1st Century B.C. Campaign
'Friends, Romans, Countrymen...'

Turn 15: The End

by Mike Demana


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The war god's thirst went unslaked in Early Summer, as Roman and barbarian armies alternately marched and retreated. Although they fought no battles, the citizens of the provinces suffered beneath the barbarian sword. Only in the Alps, where the Proconsul Incitare harried the Germans, did Roman soldiers seem to wage vigorous war...

Unfortunately, Early Summer of the third year of the campaign turned out to be the final turn of the campaign. It was an anticlimatic one, too, as no battles were fought. Over the course of 17 turns, we HAD fought 27 tabletop battles, though. Towards the end, we had become too clever politically, forcing two of the four players to march all the way across the Mediterranean to their new provinces (which limited their attacks). Plus, the barbarian forces we'd activated frustrated the campaigns of two others, producing a year lacking in either Roman triumphs or defeats.

Incitare

The proconsul's three legions actively warred with the Germans. One drove forward into unconquered tribal lands, only to retreat when confronted by a huge German force. Meanwhile, the proconsul guessed the intentions of the large raiding band and was there to block their access to Cisalpine Gaul when they marched. Rather than fight an equal battle (9 SP vs. 9 SP), Jason, the player controlling the Germans, retreated. Incitare did suffer losses when one detachment (1 SP) set sail for Massilia to seize Narbo's harbor, only to be lost in a storm. Meanwhile, the large raiding force of Gauls (7 SP) crept closer to Italy's borders, entering Transalpine Gaul.

Gracchus

Gracchus followed he fleeing Iberian raiders into the hills of Tarraconnensis with two legions. This forced them to either fight twice their number or disband, which they did. In North Africa, Gracchus' two detachments combined to form one overstrength legion (5 SP). He, too, suffered losses when his garrison of Jerusalem was put to the sword during the Parthian sack of the city.

Tauruscrania

Mysterious were the reasons for the Proconsul Tauruscrania's sailing to the North Africa coast. Just as baffling was his decision to set sail again as a raiding force of Blemmye -- significantly smaller than his three legions -- entered the province of Cyrenaica. The townsfolk cursed the departing sails of Tauruscrania's fleet. A week later, the Syrian legions stepped ashore in Cyprus, uncertain what the Old Man had been up to. They shrugged and headed down the quay to enjoy their shore leave.

Drusus

With three legions marching into Achaea, and a detachment controlling Athens, the Praetor Drusus was finally ready to begin to embark his men for his new province of Egypt. He knew it would be a mess, once there, with the Blemmye in Cyrenaica and the Parthians in Judaea. As such, he put his men through anti-cavalry drills and had his engineers manufacture caltrops.

So, it was over. Who won?

  • Gracchus held a commanding lead with 53 prestige points. He had overcome his initial difficulties against the light troops of Numidia, and had become a bane to them and their cousins, the Moors. When the Mediterranean Pirates came along, Gracchus thrashed them, too. Jason later confided to me that he agreed to being sent to Spain in the third year only because he secretly intended to hang on to North Africa, too. He ended the campaign the "First Man in Rome," with his prestige unmatched in the Senate. It was his slow, steady progress over all three years of the campaign that won it for him.

  • Drusus came in second with my 44 points. A meteoric start with victories over the Slave Rebellion and the Gauls couldn't be sustained, though. In fact, I never recovered from my naval disaster at the start of Year 2, and spent most of the remainder of the campaign simply marching -- first to Macedonia by the land route, then to Egypt. The Sams brothers had boxed me in during the Winter Elections, forcing me to either defy the Senate's wishes, or undertake another long, fruitless march in the third year. I chose to obey the Senate, and my prestige faded.

  • Allen came in third with Incitare's 37 points. He rebounded from his disastrous first year in the field against the Gauls. Over the course of the last two and a half campaigning years, he racked up victory after victory over them, his star on the rise. His mistake was to not fully conquer Gaul, and then Germany, which allowed Jason to nip at his heels with barbarian raiding bands. They would refuse battle (denying him prestige points from victories), but constantly shift about the map, keeping him chasing them and retaking provinces he'd seized earlier.

  • Joel proved the campaign's wild card with the aptly named Tauruscrania, scoring 31 points. His patchwork quilt of conquests against a smorgasbord of foes kept things interesting for him, but denied him the opportunity to maximize his prestige points by fully conquering any barbarian nation. He certainly fought the greatest variety of foes -- Thracians, Galatians, Parthians and Armenians. True to form, Joel provided the campaign with some of its biggest surprises and his intrigues kept the rest of us off balance.

    Friends, Romans, Countrymen is still one of my all time favorite campaigns that I have run. It provided us with a framework for regular Ancients miniatures battles, teaching all of us how to think strategically -- not just tactically. Eventually, we all learned the lesson that a timely retreat can be essential for survival. The campaign ended not because we grew bored or ceased to have fun, but because its mechanisms were not designed to handle an absentee player. When our leader, Jason, packed his bags and moved to South Carolina, the campaign was folded up and put on the shelf.

    Over the years, I've pulled it down, dusted off the old maps and pored over the memories. I smile when I remember the four of us as Romans and Countrymen, but mostly I think of the good times we had together as Friends. And that is the goal of any successful campaign.

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