Each player has his own Victory Point score, which will determine who wins the game. The game is over when time runs out, or if Rome or Carthage is captured.
The map is divided into provinces and theaters. All the provinces of the same color belong to a theater. The theaters are called African (purple), Iberian (green), Italian (red), and Greek (blue).
Transalpine Gaul is brown because it is a wild province. See the Movement rules for details.
Dotted red lines between provinces indicate a mountain route.
Dotted white lines between provinces indicate a sea route.
Black squares indicate Major cities (Rome, Carthage, Syracuse).
Black circles indicate minor cities.
There are four armies:
Carthage I begins with a full sized army. All other armies begin with only 6 elements each.
Players on each side roll off to see who gets control of an army. The highest roller gets army I, the second highest army II.
Carthage begins the game with the initiative.
Beginning with the player with the highest VP score and progressing in descending order through the player with the lowest VP score (roll off for ties), players take turns allocating the resources from one of the nation's provinces. A player may do one of these things with the resources:
Continue this process until this step has been done once for each province the nation controls.
Seasonal Turns (A-D). During each of the seasonal turns, a player controlling an army may move it according to the Movement Rules below. Moves are made in this order:
An army which retreats or fights a battle or siege forfeits its move for the season.
Some moves cause attrition; see the section on attrition below. During the winter season, any army which is not in a friendly province containing a major or minor city suffers attrition before movement (and may suffer attrition again if it moves).
At the end of each seasonal turn, provinces automatically change hands if they are occupied by an enemy army and do not contain a besieged friendly army or major city.
Passing the inititiative (E). When it is time to pass the initiative, the side which won more battles this year gains the initiative for next year. In a tie, the side that last had the initiative keeps it.
A move across water may either be via a sea route (the dotted blue lines on the map), or between any two coastal provinces across open sea.
When an army enters a province containing an enemy army, the enemy army must either:
When an army chooses to stand a siege rather than fight or retreat, the moving army must either starve it into submission (see Seiges below) or retreat.
If an army moves through a province containing a friendly army, the C-in-C of either army may give elements to the other army. In such an exchange, neither core army nor allied contingent may exceed the maximum size or allowed composition. Such an exchange may result in one army being disbanded.
If there are two friendly armies in the same province where a battle is to be fought, only one goes to the battlefield. The army which arrived second may send up to half its elements as an allied contingent to help the first army. If the first army is defeated and must retreat, the second army must also retreat.
Transalpine Gaul is a special wild province, and cannot be owned by either side. It is treated as a movement stop only. It is also big, and an army there may attempt to avoid contact with an enemy army in the same province: both C-in-Cs dice off, and the winner gets his way (i.e., either an interception or a successful evasion, whichever he wanted). If both armies wish to avoid contact or fight a battle, then the desired result is automatic. An army which spends Winter there may treat it as a friendly minor city if it was the first army to arrive in the province.
Attrition. An army suffers attrition if it does one of the following:
If playing with 7 or 8 players, expand the core armies to the following:
Roman | Carthaginian |
---|---|
1 Cv (Gen) 1 Cv 8 Bd 4 Ps 2 Sp |
1 Cv (Gen) 1 Cv 2 LH 4 Sp 3 Wb or Ps 1 Ax 1 Ax or Ps 1 El or Cv 1 El or LH 1 Ps |
Allied contingents. Roman and Carthaginian armies operating in different theaters may recruit allied contingents according to one of these lists. Allied elements can be recruited during the Political Phase or by spending one talent of gold from the army's warchest during its move for each element it adds in the province it's in.
An allied contingent may never leave its own theater of operations, but simply disbands if the core army it is attached to leaves or is destroyed.
If one of the elements in an allied contingent is the general's element, and there are at least 3 allied elements in the army, all the allied elements must be in a separate command controlled by a player other than the C-in-C.
If the nation recruiting the allied contingent does not own any territories in the theater, it may not take more than 3 elements from the allied list.
Italian Theater | African Theater | Greek Theater | Iberian Theater | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Roman |
1 Cv (Gen) 4 Ax or Sp 1 Ps |
1 LH (Gen) 3 LH 2 Ax or Ps |
1 Cv (Gen) 3 Sp 1 Ax 1 Ps |
1 Cv (Gen) 3 Ax or Wb 2 Ps |
Carthaginian |
1 Cv (Gen) 4 Ax or Wb 1 Ps |
1 LH (Gen) 3 LH or (1 El + 2 LH) 2 Ax or Ps |
Raising and Disbanding Armies. A player may elect to use resources to raise a new army during a political phase. Such an army comes with 6 free elements of the raising player's choice, selected from his nation's army list. Further elements must be added through the normal process of the political phase.
New Roman armies can only be raised in Rome. New Carthaginian armies can be raised in Carthage, Cartago Nova, or Sicily, but Carthage must own the province in which the army is raised.
An army may be voluntarily disbanded by its C-in-C when it is that army's turn to move. The army marker is removed from the map and the army must be raised anew during a subsequent political phase. Disbanding an army under siege counts as surrender, and the army is considered destroyed for VP purposes.
If Rome or Carthage falls during the game, the players on the winning side are all ranked ahead of the players on the losing side. Players within a side are ranked according to VP score.
If the game ends without a clear victor, every player on the side that has more provinces gets the territory difference added to his VP score (e.g., if Rome has 14 provinces and Carthage has only 10, the Roman players each get +4 VP).
Each army must be divided into 2-4 commands, and each player on a side must be given one of them. The player in control of the army is C-in-C during any battles that army fights. Each command must contain at least 3 elements, determined by the C-in-C. Each player on a side must be given a command, if this is at all possible. Players who are left out of a battle because their side has insufficient elements to make commands for them may elect to fight a minor war; see the rules on minor wars below.
If an allied general is present, he must command all allied elements in a separate command, and the allied command must be controlled by a player other than the C-in-C. If no allied general is present, allied elements may be mixed into the army's other commands as the C-in-C sees fit.
Terrain choices available are determined by theater, as listed in the table below. Personally, I use pre-made terrain panels to speed up battle setup.
Theater | Compulsory Features |
Optional Features |
---|---|---|
Africa (Steppe) | Road | River, Rough, Road, BUA. |
Iberia (Arable) | Steep Hills | River, Steep Hills, Gentle Hills, Woods, Road, Waterway, BUA. |
Italy (Arable) | Gentle Hills | River, Steep Hills, Gentle Hills, Woods, Road, Waterway, BUA. |
Sicily, Sardinia, or Corsica (Hilly) |
Steep Hills | River, Woods, Road, BUA. |
Commands whose generals are out of command range (1200p or 600p beyond terrain) must have dice of a different color just like allied commands.
The besieging player and the besieged player each roll a die. If the besieger's die is double that of the besieged, the siege is over, the defending army (if there is one) is destroyed, and the besieger wins. Otherwise, each army present loses an element and the siege continues next turn.
The besieged player gets a +2 if he has only an army present, +3 if there is a major city in the province, or a +4 if he has both an army and a major city.
The besieging player gets a +1 for each seasonal turn the siege has lasted.
The besieged player may elect to end the siege any turn, by bringing the besieged army out to fight a battle. This is done when it is the besieged army's turn to move.
If there is only one player left out of a campaign battle and he elects to fight a minor war, the player on the opposite side with the lowest VP score (who is not also C-in-C in a current campaign battle) must give up his position in a campaign battle and fight the minor war with him. Otherwise, it is permissable for two players on the same side to fight on opposite sides of a minor war.
The player initiating the minor war chooses an army off the left column of the table below; his C-in-C opponent chooses an army from the right column in the same row. Both players fight a battle according to the DBA Big Battle rules with the modifications listed above. Both armies are standard 12-element DBA armies with options chosen from the army list.
Numidian (II/40) |
Numidian rebel (II/40) Carthaginian (II/32) or Roman (II/33), whichever nation owns Numidia or Mauretania. |
Syracusan (II/9) |
Sicilian Greek (II/5-h) Roman (II/33) or Carthaginian (II/32), whichever nation owns Sicily. |
Gallic (II/11) |
Rival Gallic (II/11) Massiliote Greek (II/5-i) Roman (II/33) or Carthaginian (II/32), whichever nation owns Cisalpine Gaul. |
Macedonian (II/35)
(Use Sicilian terrain choices) |
Greek rebellion (II/31-b,e,g,h,i, or j) Seleucid (II/19b) Thracian (I/48) |
Iberian (II/39a) |
Rival Iberian (II/39a) Celtiberian (II/39b) Lusitanian (II/39c) |