Hi everyone! I made this video to take a look at initial strategies in Mr. President. It should be helpful to you as you get your games over the coming weeks. I hope you all have a great time with Mr. President! – Gene
This article from Alan Ray is Part 2 in a 3 part guide to playing SPQR. If you would like to read Part 1 first, you can find that here.
The idea for this article came about after dusting off the C3I SPQR Player’s Guide published so many years ago and reading it from cover to cover. That handy guide is useful, even though outdated in a few places, in helping SPQR players understand and play the game better. The Players Guide, however, is a series of articles on a range of topics including some new scenarios but does not look at the play of the game in a wholistic manner. This guide is intended to present the game through an explanation of its rules and using one of the games more popular scenarios as a case study.
The method of presentation is one I would use in explaining the game to a new player. The discussion follows the Sequence of Play but pulls rules from anywhere in the rule book to support the explanation. I go into greater detail in some areas, less in others, and occasionally send the reader directly to the rulebook.
This article is structured into major topic sections, most of which are further divided into subsections, primarily to break up the text. I have attempted to keep cross references to internal sections to a minimum but have made copious references to the SPQR rules and play aids to support the discussion. All rule references are to the SPQR 4th Edition rules as amended by the errata dated October 2022 unless noted otherwise. After explaining the rules, I have added a section to address the often heard “what do I do” question once the game is setup. The final section has an extensive example of play covering the opening action on one wing of the Heraclea battlefield.
Let’s begin.
In the last installment we looked at the first two phases for an attacker attempting to break the enemy line, preparation and choosing when to attack.
There are many important elements that contribute to the outcome of an Ancients battle. Skirmishing, cavalry manoeuvres, feint and ruse, move and countermove, all play their part in the integrated coordination of arms that leads to success on the battlefield and a good commander must be skilled in all of them. But as in real ancient warfare, the decisive moment on which the battle hinges is invariably the bloody clash of the main infantry lines. Marathon, Plataea, Cannae, Leuctra, Chaeronea and many more, battles that were turning points in history, all decided at the sticky end of the conflict, close and personal, spear and sword against armour and shield.
When you have just learned a shiny new board game, especially one which is a bit longer and more complex than others, it’s nice to have some strategic direction. That’s what I aim to provide with my series Three Basic Tips – strategy advice for beginner and intermediate players that is easy to remember and yet gets you places.
Today’s game is Unconditional Surrender! (Salvatore Vasta, GMT Games). With its 56-page rulebook and a playtime of 50-100 hours for a full campaign, the game can look a little daunting. Worry not! It’s a surprisingly beginner-friendly system – in fact, it was the first classic hex-and-counter game I ever played, and I turned out just fine. (My mother had me tested!) Follow the recommended learning path of playing the four tutorial scenarios (along with the rules reading each requires), and you’ll be all set up.
While this article is about improving your chances to win, remember that winning is not everything – particularly not in a game that can take this long. In my current two-player game (online via boardgamearena.com), a combination of suboptimal play and bad luck on my part made it clear early on that I was unlikely to win the game. Nonetheless, it’s been a fun experience, and I always look forward to the weekly meeting with my opponent. Remember what the designer himself states as the objective of the game: “Have fun playing” (rule 1.1.1).
Without further ado, let’s get into the tips – one operational, one strategic, one grand strategic.
It never ceases to amaze me how a few tweaks in the basic C&C engine can create genuine variation in play experience between different games, presenting new strategic challenges and modeling different tactical imperatives across widely divergent historical periods and genres.
Some of these differences are minor and modular, such as national unit characteristics in Napoleonics or elephant units in Ancients, but each game has one or two major elements that define the game and are the fundamental features that differentiate it from its C&C cousins. For base game Napoleonics reduction in firepower with block loss, for Samurai Battles the Honour and Fortune economy and the Dragon deck, for Medieval the Inspired Action tokens, and so on.
I enjoy many of the C&C games but Ancients is still my favorite. In part this is my personal historical interest, part is what I perceive to be the lean, clean interplay between units and the perfectly balanced deck, giving me a feeling of battlefield control that I never quite get with the other C&C games. Most important, though, is what I consider to be Ancients’ two defining features, the critical importance of leader positioning, and evasion. The latter will be one of the subjects of this article.
Below you will find the second in a two part article series from Elihu Feustel discussing Labyrinth: The Awakening strategy. If you would like to read part one, that can be found here. Enjoy!
