From: Jens Hoppe Post Danmark Subject: Hannibal replay (long) Hi all, Last week I had a chance to play a couple of games of "Hannibal". The first of those games was against fellow KS club member (and generally nice guy) Sean, who had only played Hannibal once before. In his first game he had played Rome and he had been beaten quite severely. So he had come away with the impression that Carthage was heavily favoured. That was pretty much *my* initial impression after the first games I had played (see my comments on grognard for how convinced I was of this)! Since then I have changed opinion of the game's balance: Before the "Carthage doesn't lose if Hannibal dies" errata, I became convinced the game was hopelessly pro-Roman. With the errata, I still believe the game favours Rome, but not by that much of a margin anymore. Well, Sean thought Carthage was favoured and would like to play them, and I figured I might as well show him why I believed Rome had the advantage. :-) I play the side I prefer, I have played more than 20 games, and I'm playing against a novice who has only played once before, so I start out feeling a bit on top of the situation. I mean, how hard can it be? :-) However turn 1 goes like this: Sean controls Cisalpina, but I control the northernmost Spanish province. Sean then converts Syracuse (ouch, I hate it when that happens in turn 1), and moves Hannibal over the Alps using the guide card (1 CU attrition). I don't have a "3" card in my turn 1 hand, so I can't move P. Scipio to block. Instead I send Longus up from Sicily. Hannibal promptly marches south and forces a battle. He wins using a Double Envelopment in battle turn 4. Losses? A "1" for both sides' losses yields "none", whereas a "5" (modified to 7 for the DE) means I lose the entire stack. Ouch. Turn 1 made me sit up straight and concentrate! I had lost a stack of 8 CUs, and Hannibal still had an almost-intact stack of 9 CUs. Had Sean been more experienced, I would have been in big trouble. Luckily for me, from turn 2 onwards he tended to be more timid with Hannibal, which allowed me to follow in his footsteps and apply some Fabian tactics. The next several turns went on like this, with the occasionalbattle between Hannibal and the Romans. It wasn't until turn 8 that Hannibal finally got unlucky and lost a battle. Rolling 6's for both attrition and retreat losses meant he was eliminated. I had used most of the game to contain Hannibal, so unfortunately I hadn't had an oppurtunity to do anything about the province count, which still stood at 9-9 (he had taken the Spanish province, but I had taken Cisalpina). That was the situation at the beginning of turn 9. Carthage also had a huge army under Hasdrubal in Spain and an equal force under Hanno and Mago in Carthage. I had about 5 CUs with Africanus in the south of Italy, 5 CUs under proconsul Longus on Sardinia (he had been sent there to stop an earlier takeover attempt). I also had a consular army (about 8 CUs) in Rome. The 9-9 province count meant I had to take at least one province from Carthage. Sean sent Mago to try and take back Sardinia, but in the resulting (almost equally balanced) battle I won. I had only one "3" card and therefore only one chance to naval move. I decided to sail Africanus to Souther Spain (but he could only bring 5 CUs and was therefore no match for Hasdrubal). I converted the southernmost province, and went Hasdrubal moved south to engage Africanus, he (Africanus) forced marched around Hasdrubal to the north of Spain. Hasdrubal converted the southern province back to Carthaginian control, but Africanus (using my last card) converted the northern province to Roman control. Sean's last card was the "Sardinia/ Corsica revolts". Still I won, with a province count of 9-8. Much to close for my taste... :-) The next game, the day after, was against Michael who is also a member of our KS club. Since he has pretty much played Carthage in all his games and I have played the Romans way too much, we decided to change that. Well, I had all the luck I needed in that game: I got Hannibal across the Alps on turn 1 with only 1 attrition damage. We had the first battle in turn 2. I won that one, as well as every single other battle for the rest of the game. A turn 2 Double Envelopment victory with me losing nothing and the Roman 10 CU stack being eliminated (a la the game against Sean the day before) was only the beginning. At the end of turn 3, the Romans had a total of 3 CUs on the map, and Hannibal still had a mostly-intact stack. Converting most of Italy on turn 4, meant the province count was 14-4 in my favour! The Romans held on, but only barely. At the end of turn 5 the count was still 14-4, and despite the fact that Michael had used most of his cards to place PC markers, he couldn't find 10 to remove. So that was two games in a row where Carthage fared much better than they usually do (in my experience, that is). In the first game, had Sean been more experienced he would definitely have won too. Does anyone else have any experience with the game? How do you think it's balanced? I seem to remember a mail about the latest avaloncon tournament, where the results showed the game as pretty well balanced. Can anyone elaborate on that? Cheers, Jens Hoppe jho.euv@post.dk From: "Nikola Pajvancic" Subject: re: Hannibal replay (long) Jens Hoppe wrote: >Does anyone else have any experience with the game? How do you >think it's balanced? I seem to remember a mail about the latest >avaloncon tournament, where the results showed the game as pretty >well balanced. Can anyone elaborate on that? Well, my gaming group played about 15 games of Hannibal in last couple of months, and the play-balance is really turning out to be a problem - Carthaginians won in just about one third of them (or even less, I don't have the exact numbers). Our Romans have just one, brutal but effective strategy when Hannibal is in Italy - they go at him all the time, and in the meanwhile pump up their army with all the 3's and 'Allied Auxillaries'. I mean - when Hannibal crosses the Alps, he will probably have 8-6 CU's, and one province. Romans will have 10 CU's and two allies in Italia. If the Roman general has battle rating of 3 or 2 - Hannibal will have only one or two BC's more, and the victory, although probable, is far from sure thing. And if Hannibal loses once, he's just about finished in Italy - only hope is running away. In my last game, Romans promptly threw Longus' army in Africa, and got wiped out. In the second year I as Hannibal crossed the Alps, converted Cisalpina and Ethruria. Fought couple of battles against Marcellus - he lost two, but got away, and got pumped up with 'Allied Auxillaries'. Then, I lost the battle. I was left with 4 CU's, so I ran south. I managed to convert Apulia and Lucania (only time so far that 'Traitor in Tarentum' was used! :)). I even managed to sail Mago over with 10 CU's - but about that time, Scipio arrived, Romans had tons of CU's - and again, after several battles, I lost one, crippling my force severely. I tried to escape, but conveniently played 'bad weather' card thwarted that, and Hannibal was gone. Till the end, I managed to get Sicily, but Romans got West Numidia, which, along the whole of Italy, Syracuse, and Corsica was enough for victory. So, I really think that it is an uphill struggle for the Carthaginians - and I was wandering are there any good ideas on playbalancing, besides ones that I found on Grognards'? Some sort of bidding system, perhaps? I just wanted to post a message asking what play-balancing system are they using at the Avaloncon, and I was quite surprised when you said that the reports from there are that the game is balanced well enough. One more thing - why do you hate (as Roman) when 'Syracuse allies with Cartage' card turns up early? I prefer it much better that way - plenty of time to besiege it. If it is played in one of the last two years, it may well turn out to be the winner for the Cartage - with one or two bad die rolls, it might be impossible to convert it back before the game ends. Regards, Nikola Pajvancic mr.bagins@sezampro.yu From: Jens Hoppe Post Danmark Subject: Re: Hannibal replay (long) Nikola Pajvancic wrote: >Well, my gaming group played about 15 games of Hannibal in last couple of >months, and the play-balance is really turning out to be a problem - >Carthaginians won in just about one third of them (or even less, I don't have >the exact numbers). Our Romans have just one, brutal but effective strategy >when Hannibal is in Italy - they go at him all the time, and in the >meanwhile pump up their army with all the 3's and 'Allied Auxillaries'. That's usually the way Hannibal is beaten around here too. Sooner or later he's bound to lose a big battle. Even if he does win several battles, the attrition is often enough to weaken him to a point where he can finally be beat. And for the Carthaginians I don't really see any strategic alternative to sending Hannibal to Italy: If he doesn't secure Cisalpina, the Carthaginians will be behind in the province count from the beginning. >One more thing - why do you hate (as Roman) when 'Syracuse allies with >Cartage' card turns up early? I prefer it much better that way - plenty of >time to besiege it. If it is played in one of the last two years, it may >well turn out to be the winner for the Cartage - with one or two bad die >rolls, it might be impossible to convert it back before the game ends. Well, actually, as the Roman I hate it whenever it turns up! True, it's a potential game winner if the Carthaginians get it on the last turns, but on the other hand it's not a certain thing that the Carthaginians will get it at all during the game [insert appropriate whining about how I never get the card when I'm Carthage :-) ]. When Carthage gets the card early, it tells the Roman that "it's gonna be one of 'those games'". But of course, given that Carthage *will* get the card, for the Romans it's better that Carthage gets the card early rather than late. I seldom find the opportunity to retake Syracuse as the Romans. There's always so much more else that needs to be done. And taking Syracuse is no easy feat: With only a 50% chance each attempt of placing a siege point, the Romans will need 6 activations/cards on average to take the city. Various traitor cards and generals' special abilities may help that, but that is balanced out by the various "remove siege points" cards Carthage may get. For the same reason (and even more so) I don't like to go for Rome as Hannibal. If he's free to roam Italy (which may easily be the case if he's free to besiege Rome), I think it's a better shot to convert Italian provinces and force the Romans to surrender that way. Comments? Cheers, Jens Hoppe From: "Nikola Pajvancic" Subject: Re: Hannibal replay (long) Jens Hoppe wrote: >And for the Carthaginians I don't really see any strategic >alternative to sending Hannibal to Italy: If he doesn't secure >Cisalpina, the Carthaginians will be behind in the province >count from the beginning Yes, we once tried the 'southern approach' - Hannibal disembarked on the 'heel' of the Italy, Brundisium or about there, with Adriatic Pirates, since both Roman armies charged to Cisalpina. Well, in the 3rd year it was over. :( - don't remember the details, but it was quick. I have one idea, which I haven't yet tested (you must get appropriate cards in the first year - diplomacy, campaign, and if possible one of the cards that gives minuses for naval travel). Idea would be to convert one -1 port in Sicily with the 'diplomacy' right away, and then to sail there with Hannibal and 10 CUs from New Carthage. Modifier would be -3 (-4 if you have one 'naval minuses' cards'. Hannibal could whip Longus, and establish himself at Sicily. With Sicily secured - you 'only' have to defend what's yours - Spain and Africa. And when (and if) you get 'Syracuse allies) card, Syracuse should stay in Carthaginian hands - with Hannibal so close to defend it. Of course, this plan looks very shaky - more like a wishful thinking than an actual plan - but with the right kind of cards, it could be pulled off. >I seldom find the opportunity to retake Syracuse as the Romans. There's >always so much more else that needs to be done. Well, I make it a priority, to retake the Syracuse as a Roman. The card, once played is out of the game, so if I retake it, it _will_ stay mine - one big headache less. Other things, especially offensives, can wait a bit. I usually employ Varro or Nero for this task - they can 'burn' any surplus '1's besieging it. Other candidate is Marcelus (though he is often too valuable to be employed on such a simple task) with his special ability. >For the same reason (and even more so) I don't like to go for Rome >as Hannibal. If he's free to roam Italy (which may easily be the case if >he's free to besiege Rome), I think it's a better shot to convert >Italian provinces and force the Romans to surrender that way. If I'm reading the rules correctly - if you eliminate all the Roman armies, the best thing would be to besiege Rome - Roman would not be able to enter any new reinforcements (until the Scipio arrives) and during that time, you could do practically anything you want - no matter how the actual siege goes. Has your group made any experiments with giving Hannibal some extra powers? We thought about giving him some (like one bonus reserve card, or that he can use _all_ probes like left, right or double env) but _only_ while he is in Italy - in other words, he would be too powerful in Hispania and Africa. Sort of a way to promote agresive play by Hannibal, and to give him a bit longer 'staying power' in Italy. What do you think? Regards, Nikola mr.bagins@sezampro.yu