Javier Romero - 09:04am Jul 15, 2001 PST (#37 of 39) Any further information on Iberos? Sounds interesting. Does Alea have an American supplier? I would appreciate any information. Steve: Iberos is almost finished. We plan to send it to the printer before the end of July. BTW, I'm the designer. Iberos is a operational simulation of warfare in the Ancient Peninsula. It is a game of low to medium complexity. Game turns are one year each. The sequence of play is as follows: Events Phase. Mutual Administrative Phase. Player A operations (Who moves first is defined by the scenario). Player B operations. Attrition Check. During the Operations Phase, each force (one or more Field Armies, Tribal Levies, etc) can perform certain operations, using Operation Points (OP). These actions include combat, diplomacy (you can try to control any area through diplomacy), besiege cities, pillage, recruit mercenaries, or build colonies. At the end of the Operations Phase, forces retire to winter quarters (They go usually to controlled areas in the coast). If a force spends the winter in the barren plains of Celtiberia they risk to loss up to half their strength due to starvation. The most outstanding features of the game are the Prestige Point Level and the difference between Regular and Irregular warfare. PRESTIGE POINTS. The Prestige Level (PP) simulates the prestige of the civilized armies (Punic, Romans, Sertorians, etc) among the Iberian tribes, and the tendency of the latter to switch to the side that seems to be winning... Certain results of the CRTs add or decrease the PP level of each side. Then, if your PP level is above 2, you have positive die roll modifiers on the Diplomacy Table. And vice versa if your PP level is 0 or lower. REGULAR AND IRREGULAR COMBAT. The irregular, "hit and run" tactics of the inhabitants of the peninsula characterized the Roman conquest and were the cause why the Romans took 200 years to completely control all of Hispania. Actually, the greatest challenge of IBEROS was how to simulate both the irregular (or guerrilla) warfare between Romans and Celtiberians, Lusitanians, etc) and the "Conventional" wars between civilized armies (such as the II Punic War) using the same system. All combat units have Regular and Irregular Combat factors. The attacker can always choose which CRT he is going to use. (But civilized forces can only use the Regular CRT). Thus, civilized forces have high Regular Combat Factors (Up to 10 for Roman veterans) but low Irregular CFs. With the Tribal unit is the contrary: not very high Regular CF (Up to 5 for elite Lusitanian and Celtiberians) but high irregular CF (4 to 5, with 2-3 for Iberian tribes). There are also rules for retreat before combat. (If the defender avoids combat, the attacker must spend again OPs if he wants to come to grips with him). The idea here was to simulate the asymmetrical war fought out between the Roman/Punic invaders and the native peoples. If you can impose your style of fighting, then you have the edge over the enemy. There are also Interception rules: a force can be intercepted on entering any area, with three possible results: No Event, Battle, or Ambush (If it is a tribal force, its Irregular Factors are doubled). Tribal forces in its own territory have positive modifiers. If the moving force comes across a river or mountain or includes a supply train the possibility of being intercepted and ambushed are higher. Leaders play a key role since their modifiers are applied to retreat before combat, diplomacy, all kinds of combat, operations, interception, etc. Leaders are rated for Military and Diplomatic skills (The highest is Sertorius, with +3 +3). Roman leaders (Praetors, one each for Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior) are changed randomly each year when they're selected by the Roman Senate. If you have quality leaders, your chances of avoid/provoke combat are higher, and vice versa. OTHER CHROME. The game is played in scenarios. There are 9, from the Punic reconquest of Iberia (237 BC) to the Cantabrian campaigns of Caesar Augustus (24 BC). There are a set of common rules for all the scenarios, plus specific rules for each scenario. Each scenario has its own Random Events Table, that is somewhat similar to that used in S&T' Ancient Wars Series (Germania, Trajan..). There are fast playing scenarios (such as the Roman Civil War, or the Cantabrian wars) that can be played in two-three hours, and other that take 6-10 hour of play (up to 17 turns, such as Cato's campaign or the II Lusitanian War). Some of the Random Events included are plagues, Excellent/Bad Crops, Tribal Rebellions galore, bribing enemy mercenaries, Numidian rebellion (for the II Punic War scenario), Alliance with Mithridates (Sertorius War scenario), etc., etc. Optional rules include assasination of enemy leaders (you must spend Operations Points and Treasury Points for that), Rivalry between Iberian tribes (The Romans took advantage of this to apply the "divide and conquer" routine), Mountain redoubts (Mons Vidius, Mons Medulius...), unit upgrade (from green to regular to veteran). I'm looking forward for your comments Javier Romero.