The solo rules (”SR”) pit the human player against three Bots. Each Bot has a distinct personality induced by its preferred area of influence: military influence (red), political influence on the Senate (blue) or influence on the populace through bribery or other means (yellow). The SR recommend, but do not require, that the military Bot be the red player, the political Bot the blue player, and the populace Bot the yellow player, thus matching each Bot’s color with the color of its preferred area of influence. The human player becomes by default the green player. Note that human players can appoint one or several Bots to replace their missing human counterparts. For the sake of simplicity, the remainder of this note will discuss games with one human player facing three Bots. I will also assume that the optional emperor rules are in effect and that the fixed set up providing for all cards to be played has been adopted.

Each Bot is given the name of a historical emperor: Maximus Thrax for the military-minded player, Pupienus & Labinus for the politically-minded player, and Gordion III for the populace-oriented player. If the recommended color assignment is followed, Maximus Thrax becomes the red player, Pupienus & Labinus the blue player, and Gordion III the yellow player. Note that if a Bot after becoming emperor is subsequently removed for death or any other reason, that Bot remains in play keeping the same name. The reason is that players, be they human players or Bots, are clans or factions rather than individuals: if the head of a faction is removed, the faction stays and replaces its leader, true mafia-style.

At the start of the game each Bot is given, as in the normal rules (”NR”), a territory, a governor and a one legion army. The human player assigns to each Bot its starting territory from among Gallia, Macedonia and Syria. The SR advise against using other starting territories.

Hereon, the human player, follows the NR, and Bots follow the SR. Each Bot plays its turn like a human player in the order chosen by the human player at the start of the game, such order of play remaining unchanged throughout the game. The human player plays after Bots have taken their turn.

For the most part, the SR play out the same as the NR:  the sequence of play, rules for earning legacy points, victory conditions, combat rules, movement rules, appointing and revoking governors, crisis checks, mobs, barbarians, Rival Emperors, improvements, militias, available types and influence costs of actions, building and training or enlarging armies, increasing or reducing support level, pretenders, becoming emperor, or being removed as such are unchanged.

In addition to the order of play, as described above, the changes brought by the SR concern:

1. The Crisis Phase

2. The Take Actions Phase

3. The Buy/Trash Cards Phase

Let us look at these in sequence.

THE CRISIS PHASE

At the start of their turn, Bots, like the human player, roll two dice. Results apply in the same manner, save for the following:

• Any time Pax Deorum is rolled, all Bots gain two additional influence points to their primary area, as such term is hereafter defined;
• Any time the Palmyra Allies event is drawn, the active Bot will send Sassanid barbarians from any provinces it governs to their homeland on their inactive side and if there is no such troubled province flip active barbarians present in their homeland to their inactive side;
• If the Ludi Saeculares event is drawn, the Emperor -if a Bot, gains 4 Legacy points but subtracts 4 points from its Secondary Influence (see definition below in the Take Actions Phase).

THE TAKE ACTIONS PHASE

It breaks down into a strategic sub-phase (A) where Bots receive resources, followed by an operational sub-phase (B) where Bots spend them on the board.

A – The strategic Sub-Phase

The Mechanics

In the NR, the players acquire resources through a hand of five cards. The resources are made up of influence points and events. When a player plays a card, he will receive an amount of points equal to the value of the card but may spend those points only on actions whose color is the same as the color of the card.

For instance, if the player plays a 3 red card, he will be entitled to buy three points’ worth of military action. In addition, the player will be entitled to play the military event described on the card.

Players form up their hands in the End of Turn Phase and may choose cards in any color combination: hands may contain cards of one, two or three colors.

In the SR, Bots are no longer dealt a hand of cards. Instead, each Bot is given an AI mat containing a Mode Box and an Influence Table. The attribution of resources is done by having the Mode Box interact with the Influence Table. Let me explain.

The Mode Box contains five lines, each corresponding to the Bot’s strategic situation on the board at the start of the Take Actions Phase. Each line is associated with a mode numbered from 1 to 4.

For instance, if the Bot has Mobs in any of it governed provinces, mode 3 applies.

The Influence Table contains three layered sections, each containing one area of influence – the top section being the Bot’s Preferred Area of influence, the next one below the Second Preferred Area of interest and the third one at the bottom the Least Preferred Area of influence.

For instance, the Red Bot’s Preferred Area of influence is military influence, the Second Preferred Area is political influence in the Senate, and the Least Preferred populace influence.

Next, the columns of the Influence Table reflect the level of influence reached by the Bot in each area of influence. The higher the level of an area of influence, the more influence points the Bot will get. The lowest level appears on the column further to the left and rises incrementally as one moves to the right. There are nine columns in total. Note: the determination of the level of influence is done in the Buy/Trash Cards Phase  and will be explained further below.

How then does the interaction take place?

First, select the applicable mode by descending order of priority through the lines of the Mode Box. Start by looking  up the situation described in the upper line. If the situation does not apply, move down to the next line below until an existing situation is met.

Each mode refers the Bot to a set of two areas of influence on the Influence Table. The first is designated as its primary area of influence and the second as its secondary area of influence. Each area of influence is further divided into two lines of small boxes. Each box comprises an influence point number and in certain cases an event number; the upper line being used when the area is designated as  the primary area of influence and the lower one when designated as the secondary area of influence. The Bot will receive its points from the boxes located at the intersection of the designated lines of the primary and secondary areas of influence and of the column corresponding to its level of influence in the relevant area of influence.

For instance, mode 3 for the Red Bot sends Bot to populace influence as its primary area of influence and to military influence as its secondary area of influence. Assume that the Red Bot has reached level 2 in its military area of influence and level 0 in its populace area of influence. The Red Bot will be awarded the number of points set out in the box of the O column in the upper line of the populace area of influence, i.e.  3 points and the number of points set out in the box of the 2 column in the lower line of the military area of influence, i.e. 2 points. The Red Bot  will thus be granted 3 populace influence points and 2 military influence points. As there is no event number associated to any of the relevant boxes, the Red Bot receives no event this turn.

When a Bot receives an event number, ranging from 2 to 4, from its primary or secondary area of influence, the Bot will obtain randomly one of the two events available to a card of that value and color.

For instance, if the Red Bot is granted a 3 event from a red primary area of influence and a 2 event from a blue secondary area of influence, the Red Bot will get one of the two 3 red events: Flanking Maneuver or Force March and one of the two 2 blue events: Tribute or Foederati.

The mechanics for attributing resources to Bots may seem abstract but are in fact very easy to apply thanks to the user-friendly the AI player mat.

The Strategic Core Concepts

To fully appreciate the subtleties of the AI system used by Bots, one must understand its strategic core concepts. I can see five of them.

Firstly, a Bot in any given turn gets to use influence points of two colors only. This contrasts with the human player who can choose to use one, two, or three different colors in any given turn.

Secondly, the human player gets to choose the events they wish to use (up to 5 events each turn). A Bot will be allowed to use at most two events, both of which are determined by the AI. This gives the human player more flexibility and variety in its choice of resources. Bots can still be powerful enemies to contend with as the number of their influence points increases significantly over the course of the game, particularly after they reach the fourth level of any area of influence.

Thirdly, Bots receive resources in the Take Actions Phase, based on the strategic situation at that time. The human player, on the contrary, culls resources during the End of Turn Phase. The human player makes their choice not on the basis of the existing situation but on the situation they anticipate may exist after the 3 Bots will have played their turn. Another distinctive factor is that Bots do not have to worry about spending three political points to get rid of a card. On the whole, Bots may be less powerful and less creative, but they will make less mistakes.

Fourthly, the Mode Box is structured to the following effects. Mode 1 designates a Bot’s Preferred Area as its primary area and its Second Preferred Area as its secondary area. Mode 2 designates a Bot’s senate influence area as its primary area and Mode 3 its populace area as its primary area. Mode 4 will send a Bot to the area which was not used in the preceding turn. Modes 2, 3, and 4 all designate the Bot’s Preferred Area as its secondary area.

For instance, under Mode 4, if the Red Bot has used in a turn blue and red points because Mode 1 applied, it will use yellow in the next turn as it primary area, even if the situation would require the application of another mode providing for red or blue as the primary area. In the following turn, the situation will be reset to zero, and the Bot will be again allowed to choose normally  between modes 1, 2, or 3. This ensures that over two consecutive turns a Bot will get to use points from three colors. This is in line with the principle that no party, be it human or Bot, can win the game without access to all three influence resources. Mode 4 guarantees that Bots will never be durably deprived of any color of influence points. In the example just given, the Red Bot, despite its preference for red and blue points, will keep an access to some crucial yellow points, which allow it amongst other things to increase the support level of a governed province or to eliminate mobs.

By looking at the Mode Box, one can clearly see that whichever mode applies, Bots will use points and events from their Preferred Area every turn, whether it is designated as their primary or secondary area. In terms of frequency of use over the course of the game, points and events from the Preferred Area are the most used points. Points and events of the Second Preferred Area will come second, and those from the Least Preferred Area will come last. The SR give each Bot a true, distinct, and recognizable personality.

The optional emperor rules, which I would encourage players to use, entitle a player, human and Bot alike, to choose the kind of Emperor they wish to be: military, senate, or populace. Each kind of emperor has specific benefits and risks. If, as the rules recommend, Bots choose the type of Emperor matching their Preferred Area (e.g. a red Bot would become a military Emperor), the specific traits of a Bot will be further enhanced, thereby making its personality even more distinctive.

Lastly, in addition to determining how many influence points and which events Bots get each turn, the Mode Box also determines the Bots’ strategic posture for the turn by assigning a goal and the means to achieve it. To understand how the Mode Box does this, one needs simply to examine the hierarchy between the lines in the Mode Box.

The goal of any party, human or Bot, is to reach the highest degree of legacy. The only way to accomplish that is by governing as many provinces as possible and by becoming Emperor. In this respect, blue points are the most precious resource because they alone allow a party to appoint governors, in Rome and elsewhere. Thus barring specific risks, a Bot will first choose to combine the blue area as its primary  area and whichever area is its Preferred or Second preferred as its secondary area (Mode 1).

A Bot will change tack if threats of losing one or more levels of support in a governed province stand in the way: a Bot will then select a combination of influence where the primary area will give it the most influence points needed to deal with that threat. If the threat calls for military action (Mode 2), the red area will be chosen. If the threat comes from mobs (Mode 3), the yellow area will be chosen. If a Bot is faced with both types of threats, the Bot will choose Mode 2 over Mode 3. Note in this respect that contrary to human players, Bots may only treat mobs by spending yellow points.

Apart from Mode 4, there is one exception to the above. If a Bot is not Emperor and has more than 50 legacy, it will apply Mode 1 even if risks listed in Mode 2 or 3 exist. The rationale is that with a 50+ legacy level a Bot enjoys a level of power such that it must be very close to becoming Emperor, and perhaps winning the game. Applying Mode 1 will give the Bot the maximum amount of blue points it can muster to select the Place Governor action, while also receiving some red or yellow points to deal with the declared threats. Even if the latter are insufficient to completely counter the threats, the Bot will on balance prefer going for the empire even if this results in some loss of support in a province.

B – The Operational Sub-Phase

After acquiring influence resources for its turn, a Bot then proceeds to operate on the board by taking actions. Will it appoint governors, march its armies, fight enemies, build improvements…?

The choice of actions, the order, and the manner in which they are carried out takes place in the operational sub-phase.

Contrary to the choices made in the strategic sub-phase, the operational decisions taken by Bots are regulated not by reference to their personality but on the basis of a unique Action Priority List and a unique set of Military Guidelines. In essence, the Action Priority List designates the actions which Bots should be taking, specifically military actions concerning which enemy force they should be targeting. The Military Guidelines instruct Bots how to combat, namely by selecting which army to use and reinforcing it before combat. These two documents taken together form the backbone of the Bots’ operational system. Note that Bots, like the human player, may take actions as a result of events. For instance, they will place Mods if they draw a 3 value yellow Mob card.

Let us describe them in some more detail.

The Action Priority List is an ordered list of 24 priorities. Typically a Bot will start by looking up Priority 1. It will then either take the action described or skip it if it does not meet the conditions required for the priority to be considered and then move on to the next Priority. And so on until it eventually reaches Priority 24. If Priority “n” is applied, a Bot will always consider Priority “n+1” and beyond if it still has resources to spend. The race down the Priority List stops when the Bot’s stock of resources is down to zero or insufficient to carry out the next eligible priority.

The 24 Priorities are grouped in four homogeneous bundles. They are homogeneous because priorities in a bundle have the same color. The first bundle is red, the next one is blue (with one minor exception), the third one is red again, and the last one is yellow.

The first bundle, “Defend Governed Provinces,” comprises Priorities 1 and 2. The second bundle, “Attempt to Govern Additional Provinces,” contains Priorities 3 to 8. The third bundle, “Build Military Strength/Attack,” is composed of Priorities 9 to 18. The last bundle, “Protect Governed Provinces/Build improvements,” goes from Priority 19 all the way to Priority 24. Priorities listed in a bundle may not be taken unless the priorities of the preceding  bundle have been skipped or taken.

The pattern of operations for any Bot is therefore the following.

The Bot will start by considering the military actions covered by the first bundle.

It will take military action to counter a threat resulting from a situation where the presence of an enemy unit in the capital of a governed province, of active barbarians, or of a Rival Emperor in that province would lower its level of support in the upcoming Support Check Phase, if left unattended. The Bot would also act against inactive barbarians, as these would become active in the next turn.

Once that is accomplished, the Bot, if Emperor and if it has military points left, will attack a Rival Emperor in a non-governed province or a Pretender province. Note that if an emperor has governed provinces under threat, it will treat this risk first before eventually dealing with a Rival Emperor in a non-governed province or with a Pretender province. Note also that if the Bot Emperor occupies the capital of a Pretender, it will place a governor for free in the capital, assuming it has a governor available.

Next, the Bot will consider the political actions covered by the second bundle: it will attempt to place one or several governors. Save for the exception noted above regarding attacks on Pretenders by Emperors, the second bundle is the only moment in the Take Actions Phase when Bots are authorized to recruit, recall, and place governors.

If it has no governor available, it will recruit or recall one and will then attempt to place it where it has sufficient blue points to meet the required Senate influence. The SR contains rules for choosing the place where the attempt will be carried out when several targets qualify. After this first attempt and if another governor is available, the Bot will make a second and last attempt using all its remaining blue points.

If moving an army to the capital of the target province would make a target affordable by reducing by one the required Senate influence, the Bot will subject to the Military Guidelines, move the army, and eventually initiate  battle against the enemy army in the capital if there is one. Note that if the province taken over is a troubled province, the Bot must return to Priority 1 of the first bundle and take whatever action is necessary before it can move on to the third bundle. Red points spent at that point will not be available for actions of the third bundle.

Once the second  bundle is done with, the Bot will move on to the third bundle and get an opportunity to train depleted legions, add legions to existing armies, recruit generals, and create armies. It will also be given an opportunity to move its armies and send them to combat, subject however to some fairly restrictive rules.

An army will move only if the purpose of the move is either to (i) occupy Rome after making an attack there, (ii) occupy the capital of a province governed by a non-neutral faction (but only if the force occupying the capital belongs to the human player), or (iii) attack any barbarian tribe, active or inactive,  in any neutral or non-governed province. Bots will move armies under the third bundle only for the purpose of making an attack. Thus when moving an army, a Bot must have enough red points to pay for the move and the ensuing battle. Conversely, if it cannot initiate battle, it won’t move. Note that a Bot army, like any army in the NR, may move and attack only once per any given turn. Thus if a Bot army moves and attacks in the course of the first bundle, it is no longer eligible to move and attack under the ensuing blue or red bundles.

These restrictions have several important consequences.

Firstly, moving an army from one province to occupy the empty capital of another province, whether or not that province is governed, is prohibited.  This could happen only under the second bundle when the purpose of the move was to target a province with the Place Governor Action. Thus if the capital of one of its provinces is empty, a Bot may place an army in it only by creating one there. The only exception is for the Emperor: if Rome is not occupied, the Emperor can summon its largest army to come to Rome, provided however that if the army is too far from Rome (thus costing too many red points to bring over), the Emperor will have to create an army in Rome instead.

Secondly, moving to attack an enemy army in Rome may happen in only two circumstances: when the human player is Emperor and has an army in Rome or when an enemy army occupies Rome, whether or not there is an Emperor. The purpose of the move there is to weaken the Emperor or to prepare the ground for a Place Governor Action in Italia for a future turn.

Thirdly, if the target of the move is to occupy the capital of a non-neutral faction, other than Rome, or to fight a barbarian tribe, the Military Guidelines require that the attacking army be the Bot’s largest army and be from a neutral province or from a governed province with a support level of 3 at least. Furthermore, the force occupying the capital must belong to the human player. As we have just seen, there are no such requirements for attacks on Rome. Becoming Emperor is a big prize: the SR will make this goal easier to obtain for Bots. Remember that a Bot may attack another Bot army provided it is Emperor and the other Bot is a Pretender (such an attack being conducted under the first bundle and thus not subject to these requirements). Equally, a Bot may, but only under the second bundle, attack an enemy force occupying a capital in a neutral or governed province if the goal is to place a governor.

Fourthly, while Bots may attack Rival Emperors and barbarian tribes, active and inactive alike, Bots will never attack armies of other factions which are not in province capitals.

For instance, if a Bot wishes to attack a province where one army occupies the capital and another army is “in the field,” it will attack only the army in the capital. If it were to fail its attack, its army would remain “in the field” but would not be entitled to attack this other army. Nor would such army, if belonging to another Bot, be entitled to attack it in a future turn.

Lastly, the Military Guidelines require that for any attack, a Bot army be of a strength at least equal to the enemy army. A two legion army is not authorized to attack a three legion army or an army composed of two legions and a militia. This requirement applies equally for attacks made under the first or second bundle. Bots do not like to take unnecessary risks and will always prefer foregoing the benefit of a potential victory if the odds of winning are less than 50% rather than risking losing the battle and granting legacy points to the opposing party.

However, if the Bot is instructed to make an attack but has no army strong enough to initiate battle, the Bot will move its army to the closest governed province, if this gets it closer to the target province and adds a legion to its army. Once instructed to make an attack, a Bot will do everything in its power to complete its attack order.

For instance, if a Bot having only one legion army must attack a two legion army, it will add a legion as per the above. At that point, if the Bot has enough red points left to move and attack, it will do so.

In sum, Bot armies are more static then human player armies. They do not benefit from the tactical flexibility enjoyed by the human player armies, which may move and fight in any order as the human player wishes and as long as the human player can pay for it.

For instance, a human player army can move into a province, stay in the field en route to another destination or lie in wait to attack the capital or any other enemy army in a later turn without risking being attacked by the enemy. This can be of great practical importance to the human player if he does not have sufficient military points to make the attack or reach the intended destination in the same turn. A human player army can take the risk of initiating battle against an enemy army of superior strength (particularly if it has potent red events in his hand). The human player may combine blue, red, and yellow actions in order he wishes.

Once the third bundle is done, the Bot may then consider the populace actions listed in the fourth bundle. As in all previous bundles, these actions must be taken in accordance with their priority order.

THE BUY/TRASH CARD PHASE

Since Bots do not have cards, they cannot improve their deck of cards. Instead, they improve their stock of influence points. The SR achieves this in the following way.

Bots count the number of their political points generated by the provinces they govern as would a human player under the NR. This number is then spent to increase the levels of influence indicated on the Influence Table.

Bots will first increase the influence level of their Preferred Area by spending a number of points equal to the level of the next column to the right. The unspent number of political points will then be used to increase the lowest level of the other two areas to the level of the next column to the right.

If the two other areas have the same level, the Second Preferred Area will be chosen. Any unused points are lost, and if there are not enough points to advance the level of at least one area, Bots get two additional influence points in their primary area for the next turn.

For instance, assume the Red Bot has reached level 2 in its Preferred Area and 0 in the other two. The Red Bot has 3 political points to spend. The next column in the Preferred Area is 4. The Red Bot does not have enough points to advance its level in the Preferred Area. He will therefore advance the level of its Second Preferred Area from 0 to 2. With one political point left, there is nothing more he can do. This marks the end of the Buy/ Trash Card Phase.

SOME WRAP-UP THOUGHTS

This is a simple system. All there is, in addition to five pages of rules, is a Mode Box, an Influence Table, and two one-page documents: one for the Action Priority List and one for Military Guidelines. All are fairly intuitive and read fairly well. Ambiguities may occasionally arise: they would be addressed by the designers if brought forward to them on Boardgamegeek.

The system is easy. It flows nicely without clunky procedures and plays quickly. Only a few minutes are ordinarily needed to process the turn of a Bot.

Yet this simplicity is deceptive. Below a polished surface, you get a robust, well-structured, and thoroughly thought-out mechanism made of different interlocking parts subtly arranged and fitting neatly together, all running tickety-boo, like a Swiss clock.

Each game will provide a dynamic experience where the human player will be constantly confronted each turn with everchanging situations requiring some serious thinking on his part.

The Bots surely may not always make the smartest decisions. Occasionally you might even call them sub-optimal. But they take less risks than humans. They are not made of the sterner stuff of a Julius Caesar: you will never see them take a gamble and cross the Rubicon. However, their actions generally make sense; and as their power tends to grow more rapidly than a human player, they are on the whole very tough opponents which a human player will not find easy to beat.

This being said, I believe that the most striking part of the SR is that each Bot is given a distinct personality. This is even more so if the optional emperor rules are used. Each Bot has a recognizable mindset, strengths, and weaknesses. One likes to bully people, another will bathe in political intrigues, and the third one relies on money. And each one will tend to act in accordance with its inclinations. As the human player, you will want to treat each Bot as you would another person, on the basis of what you understand of his psychology. For instance, depending on the circumstances, you might want to throw mobs at a red Bot but show military aggressiveness towards a yellow Bot.

This has one result: as a human solo player, you do not fight an algorithm or a flowchart. Instead you fight a set of persons endowed with different personalities. This makes for very lively and interesting solo experiences as close to playing FTF as possible.

Should players be encouraged to tweak or house-rule the SR? I believe not.

When playing without specific solo rules, the commonly accepted attitude is to play each side to the best of one’s ability. In doing so, one applies the same logic and the same mental processes whichever side one is playing: de facto his own. In the SR of Time of Crisis, this is no longer the case. You actually fight enemies having their own logic and rationality. If you would want to disregard a decision of a Bot because you would find it inappropriate, you would then be imposing your logic and treat the Bot as another yourself, which is precisely what the SR is trying to avoid.

Surely, one could like to see the Bots play occasionally more smartly. However, in an actual game, notwithstanding the simplicity of the rules, situations can rapidly become sufficiently messy and complicated for a human player to handle well. If Bots make mistakes, so does the human player: such is life. Letting a Bot make a bad move creates a narrative: the leader of the Bot faction was tired, had poor judgment, bad advice, poor intelligence, or just bad luck. Shouldn’t Napoleon be allowed to lose at Waterloo? Improving the play of Bots will not, in my opinion, substantially change the experience the human player gets with the rules as they are.

Metaphorically, one might say that the SR is a game of three colors: blue, red ,and yellow, in which the system, considering the different powers attributed to each color, will combine and arrange them to offer the human player an interesting and memorable experience.

In short, I think the solo system of Time of Crisis is great: I like it.

PS. The designers of Time of Crisis have a new game on the P500 list: The Barracks Emperors, which is to some extent another game of three colors derived from Time of Crisis. Based on what transpires from articles published on the InsideGMT blog, we should be getting another clever and finely designed game. A solo system is announced to be included. Given the track record of the designers, one can only expect the very best to be delivered. Unfortunately, the number of orders on P500 is still some way away from making the cut. I would encourage readers to spare some of their yellow points to spend on increasing the level of support of what promises to be another exciting game.

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