore the banal boxcover; Decision insists on ignoring the fact that the box’s main raison d’être is to advertise, not to exhibit one’s failure to understand that Grade-school Collage is not a form of Dada Nouveau. The map is a bit - well, more than bit - crude, but, in terms of play, rather effective and useful, even if it does resemble the ingredients for an Orange Julius. The cards are sturdy and colorful, and Beth Queman’s counters are also good. The rules book is easy to read, which is where felicity comes to an abrupt roadblock … and where we digress for a moment. LSM is not your standard wargame; it’s a “crossover” special, closer to Bandido Monopoly than anything else. It also includes quite a few new and unusual mechanics. And those of us who are practitioners in this hobby are well aware that new systems are often difficult to explain as written text. Phil Eklund’s original set of rules was a perfect example of this; only those with perseverance could dig the rich nuggets out of this difficult terrain (sort of like some of the historical characters they were portraying). Then Phil went into partnership with Decision to publish LSM. As those of you who have done something similar are aware, this is about the same as going prospecting in the Sierra Madre with Fred C. Dobbs as your guide and bodyguard. Never mind the guys who have no badges. You’re biggest obstacle is not the terrain, bandidos or ignorance of the area; it’s old Fred himself. And that’s about what happened here. LSM, according to insider reports, went through four developers, none of whom did much of anything other than to delay production and provide Eklund with a mass of ulcer-producing proof-reading work. Despite Eklund’s pumping an eyebrow-raising amount of cash into this project, Decision’s position throughout appears to have been to (a) ignore any inquiries, or, when cornered (b) insist that any and all arising problems were Eklund’s fault. (Ed. Having been through this, personally, I find such reports believable, in spades.) The end result is a set of rules that is as obscure as the original, only this one has some better typos. Granted, much of its lack of illumination derives from Eklund’s original, but that’s what developers are supposed to do: clarify, simplify, and define. None of that is evident herein. What you do get are an insistence, several times, that there is actually a word “quaterly” [sic]. definitions of important terms on a single card, which you will find only by accident. (Cf. try and locate what, and where, the game means by the term “puppet”). constant reference to using “Enterprise” counters without telling you what they are, or even what they look like. (And no Capt. Kirk in sight.) There is no counter manifest, visual example or explanation of any kind; thanks to Beth’s clear and unequivocal icons, that’s not a hindrance. an insistence on referring to counters and cards in terms of colors. Most of the time this is OK; far too often the card/counter is really not that color, but has undergone a non-visible morphing thanks to some other rule, 5 pages distant. Clumsy at best. The rules are organized so that they define all the game components first, then what you do with them as the turn enfolds. That’s fine. Problem is, most of the expounding is done as if you’ve played the game 2 or 3 times before and are familiar with what’s going through the designer’s mind. We quickly determined that the best way to make use of the rules was to simply start play - you can’t do much the first few turns anyway - and, as cards pop up, refer to the rules for what is supposed to happen. Then, after about 2 turns, go to the rear section of the rules, where the designer’s notes and tips are more helpful than the rules. Once you’ve done that, most, if not all, becomes clear, and, by that time, you are fully into what is obviously an evening of major fun, one of those instances of substance triumphing over style. LSM allows players to recreate the turbulent turn of the century in northern Mexico, where free production enterprise competed with even freer enterprise of a bandido kind, complete with some excellent historical notes and bibliography from the designer. Eklund has not only read voluminously, he has traveled the area extensively, even so far as to spend much time high in the Sierra Madre itself. [Ed. Interesting phrase, that..] The result is detail and nuance so rich and interesting that each game turn becomes something of a revelation. Each player is one of the area’s great hacendados, rich and powerful land or slave plantation owners, such as William Randolph Hearst. Your basic objective is to expand your little empire economically, building railroads to increase distribution profits, open mines for major bucks, and the usual gamut of eco-trash. But if that were all, this would be yet another in a line of dismal quasi-financial games. However, there’s more, much more, because the game is not only one of economics, but of politics, greed, corruption and, ultimately, military actions. At that heart of all of this are the remarkable Quarterly Cards, 145 of them, of which only 40 - perhaps up to 80 if the Mexican Revolution fails to ignite - ever get played. You also get 55 Common Cards (why they are called “common” is never explained), and the difference between the two decks is that only one Quarterly card is available at auction per turn; all of the commons are always available. The cards include, generically, Leaders, equipment, US Troops, Mexican troops, rebels, Indians, bandidos, railroads to build, smelting factories, banks, stores, and a huge host of events the game gathers under the colorful heading, Mordida (bribes). But this list does little service in describing the richness of play the cards produces, as few cards are similar. Again, a few examples will help: The Policia card for Chihuahua, the Guarda Nacional, led by one Pancho “The Rope” Muguia. This gives you control of the entire police force for one-third of the map - a mixed blessing, to be sure - and the right to wonder, but not inquire too deeply, how Pancho came to be called “The Rope”. Halley’s Comet, a sort of End of the World special, which raises havoc with all US, Mexican, rebel, Indian and bandido troop cards. A Lawsuit by Sr. Mangel, before the Procurador de Justicia de Chihauhua, which usually means throwing a revenue-producing enterprise open to a raucous, venal, and often vitriolic proxy fight. Buffalo Bill Cody’s Chino Copper Co. Mine. (Part of his portfolio, one assumes.) The opportunity to marry the wealthy heiress, Elizabeth Trowbridge (a looker, at least on her card), although the courtship could be expensive. The arrival of the German Navy, after the Kaiser has purchased Baja! Big Bill Haywood and his IWW Wobblies, enabling you to strike any ongoing enterprise, even a Slave Plantation. Hordes of characters right out of “The Magnificent 7”, all collecting what the game euphemistically calls “taxes”. With this riches of (historically accurate) information and opportunity at hand, each player can proceed to play the game at whatever level he wishes. He can expand his economic base, or his political control (lots of election opportunities, even for US President!), or his military presence … or any combination thereof. Problem is, he gets very little - Eklund recommends no - cash with which to start. This means the game develops slowly for the first 3 or 4 turns, until, all of a sudden, players realize they are in direct, and often inimical, confrontation with each other. In our game, which produced more belly laughs (not a few at the expense of the designer and his simulationally challenged publisher) than a weekend with Woody Allen, we were all tooling along, merrily ignoring each other, until Mark Olson laid a lawsuit on George Pearson’s profitable Cananea Mine Complex, throwing it open for auction, at which point all sorts of Mexican hell broke loose. Now, I’m sitting way down in southern Chihuahua, far away from all this; but I’ve also got a smelting plant on line up north, plus a railline or two, all waiting to join in George’s profit taking. So off we go into a proxy fight, at which I have an advantage, for, although I have few (try no) liquid assets, I have much political clout (a newspaper and a local politico). Not only that, but Pearson and I make this deal that if I get that mine, I’ll trade it back to him for some worthless (but potentially valuable) mine sitting in my district. Only problem is, Olson wins the proxy (lucky dieroll!!), so now he adds the Cananea Mine to his already up and puffing Navajoa Slave Plantation, peopled with Yaqui slaves he has beaten into submission (the PC Thought Police will just love that one) and fueled by his fleet of westcoast gunboats and ferries. That makes George and me reaaaalllll unhappy, so we get Bill Haywood to talk Olson’s plantation workers into striking (it’s tough to remember when slaves went on strike, but you never know), which did us little good other than to have him bring all his “in-pocket” federales down to southern Sonora to shoot the Wobblies into the next century. Unbeknownst to the cackling Olson, it was all part of a plot. Loading Alejandro Gandarilla’s bandido band of Maderista Junta Revolucionaria on trains heading south, along with some heavy weapons (machineguns) from George’s Store up in El Paso - where he’s already starting to rake it in, as everything we buy fattens his bank account -we sweep into Alamos and shoot the slave plantation to ribbons (Olson’s federales are off collecting “taxes”). By the time we finish, everyone is back to poverty level, the district is in turmoil … and we’re having a blast!! To make some sequential sense out of all of the above, each quarterly turn (starting in 1898) begins with the revelation of that turn’s available goodies card, which also states how much cash one gets from his investors (usually, a rather scrooge-like “1 Au” - Latin for gold, so I guess that leaves Ty out). Players now get to collect the profits from their mines, stores, banks, gambling casinos, et al., most of which they tend to plow back into the projects they have on line, which need a constant influx of capital. With any money that’s left, the players proceed to bid for that turn’s card, plus any of the commons - mostly manpower and weapons - that are left. Bidding is often a spirited one-upmanship session in which 2 or 3 players attempt to get someone else to pay far more for a card than it’s worth. After this spending spree, players can play any Mordida cards they have. These are usually a serious of varied, but nasty, “random events”, such as the above lawsuit, but also including such as the power of the press (“Reds” progenitor, Jack Reed, is out and mucking about, for example) and fomenting a Red Flagger Rebellion, an event which makes virtually everything go haywire. After that, you get the rather weird tactical rounds, which, within the turn, include a possibility of 45+ (!!) turns. While it reads awfully silly, in practice no one ever uses more than 5 or so of the 45 possible rounds, and many turns everyone simply says “next” and goes on. What happens, mostly, is a series of quick raids, a lot of “tax collecting” from unprotected hacendados, and a few cat-and-mouse games between rurales and bandidos. Then it’s on to the next season. Once you’ve gotten the system down, usually somewhere in 1901 or 1902, the turns proceed quickly enough, and the basic 10 year game, played by knowledgeable folk, should take a long evening. But, like an immense Chinese feast, it is so filled with tasty and unusual items to chew and savor, you will try and find ways to keep playing. With all those great cards providing endless and different chances, you can be sucking dust in Sonora in one turn then on your way back up the ladder two seasons later. There are even rules for coming into the game late, or departing, inadvertently, early. The latter arrives from the fact that, if you want to use your money, you have to carry it with you, or rather your hacendado, making you a rather easy target. So, Doc Indecision has a real winner on his hands. Not that you’d know it - or he would recognize it - from the short end of the piñata he gave it. But LSM is far more than its individual components, and far better than the shabby developmental treatment given it. (Phil already has some extensive errata available; I’m not sure Decision has this.) Lords of the Sierra Madre is, even with all of the obstacles and hardships Phil and the Doctor have thrown in our paths, including a rather hefty pricetag, one of the great game designs of the last 20+ years. Don’t miss the opportunity to bury yourself in it. CAPSULE COMMENTS Graphic Presentation: Cards excellent, map and counters fine; box dismal. You can read the rules, but that doesn’t help you understand them. Playability: Meaty without being complex. Best with 4 or more; forget solitaire. Replayability: Great. Historicity: Remarkable. Accurate, evocative and most colorful. Creativity: Eklund is one of the hobby’s most fecund minds. Here’s hoping he finds a forum for his muse. Wristage: Virtually none. Comparisons: This is “crossover” territory, a 20th century Kingmaker. Its attention to detail and loving evocation of an exciting era makes such as History of the World, Britannia, et al., pale in comparison … even if you can actually understand all their rules. Overall: One of the great games; if someone actually tried to organize the rules, this would be a major classic. I can’t remember when I had more fun playing a game … including most of my own. from DECISION/SIERRA MADRE 1 34” x 22” mapsheet; 352 counters; 200 cards; 8 Enterprise Calendar Sheets; 1 rules book. Boxed, for $50 from Decision, POB 4049, Lancaster CA 93539, or buy direct from the designer at 3438 N.Applewood Dr, Tucson AZ 85712. Back to Berg's Review of Games Vol. II # 21 Table of Contents Back to Berg's Review of Games List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1994 by Richard Berg This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com