From: Steven Wesley Bucey Subject: Byzantium: After Action Report Let History record that, even before the warriors gird their loins and bore their arms, alliances were formed to curb Roman Agression. The Forces of Allah quickly overran several rich provences in Anatolia and the Levant, while the Kazan (spelling?) horsemen fell on the regions of the Danube and pillaged Thrace. Only the Franks, traitorous as always, failed to move against the Roman aggressor. Thus started our first game of Byzantium, S&T's latest effort. Four of us player most of the first scenerio last night, and I'll try to give my impression of the game. First, each turn starts with a negotiation phase, wherein each player can attempt to form (non-binding) alliances or deals with other players. Then each player, in order: collects treasury, spends it, and moves stacks to attack and occupy territory (using area movement). If you're familiar with 100 Years War, this is much the same, though there are some significant differences. One of us had read the rules, (though I had read the rules to 100 years war, and thus could get on rather quickly). The game should play quickly, though we spent an hour learning the rules and then play was slow as one player agonized over his moves, so we spent 5 hours from counter punching to calling it quits. There is not a lot of chrome with the units, but the events tables and strategem chits provide a lot of uncertainty and interaction between players. As the Franks, I once 'assasinated' a Muslim attempt to subvert a Byzantian stack, mostly because I felt like it. (The Muslims were doing to well for my liking), and I was highly ammused by the chit which allows religious conversion of units. There were some things that bugged me, particulary the CRT. The size of the defending force has *no* baring on the attacker's chance to damage or destroy it. Granted, there is a chance for a counter attack, but the size or position of the defender does not influenence the original attack die roll. Thus, at least twice that I remember, a large stack of 8 or more units was wiped out by a smaller stack, including the last turn we played where a stack of 14(!) muslim units were destroyed by 5 intercepting Kazan nomads. My disbelief is not susspended. Speaking of intercepting, while a stack in an area can intercept a force moving into its area (which I *highly* recomend doing, given the CRT), you can *not* intercept from inside a fortress. Thus, as noted in the first paragraph above, a large Byzantian army sat helpless while another player burned the most valuable peice of property on the board. I don't think they ever really recovered from that. I'm not sure why this is, since, as Archer Jones points out in his book The Art of War in the Western World, when conducting a Persisting Strategy the use of fortifications as bases of operations is a significant part of that strategy. Considering the fortifications themselves, we quickly decided that, coupled with the above, they were not very useful, particularly when their defensive benifits were less than amazing. They simply reduce the combat results one level. Given the CRT, a force of 6 attacking units could hit a stack in a fortress of any size and expect to win. As an example, 8 units attacking have a 50% chance of getting a Decisive Victory, reduced to a Marginal for the fortress, which eliminates 8 defending units! I don't own the game, so all of this is from memory from last night. I'd be more than happy if somebody would point out anything we may have been missing, but as it stands my decision is out on this one as written. I'd like to see/make varients, however, and looking at the combat procedure for 100 Years War, I'm not sure why they changed it. Steve From: dcarroll@MAIL.THEONRAMP.NET Subject: Byzantium I generally agree with Steve's assessment of S&T's Byzantium, except that I have no problem with the CRT, even though I played the 14 high stack that got zapped. I should never have stacked like that. It was not a good strategy. Allowing a smaller force to defeat a much larger force is good because (1) it allows a player who is behind to have an impact and maintain interest and (2) it historically happened sometimes (usually as a result of some deception). I played the muslims and I still don't understand why Steve as the Franks played that stratagem that interfered with my attempt to devitalize a large Byzantine force! In all, I liked Byzantium. Mucho. It is so far in my top two of the multi-player games I have played at our gaming club (Columbus Area Boardgaming Society). I definitely prefer it to History of the World. (The other of the top two is Diplomacy). David Carroll