Last days and weeks are pretty extreme as far as temperatures are concerned here in Poland so in our wargamers group we tend to chose positions which lighter while still a lot of fun. On of those – which I wholeheartedly recommend – are The Enemies of Rome.

We started last-weekend session with four players, giving Rome to Barbarians and starting in Thrace, Syria, North Africa and Spain:

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Initial set-up

And now about the developments on the map (click to enlarge):

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After first 200 years

(1) Long time ago I created a maxim for that game: do not grow too attached to your capital! Well, that exactly what happened – if you look above you will notice that… in process of fighting each other me and Maciej switched capitals! He was now based in Syria and me in Thrace!

(2) Krzysztof, not harassed by anybody, was content conquering the North Africa.

(3) Marcin, well, on the above photo he… disappeared. Landing of my purple troops from Thrace to Spain actually caused this. That was kind of aftermath of Marcin unfortunate attack on one of other players which left him vulnerable.

(4) Last but not least Maciej got catapult, 5 legions and was ravaging Asia Minor.

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Situation at the end of the game

Well, what ensued was even more crazy – as always in that marvelous game 🙂

(5) The exapnsion of Krzysztof was brutally stopped by  Maciej; what would you expect from Syria owner? Do not worry, Krzysztof will repay this!

(6) Marcin raised from ashes as Phoenix! He took such a firm control of Rome, that he did not release it till the end of the game!

(7) I had to leave the Thrace – or rather – was pushed out of there. In the end, the amount of barbarians on the board exhausted all the blocks reserves!

(8) With one of the Crisis of Empire cards, Maciej suddenly appears in Northern Italy.

(9) But the best was still to come. First of all, Krzysztof landed his troops in Syria, taking it from Maciej. Maciej in turn, after hard fight, took it back:

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Clash of giants

(10) However, just after this Maciej was visited by group of 10 barbarians. Well, being exhausted after fight with Krzysztof he simply did not have resources to repel them:

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Barbarian visitors from Asia Minor in Antioch

(11) Where two fights, third uses. So the almost empty Syria was taken over by me 🙂

And now, to the final scoring:

  1. Michal -20 (same number of provinces as Maciej, more legions)
  2. Maciej – 20
  3. Krzysztof – 12
  4. Marcin – 10

As I said, that was real fun to play Enemies of Rome once again. Perfect light wargame for summer gaming!