Waves of invaders
We played Britannia yesterday. This was something of a challenge, since Britannia is unambiguously a game for four players and four players only, and there were two of us. Nothing daunted, we decided to give it a go.
Britannia recounts the story of Britain from the Romans to the Normans. Part of it is scripted. The historical timeline advances over 16 turns, and in each turn, the requisite invaders and raiders pop up. However, what they do after they arrive is down to player choice and the luck of the dice. Each player (denoted by colour) controls 4 different factions, separated by geography and chronology. If you start the game as Belgae, doomed to get squished by Romans within a few minutes, you can console yourself with the thought that Angles and Normans lie in your future.
We decided to play two colours each, with the proviso that we showed absolutely no favouritism towards factions that our other colour was playing. It was quite hard to do, but we did manage some epic annihilations in which our left hand destroyed our right hand, leaving behind only emptiness and tears.
The ending was... tragic. The Irish had taken over Devon and Cornwall (officially part of Wales) and were happy there. North of the Pennines, the Brigantes and Dubliners were busy killing each other in a war that promised to end badly for all concerned. Some surprised and long-lived Romano-British had clung on in the Welsh Marches until c. 1065, but had recently been slaughtered by Dubliners. Then came the Norwegians under Harald Hardrada, who expunged all Danes from England, only to get almost entirely wiped out by Harold Godwinson and his Saxons. The Normans romped in then, and almost entirely eradicated the Saxons (plus a few stray Welsh on holiday in Bristol.) Sweyn Estridsson, King of Denmark, turned up unexpectedly, waded through the corpses of his countrymen, and managed to kill William to Conqueror and all the Norman cavalry, but perished in the battle along with all his men. One lone masterless Norman infantryman remained, who managed to kill King Harold and his army before dying. All that remained of England south of the Pennines was an empty wasteland, ravaged by war and littered with the graves of kings.
There is probably a moral in here somewhere.
It is a distracting game. I keep wanting to write stories about the strange AUs thrown up by the scenarios. I mean, Roman civilisation surviving in Worcestershire until the eve of the Norman conquest!
Britannia recounts the story of Britain from the Romans to the Normans. Part of it is scripted. The historical timeline advances over 16 turns, and in each turn, the requisite invaders and raiders pop up. However, what they do after they arrive is down to player choice and the luck of the dice. Each player (denoted by colour) controls 4 different factions, separated by geography and chronology. If you start the game as Belgae, doomed to get squished by Romans within a few minutes, you can console yourself with the thought that Angles and Normans lie in your future.
We decided to play two colours each, with the proviso that we showed absolutely no favouritism towards factions that our other colour was playing. It was quite hard to do, but we did manage some epic annihilations in which our left hand destroyed our right hand, leaving behind only emptiness and tears.
The ending was... tragic. The Irish had taken over Devon and Cornwall (officially part of Wales) and were happy there. North of the Pennines, the Brigantes and Dubliners were busy killing each other in a war that promised to end badly for all concerned. Some surprised and long-lived Romano-British had clung on in the Welsh Marches until c. 1065, but had recently been slaughtered by Dubliners. Then came the Norwegians under Harald Hardrada, who expunged all Danes from England, only to get almost entirely wiped out by Harold Godwinson and his Saxons. The Normans romped in then, and almost entirely eradicated the Saxons (plus a few stray Welsh on holiday in Bristol.) Sweyn Estridsson, King of Denmark, turned up unexpectedly, waded through the corpses of his countrymen, and managed to kill William to Conqueror and all the Norman cavalry, but perished in the battle along with all his men. One lone masterless Norman infantryman remained, who managed to kill King Harold and his army before dying. All that remained of England south of the Pennines was an empty wasteland, ravaged by war and littered with the graves of kings.
There is probably a moral in here somewhere.
It is a distracting game. I keep wanting to write stories about the strange AUs thrown up by the scenarios. I mean, Roman civilisation surviving in Worcestershire until the eve of the Norman conquest!