After very enjoyable Pericles – First Peloponnese War, me and my group had possibility to play and reenact the second part of this conflict – so no surprises, just recently we fought Second Peloponesian War!
This time we had all the participants with at least two games played so the final assignment was done by the lot. And here is the result:
- Lukasz – Sparta, Agaid
- Jakub- Sparta, Eurypondit
- Michal – Athens, Demagogue
- Marcin – Athens, Aristocrat
The initial set-up is visible below. Athens still keeps tight grip on Aegean Islands while Spartan is dominant in land theaters and in Sicily:
When I compare set-up to First Peloponesian War, it might seem that Athens have easier position – as there is no Persian War – but on the other hand more theaters are prone to Sparta attack. Let us see what will happen!
TURN SIX (430-425 BC)
Main developements:
- Aristophanes card (Birds C) puts Ostracism on the agenda plus reduces the number of Strategos.
- 1 – in political phase the government changes in Sparta (from Jakub to Lukasz) but in Athens it stays put (Marcin in charge). What is interesting, nobody declares war!
- 2 – still, as per rules, our League units are free to move and fight! Actually, we as Athens choose to do series of raid in Boeotia, merely surviving thou there…
- 3 – …while our adversaries strike successfully into Thessaly
- 4 – long term planning in Sparta turns Corinth into real factory of new units. Additional base and league issue will definitely help in this!
- War score: Sparta 25 – Athens 23 (so far, very close!)
- Factions score: Lukasz 14, Michal 14, Jakub 11 , Marcin 9
TURN SEVEN (424-419 BC)
Things really spiced-up in second turn of our game!
- Aristophanes (Wasps C) brings a lot of confusion and stirs up the things! The Will of Assembly for Sparta is in…Chios while for Athens in Sicily. That would be a challenge!
- 5 – Governments changes in both City States, putting me and Jakub as controlling factions. What is important, WAR IS DECLARED by Sparta!
- 6 – our Athenian units start form small raid in Chalcidice.
- 7 – Lukasz and Jakub try to stop our expedition to Sicily by blocking the approach with land units; they partially succeed as by building the base and playing the military action, we manage to put the fleet to Sicily!
- 8 – On the other hand, a large, multi-issues expedition is launched towards Chios via Hellespont. It did not reach the destination but… eradicates almost all our forces in Hellespont! Athens are losing the granary theater…
- 9 – to soften the shock, a military Athenian expedition to “clean-up:” the Aetolia is mounted. Full success.
- War score: Sparta 22 – Athens 46
- Factions score: Michal 28 , Marcin 18, Lukasz 11, Jakub 11
Next round will be very interesting. Sparta loses in points but can potentially win a sudden death victory!
TURN EIGHT (418-413 BC)
It was very interesting encounter in the third turn!
- Aristophanes (Peace B) puts peace on the board but Spartans will definitely defy it!
- 10 – as expected, Sparta does not want peace… Plus no changes in governments.
- 11 – do you see the amount of issues in Hellespont? Nine of them. It was very heated struggle, in which tide was changing from one side to the other. In the end, just barely (with precision to 1 strategos) Athens managed to build the base… That was very tough and close call be we managed it!
- 12 – what would be a turn without at least one, small raid on Spartan forces! Of course, we did it 🙂
- War score: Sparta 29 – Athens 58
- Factions score: Michal 39, Marcin 19, Lukasz 15, Jakub 14
At this moment, time did not allow us to play further – the question of who will win was still open despite the loses in points incurred by Spartans in second turn of the game.,
Summary:
I enjoy playing Pericles very much. Each time that game gives me new opportunities to “massage my brain”, trying to choose best strategy in particular circumstances. However, in the end this is usually question of errors – as in life, the side which commits less, wins. And believe me, there is no way you would do everything always perfectly in Pericles 🙂
As for the above session, we as Athens had really a lot of luck being able to win back granary theater. Well, it was very close – one more raid and we would have not enough strategos to build the base. Next time I am going to reserve more time and had the possibility to try the real challenge – Suicide of Greece with all the attrition rules! See you in another ARR!
The Boardgames Chronicle 
Yup, my mistake / negligence (lack of experience in such games , i’ve usually been playing more solitare games, where i didn’t need to watch closely what opponents do).! Before round 3(and potentially the last , as Spartans needed to get grannary, if they didn’t build base in one of 3 regions, we/Athens would win), With Lukasz we’ve discussed a lot about tactics, i strongly suggested Raids to reduce amount of strategos which were required to move enough forces and build base in one of 3 regions with grannary(Sicily, Helespont, or Sparta/Argos). Spartans surely heard what we’ve discussed about and i thought they’ll adjust political phase to protect themselves against raids). Spartans would play first 2 actions, so potentially they could put league and military action in each region and secure grannary. After Political phase we/Athenians ended up with just 2 military actions, so we couldonly take 2-10 strategos, more likely just 6, while opponents could get 16-20 of them, so more than required to secure grannary). And that was the crucial moment, WATCH the opponent’s !!!!!! I didn’t , i was convinced opponents won’t do terrible mistakes, they both should have split at least 1 for each the league and military actions, so in case of trouble they could play them both and build base in a grannary region. I was sure they are both experienced enough and will do like that. They didn’t(they had really bad political phase), they had just one league action and it was leader’s, who could get robbed from strategos with raids,, and if i checked i would see leader has very few strategos and even 1 raid could block their attempt to build base in grannary region(movement to hellespont and building base were the last actons on board, they could loose strategos from raids earlier). Unfortunatelly we/Athenias decided we probably can’t win with raids, we did different things and Spartans secured their holding in hellespont with base and we’velost our chance for a win. Good game, but i feel much regret i wasn’t cautious, i could block Spartan side and secure win for our side(i had all-both 2 military actions which i could use to steal strategos from Michal).
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