Game: End of the Triumvirate, The

Thread: Re: Best Consul Speeches

chockle — 2008-11-24T04:48:45+00:00

Rulebook wrote:
The new Consul gives a short speech to herald the new year.
I just love that this is in the rules!

Thread: Re: Best Consul Speeches

TGov — 2008-11-24T04:41:39+00:00

ha, that is pretty damn funny! I look forward to playing this.

Thread: Best Consul Speeches

rootbeer — 2008-11-24T04:16:50+00:00

In today's game my wife was elected Consul after the first round. Her speech: "I will continue to kick your ass." And then she did.

Any other great election speeches?

Thread: First game: Pompeius political victory

Thies — 2008-11-17T20:44:30+00:00

I bought End of the Triumvirate a while back from Tanga and finally got it to the table at a game day this weekend. We randomly drew characters and I got Pompeius, my wife was Crassus, and another member of our game group had Caesar.

For his opening move, Caesar collected his gold from Egypt, moved up in politics and bought a citizen. I took a similar opening by conquering one province, then ending in a political province and advancing in politics and buying a citizen. This pretty well forced Crassus into either chasing us down on the political track (not very promising), going after competence, or building military. My wife chose the latter, conquered a province, advanced military, and bought weapons.

Year 1 ended with Pompeius winning the election. On my first turn of year 2 I again spent to get citizens, creating a threat to Caesar's election hopes (but mainly to set up a year 3 second election victory). This had the effect of tying down Caesar, who wanted to go for a competence victory. Because he had to keep ending up in political provinces to fight me for citizens, he couldn't advance enough on the military competence track. And a big, bloody battle in Europe between Caesar and Pompeius bled a bunch of Caesar's legions away. Meanwhile Crassus was consistently sitting on about 7 or 8 provinces at turn's end, but would always get knocked back just enough to keep a military victory out of reach. Caesar narrowly won the election, which basically made year 3 a rush for Caesar and Crassus to try and win by either competence or military before the near-inevitable Pompeius election victory.

In year 3, I (as Pompeius) was reduced to 1-3 provinces for most of the time -- typically Sicily and Italy. I would occasionally venture out to take a weakly guarded province from Crassus to prevent a military victory. Pompeius won the election and the game, with Caesar one turn from a competence victory and Crassus at numerous times one province from a military victory.

I was really impressed by EotT's gameplay and balance. There was a lot of tension, and all three players had victory within reach. Looking back, it was unfortunate for Crassus that both of the other two took a similar opening strategy, thereby limiting Crassus's choices. And I think a military victory is really hard to achieve because it is always possible to quickly strike at an undefended province of the military leader to reduce his province count. Also, a lot of legions and governors in 7 provinces tends to draw a lot of attention. It would seem that a military victory would require staying at 5 or 6 and setting up a way to march through 3 or 4 provinces in one turn with a big army, but that is hard to arrange.

I'm eager to give this game another run and maybe try a different tack -- either military (despite my misgivings about its viability) or competence.

Thread: Re: Obligatory, how is it with 2?

Gamegrunt — 2008-10-30T12:03:02+00:00

The only purpose in playing the game with two would be to learn the rules. My wife and I played two partial games and that aim was achieved.

I've yet to play a complete 3 player game...four games, not one completed as yet!

Gg

Thread: Re: Obligatory, how is it with 2?

Rastak — 2008-10-30T10:42:05+00:00

Karmic_devil wrote:
Another post asked this awhile ago but has seen little action and had other questions as well.

Now that this has been out a while,

Have people played it much with just 2?

Does it work well?

Are there any issues you've encountered?

Best,
Josh

Josh, I'd like to help but I haven't gotten it to the table yet. I played a solo 3 player game to learn the rules and it SEEMED like a not so good 2 player game. I'd also be interested in first hand experiences since I usually only have 2 also. I'm going to try it for sure sometime this winter.

Thread: Re: Obligatory, how is it with 2?

jearles — 2008-10-30T10:06:05+00:00

The current "Player Count" poll says:

[c]
# Best Recommended Not Recommended Votes
---------------------------------------------------
2 3.6% (1) 17.9% (5) 78.6% (22) 28
3 96.7% (29) 3.3% (1) 0.0% (0) 30
[/c]

Thread: Obligatory, how is it with 2?

Karmic_devil — 2008-10-30T06:41:42+00:00

Another post asked this awhile ago but has seen little action and had other questions as well.

Now that this has been out a while,

Have people played it much with just 2?

Does it work well?

Are there any issues you've encountered?

Best,
Josh

Thread: Re: how often do you see political victories?

jrebelo — 2008-10-27T06:35:37+00:00

I just played my very first game of Triumvirate tonight. Another player was also learning it for the first time as well against a guy who has played several times and taught us beforehand. I played as Ceasar, and made some impulsive first moves just to start feeling out the game and not thinking too much about a plan. Right off the bat I lost a province and it only got worse from there. I immediately abandoned a militant game and fortified my 4 provinces and just began ramping up political support. The first election game fairly quickly and I had a 4 electoral pawns to their 2 each. On the final turn. Fortunately, I was playing last on the final round and the other newer guy hadn't planned ahead for preventing my Consul and so I took it. In the next stage of the game, the other guys engaged each other in some hostilities, which left me to hold something like 5 vote pawns going into the second election. The experienced player had been forced to escape with his plank pawn and was filling holes for his turn. Then before me, the other newer player had a turn before I would inevitably take the game with the second consul if he didn't prevent my political victory. He discussed it with the other player and did math to see if I had enough income on the coming turn to reverse a political swing. Given the territories I controlled and what they would produce after his turn, I would have had just enough to take away the crucial electoral pawn from him to win the game. He determined it was won and just played his turn out and then I took the game.

The reason I write this is because I didn't have this game locked down on that final turn. I won a political victory because he didn't think to cripple my income for the coming turn by military force against one of my two economic provinces. If he had done so (my defences were weak and it would likely have worked), I would not have been able to take back political control for the win that round.

So, all that said, the game seemed very balanced to me. They were both not far behind me in political competence, and I had no military competence. A competence victory would have probably been easy for either of them if they had thought to block the second vote a turn earlier.

Image

Gamegrunt — 2008-10-11T01:17:10+00:00

Scene from a two-player game

Thread: Re: Sea Movement

morningstar — 2008-10-10T19:02:11+00:00

tmarozas wrote:
One more sea movement question. Can a player use the sea movement discount as often as he likes in a turn ?

Example, in a single turn, could Caesar move from Africa to Hispania Citerior via Western Mare mediterraeum for 1 MP (No legions) to pick up a coin, then move to Italia via Western Mare mediterraeum, pick up 2 coins and have 2MP left ?

Yes. You just can't use the discount twice as you cross the sea without returning to land. That is, if you want to move through both the western Mediterranean and the eastern Mediterranean, it does cost you one movement point (but not two). E.g., moving from Hispania to Egypt costs a total of 2 movement points without legions: 0 Hispania to western Mediterranean, 1 western Mediterranean to eastern Mediterranean, 1 eastern Mediterranean to Egypt.

I think a more clear way to explain it than what they print in the rulebook is that crossing from land to sea does not cost any movement points. Land to land, sea ro sea, and sea to land movement each cost one movement point, but land to sea movement costs none. This is equivalent to the rule as written.

Thread: Re: Sea Movement

Octavian — 2008-10-10T18:46:22+00:00

tmarozas wrote:
One more sea movement question. Can a player use the sea movement discount as often as he likes in a turn ?

Yes.

-MMM

Thread: Re: The Universal Head END OF THE TRIUMVIRATE Rules Summary v1 (Sep 08)

dsr15 — 2008-10-07T04:31:59+00:00

Thanks, this game needs a rule summary.

Enjoyed the boing link as well!

dsr

Thread: Re: The Universal Head END OF THE TRIUMVIRATE Rules Summary v1 (Sep 08)

UniversalHead — 2008-10-02T01:48:43+00:00

Glad you like them. Though your political allegiance fills me with pure horror...

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/25/failin-palin.html

(PS Originally there was a poster before this comment with a Sarah Palin-supporting avatar, hence the above link.)

Thread: The Universal Head END OF THE TRIUMVIRATE Rules Summary v1 (Sep 08)

UniversalHead — 2008-10-01T23:43:42+00:00

I've uploaded a single sided rules summary for The End of the Triumvirate.

As usual, print out in colour on card, laminate and trim for best results! Enjoy!

Other player aids at www.headlesshollow.com/freebies_games.html.

Thread: Re: Leaning Games

Stormbull — 2008-09-15T19:59:43+00:00

How long did those first two games you talked about take, btw?

About 30 mins each game time, with a little more some rules explanation. As a caveat, the game ended about halfway through the 2nd year (there are a maxium of 4 years, but I would think it's rare for the game to go beyond 3).

Thread: Re: Leaning Games

Diis — 2008-09-15T19:49:24+00:00

I picked this one up from Tanga also, but haven't had a chance to play. I just read the rules last night, though, and might get it to the table this weekend.

How long did those first two games you talked about take, btw?

Diis

Thread: Re: Leaning Games

Gamegrunt — 2008-09-15T17:58:10+00:00

I too picked up this game on Tanga and after a thorough review of the rules, I was able to coax my wife into an "introductory" game. I get her to do this by convincing her that she is helping me to learn the game so I can teach others, which of course she is!

Here are some of the rules that I got wrong in our shortened game...

...forgetting to get the legions and/or gold from Rome in the Supply Phase.

...not moving the Tempus Fugit marker after each player's turn.

...resolving battles by replacing a neutral weapon when it was pulled (you're not supposed to do this!)

...forgetting to reduce the number of legions in a province to six at the end of a player's turn.

I'm looking forward to a three player game soon.

Gg

Thread: Re: Leaning Games

tmarozas — 2008-09-15T15:28:34+00:00

Stormbull wrote:

A question: From our reading of the rules, during the supply phase, it seems you can put your legions from Rome anywhere -- so, in theory, Caesar could place them in one of Crassus' provices do deter Pompy?

I know the paragraph you're talking about in the rules...I thought the same thing.

However, I believe the correct interpretation is you can place legions from Rome in any province you control.

I'm basing this off the figure on page 6 which shows an example of a player taking 1 legion and 1 coin from Rome, and the example note on the legion is "put in one of your own provinces".

-T

Thread: Leaning Games

Stormbull — 2008-09-15T15:05:48+00:00

I picked up Fall from Tanga -- it seemed like an interesting game, and fills that nice niche of a 3-player game.

The first game was me and Louis, mainly just figuring out the mechanics. Caesar made a disastrous first turn attack against Pompy that sort of set the tone for the game. Pompy counter-attacked, pretty much wiping Caesar from the northern part of the map. Crassus kind of dawdled because we had no clue what to do with him. Caesar went on to be elected consul and was 2 citizens from political victory when Pompy was able to accieve a military victory on his 4th turn.

For game two, Tim and Quyen joined and I stepped out to be advisor. Caesar fortififed Europe before going to Egypt to consolidate. Pompy ground into Caesars troops in a costly land war. Crassus zipped around organizing his resources and was able to grab a political province, and with a suplus of gold, found himself the first counsul.

Caesar played mostly defensively, while Pompy landed in Sicily and added 4 weapons to the bag, allowing him to sweep through Africa on his 4th turn for a win (again).

The game was generally enjoyed, but it was clear that while we had the rules down, stratgecially we had no clue as how to really play -- while there is little luck, a misplay can unbalance things.

A question: From our reading of the rules, during the supply phase, it seems you can put your legions from Rome anywhere -- so, in theory, Caesar could place them in one of Crassus' provices do deter Pompy?

Image

Gamegrunt — 2008-09-14T19:45:40+00:00

Pasted and glazed leader images applied to the character blocks.

Thread: Re: Battle Timing Question

rnijholt — 2008-08-29T22:52:49+00:00

According to the rules, a battle does not end after weapons are drawn (step 1 of 5) or after weapons are resolved (step 2 of 5). You need to continue with the next step: during character protection (step 3 of 5), if there is a defending character piece present, 2 attacking legions are destroyed. Only then, if any legions are left, the main battle commences (step 4 of 5). Since in your example there would be no legions left after step 3, the main battle would be skipped, and the battle result (step 5 of 5) would be a failed attack.

By the bye, in your example red could never win, since black has a character present, and defending characters will always eliminate 2 enemy legions. An unwise attack, then.

Thread: Re: Sea Movement

tmarozas — 2008-08-29T18:03:39+00:00

One more sea movement question. Can a player use the sea movement discount as often as he likes in a turn ?

Example, in a single turn, could Caesar move from Africa to Hispania Citerior via Western Mare mediterraeum for 1 MP (No legions) to pick up a coin, then move to Italia via Western Mare mediterraeum, pick up 2 coins and have 2MP left ?

Thread: Battle Timing Question

tmarozas — 2008-08-29T17:55:41+00:00

A Scenario:

Red attacks black. Both armies have 2 legions, and black's plank is present in the province.

2 red weapons are drawn from the bag.

Does red win at this point, or does black get to apply his plank's benefit and remove 2 red cubes, giving black the win ?

-T

Thread: Re: how often do you see political victories?

hancock.tom — 2008-07-27T15:27:37+00:00

I agree with Michael. Just last night I played this game and we were talking about how tough it is to pull off a military victory, but how difficult it was to stop someone rolling towards the competence victory.

Its a very well balanced game, and I think a lot of what is discussed here really depends on playstyles of the players.

Thread: Re: Civil servants?

mergryphon — 2008-07-06T16:44:52+00:00

Thank you!

Thread: Re: Civil servants?

pethulhu — 2008-07-06T16:42:44+00:00

Civil servants guarantee that the province they are in produce every turn and not only every other turn.
(Just keep the wooden province marker on the servant token all the time to indicate this.)

Thread: Civil servants?

mergryphon — 2008-07-06T16:25:33+00:00

I kept looking in the rules, and must be completely missing the answer. There are rules for where to start with civil servants, how to move them and capture them, and getting another.

But, nowhere can I find what they are for? Why would I want one, want to move one or capture one?

Thread: Re: I Came, I Saw, I Took Your "B"

BlondieWan — 2008-06-15T04:51:20+00:00

adam.skinner wrote:
This is one of my favorite review titles.

Mine, too.

Thread: Re: I Came, I Saw, I Took Your "B"

Dweeb — 2008-06-14T12:58:47+00:00

Great review. I think one of the reasons this game never caught on is because a lot of first-time players might have experienced an abrupt and disappointing ending to the game, where the player who wins the first election quickly wins if the others don't respond quickly enough.

Thread: Re: I Came, I Saw, I Took Your "B"

adam.skinner — 2008-06-14T12:12:02+00:00

This is one of my favorite review titles.

Thread: I Came, I Saw, I Took Your "B"

muppaphone — 2008-06-14T07:19:09+00:00

This review originally appeared at www.fortressat.com

Since I read I, Claudius when I was a junior in high school, I’ve loved the Romans. The palace intrigue, the gladiators, the Senate, the general blood-thirstiness, it’s all simultaneously foreign and familiar. I’m also a sucker for short wargames that don’t drown me in rules, so when I read in 2006 that Z-Man would be publishing The End of the Triumvirate, I was pre-sold. Having said all of that, I’m still surprised at how much I like this game and how much staying power it has. Even after two years, it’s still fun, still surprising, and very nasty.

Theme and Rules: The year is 56 B.C. and control of Rome is balanced on a knife-edge. Except it’s not really a knife-edge. It’s more like three-tined fork, and each player plays as one of the, umm, tines. They all want the handle of the fork. Players assume the roles of Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus, each of whom is represented by a wooden square, which is lame. Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus want to be emperor, and there are three paths to this goal. There’s a military victory; if you manage to get all of your governors on the board, you’ve won. There’s a political victory where you win by being elected consul twice. And there’s a “competence victory,” winning by maxing out on both the military and political tracks. I won’t go into great depth on the rules since they’re available here--http://www.zmangames.com/. The board is divided into provinces of three types: cash provinces, military provinces, and competence provinces. Control of the provinces is denoted by governors (large-ish wooden cylinders): red for Caesar, blue for Pompey, black for Crassus. If you control a province and it’s the right turn (provinces only produce resources every other turn) you get some stuff. One nasty part of the game is that if one of your provinces produces something, you have to go get it. If you have money in Africa Nova you’re in Asia, you have to go pick it up, or it just stays out there waiting for someone else to steal it.
In the top right of the board is the forum where there are little yellow pieces that represent senators. Money influences them to vote for you for consul. It’s just like political life in America. Except if W. and Dick Cheney were Romans, they would have long since bled to death in bathtubs after killing themselves out of shame.
Probably the most important piece is the “B.” In the rules they’re called civil servants; we call them bureaucrats. Bureaucrats make the provinces they’re in produce every turn, which is a great advantage. You must protect your B at all costs! Once you’ve lost your B, you’ve effectively lost the game.

Feel: My favorite thing about the game is that, despite its short playing time (45 mins.—an hour and 1/2), it really does have an epic feel, the sense that you’re playing for high stakes that’s familiar to anyone who’s crapped out on an important dice roll three hours into Axis & Allies. The theme creates this illusion. As nerds most of us are familiar with the political situation in the late Roman republic, the rise of Caesar, and the revelation that armies were more loyal to their generals than the Senate. If your nerdiness has not led you to Rome, you might watch HBO’s Rome for thematic immersion. Polly Walker (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0908116/) as Atia of the Julii getting naked regularly is a nice bonus. If only The OC could've done the same with Julie Cooper.
Another good thing is what I guess you’d call the balance. On each turn a player gets four points to use for movement. With four moves you can cover some serious ground around Mare Mediterraneum, but it always feels as though if you had one more move, you could do what you really needed to do. The “battle bag” randomizes kind of like the cube tower in Wallenstein. The combo I’m describing here—high conflict, high stakes, high strategy, low luck—is a recipe for bad feelings for more insecure dorks, and the battle bag provides an out for players whose masculinity, sadly, depends on an activity that most women would find slightly less distasteful than library masturbation. If only I had drawn two reds, etc.

Scaling: Obviously, it’s designed for three players, but he game also scales really well for two, and in the two player version the province distribution feels vaguely historical.

Components: I like the board, a mounted map depicting the Mediterranean done in earth-tones of yellow, red, and brown made to look like vellum mounted on wood. Certain hyper-critics at BGG have described it as “smeared in what appears to be Georgia red clay, mustard, and dishwater,” but I think Z-Man was going for the faded campaigner’s map that Caesar must have consulted upon his return to Rome. I do remember opening the box and feeling a little disappointment at yet another map of Europe, but what else would it be? Kronos? Incidentally, I would totally buy a Klingon reiteration of this game. The weird thing about the game is that there’s very little build-up. With most strategy games, we’re in the habit of devoting our first few turns to preparation—if I put legions here, what will he do? But in The End of the Triumvirate, you have to come out swinging. Due to the compression of the map, it really does have that knife-fight-phone-booth feel, and there’s not much room for error. Your opponent will destroy you if you make mistakes.
Brown wooden cubes represent legions, and they can fight for any side. The colored cylinders that denote governors work well in that they cover the resources in non-producing provinces and make the book-keeping part of the game easy. I also like the little yellow senators whose color and size make them seem appropriately pliable. Wish they didn’t roll. The “planks” that represent the main characters (Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus) are my only gripes. Plastic figures with red, blue, and black togas would add to the game. If any of you know where I could get cheap ones that I wouldn’t have to paint, the little figs would be a huge improvement.

Conclusion: But that’s a minor complaint. On the whole this has been one of the best games I’ve bought. It’s short enough that it can serve as a kind of appetizer for some other game and substantial enough, given the right audience, to build a whole game night around. Although The End of the Triumvirate has kind of dropped off the radar since it came out (like so many games do), it might be unique in that it’s a great strategic two- or three-player game that plays in under an hour and feels “epic.”

Thread: Re: how often do you see political victories?

Michael Ward — 2008-06-06T07:03:03+00:00

I've played The End of the Triumvirate ten times. The victory types were: political - 4, military - 3, competence - 3. I find the game extremely balanced in viable strategies and victory conditions.

I would guess you seeing much more of one type of victory is probably a function of the mind set of your group members than any bias on the game's part.

Thread: how often do you see political victories?

kuhrusty — 2008-06-05T08:38:36+00:00

For us, it's "almost always," with an occasional military victory, and competence victories rarer still. (Like, tonight, we played twice; in the first game, Caesar won a political victory; in the second game, he "tried something else," just so that he wouldn't be doing the same thing two games in a row, so Pompey won a political victory.) Do you tend to see the same results?

Thread: Re: Running out of legions

Tyger — 2008-05-24T20:39:53+00:00

I am a little fuzzy on why there are only 15 gold pieces. Unlike with legions, there is no way to force a player to return gold to the treasury, so it becomes possible for a player to hoard gold and prevent other players from taking any actions. This seems like a flaw to me, but perhaps I am missing something.
Can you give a plausible reason why the amount of available gold should so restricted?

Thread: End of the Triumvirate Microbadges now available

jgrundy — 2008-04-22T00:27:38+00:00

[inlineimg]http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/mb_endtriu...[/inlineimg] [inlineimg]http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/mb_endtriu...[/inlineimg] (Buy one)

Image

Oblivion — 2008-04-14T19:00:25+00:00

The End of the Trumvirate

Image

Oblivion — 2008-04-14T18:22:29+00:00

Mid game

Image

Rednax — 2008-01-12T17:51:30+00:00

custome made leader standups and rome marker to remind of supplies (see file section)

Image

HHarengel — 2008-01-05T06:10:38+00:00

Essen 2005

Thread: Re: Gold Hoarding Political Strategy

keethrax — 2007-12-22T16:38:02+00:00

out4blood wrote:
(Technically, one of the players can also reach a competence victory through Compensation II, but that is something that would only happen through kingmaking by the third player, in which case you're doomed to lose regardless of how you play.)

Assuming the Compensation II strategy works (haven't tried it vs the hoarder strategy) I think that makes for a perfectly adequate counter all by itself. While actually continuing with the policy of kingmaking to the bitter end may result in a 3rd player loss, the threat of doing so may break the stranglehold of player 1, so I think this is a perfectly suitable counter. It's sufficient that the counter-strategy ensures the hoarder does not win. At that point, an hoarder who wants to win will have to change tactics

It's just another from of two players taking on the biggest thread, just in this case boosting one of them rather than directly attacking.

For example:

Player #1: is hoarding gold via this strategy.

Player #2: talks player 3 into the competency counter-strategy and allows himself to be repeatedly attacked.

Player #3: Does his part and begins to attack player #2 so 2 can compete with one for the win.

Sure, if nobody alters their strategy, player #2 wins, and player #3 played kingmaker. But at some point player #1 needs to stop, and make a deal with player #3 to prevent player #2 from getting the competency victory.

In other words, just like a "normal" game where nobody is using the hoarding strategy.

Thread: Re: Gold Hoarding Political Strategy

masdero — 2007-12-22T15:50:16+00:00

I bought this game for xmas BEFORE reading this topic.

Is the 6-gold-pieces cap at the end of the turn good?

Thread: Re: Anyone finding Competence victory too obvious?

morningstar — 2007-12-12T00:31:19+00:00

Yesterday I played my first game of End of the Triumvirate since reading this thread. I decided to try going heavily for Competence victory and see how it went. I didn't set out from the beginning to do it. For the first couple of turns I tried to improve my position. In the whole game, mostly early, I did spend one action on a citizen and three actions on buying weapons. I felt like I had to at least get the citizen, or Crassus would win the consulship by tiebreaker without doing anything.

See my session report: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/255816.

Long story short, I was a lock to win by Competence, but was attacked heavily and forced to Escape. I lost competence. It seems too easy to beat you back on this path to victory.

Thread: Caesar's lunge at Competence fails; Crassus wins by arms

morningstar — 2007-12-11T23:14:03+00:00

I started out the game with a new Caesar opening, slightly modified from my old Caesar opening. I took legions as a freebie, and emptied Gallia Narbonensis heading for Sicily. I took Sicily, then went without legions to pick up my gold in Aegyptus, and returned to Sicily with my civil servant. I bought weapons.

Pompeiius grabbed undefended Gallia Narbonensis and then turned against Crassus in Africa Novo.

I thought Crassus might go after Aegyptus, which had only two legions, even though the governor wasn't in the box. He totally surprised me when he grabbed Gallia Narbonensis (also without the governor in the box). Later he explained to me that he was trying a strategy of monopolizing legion-producing territories.

That was slightly annoying, because my only decent attack target was Italy, which had the governor in the box and Pompeiius hadn't reinforced. However, that meant giving Pompeiius Compensation II. Oh well, I wasn't complaining too hard. It was the first time in End of the Triumvirate that I had "crossed the Rubicon", or rather the Straits of Messina. Often, Pompeiius puts at least some effort into defending Italy, his only money province. Next I grabbed my gold in Greece and finished in Illyricum, because the governor was already outside the box and I was carrying my civil servant.

So far I liked how my new opening was working. It accomplished most of my opening move goals. I have to get my gold in Aegyptus. I like to take Sicily away from Pompeiius, because it's about to produce legions. I like to buy weapons on the first turn, when it's relatively cheap, because I just have to use one action to get into the military lead. Having weapons is a nice deterrent to avoid getting attacked.

It was also nice starting in Sicily. Sicily is the most strategic location in the game. It gives you a lot of options. You can move into either sea zone or toward Europe or Africa in one step. Starting there with a civil servant also means you can start with quite a few legions. In particular, and in this game, it allowed me to attack Italy, which is a valuable gold position, and still have enough movement to get my gold and then some.

At the end of my turn I was sitting in Illyricum with four legions and a civil servant. I was contemplating the possibility of beginning the next turn with eight legions and doing some serious attacking. Unfortunately, the timing broke down for me here, because when my turn came around, most of the nearby governors were out of the box, and in any case, both Aegyptus and Italy produced gold. I had to go pick it up. But I wasn't complaining too much.

I now had Aegyptus, Greece, and Italy as three double-gold territories in reasonably close proximity. I started to use my civil servant to get four gold each turn. Gallia Cisalpina provided a nice one-gold bonus every once in a while. I thought with this much gold income I could make an unstoppable stab at a competence victory.

I was wrong. I was aware of the threat of a forced Escape, and I had plenty of legions, so I made sure Caesar was protected by the maximum six legions. Of course, the other players realized I couldn't be stopped unless they forced an Escape, so Pompeiius attacked anyway with even more legions. I lost and had to step back on both competence tracks. I retreated to Aegyptus where I had four legions, but Crassus attacked me again anyway, forcing two more steps back, but one forward because of Compensation II. That also took Crassus down to only two cylinders remaining.

I hit Crassus and put him back at three. I continued to go after Competence and regain some of my losses. I topped out the Political track, but this time I wisely stayed one step behind in Military. I was still only three steps away from the top, and I had a couple gold in reserve.

It was necessary for Pompeiius to get Crassus to four cylinders left. There were some easy targets, but he decided to have some fun. He actually already controlled all but one civil servant. He gathered his up and moved on Crassus and the last civil servant in Aegyptus. We joked that this should be a fourth winning condition: monopolizing all the civil servants. The battle in Aegyptus was winnable, but not guaranteed. As it turned out, the battle bag draw didn't go Pompeiius's way. Pompeiius's movement was used up, and Crassus still had three cylinders remaining.

There were a lot of undefended or poorly defended territories on the board. Crassus just had to find a path through three of them. He couldn't find a guaranteed path, but he found a pretty good one. For freebies, he took one legion in Aegyptus and one in Asia Minor. The one legion in Aegyptus he used to take over undefended Cyrenaica. He then moved without legions to Asia Minor. There awaited four legions. They marched through Macedonia and Illyricum, both defended by a single legion only. Still, if both draws came out against him, he wouldn't succeed. That didn't happen, though, and Crassus won a military victory.

The strategic take-home lesson of this game was that you can't lunge at a Competence victory. There's no way to avoid being taken down. The most armies you can surround yourself with is six, and even one of your enemies can usually bring a substantially larger force if properly motivated. If not, probably they can get you with a one-two punch.

I'm not sure if it's more possible to hold a lead toward another victory condition. You can be knocked back on all of them. On Military, they can take your provinces, and on Political, they can buy back citizens you buy. I think, though, it might be viable just to advance on the Political track and then go for citizens. Then they have to catch you on Political to economically take your citizens away. They can still use Escape against you, but not very damagingly. You just lose on one track, not both. I'll have to try it to see if it can really work, though.

Thread: Re: Parts manifest

kduke — 2007-11-04T23:32:45+00:00

It can be a struggle, even with the list.

It confused me that the competence and weapons cubes are THE SAME CUBES. (you have 10 of the same color-- 8 are 'weapons' and 2 are "competence."_

Would be useful to read that the Citizens are 11 yellow BLOCKS and the "civil servants" and "calendar stone" are COUNTERS.

Thread: Re: Provinces without cubes - easy pickings?

richardolen2 — 2007-10-24T00:50:59+00:00

Thanks for the game help, and thanks for supporting my lonely Browns endorsement!

Thread: Re: Provinces without cubes - easy pickings?

jerkules — 2007-10-23T20:19:09+00:00

Correct, no cubes drawn and no cubes lost by the attacker (unless the defender's character was there).

I also agree with your Go Browns sentiment.

Thread: Provinces without cubes - easy pickings?

richardolen2 — 2007-10-23T20:11:14+00:00

I asked this in another thread, but I think it may be lost in the shuffle.

Regarding leaving zero legions behind:

Say Black is trying to enter a Blue province. Black is carrying with it three legions. Blue's province has zero.

Is it an automatic victory for Black? No cubes would be drawn from the bag, since the lesser side has zero cubes, right?

This one confused me a little.

Thread: Re: moving a civil servant / leaving legions behind

richardolen2 — 2007-10-23T00:36:16+00:00

Regarding leaving no legions behind:

Say Black is trying to enter a Blue province. Black is carrying with it three legions. Blue's province has zero.

Is it an automatic victory for Black? No cubes would be drawn from the bag, since the lesser side has zero cubes, right?

This one confused me a little.

Thread: Re: Anyone finding Competence victory too obvious?

morningstar — 2007-10-22T20:48:04+00:00

I'm going from memory here, so stop me if I get it wrong.

To get a Competence victory, you need 12 actions at least. It's 1-7 on each track.

To get a Political victory, in principle you only need 4 actions: one to align one citizen and have one more than the other players, and three to align back to you those you lose when you become Consul the first time. Now if the other players are going for a Competence victory, you will probably have to increase your political competence to avoid paying extra. That's at most 6 actions to go to the top of the track. It's probably less.

10 < 12. If you're left alone, you should be able to win by Political victory faster than someone trying to win by Competence victory, all things being equal.

Of course, you're probably not going to be left without any competition for a Political victory. But then that means your opponents aren't spending all their actions on Competence.

It also assumes someone can't win by Competence before the second election. If they can, then to win Politically you have to get six citizens, and that takes more actions (7 + 6 = 13). But, it's still comparable with Competence victory, and this is still assuming you have to go to the top of the Political track to keep being able to align citizens affordably. Maybe that means one player is being left alone on the military competence track, and can buy four weapons every turn. If so, maybe that player has a chance to win by military victory.

In my experience, Competence victory has only happened when experienced players successfully block every other attempt at victory. In that case, it's rewarding. It means you managed to stop other player's repeated stabs at victory, while still running an efficient ship.

Thread: Re: the compensation problem

muppaphone — 2007-10-15T06:18:07+00:00

Gyges wrote:
Can't people learn from their defeats? That's always how I interpreted it.

Thank you for this. I really like this game and I just wanted a shade of a justification for the rule (beyond balance).

This is what I was fishing for. Now it doesn't bug me quite so much.

Thread: Re: the compensation problem

ekted — 2007-10-13T17:07:37+00:00

Gyges wrote:
Can't people learn from their defeats? That's always how I interpreted it.
Yes, but in the game, having military or political competence does not feed back into actual military or political actions. So it doesn't feel like it's learning.

Thread: Re: the compensation problem

Gyges — 2007-10-13T17:03:47+00:00

Can't people learn from their defeats? That's always how I interpreted it.

Thread: Re: the compensation problem

ekted — 2007-10-13T16:48:43+00:00

I think equality was big in Rome. In Hannibal, all Consuls must have 5 legions. They will not leave another Consul with less than 5, and you must place new legions with Consuls that have less than 5.

So if Caesar beats up on Pompeius, Rome helps out Pompeius. I think the disconnect is the use of the word "competence", as if a player "gets better at something" because he got beat up. "Support" seems too strong. "Sympathy" seems to wierd.

Thread: Re: the compensation problem

jgrundy — 2007-10-13T07:48:34+00:00

I have to say, that sounds like an objection mostly on theme grounds and support on game balance grounds.

Is there a justification within theme?

I'm guessing (without yet having played this game at all) that compensation was added during playtesting and that the game suffers without it.

Thread: Re: the compensation problem

Octavian — 2007-10-13T04:47:07+00:00

muppaphone wrote:
One of the knocks on this game is the weird compensation thing where you're essentially rewarded for getting your ass kicked. Has anyone tried simply scrapping the compensation altogether? I'd be curious to hear what effect it had on the game.

Thanks.

It's not that you are rewarded for getting your ass kicked. It's that the other players have incentive not to pick on one player repeatedly. If I get attacked twice in a row, I get some compensation. But the compensation is seldom makes up for what is lost in the attack.

I think compensation works great as is and see no need to remove it.

-MMM

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Legomancer — 2007-08-01T23:47:10+00:00

A speech? Really?

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Majiken — 2007-06-04T19:06:55+00:00

Dark times for a vast and divided empire.

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gamephotos — 2007-05-08T08:07:22+00:00

Pompieus Invades Aegyptus

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gamephotos — 2007-05-08T08:05:57+00:00

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