Captain Spaulding, the African explorer, is having second thoughts about his desire to explore the upper Zambesi. His expedition left Quillimane three weeks ago, with provisions and gifts for the native tribes. A few miles into the interior he marched off the map into territory never before seen by European eyes. As if by signal the troubles began. Twenty day's rations were found to be bad and had to be thrown away; one of the askaris shot another by accident while hunting; and yesterday, while the party wan- dered about in the jungle, they were attacked by cannibals, who were finally driven off with great loss of life.

Now he has come upon a large native village, and the captain is faced with an unpleasant choice: should he fortify his camp and risk antagonizing them, or should he approach with open arms and gifts, and risk an ambush? He finally decides on the latter course because the expedition is desperately short on food: if he can make friendly contact he may be able to trade trinkets for rations. Maybe then he can make it back to England, publish a book on his travels, and retire with his skin and reputation intact.

The preceding, as you must have guessed, is a description of the play of Source of the Nile, a game which has received considerable deserved attention in the hobby. Each player takes the role of an intrepid explorer, organizes an expedition, and sets forth into darkest Africa in search of great discoveries.

For your 12 bucks, you get (in an imitation alligator leather box, three- color plasticized map, counters for six players, rules, charts, dice, three crayons, and a deck of 48 cards. Component quality varies from reasonably professional to quite fetching; the counters, with line drawings of the various objects they represent, are especially nice.

Players start the game by drawing cards to raise money; some cards are free tickets to some coastal city. Then they purchase their expeditions from a pricelist; numerous useful items are available, including food, gifts for the natives, guides, bearers, musket-armed askaris, and transport, from camels to canoes. The makeup of an expedition will depend on its proposed itinerary, the player's personal whim, and the available funds. On the map, the expedition is represented by the explorer's personal counter; everything else is represented by markers on the aptly named Expedition Organization Chart.

When the last ration is packed away, our hero sets out into the literally unknown; most of the map, save for a narrow strip along the coast, is blank. When a player enters a hex he determines its nature by a series of die rolls and marks it on the map with crayons. Among the features generated are general terrain type, the presence and direction of rivers, heights of mountains and waterfalls, and the presence and size of native tribes. If the explorer dies before returning to civilization, all his discoveries die with him.

It's this terrain determination system which is the heart of the game, and in general it works admirably. There are two criteria that seem important to me for such a system: first, it must produce a fairly believable map, and second, it must not allow the players any great conscious influence over the outcome. Source of the Nile succeeds well at the first, perhaps as well as a playable game can. The game is open to some abuse regarding the second criterion by players who work at it: since terrain is determined largely by the nature of the adjacent hexes, an explorer who carefully plans his itinerary can greatly increase the chance of finding his favorite terrain. I have, however, observed very little of this in play: the fact that it isn't very much fun seems to be sufficient deterrent.

There are two modifications I would advise in order to preserve unpredictablity. Both concern rivers, certainly the toughest features to model successfully. As the game now stands, when rivers emerge from swamps or lakes, the explorer is allowed free choice regarding their hex of exit. This seems a pity; it's the only place where players exercise such power over geography. I suggest this modification: when searching for a river flowing out of a swamp or lake, check your favorite hex. First roll for its terrain. If the hex is swamp or lake, obviously there is no river there. Otherwise, follow the procedure given in the rules for determining the presence of a river- source. If there would be a river-source there, and if it flows in a legal direction, only then does the river exist.

The other point concerns a peculiar feature of the system: under the standard rules, it is impossible to come upon a river other than at its source, or by following a known river upstream. This too is easily fixed: when checking a hex for a river source, just consider yourself to be checking for rivers in general.

First determine the direction that the river exits, as usual. Then roll another die for the direction the river enters the hex. If this direction is impossible, then the hex is a normal river-source.

Another important game subsystem is the dealings with natives: discovering natives, explorers' attitudes towards natives and vice versa, possible combat or friendly relations, the consequences of winning or losing battles, and trade. The procedures are remarkable in the number of variables fitted into a few die rolls. All in all, the native rules are very flavorful and add considerably to the game's interest. Other rules covering the use of horses, camels, and canoes, hunting as a supplement to rations, the effects of starvation and disease, et al, add flavor to an already savory game.

All in all, Source of the Nile is an excellent game. It has provided players here with many enjoyable evenings, and so far no general solution to the game has been presented: what works for expeditions based in Durban fails miserably when applies to those setting out from Khartoum. Such complaints as I have with the game are basically calls for greater complexity.

Source of the Nile is available from Discovery Games, P.O. Box 3395, St. Paul, IVIN 55165.