Britannia-style Games

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Britannia-style Games
Empires in Ancient America prototype added Tue Mar 4 23:48:37 UTC 2008

The "Britannia-style" games are listed in order of publication.
Following that is a list of unpublished designs.

Introduction

"Britannia-style" games consist of these general features:

historical war games
players direct the forces of more than one side/people/nation
area movement
historical victory points scored periodically throughout the game
reinforcements received based on areas held
simple, "to-hit" combat resolution

This may be a rough definition and not all of the games will include all features. Admittedly, Britannia was not the first in the field, but does seem to be the best known, the most popular and the most direct inspiration for most of what has followed. For this, all due credit and praise should be heaped upon Lew Pulsipher, Britannia's inventor.

Ancient Conquest - Biblical

Every phenomenon of any size must have its precursors; perhaps that's what this game and the next are for the Britannia-style game.

Not area-, but hex-based with counters that contain combat and movement points. All of a player's nations are played together and can even combine in defense, thought not in attack. There is no economic mechanism, so no new pieces are received as a result of occupation, only scheduled reinforcements. times. Many of the point goals are for taking cities. There is no stacking except in cities. The only other way to score points is to destroy enemy combat factors.
BGG entry

Ancient Conquest II - Biblical with extensions to include Persians and Greeks through Alexander

Britannia - British isles from the Romans to the Normans

Designed by Lew Pulsipher
Published by Gibson Games (1986?), by Avalon Hill (1986), by Welt der Spiele (1991)
3-5 players (4 optimal)
Notes Playback Mailing List (Eurobrit) Rules Re-write BGG entry

Peninsula Italica - Pre-Roman Italian peninsula

Published by Camelot (1993) and available from Strategia e Tattica
BGG entry

Maharaja - India from the Aryans to the British

Hispania - Spanish Peninsula from the Carthaginians to the Christian Reconquista

Kampf um Rom - Rome and invading barbarians

Designed by Gerhard Kuhlmann and Hartmut Witt
Published by Kuhlmann Geschichtsspiele (1995)
This is actually two games in one. Germanica is by Harmut Witt and Huns, Romans, and Germans by Gerhard H. Kuhlmann. Both deal with the barbarian incursions into Rome.
BGG entry

Chariot Lords - Near East from the earliest history up until about 500 BC.

Designed by Charles Vasey
Published by Clash of Arms (1999)
Some differences from the Britannia rules include the following: initial setup is free and counter by counter; order of nations within a turn is random; redeployment phase; mountains count as a double area for movement; leaders do not add to the movement rate; the basic movement rate is three; leaders affect two areas in a round; defender retreats first; maximum number of rounds of combat is fixed (two or three); growth is not based on number of areas owned; units may return from the dead if for each a unit is removed permanently; invaders need not double-stack to overrun; submission rules are generalized; submitted units are not allowed to move.
BGG entry

Vinci - Prehistoric to Medieval Europe

Designed by Philippe Keyaerts
Published by Eurogames/Descartes Deutschland (1999)
Europe is divided into vague and unnamed territories of different types: Agriculture I, Agriculture II, Forest, Mountain and miscellaneous. Some territories also have a port or mining abilities. Civilizations are represented by randomly drawn pairs of counters of various kinds: military, resource, miscellaneous which are drafted by each player. The player then takes a number of tokens based on the number of players and red numbers on the counters which basically fixes the civilization size for its life. Civilizations begin from an edge of the map and move into adjacent territories. There are no dice. Conquest requires a number of tokens depending on the number of defenders and variations caused by terrain and special abilities. When after a few turns the civilization size has dwindled one usually decides to let it "go into decline". This turn, it does not move by the player chooses a new civilization. "Decline" counters are placed on the existing territories leaving only one token each to still earn points. And so on. Normally one plays two, three or four civilizations during the course of a game.
BGG entry

Rus' - Russian early and medieval history

Designed by Randy Moorehead
Published by Simulations Workshop, 2000
4 players
1700 years of Russian history, from the demise of the Scythians to the death of Ivan the Terrible. Players lead Huns, Goths, Mongols and other groups that ravaged ancient and medieval Russia, as well as the great city-states of Kiev, Novgorod, and Moscow. Alexander Nevsky battles the Teutonic Knights, the Mongols seek to destroy all in their path...
BGG entry

Kings & Castles - Medieval Britain

Designed by Gary Dicken, Phillip Kendall and Steve Kendall
Published by Ragnar Brothers, 2000
3-4 players
Game on England and her conquests for up to four by the inventors of History of the World. Sides are represented by individual kings and entirely decided by draft before play even begins. Kings vary by the amount of extra force they add and in their primary spheres of activity. Play itself is diceless (and thus reminiscent of Vinci), the core of the combat system being a rather strange and unique form of arithmetic. The active player's forces must defeat the inactive defenders by the minimum possible amount – pieces are rated at value 1, 2 or 3 – but then only the strongest of these invaders remains. The other unusual mechanic is that over the entire course only twenty-five percent of one's forces are guaranteed to be one's own. The rest are drawn from a bag and may be one's own, but are also often the forces of other players, rebellious indigenous groups or mercenaries usable with any of the above. (There are also three levels of fortification.) The need for a player to clear out his force pool for the next set of forces means often going through unusual gymnastics. For example, he may use other player forces to conquer rebels, then use rebels to conquer them back and finally use his own forces to conquer the rebels. The other unusual feature is that in a four-player game, each player has only six turns and only on half of them may he declare scoring (which occurs for all players). Just as in their previous game, the board is no board at all, but printed on a folded cloth.
BGG entry

Dark Continent - Nineteenth-century Africa

Designed by Peter Schutze and Lloyd Krassner
Published by Schutze Games, 2001
2-4 players
Players take on the roles of rival European-based powers expanding their influence and control into Africa during the nineteenth century.
BGG entry

Hegemonia - Ancient Greeks

Designed by Sven Andressen
Published by City-of-Games, 2004
3-5 players (4 optimal)
From Agamemnon and Troy to the wars of Athens/Sparta and Persia, then Alexander the Great and right up through Hannibal and the Roman conquest of the entire known world. Simulating 1600 to 146 BC in 16 rounds to last about 5 hours. Includes 36 pages of rules, 60x60 cm board, 16 cards, 298 pieces, 5 dice, scoring track, etc. Games are made on demand for 35 Euro + packing and shipping. In German.
BGG entry

The Dragon and the Pearl - Ancient and Medieval China

by Thom Richardson for Spirit Games, 2004
Chinese history from 200-1300 AD (Han Dynasty to Mongols?). Desktop-published game includes some 200 plastic counters in 4 colours with stickers, color map on heavy paper and two pages of rules. Shipped in a roll without container. Unlike Britannia, does not use special victory point awards for each particular group. More at Andrew Parkin's site
BGG entry

Britannia, second edition - British isles from the Romans to the Normans

Designed by Lew Pulsipher
Published by Fantasy Flight Games, 2005
3-5 players (4 optimal)
Combines together all the different versions of the rules and adds a method for distributing nations that will provide greater variety in the 3- and 5-player games (optionally also in the 4-player). More at Lew Pulsipher site
BGG entry
"Myths of British Ancestry" by Stephen Oppenheimer is a fascinating article on the early peopling of Britain, mentioning for example that Germanic languages were probably spoken there much earlier than previously thought and also the Norwegian invasions of the isles prior to the Romans. Obviously this game needs a prequel.

Italia - Italian Peninsula from the 400 BC sack of Rome to 1080 AD

by Andreas Steding for Phalanx Games, 2006
The history of the Italian peninsula, Roman Africa and Illyricum from the foundation of Rome to the consolidation of Julius Caesar in the first scenario and in the second, from the invasions of the Visigoths to the consolidation of Charlemagne.
Published in October at the Essen Game Fair. More at Andreas' site
BGG entry

The Unpublished:
(so far)

Mediterranea - Mediterranean Basin and Britain: 400 to 1100 AD

See also Web Grognards, the Multiple category, for more information about these games

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