1. Introduction

This is a review of the game Britannia as put out by Fantasy Flight games in the second edition. Rules are slightly altered in minor points from the first edition, but these minor differences will make no difference to this review which is consciously an overview of the game with commentary. Although the rules booklet describes both alternative scenarios and 2, 3 or 5 player variants, the standard game is for 4 players and thus this review discusses only the standard game. The main differences in the variants are in any case which nations a given player controls and which rounds of the standard game of 16 rounds are played.

The game roughly models the history of the island of Great Britain, i.e., England, Wales and Scotland, from the time of the major Roman invasion under Claudius [since Caesar’s quip “Veni. Vidi. Vici.” would have seemed somewhat more than overstatement by to the island’s inhabitants had they understood Latin] until the Norman conquest. Each player controls a number of different peoples or nations which take turns independently of one another, score independently of one another [although players in the end total the points acquired by all nations each player controls] and indeed a player can have one nation he controls attack another nation he controls if that player so desires.

Although this is a war-game, it is an unusual war-game in the senses both that limited resources, which are kept strictly limited by the rules, dominate strategy and that in many ways conquest is functionally penalized, even when it serves a nation’s stated goals [more on this below]. Each nation is assigned goals and scores victory points for accomplishing these. Some goals can occur at any point in the game, some only on a specific nation’s turn and others only at the end of certain rounds designated as scoring rounds. The player with the most victory points at the end wins.

Although I do have several criticisms of the game itself and of its components, this is actually a good game. The reason for that is that the strategic problem with which a player is faced not only is fundamentally different than any other game of which I am aware but is different for each player in details. Moreover, the fact that each of the four players in essence handles four nations [the yellow player at one point replacing Romans by Romano-British to get 17 nations] and these nations enter the game at different times in different numbers makes the strategies for each player quite complex. This makes for both an interesting and in-depth game with high re-playability and allows for a great deal of variation, not only between one game and another but within any one game.

2. Components

As stated on the box, the game includes a rulebook, game-board, 219 unit markers divided into 17 nations, 17 nation cards, 175 victory points tokens in denominations of 1, 5 and 25, 16 population markers, 1 round marker [designed to look like a sword] and 5 dice. All of these are card-board cut-outs and I for one feel the game could be improved by use of plastic pieces in lieu of cardboard squares, no matter how artistically designed the portraits on those cardboard squares.

The box is sadly of poor quality and started coming apart as soon as I had unwrapped the original plastic about it. Yes, the box is beautifully illustrated but I think that this suffers from the tape with which I have had to reinforce it. Likewise, the plastic tray which came in the box was extremely thin and flimsy but more annoyingly seemed to have been designed for some other game in that no correspondence whatsoever exists between the components in the tray I received and the components of the game. Indeed, to fit all of these in the box, I finally had to take the tray out—something I have had to do with no other game in my collection.

The large and beautifully printed board [I’m not kidding; it would not look bad hanging on one’s wall] is split length-wise until the second of two lateral folds and folds along the connected portion of the center so that the board is divided into six parts. Although currently fashionable among games-manufacturers, I dislike these type of boards due to the fact that they tend to be more vulnerable to mishap than less divided boards. Moreover, when completely folded, portions of the playing surface face outward—which likewise makes the board susceptible to damage. Be that as it may, the board depicts Britain from the English Channel as far north as the sea about the Orkneys and Hebrides, displaying even a portion of Ireland and of Normandy. Geographically, it is easily the most accurate board-map I have. At right, spanning the entire length of the board, is a guide for each round summarizing which nations invade on that round, whence and with how many, as well as when leaders appear, which nations have raiding turns, when scoring rounds occur and when either a king or a Bretwalda is elected [more on what each of these refers to below]. At top near the round guide is a list of nations as they take turns each round. Unfortunately, this contains a misprint which reverses the order of the turns for Jutes and Saxons, but more unfortunately I only know this because I researched the game on-line before purchasing it and found the manufacturer’s FAQ and errata page. While I can understand a printing error, I think a notice of the error in the game itself is not unreasonable to expect when that error is known. At bottom of the board is a population track which allows players to track points toward an additional unit. Finally, the map of Britain itself is divided into 39 regions, 17 of which are marked as rough terrain; these are grouped into three main regions, namely Scotland, England and Wales—which includes the Cornish peninsula.

Each nation has a nation card stating how it scores victory points and pertinent information to how the nation is played. Most commonly this consists of when a leader comes into play, when major invasions or raiding turns occur or restrictions specific to the given nation. Any player may at any time look at any given nation’s reference card in principle, but in practice the nation currently taking its turn has priority. Customarily, victory points scored are placed on a nations’ card and displayed so that all players may see.

All units—both infantry and for the Romano-British and Normans only cavalry, as well as Roman forts and Saxon burhs [the h pronounced like “gh”, the voiced analog of the Scottish “ch” of words like loch, as g is the voiced analog of k or c]— and leaders are represented by flat cardboard pieces, albeit nicely illustrated. As stated above, I think plastic figures would not only be more attractive but easier to handle and no pragmatic reason exists may this could not be done. Nevertheless, taken for what they are, the cardboard pieces are both attractive and durable. Roman forts alone may be well served by the flat cardboard because, when a fort is destroyed, one flips the piece over to show a ruined fort rather than removing it from the board. Saxon burhs are units which like Roman forts also represent strongholds but these are removed from the board when destroyed. Leaders are simply represented by shield-shaped flat cardboard pieces of the given color.

The victory pints tokens are durable round coin-like objects marked in 1’s, 5’s and 25’s. These are frankly so useful that they are almost worth the purchase of the game in and of themselves.

Finally, the rules albeit somewhat lengthy—but much less so than many other games I could name—are clearly presented in a nice-looking booklet with plenty of examples. The reference cards and round guide simplify matters a great deal but one does need to read the rules carefully nevertheless.

3. Game-play

The basic combat system is a variant of that used in the A&A except that instead of the weakest units scoring a hit only on a roll of 1, these do so on a roll of 6 instead. The strength of a unit however varies depending on whom that units fights and where under what circumstances. Only two nations—the Romano-British [yellow] and the Normans [blue]—have cavalry and even they have only a few units of it. Except for Roman forts and Saxon burhs, all other units are infantry. Normally, an infantry unit scores a hit on a roll of 5 or 6 when either attacking or defending. If however attacking in rough terrain or either attacking or defending against Roman infantry, a unit then only scores a hit on a roll of 6. Rolls are modified by +1 if a leader of the same nation is in the territory where the unit is attacking or defending, but leaders themselves do not count as units. Saxon burhs defend like any other unit but are eliminated first if a hit is scored against a defending Saxon; since burhs are fundamentally buildings, they cannot attack. Roman forts given the Roman player advantages of movement [discussed below] and also defend like an ordinary unit, i.e., they can be hit on a roll of 5 or 6, but they can only be hit after all Roman infantry in the area have been eliminated first.

Except for the Romans who play first, all nations on their respective turn play in five stages. First, population increase is determined based on the territories controlled. Often, a nation will not receive any additional units on a turns and points scored toward an additional unit are marked off on the population track by movement of each given nation’s population counter, a circular marker otherwise reminiscent of an infantry unit. Once any new units are placed on the board in areas a nation already controls—if applicable—those units on the board may move. Apart from a major invasion, all units move all at once and only once, although up to a total of two spaces [except through rough terrain]. During a major invasion, the movement phase of a nation’s turn is simply repeated after combat is resolved. A unit cannot move through a space occupied by another nation [except for exceptions discussed in the context of Romans below] unless an overrun occurs, meaning that an attacking nation moves twice as many units into an area as the defending nation has in that area and units in excess of twice the defending units then move through the territory to the next territory. Once movement is complete, combat is resolved area by area in any order the attacking player chooses. When a nation has a major invasion, after the first movement phase, combat is resolved and then the nation moves again and again resolves combat. Then scoring occurs; one may notice that both a defending and attacking nation may receive points. Finally, overpopulation occurs. In addition to ordinary stacking limits, a nation may not have twice as many units on the board as territories a nation controls or at the end of that nation’s turn, nits must be removed. This is complicated by the fact that a nation must have a unit in a territory in order to control it.

Although frankly my favorite nation in the game, the Romans in my opinion are so much more powerful than any other nation in the game, even though the Romans leave the game at a certain point, that they at least severely damage the balance of the game if they do not break it altogether. In my experience, if the player playing the Romans is at all reasonably experienced—not even in this game specifically but in war games generally—then a major portion of the rest of the game becomes simply trying to catch up to the tremendous lead the yellow player [who plays the Romans] has and trying to keep that player from simply running away with the game. The Romans start with 16 units in the English channel in a major invasion. No other nation has nearly so many units and certainly not on entering the game. Romans move 3 spaces, not 2, and are not subject either to stacking limits or movement restrictions associated with rough terrain. That a Roman infantry unit can only be hit by a roll of 6 has already been mentioned. Moreover, every time a Roman unit takes a territory [for the first time], the Roman player places a Roman fort there. Not only does the fort act as a defending unit which allows the Roman infantry to move out of the territory without automatically giving it up, but movement from one in-tact Roman fort to an adjacent Roman fort—as many times as the player wants and can—does not count as using a space when counting movement! Yes, Romans reinforce differently than any other nation so that one refers to a chart, but Romans only do not receive reinforcements if the Roman player is doing so well he does not really need them. Every other nation has at most one or two surplus units which can be moved without abandoning a territory, but because of Roman forts, every unit the Roman player has is a surplus unit that can be moved without fear of simply abandoning a territory. Admittedly, a fort cannot be rebuilt if destroyed, but if the Roman player at all knows what he is doing, the Romans can in the first nation turn force at least the Welsh and the Belgae to submit or be completely annihilated. This leaves all remaining Roman forces to position themselves to deal with a Belgae rebellion and to mass on the border to similarly overwhelm and reduce the Brigantes in the next turn, possibly even the Picts in the turn after that. Except for the Belgae rebellion which always occurs, a nation which submits to the Romans cannot attack either the Romans or another submitted nation, cannot abandon a territory without the Roman player’s consent and scores only half the usual victory points, Yet, as mentioned, a Roman player who knows what he is doing can literally force the Welsh and Belgae players to either have those nations submit or see them wiped off the board without ever having played a turn. Of course, the Romans are removed after round four and only partially replaced by the Romano-British who do not have any of the Romans’ advantages, but that hardly matters as a well-played Roman nation will leave the board having earned as many or more victory points for yellow as red, blue or green can earn from all nations throughout the entire game.

This led for me to a strategy which frankly is a little disturbing: genocide, i.e., the annihilation of nations. Even were I not Jewish myself, I think this would be a bit disturbing when thought about in those terms. Yet, a nation cannot score victory points if it no longer exists. Due to yellow’s lead from the Romans, other yellow nations are immediately targets for annihilation just so the game does not become a run-away win for yellow. Yet, most commonly, this leads to wiping out of any other player’s nation if one can. So long as one accomplishes one’s national goals as well and controls enough area to force election of one of one’s nations as king, this tactic can score one’s self victory points as well as denying them to others.

4. Conclusions

As one can see, my opinion of this game is decidedly mixed. The Romans seem too powerful for good balance, but they do not quite break the game entirely. The problem of balancing limited resources with the need to conquer or hold territory when one is open to attack by land or sea makes this strategically deep and highly varied. The wide variety of nations’ goals and the fact a nation’s goals vary throughout the game also make this game very interesting, even if the propensity for genocidal tactics is a bit unsettling to say the least.

Yet my reactions to the game are positive on the whole because what I like about games is especially the rich and varied problem the strategy of each unique game represents. This game certainly is unique in my experience. Its complexity and strategic depth cannot be denied.

Remark on Thread: 2 Jul 08

I engage below in inappropriate behavior in which I make remarks about my opponents. These are not excused by the fact that the people involved knew of them in full and made similar remarks about myself. This "trash talk" was still lashon hara. I hope future users will excuse it since I would have to remove too many comments to delete those in question.