Hi Alan, Since I have been delinquent in getting my web page materials to you I figured I would make an installment payment by sending you some materials for the S&T game Roman Civil War. Gary ---- Gary J. Robinson wiggler@concentric.net Played some more Roman Civil War (S&T, Miranda) this weekend. Fun as always. I put a lot more work into my house naval rules, since we had a situation where Caesar and Antonius were moving up to besiege Afranius in Nova Carthago and both sides had large fleets. Afranius made his break for it by sea, Caesar sent Antonius to intercept, and the result was a huge sea battle. We did it on the battleboard about six times until I was happy with the mechanics. Here they are: Gary Robinson's house rules for naval battles for Roman Civil War. Note when using this battleboard system I always treat "L" results as "B" results (instead of elimination) for light units, except when the attacker is a heavy cavalry unit (in ground battles). Naval battles can occur in three situations: (a) when two opposing Forces are present in a hex, both Forces contain fleets, and both players agree to have a naval battle. (b) when the Active Player tries to utilize Sea Supply during his Supply Phase, and an enemy Force present in the hex contains fleets and opts to intercept this Sea Supply. If the Active Players does not concede that supply is cut, a naval battle occurs. (c) when the Active Player engages in Naval Movement with a Force, and this Force is Intercepted (by means of a Military Stratagem being expended) by an enemy Force containing one or more fleets. A naval battle occurs immediately to determine if the Interception succeeds in stopping the Naval Movement. In all three cases, the normal battleboard rules published in Moves 77 are used, with the following modifications: Setup: Any time a naval battle occurs, both sides must secretly and simultaneously allocate units to the battle. In cases (a) and (b) above, the units participating must include at least one fleet on each side. In the case of both a besieged and a relief force, either one but not both could offer battle to the besieging fleet during the supply phase. In case (c) above, the moving Force will already be determined, although the Active Player may bolster his forces with any friendly units present in the Interception Hex, if any are available. The Force that is Intercepting must include, in addition to at least one fleet, the Leader who expended the Military Stratagem to enable the Interception. Ground units which are committed to the battle (or in case (c) above, which are being carried as passengers on the Active Player's force) are placed on specific fleets up to the carrying capacity of the fleets. Each fleet must have at least one ground unit before any can have two. This allocation of units to fleets is done as part of the secret commitment process before each player sees what the other one has. Tactical superiority is determined by play of Military Stratagems by leaders present on the fleets. If the case of a tie, tactical superiority belongs to the Active Player in case (a) above, and the Reactive Players in cases (b) and (c) above. The fleets are then set up on the battleboard as normal, with the player with Tactical Superiority setting up last and moving first, and having one double move to use at some point during the battle. Each ground unit and leader must be allocated to a fleet unit. Movement Fleets have a movement of 2 squares. Leaders and ground units never move by themselves, they always are carried as passengers by a fleet. Ground units and leaders may never leave the fleet unit they are on except as a result of capturing an enemy ship. Command checks are made as usual. The results affect both fleets and passengers as far as disrupting and attacking, but the ability/inability to move is only important for fleets. Units are assessed individually; it is possible a passenger with a different morale than the fleet it is on could have a different Command Check status. Only the fleet's status matters for movement purposes. Only fleets rout. Passengers One ground unit on board each fleet must be designated as being the active ground unit. Any other ground units on board are placed under the active ground unit and do not participate in the battle directly unless the active ground unit is eliminated or leaves the ship. All units rally individually and command check individually. If a fleet fails its post-panic command check with a "F" it may not move or attack, but if the active ground unit passenger passes its check, it may attack adjacent enemy units normally. It is possible for a disrupted active ground unit to be on board an undisrupted fleet, and a disrupted fleet to be carrying an undisrupted active ground unit. If a fleet sinks, any ground units on board sink with it; any leaders on board can each make a morale check to try to jump to an adjacent friendly fleet if one is available, otherwise they too drown. The check is successful on anything but an "F." Combat There is no defensive fire. There are no flank attacks. Ground units may never use fire combat. During the Combat Phase one attack may be made by each fleet or its active ground unit passenger. This is either/or; if the fleet attacks, its passenger may not and vice versa. Thus, for each fleet and its passengers, one and only one of the following may be done each turn: Ramming: If the fleet itself attacks an adjacent fleet, it is considered a Ram attack. The Phalanx row of the combat table is used. A "B" or "L" result means the target ship suffers the effects of a "B" result, i.e. it is flipped, or if already flipped, it is sunk. Note Ram attacks only affect enemy ships, not their passengers. Of course if the enemy ship is sunk, the passengers go down with it. An "A" result flips the attacking ship as normal. This does not affect the passengers of the attacking ship. As per the normal procedure, each fleet gets 5 potential die rolls. Missile Fire: The fleet may attack on the Fire table (with 5 dice as normal) against a ground unit target which is adjacent or which is two squares away (no diagonals), but only if there is nothing in the way. The effects of the Fire attack affect only the active ground unit on the target fleet. Missile Fire attacks never affect fleets. Ground units may never use Missile Fire. Boarding: If the active ground unit attacks an adjacent enemy unit, it is considered a Boarding attack. No testudos, fire, chariot or elephant attacks are allowed but other attack modes are. Any ground unit with a combat factor may use the Phalanx row to attack with. Heavy units may use Wedge and legions may use Quincunx as well. (Think of it as those spiked boarding planks.) The combat is resolved like a normal ground combat. The defender is the enemy active ground unit if there is one, otherwise the defender is the fleet itself. Impediti do not count as defenders. If the enemy active ground unit is eliminated, the next unit underneath it (if there is one) becomes the active unit immediately; otherwise the fleet itself is the defender for remaining and future boarding attacks. The attacker keeps rolling until he has used up all of his attacks (5 for legions) or he has flipped himself or defeated all enemies in the target square. In other words he does not stop just because he eliminates the current active ground unit, he keeps going against the next defender. When attacking a fleet itself, "L" results count as "B" results. If an enemy fleet is destroyed as a result of a boarding attack, the attacker has the option of capturing it instead by moving the active ground unit that boarded it onto the enemy vessel. Captured vessels function like friendly vessels except they may only move one square per turn instead of two and can never use the tactical superiority double move. If the ground unit which captured the vessel is eliminated, the vessel reverts back to enemy control. Captured vessels may not attack on the turn they are captured. Enemy leaders present on a ship when it is captured are eliminated. Panic A Force does not panic unless it controls half or less of its original number of fleets. For example a force of 5 fleets which had three sunk, but also captured one enemy ship, has three active ships which is enough to avoid panic. Once a Force has panicked it remains panicked for the rest of the battle. Escape Ships may not move off their own edge of the map unless their Force has panicked. Ships which flee or rout off this map edge are rolled for as per the normal battle board rules. If the battle is a result of an Interception of a Naval Movement (case (c) above) ships of the Active Player may attempt to leave off the enemy side of the map regardless of Panic status. Moving off the enemy map edge (from an adjacent square) requires a fleet's entire movement for that turn. Fleets which move off the enemy map edge in this fashion are considered to have "broken through" Actium-style and may finish their movement to their original destination on the strategic map. In effect they become a separate Force from those left behind on the battleboard, whose fate depends on the battle. They count as destroyed for purposes of calculating Victory (only). Victory Victory is determined normally and is based on total strength points eliminated or captured, not just fleets. If a friendly port is present the losing side may stay in the hex and need not retreat out of the hex, in effect it is retreating into the port. In case (b) above, whoever wins the battle decides if supply goes through. If neither side wins, supply does not go through. In case (c) above, whoever wins decides whether the moving Force may continue its movement. If neither side wins, the moving Force may not continue moving. Fleets which escape off the enemy side of the map may always continue moving. Fleets which continue moving may not be intercepted again during that move. Captured fleets must be converted into friendly fleets at the end of the battle, using available fleet counters. The morale values do not have to match. If this is not possible such fleets are eliminated. If each side ends up with captured fleets the procedure is for each player to first return all captured fleet counters to the other side's Builds Pool and then use what friendly counters are now available to substitute for the returned captured fleets. Flotsam and Jetsam Reconstitution is done normally. --------------- Gary J. Robinson wiggler@concentric.net Here is a brief recap of our Roman Civil War game utilizing the Trajan and Gallia maps. The details are hazy in my mind at this point, since we played several years' worth of turns. The early part of the game saw Pompeius moving from Italy to Illyria where he took control of the provincial capital of Salonae to protect his income of stratagem markers, while Caesar moved down into Italy to take Rome, grow his army and try to solidify his control over the peninsula. Caesar took control of a number of Italian cities, only to have random events snatch them away again. The Senatorials never did lose control of Brundisium. Pompeius' play was distorted by the fact that I thought only one roll was allowed on the Res Publica tables per turn, and since Caesar had a Tribune (who could negate one result per turn) it seemed fairly pointless for Pompeius to spend stratagems to roll on the table. But as it turns out, you can roll multiple times...we figured this out late in the game and Pompeius took a few stabs at getting rid of that pesky tribune, but to no avail. We played that the range for assassination agents had to be traced over land hexes, so Pompeius was safe from assassins while Caesar was in Italy - a good thing, since Pompeius had no imperator legion to turn into a Guard. The real show opener was in Spain, where Antonius marched most of Caesar's veterans down to take on Afranius. Afranius backpedaled to the south, thereby earning the nickname of "Afraidius" for the rest of the game. Antonius failed in his attempts to tribute cities on several occasions and had to take them down the hard way. Afranius meanwhile recruited legions and bulked up his army in Nova Carthago. Antonius followed him down the coast, founding a colony in order to recruit veteran legions. Cicero, in the meantime, who had been recruiting legions in Numidia at Utica, sailed over with several legions of reinforcements and added to Afranius' army. Emboldened, Afranius marched on Antonius. Antonius, who had a smaller but significantly more experienced army, played a Military stratagem to intercept Afranius in the mountain passes, where the battleboard would be only three squares wide and Antonius could bring his imperator and veteran legions to bear on a narrow front with no fear of being flanked. The armies collided; when the dust had cleared Antonius had been roughly handled and had lost several legions, while Afranius, as the victor, enjoyed both the benefits of reconstitution (getting your units back after a battle) as well as promotion of three units (now Afranius too had imperators). Antonius retreated into the colony. Afranius continued his advance and besieged Antonius. As Afranius had ships and Antonius did not, the garrison suffered from supply attrition and was whittled down while Afranius had no supply problems. Afranius then played a Political strategem and bribed the civis into revolt, and the resulting fight in the city destroyed one of Antonius' few remaining legions. Afranius then ordered a storm attempt on the city, and it was taken; Antonius was captured and executed. Afranius decided to take two of the Senatorial imperator legions and sail over to join Pompeius in Illyria. Cicero remained behind at the colony to rebuild the civis and start recruiting a new army with which to invade Gallia. The Senatorials' jubilation was tempered by a Hispanic revolt which cost them virtually all their cities in Hispania. It seemed that anarchy was setting in everywhere in the Republic, from Italy to Spain, due to the strains of the civil war. Meanwhile, the weakness of the Republic was having another effect: Rome's enemies were stirring in the East, as another important early random event activated the Parthians as a Caesarian client state. Parthia starts out very weak, but a continual dedication of stratagem markers resulted in a formidable Parthian host being raised. As this was going on, the Senatorial commander in Syria, Scipio, succeeded in getting the Judeans into the war on the Senatorial side with a tribute action, thus getting control of the important city of Caesarea. Antipater was sent off with some Judean soldiers toward Alexandria in an attempt to tribute Cleopatra and get Egypt into the war. Unfortunately Pelusium, with its large Egyptian army, was in the way so Antipater could not use road movement and instead used cross country movement to try to take a shortcut. The old maxim about long delays proved true when "scatter" results on the March Table sent Antipater wandering into the desert, where his soldiers were lost to attrition. Fearing to attempt a tribute with no soldiers, Antipater staggered home to raise more troops. Scipio in the meantime had marched to the north, recruited a legate as another leader, and send the legate forward to cause problems for the Parthians. Edessa, first Parthian city on the trail to Ctesiphon, was bribed and switched sides. The Caesarians were not content to merely raise Parthian troops with Roman gold, however. Caesar had recruited a new lieutenant, Cornifius, and sent him off with a new mission: sail to the key provincial capitals and wrest them from Senatorial control. Cornifius took a pair of legions and sailed to Syracusa, which he took by storm and then raised a civis in. After that he repeated the performance at Rhodus. The third target was Alexendria itself, still belonging to neutral Egypt. Cornifius sailed across the Mare Nostrum with his two imperator legions and landed in Egypt, successfully playing a political stratagem to tribute Cleopatra and get Egypt into the war! Cornifius had succeeded where Antipater had stumbled and suddenly the Caesarians had two armies threatening Syria: the Egyptian-Roman force in Egypt and the Parthian host which was now beginning to lurch forward from the East. This was a direct threat to the Senatorial income of stratagem markers. Scipio hurried back to the south to join Antipater and raise new Judean forces as Cornifius gathered the Egyptian forces in Pelusium and marched on Caesarea. The Battle of Caesarea followed, as Scipio's legions crashed into Cornifius' legions while the Judean phalanxes, mobs and light-armed troops battled the Egyptian phalanxes, mobs and auxiliaries. The battle was a catastrophe for the Caesarians as the entire Egyptian-Caesarian army was destroyed. Cornifius died in the fighting as his imperator legion was cut down by Scipio's veterans. Cleopatra was the lone survivor and sailed back down the coast toward home. Scipio caught up with her and convinced her to switch sides with a political stratagem. Cleopatra was tasked with raising new Egyptian troops while Scipio and Antipater prepared to meet the Parthian onslaught. Back in the West, Caesar watched unfolding events in Spain and Syria with growing alarm. Pompeius seemed to be in control of the situation and Caesar was losing good lieutenants left and right. He quickly recruited some new leaders, sent one to Rome to raise a strong garrison and another to Gallia to build a new army to oppose Cicero. Caesar himself, now with a strong army and Rome strongly held, marched down the Adriatic coast to Salonae late in the year. Bad omens, march attrition, dissention in the Caesarian ranks and other annoyances comvinced him to postpone the campaign till the following year. Pompeius, who had fallen back temporarily, advanced once again to Salonae while Brutus founded a colony at Philippi and set about raising veterans for Pompeius' army. Pompeius spent the winter making attempts on the Populares res publica table to remove Caesar's tribune but succeeded only in getting four recruit legions as volunteers at Brundisium. A barbarian horde appeared on the Danube but was attritioned away in winter before making it into the civilized regions. In the spring, Caesar again set off for Salonae and made it this time. Pompeius, who had the larger army as well as a goodly number of imperator and veteran legions at his disposal, met him outside the city for a showdown. The mighty armies met at last; this time it was the Senatorials who were crushed as their entire army was destroyed. Afranius was killed in the fighting but Pompeius escaped. Caesar harvested his bonus stratagems in the form of agent markers and made a concerted attempt to have Pompeius murdered but Pompeius managed to dodge all the knives and escape the region. Pompeius sailed to Brundisium where the four recruit legions awaited him. Brutus also set sail from Philippi with two veteran legions and met Pompeius at Brundisium. Fearing Caesar's return to Italy, the combined Senatorial force sailed onward to Syracusa, where, protected by the sea, they could rebuild their fortunes. Mithradates of Asia suddenly decided to join the Senatorial camp, putting another provincial capital, Pergamum, into the Senate's hands. In the East, the Parthians had at last gone on the attack and were careening through the Near East like a bowling ball. Edessa was retaken, Zeugma fell, and then Antioch. The Parthians marched on Tyre on their way to Caesarea. The Parthian army was led by a satrap leader, while the supreme Parthian king stayed far to the rear to avoid the risk of getting tributed by a Senatorial leader. Scipio, upon the fall of Zeugma, scurried south to Petra and convinced that city to go Senatorial to maintain Senatorial control of the Syrian region, while Antipater raised fresh Judean forces in Caesarea. Scipio returned and, bolstered by an Egyptian phalanx sent by Cleopatra, marched the combined Judeo-Egyptian-Roman force to Tyre to confront the Parthians. The two armies fought to a bloody stalemate outside the city, with the Parthians taking the heavier losses. Disaster struck Scipio then as his army was unable to forage and suffered 50% attrition. The Parthians took advantage of the weakened Judeo-Egyptian-Roman army to attack before Scipio could retreat to Judea; the Senatorial army was destroyed and both Scipio and Antipater perished in the fighting. Nothing stood between the Parthians and Judea/Egypt. The Senatorials did not sit idly in the West while this was going on and Cicero marched on Gallia, where he met Hirtius' newly built Caesarian army in western Gallia. Cicero was triumphant and Hirtius' army was smashed, although Hirtius himself managed to escape the disaster. At this point we put the game away due to time constraints. I must say I enjoyed it immensely! The outline above is just an overview; the game had a lot more flavor and detail in terms of marches, attritions, random events, political rolls, recruitments, stratagems, etc. not to mention the incredible fun of playing the battles out on the battleboard. Truly a marvellous game! Gary