Armchair Dragoons Forums
Wargaming => Age of Gunpowder => Topic started by: blindsey on June 26, 2021, 12:36:49 PM
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Just finished my second playthrough of Jack Greene's Bear Flag Republic. It's a great game. He took a relatively minor, low-casualty conflict and managed to make it both unpredictable and fascinating to play without compromising the history.
Living here in California, I know this history well and have visited a number of the sites and battlefields the game deals with. Jack gets is right, while presenting a whole slough of What-Ifs. I haven't played it Two-Player, but it solitaires well.
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I remember seeing the original pre-release map and counters, and thought it looked interesting.
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Cool looking game. When you say unpredictable, can you expand on that?
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Cool looking game. When you say unpredictable, can you expand on that?
You can't predict how your wife is going to react when it shows up on your doorstep
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Cool looking game. When you say unpredictable, can you expand on that?
You can't predict how your wife is going to react when it shows up on your doorstep
Oh but I think I could :whistle:
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:2funny:
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Cool looking game. When you say unpredictable, can you expand on that?
Sure. For one example:
General Mariano G. Vallejo was one of the most wealthy, respected, and powerful of the Californios. He not only wielded political power, he had some valuable military experience. Knowing this, one of the first acts of the leaders among the Bear Flag revolutionaries was to make a forced march from their gathering point (Sutter's Fort, in what is now Sacramento) to Sonoma, secure the Presidio there and capture Vallejo before he even knew a revolution was brewing. They succeeded, and Vallejo spent the rest of the war in a cell at Sutter's Fort. Historically, Vallejo would go on to be a major figure in early California politics, and was instrumental in pushing California statehood. At the time, however, a friend and ally of Vallejo's---Chief Solano of the Suisunes people---offered to mount an expedition to rescue him. He declined, rightly thinking that it would put his life at risk and bring heat down on Solano's people.
In Greene's game, Vallejo's capture triggers an automatic "Solano Rescue" die roll; if it succeeds, Vallejo is freed and is joined by his personal guard unit (armed vaqueros from his extensive ranchos), and he becomes one of the leaders of the Californio/Mexican forces in the war. In my most recent game, he was rescued, then rallied the scattered units in northern California and resisted the US/Bear Flag forces, but died some months later at the Siege of the Presidio of Yerba Buena (San Francisco), a completely non-historical event.
That's a small example, but its the kind of thing that Greene incorporates into the game to possibly twist history like a pretzel and keep the game from falling into a historical rut. Nothing he adds, however, is out of the realm of historical possibility.
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I actually love those sorts of ideas. Whenever folks have their card-driven games with decks full of events, one of the questions I inevitably ask them is "did you include events that didn't happen but plausibly could have?"
For example: there's nothing in "A Distant Plain" for "caught Bin Laden at Tora Bora" or anything to do with the Spanish getting involved in "Liberty or Death" or other AWI games.
One thing "The White Tribe" did was offer a variety of those for the Rhodesians, and it really makes for some interesting choices.
Getting those "could've happened" events really change the narrative to a more entertaining palette of options for me.
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Cool looking game. When you say unpredictable, can you expand on that?
Sure. For one example:
General Mariano G. Vallejo was one of the most wealthy, respected, and powerful of the Californios. He not only wielded political power, he had some valuable military experience. Knowing this, one of the first acts of the leaders among the Bear Flag revolutionaries was to make a forced march from their gathering point (Sutter's Fort, in what is now Sacramento) to Sonoma, secure the Presidio there and capture Vallejo before he even knew a revolution was brewing. They succeeded, and Vallejo spent the rest of the war in a cell at Sutter's Fort. Historically, Vallejo would go on to be a major figure in early California politics, and was instrumental in pushing California statehood. At the time, however, a friend and ally of Vallejo's---Chief Solano of the Suisunes people---offered to mount an expedition to rescue him. He declined, rightly thinking that it would put his life at risk and bring heat down on Solano's people.
In Greene's game, Vallejo's capture triggers an automatic "Solano Rescue" die roll; if it succeeds, Vallejo is freed and is joined by his personal guard unit (armed vaqueros from his extensive ranchos), and he becomes one of the leaders of the Californio/Mexican forces in the war. In my most recent game, he was rescued, then rallied the scattered units in northern California and resisted the US/Bear Flag forces, but died some months later at the Siege of the Presidio of Yerba Buena (San Francisco), a completely non-historical event.
That's a small example, but its the kind of thing that Greene incorporates into the game to possibly twist history like a pretzel and keep the game from falling into a historical rut. Nothing he adds, however, is out of the realm of historical possibility.
Thanks that sounds like a well researched game and on a interesting topic.
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One thing "The White Tribe" did was offer a variety of those for the Rhodesians, and it really makes for some interesting choices.
Getting those "could've happened" events really change the narrative to a more entertaining palette of options for me.
Which is great to know, since White Dog shipped my copy of White Tribe two days ago, and it's on its way. :bigthumb:
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did you see the big AAR we ran on the front page?
(and the rest of y'all can stop it with the usual gags)
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did you see the big AAR we ran on the front page?
(and the rest of y'all can stop it with the usual gags)
>:D
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As a Californian with an interest in the pre-U.S. history of the place, I'm definitely going to have to see about getting a copy. It sounds very interesting!
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As a Californian with an interest in the pre-U.S. history of the place, I'm definitely going to have to see about getting a copy. It sounds very interesting!
I recommend it. Greene includes some optional units that were supposed to be stationed in Alta California, but never made it due to budgetary constraints and the almost constant factional warfare in Mexico at the time. He also incorporates the various native peoples who were present---Miwoks, Luisenos, Klamaths, et al. Since you know the history, I believe you'll enjoy how he handles the subject, and how effective and historically-plausible his What If elements are.