Once again I drew my magic marker from its scabbard and sketched out a ping-pong-table-size map. This map resembled the one shown below: there's an island in the north-west corner, and a large land mass on the rest of the map There are seven countries, each of which has 6 provinces. The country of Alta is definitely disadvantaged; I proved this in our first game. Alta, in effect, never got off the ground... she conquered no territory, collected less taxes than her competitors, raised fewer troops, etc. In short, Alta looks like a loser, and in the second edition of the rules, we're going to have to prop her up a wee bit. In part, Alta's troubles stemmed from the fact that she's effectively isolated from the rest of the world on her island. As I indicated above, every country has 6 provinces, as does Alta. But only 5 of the 6 are located on Alta's island; the other, the 6th province, is located on a spur to the south of the map. Split as she is, Alta thus has to be a sea-faring country. As part of Alta's initial assets, I gave her a couple of warships and a transport so that her forces could immediately set sail for the mainland and join in the fun, i.e., the general pillaging, rampaging, and scavenging going on. Each country starts out with a small supply of gold, nothing else. Then on each logistic phase, she gathers in Resource Points and allocates them to whatever needs she has. The six provinces within a country are numbered 1 through 6. Add them up, and you get 21 points, 21 Resource Points (RP). Half of these are gold; the other half are what you want them to be. A listing of the resource requirements are: Gold: Pay your forces, build fleets, fortifications, granaries, raise armies, etc. Metal: Needed to build fortifications, raise troops, build fleets Chemicals: Raise armies Lumber: Build fortifications, granaries, fleets Food: Needed to keep your people content Slow Leads to Disaster Brian Dewitt and Fred Haub, situated on the mainland, quickly invaded the neighboring territory and were collecting about 60 RP each while I was still setting out in the Alta fleet. Slow starting out, I discovered that "slow" leads to disaster. For the first few turns, having no territory other than that of Alta proper, I collected 21 RP. Half of these, 10 RP (rounded down), were gold, and the other half I divided as follows: 5 for metal, 3 for chemicals, and 3 for food. My intent was to use the gold, metal, and chemical RP to raise an additional army. But each turn, there's a logistics phase wherein you've got to pay your troops. You dice for the amount, and it's either 1 or 2 gold pieces for every army and fleet you've got in inventory. For the first three turns, when I diced, I discovered that I had expensive forces... they each required 2 gold pieces. I had 6 field forces plus 2 fleets... that's a requirement of 16 gold pieces per turn, a requirement which I couldn't fulfill. And what happen. when you can't pay your men? Why, they disband, of course! And so, there, at the very start of the game, poor Alta's forces were beginning to break up! I told the men aboard my invading fleets, heading for the mainland, to paddle faster before Alta completely ceased to exist. We landed on the coast of the mainland, and discovered that Brian Dewitt had constructed a fortification just to keep me out! "Charge!" I cried, and my boys stormed the fortress. Hell hath no fury like an Altanian scorned... we won the battle, and drove the Dewittites out. At last! Alta had a foothold on the mainland! After about 7 or so full bounds, we stopped the game, and discussed the changes necessary to make Version 2 smoother flowing. Fear not... Alta will return! Back to PW Review December 1995 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1995 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com