Everyone agrees that fighting battles within the context of a campaign adds to the enjoyment, but we tend to be put off by the difficulties at campaign management. The most common difficulties seem to be getting enough people to represent the various participants, working around the real life schedules of the participants, and bookkeeping.

Here is a campaign that has worked well for me and a friend who shares my interest in the Mediterranean in the last 3 centuries B.C.. The campaign is based on the DBA campaign system. For those not familiar with the system, It consists of a generic map and a simple set of rules for raising and maintaining armies based.on control of provinces. Using that concept, we drew up a map of Italy and the surrounding area around the year 280 B.C.. Our campaign assumes that the Saminite wars were inconclusive and led to the formation of a league of Oscan speaking people centered on Capua. This Oscan League rivals the Romans, who are now just another regional power. The other participants are the Gallic tribes of north Italy, Pyrrhus of Epirus based on Tarentum, the city of Syracuse in Sicily, and Carthage.

We overcame the difficulties of finding and scheduling players by having only two 'real' people. The other nations are run by dice roll. Each season a die roll is made for each non player nation. If a 1 is scored, a Luther roll is made with a 1,2 being just a raid lasting 1 season; a 3,4 is an attack lasting for the balance of that year and a 5,6 is a war that has the potential of lasting into future years. The direction of the attack depends on a die roll. For the time they are active, the non player nations are controlled by the 'live' player who is not located next door.

The land rules we use are DBM for the battles between the two nations run by 'live' players and DBA tar all other battles. For sea battles we use the WRG fleet action rules. This will be the second time we have fought this campaign. In the first run last year the mechanics worked very smoothly, producing a great series of games (in spite of my defeat). If you can find one live player who shares your interest in a campaign situation, and have 8 or 10 evenings to spare, this campaign is within your reach.