Game Review: Game of the Generals

Designer board games in the Philippines seem to evoke an air of fanciness, a sense of being well-off to afford a board game that you can't buy at a local Toy Kingdom, Toys 'R' Us or National Book Store. Any of these games that get the bootleg treatment tend to be party games that can be pulled out at any time and don't take forever to explain.

That's not to say that Filipinos haven't had a try at creating a board game the nation can love, and indeed, there is one game that has become part of the nation's idea of a good game: The Game of the Generals.

Created by Sofronio H. Pasola Jr. in 1970, this game is the result of giving chess a more military setting and adding a bit of hidden information. Some might see parallels with Stratego, but it's a different game in many regards including price in the Philippines (Also, I am yet to play Stratego). Although a two-player game, an arbiter is adviced to assess matters.

The set is a square 8x9 board and each player getting 21 pieces ranking as follows:

Officers, from highest to lowest:

1 Five-star General
1 Four-star General
1 Three-star General
1 Two-star General
1 One-star General
1 Colonel
1 Lieutenant Colonel
1 Major
1 Captain
1 First Lieutenant
1 Second Lieutenant
1 Sergeant

A higher-ranking official always captures a lower-ranking official. Along with the higher-ups are

2 Spies, who can eliminate any officer from Sergeant up to the Five-star but are no match against Privates
6 Privates, who can eliminate spies but are always defeated by any official

Finally, the most valuable piece for both sides is their Flag, whose elimination means the loss for the army. Any piece can capture the Flag, even a Flag taking the offense.

Two soldiers of equal rank eliminate each other, the Flag being the only exception.

Players set their army up on their back three rows in any way they see fit, leaving six empty spaces on this 27-cell zone. 

After the plans have been laid out, the skirmish begins. A turn consists of moving any one piece to an orthogonally adjacent piece that is either empty or occupied by an enemy piece. If two opposing pieces meet at a square, the arbiter looks at the pieces and removes the lower ranking piece, whether it be the attacker or not, or both if ranks are equal.

The goal is to capture the opposing Flag, even if it would take the opposing Flag to do the job. Another goal is for a player to bring their Flag to their furthest rank unharmed.

If there's no arbiter around, the players announce the ranks of the pieces during an attack, though this is regarded as a last-ditch effort.

Strategy and tactics in this game involve not only piece placement but each and every form of bluffing, deduction, guessing and other forms of psychological gaming. Table talk is not only encouraged, it might even get you some info.

That's not to say that gameplay isn't important; it already begins in the setup. Every possible formation is legal with its strengths and weaknesses, though with both sides not knowing the other's formation, anything can still go; if you want to counter the opposing formation you have to know your enemy well.

Playing style in this game is an easy thing to acquire, with many ways to guard fronts and infiltrate. Experimentation is also easy to do, and each game is never the same; any tactic you had last time might stop working this time.

The Game of the Generals differs from Stratego in that the former uses a featureless board, uniform piece movement, and a different piece distribution. With the Flag that is able to move, tactical approaches to attacking and defending have to be dynamic as the Flag might have fled. Besides, who needs a chokepoint when you have skirmishes that may be bluffs?  A heavy guard is nothing if it's distracted by what seems to be an entourage when the Flag is doing a home run.

Piece balance is not too shabby, as each piece has its defeater. There being only one of each official is not an issue as officials usually make up much of the heavy fire, Spies generally taking the role of confuser (as only two pieces can fully identify it) and Privates take on versatile work such as scouting for spies, decoying or even play key Flag-related roles.

With gameplay that always keeps you on your toes, it's no wonder this game has practically become the first modern game that can be considered a Filipino classic. Putting the intricacies of war into a game is not an easy task, but The Game of the Generals has done it beautifully with its mix of abstract simplicity that needs little context and imperfect information without the dice.