We first had to resolve the Summer invasions. Macedonia battled the warbands of Vindebona (with John taking control of the Vindebona defences) while Mark's Carthaginians again tried to take control of Mauretania (defended by Russ).
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| Mark plans the conquest of Mauretania |
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| Russ plans the defence. |
Russ was under the weather, having spent a long time at work and stuck on the M6 for hours trying to get back from Derby. His defence plan included leaving the BUA open and Mark made hay by grabbing it AND killing the Mauretania elephant. Carthage duly grabbed Mauretania and Mark was delighted (as his food stocks were running low).
Russ then invaded Arabia with an 11 base army and found it was defended by a couple of goats and a lizard (or might as well have been) and the Seleucids grabbed Arabia (for what it was worth). When he found out what Arabia was worth he said "That's like taking Birkenhead" (which - for our non-English readers - is basically not the nicest place on earth).
The players are still struggling with the DBA rules and the reference sheets were passed back and forth all night. It was just as well that I'd given up running Egypt as there were constant calls for refereeing decisions (which included calling Russ for moving his psiloi 5").
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| Ian attempts to conquer Vindebona as John tries to open a bag of crisps. The crisps won. |
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| Mauretania is mine, all mine! Bwa ha ha ha ha! |
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| 432nd time the reference sheet was used. And its only the first battle. |
So the battles were over - and so was Summer. Time for Autumn to show its face.
First up, the event cards. Much to Russ' disgust, Tyre was pulled out twice ("Is that a sticky card?) and had a roll for Epidemic (Ouch!) which meant no gold or food from this and all adjoining territories (i.e. most of the Seleucid's empire) AND Russ' Army #1 was reduced by half. The only bright spot was that he wouldn't need to feed or pay a lot of his troops as they'd either been killed by Sinopians or died of the plague. Every cloud....
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| Russ shows his feelings as Tyre is pulled out again.. |
It's going to be a long hard winter in the Seleucid empire.
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| Working out the Empire finances. |
The other empires fared better especially with the new trading rule but with Winter approaching everyone seems to be gold rich and food poor. Having big armies is one thing...paying and feeding them quite another!
The next stage of invasions were then planned. Macedonia went for Sarmatia (defended by me so Ian's got nothing to worry about but we ran out of time so will pick up next Thursday). Rome attacked (and secured) Etruria
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| Give me Etruria or give me death! |
Russ had to leave early as he was a) tired and b) suicidal as his campaign had taken a knock but not before he'd lined up Sinope AND Jerusalem. He enjoys a challenge, that's for sure!
Finally Mark had a walkover conquest of the massively rich and fertile Sahara.
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| Final position of the Macedonian invasion of Sarmatia. Avoid the pike! |
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| Expansion continues unabated. |
Another enjoyable evening. I definitely did the right thing by focusing on refereeing as we got more battles in. The rules work as does DBA itself. It's ideal as everyone got a couple of battles in at least. The trade is always fun and the new rule has made it safer for ships and so more enjoyable for the players (Russ excluded). In addition, the focus on resources - especially Food - has definitely added another dimension as the players have gone for food producing regions and are husbanding resources as required.
The event cards also add fun and an element of randomness which does create both headaches and delight for players in equal measure and reflects the fact that no territory stands still.
The other aspect - as demonstrated by Russ' disasters - is that they are not fatal. As each empire has a number of buffer states between them (and the option for creating Treaties) means that one empire cannot pounce on another directly - unless they buy lots of ships of course!
I still don't think the players have appreciated how useful their spies could be. For 20 Gold they can inflict significant damage on opposing empires without revealing who is responsible. They can also reduce the strength of armies in neutral territories. I'm sure the next couple of seasons the penny will drop and secret missions will escalate.