"A World in Arms"- A Carthage: The First Punic War PBF

The naval blockade is gone, so that DRM is gone too. Also, Claudius moved with a disorganized force into the vcity, so that’s a +1DRM (disrupted forces do not suffer dRMs, but disorganized forces do. You use the worst after battle status of any unit in the force for the whole roll) for a total of +1.

Also, since Claudius retreated into the city, my forces are in land supply (land supply can’t be traced through hexes with enemies), so I get again a -3DRM. Another -1 to the besieger for being on a flat hex, for a total of -4.

A 4 and an 8. Or adjusted a 0 and a 9.

Carthage is in good supply and very organized in it’s siege works, so they go through attrition unscathed. I have 42 attrition SP and suffer 1 attrition loss. Will apply to Syracusan units.

But Rome, oh, Rome. This is the worst possible roll at the worst possible time (if for example attrtion had triggered before Gisgo’s brave suicidal attack, the Roman fleet at Messana would have given a -3DRM to the roll).

But Rome, with two consular armies and 3 allied SP in almost full force inside of the city, has a total of 83!!! attrtion SP in the city ( 57 infantry and13 cavalry doubled into 26) and suffers

55!!!

SP loss.

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This is a grueling siege. The lack of supply and pest takes it’s toll on the Roman army. The disorganized and unexperienced soldiers of Claudius’s army, now leaderless, loot and pillage the city. Fulvius’s forces try to stop them and a minor conflict erupts in the city. At the end of it, a small Roman force remains. (Rome decided to eliminate fully Claudius’s former army and use cavalry SP to compensate for infantry loses).

This is what remains in Messana:

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From 57 infantry and 13 cavalry to 8 infantry and 1 cavalry.

Ouch.

This will be a wake up call to Rome.

Next (and last for 264) activation is the Carthaginian fleets:

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Now, this is really, really bad for Rome. Had the roll been a 7 instead of an 8 we would be talking of 31SP loss only. The chart rises exponentially with the two worst outcomes.

The game is designed so Rome has a good chance of gaining initiative, as it happened historically, but for now the initiative remians solely with Carthage.

Messana is far from gone, though. To calcualte assault odds you multiply a city wall strength (4 in this case) with thenumber of infantry SP inside. This means Carthage needs to overcome 24SP in an assault, which, yeah, it’s not happening anytime soon, specially because the only way for Carthage to get reinforcements is to get owned in the field of battle, so expect no new troops next year unless I get a lucky 10% roll.

Rome has two choices for the next turn, to either build fleets to try to make the siege rolls less damaging, but risking an assault if his forces lower somewhat, or raise troops and push them into the meatgrinfder of Stalingrad, I mean, Messana…

You can’t raise fleets and troops on the same turn, so that’s a critical decision. A lot will depend on the chit pulling, and Rome has a lot of flexibility there (about 4 consul chits on average he can activae on the order he wants).

Also, Rome will most likely raise 2 new legions this turn (rome consul in Rome spending guile as crazy will give good modifiers for the roll). I will try to lower the DRMs via raiding now, but if it manages to raise 2 legions that’s another 40SP to take the field, against 24 Carthaginian and allied SP in Sicily.

If I manage to take Messana it will be hard for Rome to dislodge my position before late 260BC when victory conditions start to trigger. But if I can’t this is going to be a long game despite how things currently look.

Ok, so first the VIth fleet sails from Lilybaeum into Terina to try to raid Roman Italy.

It’s 20 spaces, so a +2 to the naval movement roll.

It’s a 7, modified to a 9.

Fleet becomes scattered.

The Duumvir tries to continue operations to reform the scattered units.

A 4. Suceeds and the fleet is unscattered. Now the duumvir try to continue operations again.

Fail. The fleet remains there and can’t raid.

Ok, now another fleet tries the same (I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this)…

Vth fleet moves to Etruria to try to raid there. Another +2 naval movement roll.

A 0. This is a possibility of a major disaster. The unit has accumulated 27 Distance points, so it needs to rool over 27 to avert disaster.

83, the fleet is fine. Uff.

Continuation roll is a 1. Success.

But, I realized I can’t raid here since it’s not a flat hex. Moving south and rolling
for movement again, with no DRM.

A9. Scattered.

Trying to continue to reform (otherwise this is going to be bad come winter…

3. Success. Unscattered. Continuing to attempt a raid.

Fail. Oh well.

I have a very bad feeling…

Now the Carthage fleet moves to Sicily. It’s a +1 modifier to the roll.´
´
A 6. No effect. The fleet tries to continue to move to Syracuse (-1 to the roll because it’s a move).

Success. Moves to Syracuse (another +1 movement roll).

A 0. Or a major disaster on a 13 or less on a d100.

86. Fleet is fine and enters port at Syracuse. Uff.

Now just a couple of redeployments. Fleet IV moves to Panornum (+1 to the roll and a 7, so scattered). Continuing suceeds and the fleet is unscattered and enters port.

IIIrd fleet safely moves to Lilybaeum.

And that’s a wrap. 264BC operations are over.

But that’s not all. We need to do end turn cleanup, and there are some rolls here too.

The remaining of the Sequence of play for the year looks like this:

F. Devastation Phase

  • Devastation Recovery Segment. No province is devastated, so pass.
  • Devastation Attempt Segment. I could attempt to Devastate Sicily, but yeah, no, that’s not a good idea right now. Romans have no force that can try devastation.

G. End-Turn Phase

  • Inertia Attrition Segment. Hanno’s force could be subject to inetria attrition, but the army it’s so small that there’s no loss (we check agains 5 attrtion points, 3 for undevastated Sicily, one for one Carthaginian army, 1 for 2 legions. Syracusan forces suffer no inertia or movement attrition.
  • Port Segment. Fleets need to return to port, rolling for a major disaster in a single move. this can be bad. VI fleet checks against 8 and passes. Now in port at Catana. Vth fleet checks against 10 and also suceeds. In port at Aleria.
  • Legion/Crew Training. No crew or legions were training.
  • Carthaginian Army Efficiency. Both Carthaginian armies increase efficiency. Gisgo to 0, Hanno to +1.
  • Recovery from Battle. Hanno’s and Hiero’s armies are no longer disrupted.
  • Victory Determination. No Victory checks until 260BC

If there is one thing you can count on in this game it’s that there will be some rolls made on a chart. Every one on a different chart. And there will be DRMs. Many. In fine print. And italics. It’s like doing taxes and trying to get excited about itemized deductibles and then writing fiction about it.

Well the fleet phase was tense… At three different points I have more than a 10% chance of losing a whole fleet, and I need them operative to harrass you the next couple turns. Scattered fleets would add 20 to the winter port roll, so those continuations that allowed unscattering were lucky.

The failure to raid is going to hurt me bad… Not quite compensating for the horrible siege roll, but pretty bad anyways. You have a very good chance of raising 2 full legions now.

My only hope is that an admiral or a Duumvir can get in place on time to try to intercept the crossing.

I am sure there will be many die rolls on 100 different charts with many DRMs that will decide what happens at every juncture next turn as well, yes. :)

Chit draw order. Chit draw order is going to be the killer. You will have many Consul chits you can apply as needed, so that’s better chances to draw before me…

It’s very entertaining fiction you write, though.

SPI’s Outreach would be another game where you could have fun doing taxes and writing fiction (and they don’t provide any fiction, so you really do have to write your own), if either of you ever fancy delving into yet more tables and chits…

Juan is doing a bang up job. The period is interesting, and I like work of the designer, Richard Berg most of the time. But there is good Berg (TheTerrible Swift Sword Berg) and the Pasta Rule Berg from Campaign in North Africa (and apologies to @Telefrog , but while he jokes about it now, he did write it in there.) , While not reaching that level, this game veers in that direction. You roll a die for resolution and half the time the result is you roll more diice on different charts. The Chit Pull mechanic is fine. What the game needed was a Card Playing Mechanic for Battles (like in Empires at Arms) and leader ratings would be used for implementations. Other Card-Competitive or Resolving mechanics would have been useful as well (Republic of Rome-style stuff for politics, or event cards for the Augury).

But nope. endless Charts, DRMs of +1 and -1 to high heaven. Die rolls that lead to more die rolls. Pasta rule is in effect!

I don’t think it’s that bad, and there aren’t that many DRMs for most rolls (except combat).

And the charts are well done. But I agree cards would have been welcome here and there.

My main gripe is that size of the army does not affect continuation rolls. It was harder to move and supply a big army than a smail one, and while the attrtion table scales with unit size, the continuation rolls (which seem to represent supply and command) are as easy or hard with 1000 soldiers or 50000. A card mechanic to integrate continuation and movement attrition (with the card referencing force size) could have worked wonders.

That’s why I feel this is more strategic than operational (it’s an in-between, really).

If you design a system and you find that you have a die roll result that requires further die rolls…you need to shred it and start again. Period.

I understand where you are coming from, I just disagree :P… Some of the cascading dierolls I find very thematic and narrative, and a card system would not substitute them, since the procedural element would be lost.

But it is a matter of taste. I do like digging into the unforeseen consequences of a decision via chained tables.

I am (sloooowly) learning ASL and it has a similar vibe in terms of narrative procedural creation (although there the chaining is much more intense…). Without the proccess (see automatic implementations of ASL) much is lost.

File under why I don’t ASL. :) Any game that has a rule for wheat height at given time of year in a geographic area obviously does’t want me playing it.

Yup thats Berg. As frustrating as he can be at times in his designs I cant shake the guy. I was watching LoneSome Gamer’s playthrough of Pax Romana the other day and I thought, “That combat table is a work of art, it really WAS designed specifically for this period and scale and has an opinion on it which is modelled beautifully.” , 2 mins later as Lonesome gamer is ranting about how awful the naval rules are I was nodding in agreement. Berg giveth, Berg taketh away. :)

Is trolling your players a design philosophy? Maybe it is…

He just paints with a looser style as it were. He makes an opinionated mess at times, but it always has an opinion.

Well his opinion in this system is that in Ancient Battles, planning matters not because random Fortuna determines all, as we shall see in the next entry. To Berg we are poor players that strut and fret our hour upon the stage and then are heard no more.

rosencrantz-guildenstern-are-dead

Brilliant! :) If I needed to concede a point, I concede it gladly.

I’m, of course, getting the opposite feeling. While we had a lot of outliers this coming turn (specially in terms of leader casualties), they had little direct effect on the field, the actual battle results fell well within the expected result on the CRT before any rolling.

The Roman manpower roll was specially bad (although if we do a full analysis, inclulding raiding chances on the first turn, it’s within a global 40% chance of what to expect in the first turn), and I would concede that the inability of Rome to bring forward enought men was what changed the results of the turn, but the actual combat flows really well and it’s predictable enough.

I don’t want to spoil the coming turn, so let’s just do a strategic analysis of the first two battles and the siege roll. I will assume “average” rolls are 4 or 5s:

Messana 1st: Three rolls influenced this. Tactical ability of both leaders and combat roll. All other DRMs are pre-ordained. The base DRM was flat. Under average rolls (two 5s or two 4s) the tactical DRM would be a -2. And average combat roll of 5 would have given a 3 net result. The net result of the battle and all three rolls was indeed a 3. This battle fell exactly within pre-battle expectations.

Messana 2nd: Four rolls influenced this. First the coordination roll and then the three regular battle rolls. Coordination was a 50% chance, so let’s look at both outcomes. Without coordination the fixed DRM would have been -1 and the expected +2 tactical abilty DRM assuming two 4s or two 5s. The final DRM was +2, so that was slightly better than expected. If the coordination roll was successful we would have had a similar expected DRM. Flavius forces would have given a -1 combat ratio DRM and a cavalry advantage, but Flavius failed interception, so he was contributing a +2DRM just for that. The expected result (roll of 4) would have been 20/20 and we got 20/30 and a forced retreat. Slightly out of expectiations, certainly, specially the retreat. but the move from the expected 5 to the 11 we got is not as big as the result seems to indicate.

Then the siege. To understand the chances of the besieged rolling a modified 9 on the attrition first we need to look at the odds when the decision to enter the city was made. Had I pulled the duumvir chit before the siege attrition (50% chance at the time the decision was made) that would have added a +3DRM to the siege roll. So 50% of 50%, or 25% total chances or a modified 9 or worse (and worse is total elimination of the garrison at that occupation level). The chances of rolling an 8 or 9 if the attrition came first (as it did) is 20%. So a combined total 35% chance of that result of worse. We didn’t get the most likely result, but we got not an unlikely one at all.

In retrospect (and I only realized this after seeing the results, at the time I thought you were making the right choices) the system is telling you to never put too many troops in garrison (ideal level is 10SP of infantry, which guarantees resisting for 2 attrition rolls on the extreme and 5 or 6 -two years- on average). Also, I think the Roman player must come into Sicily with the two consular armies together, not piecemeal, so the first battle of Messana against Hiero, a better leader with elite cavalry, has better chances of breaking the siege, defeating Hiero and forcing him to change allegiance, which puts Carthage on the defensive for the rest of the game. Those two decisions (activating Claudius before Fulvius and retreating into the city) were the main determinants of the results we saw, along with moderate luck in Carthage favor.

But nothing we saw on the first turn was an extreme outlier to expectations, although slightly unlikely and the unlikeliness always in Carthage favor. Note that the system does model unlikely battle results (where a force with, say a +8DRM to the combat roll can be severely hurt). But we have not encountered this yet.

Long term I still don’t see how Carthage wins this game.

I am loving this system (my caveat to theyearly turns is gone. This is definitely strategic and not operational), and it’s a pity you are not. It is very specific to ancient warfare, but, for me, it really works.

PS: the overall analysis of turn two is exactly the same. The battle had three extremely unlikely rolls that compensated each other and gave us exactly the pre-battle expected result. Albeit in a very dramatic manner open to cool narrative interpretations (which is the strength of the system, imho).