PAUL HAYES: M.DUPREY Bonjour mes braves! Ah, so what was the nefarious M DuPrey's Strategy? Basically the French plan was to have the British beat up the locals then withdraw. M DuPrey would pose as the friend of the Salaamites whilst placing them further and further in the pocket of French neo colonialist interests. It wasn't without its difficulties however. The Anti French stance of the British early on worried me, as well as the rise from nowhere of the Mullah Amad. I seriously contemplated launching an assassination attempt against him mid game. Was he a British secret agent? I had my fears. I think the French plan worked in the long run, although it came close once or twice. If the British had assaulted the capital my plans would have collapsed. I actually kept trying to get the Bey to flee into the interior and hand the city over to a (French run) International Administration!! The dice decided otherwise however… The real losers of the game were the Brits. They operated tactically, not strategically. They didn't seem to know what their political aim in Dar As Salaam was. Me, I'd have stormed the capital and annexed the Country. Failing that I'd have made sure that the Bey (or possibly even Ali Baba) worked as my puppet when I withdrew. What I've found in running and playing matrix games is there is one 'killer tactic'. Players find it extremely hard to come to terms with the fact that they can give arguments (or orders in gaming terms) to anyone or anything in the game, even bringing in new items if they need them. To give an example in Dar as Salaam, I was behind both Ali Baba's failed ambush and the Dervish advance on the capital in a rabble. Players who only give orders to their own faction/force/character etc will always suffer at a disadvantage. Think laterally guys. In many ways MG's are ideal for replicating what was known in the old days of SPI (where the schoolboy Paul cut his gaming teeth – issue 43 'American Civil War' to be exact!) as the 'idiocy factor'. Anyway. Great game Chris! DYLAN ALLIATA: ALI BABA Playing Ali Baba is a very challenging role and in some ways a safe one. As a thief with no social standing the only way to lose with this character is to get caught or die. If the player avoids either of these two fates the only direction is up. At the start of the game Ali Baba had only two goals: make the invasion as costly for the Europeans as possible, and climb the social ladder. To achieve these aims the first goal was oddly enough to reduce the size of the British Invasion force. I think this is absolutely critical for any Arab player. If the British land with a full contingent of their assigned forces, the Arab players will have a very difficult time. By reducing the invasion force, the British will have a much harder time subduing the country. Sometimes you can even get the French player to cooperate in this goal as happened in this game. Second, building up some type of gang or force is critical, once you have a band you should go after taking some European hostages in Dar As Salaam. Those Europeans at the start of the game are worth their weight in gold. It should force the British player and possibly the Bey's forces into a premature attack in the interior where you chances of ambushing them is much better. A good referee should start laying some negative statuses on the British if they don't go after Ali Baba. In the first game Ali Baba made the British pay a ransom. Next, whatever ransom or booty you get don't keep it, you can't take it with you, and your not going to retire on it. Use the gifts to forge alliances, this is critical at the beginning of the game. Finally, remember this is the Middle East (or the Orient as it was called in 1880) and Islam is very important. Use Islam as unifying force and to galvanize the opposition against the Europeans, and their collaborators. Ali Baba played the Jihad card and this is a very powerful, if not the most powerful card you have. Use it once you have any sort of victory. In this game I had hostages, "won" an ambush against the British Calvary, and destroyed a British Supply train. With any one of these under your belt, you should be in a good position to declare Jihad. Once you raise that big army you'll be hit with a supply problem, no problem start collecting taxes, in the game the Zakat was used to finance the war and to allow the establishment of a guerilla Army. By the way, if you think you will get first roll against the Europeans, forget it. Be prepared to lose lots of battles. Remember you won't throw the British out, but you can make it very expensive for them. Whenever possible in the game split the British and their local allies, cause disruption and disharmony in the country. Pit Shite against Sunni, persecute or ally with the Jews, whatever it takes. At the end of this game that is exactly what happened. While Ali Baba was defeated trying to take the Capital, all the chaos he sowed, civil war and religious unrest strained the British capacity to capture the country. The French force is too small to take the whole country. At the end of the game Dar As Salaam was no short little war. In this way the game reflects the reality of a guerilla war, a few big victories by the invading power, and a long series of small defeats, and costly garrisoning efforts. I would think the British player in this game would pack up his bags and forget about getting any money out of the country. Remember the United States always defeated the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong in every major offensive, which is why Saigon is still Saigon rather than Ho Chi Minh City. Did Ali Baba achieve his ends? I think so. He rose to be a great leader of his country, much more than a Sheik. If I need to escape I think any Salaamite family would be honored to hide me or give me refuge. Did Ali Baba give the British hell and turn Dar As Salaam into a worthless prize for the British? Yes, the country is split between Sunni and Shia, between the Delta regions and the interior, and there are two capitals in the country and a raging civil war. Remember for the entire game, Ali Baba had every player making arguments against him. I don't think any other Ali Baba could have more enemies. Which only proves my initial thesis to survive Ali Baba must sow discord. JOHN CASH: SCHLIEMANN This is the second PBEM game I have been involved with; the first one was the USSA game run last fall. I seem not to take the typical view of characters offered to players in these games. In USSA I took a great deal of enjoyment from bringing historical characters into the game, sometimes allowing them to work together, and sometimes merely referring to their presence and their reactions to game events, hoping someone would take them up. This may not have sat well with the game master, but it leant a sense of local color to my participation in the game, relative to all the hot-shots "running things." I participated in the Dar as Salaam game as a character of my own devising. Heinrich Schliemann was a historical figure; he was a self-made millionaire who pursued his childhood dream of discovering Troy and, in the process, helped found the modern field of archaeology. I received Chris's permission to place him into the game world as an archaeologist-treasure hunter in search of the tombs of the Pharoahs. As a decidedly non-military character, I hoped he might raise questions concerning cultural appropriation and hegemony rather than military conflicts. I was disappointed. No one took up his challenges, no one took the part of any of his party or his party's adversaries, and (with the sole exception of Jones) no one seems to have argued that he was interferred with in any way by anybody while he looted the Valley of the Kings and sent home his booty. I was tempted to throw a few wrenches into my own plans just to make things challenging. I also tried to introduce some "romance" into the game by bringing in Captain von Trapp to be the partner for a young lady player's character. Perhaps she became bored with the possibilities, but poor Captain von Trapp just sat around on his gunboat waiting for a response (not my personal style in romance, BTW). On the other hand, archaeology student Henry ("Indiana") Jones and sheik's son Mustapha found instant response. Perhaps this is because they aimed to interfere with the power struggle in immediate and tangible ways. This leads me to conclude that PBEM games such as this one are assumed to be about rising within the game world, which is interpreted as succeeding in a power struggle, rather than as surviving at the local level or pursuing independent goals (such as archaeology). This may be in part because matrix game rules prefer the arguments of players engaged in power struggles over those arguments not affected by them. This may encourage players to learn about cultures or about history, but only because it is clearly in the interest of their characters' positions in the power struggle. It is a viewpoint that easily turns an ostensibly cultural excursion into just another war game. Perhaps this view appeals to men and not to women -- why are there so very few female players, or female characters, in these games? In USSA, while my military leaders saw a lot of argument-based action, my feminist writers were simply arrested and shunted out of play. Let me close by suggesting a "Blackadder" wwI game, where no character can be of higher rank than private and the aim is not to get well-placed in the heirarchy but to get shipped home alive and in one piece, while arguments to attack this or that position rain down like shells... DAVE HUTCHEN: MULLAH AMAD Chris, I have absolutely enjoyed this game. I'm sure I frustrated some players by keeping the fighting down. Actually, in my humble opinion, I think Mullah Amad came out of this campaign in the strongest position. The British dawdled; the French cowered; the Americans, Germans, and Belgians just operated around the edges. The Bey did not distinguish himself, and Ali Baba had his entire following slaughtered. Mullah Amad, on the other hand, remained consistent the entire game, preaching brotherhood. He strengthened his stature by preventing a battle; he took a hurried, somewhat late hadjj; and he survived Ali Baba's threats on his life to return to his people. What more can a holy man do to increase his influence? Back to Table of Contents -- Matrix Gamer #12 To Matrix Gamer List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by Chris Engle. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com