Here is Part 4 of Mark’s “Advice on Peloponnesian War, from 38-year old Mark” as published in his original article from The General. Enjoy the article! – Gene

Sparta

When you are playing Sparta, many Athenian strategies will cause your coastline to be ravaged. This technique represents the historical vulnerability of the Spartan economy to coastal raiding. The cavalry unit in Sparta represents the mobile unit created during the war to counter this raiding strategy. The cavalry unit will give you two intercept opportunities at Prasiae and Corone. If there are Spartan naval SP’s at Gythium, the likelihood is that up to five Peloponnesian coastal spaces can avoid being ravaged due to successful intercepts, regardless of the skirmish result. This simulates the fact that you cannot do much damage if the raiding force is put on the defensive by a counterattack. If there are no Spartan SP’s at Gythium, a good first operation can be to move a portion of the Corinthian fleet to Gythium, where it can exert a blocking position against Athenian coastal ravaging. If the enemy fleet is particularly small, the possibility that one naval SP could be eliminated in a skirmish can cause the Athenian operation to fail.

If Syracuse becomes the objective for an Athenian operation, one of your best responses is to follow the historical example; send an advisor. The Cape Taenarum-to-Syracuse LOC is dangerous for a force, but low risk for a leader moving alone. The Athenian force will have only one opportunity to intercept the leader and, even if successful, the leader is in a space with friendly forces; so, the worst that can happen is that the battle occurs during the Operations phase instead of the Combat phase. Hopefully you will send a leader as good as Giyppas, or any other +2 Tactical leader. This type of help gives the Syracusans a fighting chance. If the Athenian force sent is a large force (4N, 4H), then defeat is likely in the naval portion of the battle, but during the land portion you may pull it out since you will have a + 1 for the Cavalry advantage, plus your leader to off­set the Athenian leader’s tactical rating. If the Athenian force is medium in size, then victory is much more likely. Evacuation of the Syracusan forces is unlikely here, since in most cases the Athenian force will be equal to or greater in size, forcing a battle upon the retreating force.

Athens’ Thessalian ally is vulnerable to an attack. It only has two Hoplites but is almost assured of getting the Cavalry advantage in a battle. A force with five Spartan Hoplites and a good leader can take this space and open the path to Thrace for small expeditions that no longer have to fear the Thessalian blocking force. Loss of Thessaly also denies the Athenians any chance of conducting the “Attack Sparta” strategy due to a lack of force size unless Argos and Macedon are allies of Athens.

An important component of Spartan strategy is to deny funds to Athens. Athens’ naval superiority is expensive to employ, and limit­ing Athenian revenue will reduce their operational tempo. Since the non-player side doesn’t get the Eisphora, extensive ravaging in Asia Minor is the best method of reducing Athenian income and Bellicosity. In the game a land force can get into Asia Minor by moving overland through Thrace and crossing the sea at Byzantium. Historically, it was Brasida’s plan to first capture Amphipolis and then build up forces for an overland march, to capture the Byzantium crossing points on the Bosphorous. The plan died with him, but it is available to the player. Unless the Athenians place a strong Hoplite and Cavalry force in Amphipolis to protect Asia Minor, a cavalry raid can damage Athenian revenue. This simulates the impact of Persian forces in Asia Minor which supported Delian League rebelions and attacked Athenian allies such as Amorges (lasus space), who was in rebellion against the Persian king.

The “Cause Rebellion” strategy is a little-understood rule and an opportunity for Spartan counterattacks against the Athenian empire. Just before the war began, Archidamus gave a net force-assessment of the two coalitions. He felt that one of Athens’ key vulnerabilities was its clients’ dissatisfaction with Athenian rule. It was his view that aiding and abetting Athenian allies to defect from the empire would deny Athens the tribute that supported her navy. During the actual war, it was indeed the large-scale rebellions in the empire which lowered Athenian tribute and naval capability. In the game, any space which is not on the Post Combat Movement Table is vulnerable to rebellion at least once per turn. Especially near the war’s end when funds are short, a Spartan operation that causes and then supports a rebellion will lower Athenian revenue and, over the Jong haul, its bellicosity. Granted, your use of the strategy has only a 16.6% chance of succeeding, but it only costs 100 talents to attempt, and when successful it can raise a whole section of the map into rebellion if not curtailed by Athenian forces. Obviously, do not choose an objective which begins in an existing Athenian ZOI.

Overall, unless you direct the war against the Athenian empire there will be few opportunities to succeed with the Spartans. Until or unless the Athenian navy is absent from the Saronic Gulf (Aegina Space), overland routes to Asia Minor are your best bet. The capture of Amphipolis is the key to the Eastern end of the Athenian empire, and unless it is heavily garrisoned, Spartan forces have easy access to the heart of the Athenian treasury through ravaging. Remember that although the Spartan Hoplite is hard to beat, moving them in very small forces leaves you vulnerable to an unexpected battle, potential defeat, and a hostage situation.

Athens

Athens is immune to siege unless its LOC to the Euxine is cut. If you are Athens two turns in a row, the game system is capable of first cutting your lifeline to the Euxine and then conducting a successful siege of Athens. Usually the Auguries, direct intervention by the Gods, and a number of missed interceptions are required for this to happen, but it is possible. The best way to prevent a Spartan force from accomplishing the unthinkable is to keep at least seven naval SP’s in Piraeus. A force this size automatically brings any Spartan expedition it intercepts an immediate battle and likely defeat. If you are the type who disperses the Athenian fleet so that you change sides the next game turn and then exploit this vulnerability, beware of false hopes. What I have seen happen is that the dispersed operations which are aimed at unopposed sieges do not succeed to the degree required, and the player finds himself still playing Athens. The system in the meantime has gotten forces overseas against your vulnerable empire and has inflicted several defeats and lowered your score. So, although this tactic sometimes works, you need to consider the possibility that you may make your bed only to be forced to lie in it.

MAP A (Graphic Representation of Spartan Strategy Matrix):
KEY: 1: Defensive Strategy; 2: Cut LOC; 3: Cause Rebellion; 4: Attack Athenian Ally; 5: Attack Athens

To protect your Athenian LOC from a Spartan overland operation (see special notes on Spartan matrix), it is often useful to build up forces at Amphipolis or Byzantium with five or six Hoplites plus one naval SP to extend their ZOI. This can be accomplished by using a leader like Cleon, whose high strategy rating and low tactical rating make him ideal for this role. You declare one of these locations as the objective and move an Athenian Hoplite force to Piraeus to pick up one naval SP, which then moves along combined LOC’s to the objective. During the Going Home Segment of the Combat Phase the force has a 50% chance of remaining in place. As long as the force has six Hoplite SP’s, it is guar­anteed to cause a battle with any Spartan force that may try to pass through it.

If Sparta has captured Amphipolis and can treat the Hellespont as a Land space objective, you must respond. Attacking Spartan coastline spaces with naval forces will often force a dramatic Spartan response. Now this may not seem very realistic, but in fact it is historical. In 425 BC, a small Athenian naval force under Demosthenes captured the Pylos space and built a fortification. The Spartan army under Agis was currently ravaging Attica when he received news of the new Athenian position. He immediately withdrew from Attica after less than two weeks of ravaging and took the Spartan army by the most direct route to Pylos. Remember that Sparta was a police state that controlled a large slave population, and any permanent Athenian positions jeopardized this fragile domestic situation. This situation is similar to the American Civil War which saw Union forces in Southern coastal regions become a focus for runaway slaves. By using one naval SP to threaten the Spartans, a massive reaction can ensue with the subsequent No Battle causing you no Joss of Victory points. In this manner, when the non-player Spartan strategy starts to aim at your empire, a direct assault on the social fabric of Sparta will redirect the game system’s attention.

The key strategy that should be implemented whenever possible is the ravaging of the Spartan coastline. This type of operation reduces Spartan Bellicosity by one each tum it occurs. If there is a Spartan fleet at Gythium, it usually takes two separate operations to accomplish the same effect of one operation without a Spartan fleet. Additionally, the presence of a Spartan fleet requires that the Athenian force be of medium size in case a battle is forced upon you. If Gythium becomes an effective blocking position, then force a naval battle on Gythium or from Cythera and eliminate it.

When controlling Athens, protect the empire, manipulate the paranoid Spartans, ravage their economy with your naval superiority, and pick off vulnerable locations with sieges. Balancing these elements will yield points and move Sparta toward surrender. The danger is in having small operations unexpectedly fail due to skirmishes and bad Auguries which allow the system to get in a powerful blow.

In Conclusion: Deus Ex Machina

Peloponnesian War uses dice to replace the random number generation capability of a computer, and you to replace the strategic logic for each side’s prosecution of the war. To paraphrase Clausewitz, defeat has a more powerful impact on the defeated than victory has on the victor. This logic applies in Peloponnesian war in that two defeats cancel out three victories. Leaving yourself open to defeat is where things go wrong. Of course, excessive caution causes large and expensive operations which reduce your opportunities for garnering Victory points.

Remember that your successes shorten the war, but do not necessarily garner a sufficient buildup of Victory Points to win it. Constant ravaging of the Spartan coastline and attacks on the Athenian empire lower the respective bellicosity indexes, even if you lose Victory points. As the war-weariness of the opponents moves the war toward conclusion, your continued efforts to gain victory points shortens your time to win. It is when these two relationships cease to be coordinated that defeat is your reward.

The game system uses mechanics to inflict the changing fortunes of war upon you in much the way that actors in ancient Greek tragedies were lowered into view to demonstrate the powers of fate. At times this approach may appear a bit contrived, and often the tactical response may feel too arbitrary to be correct. The confluence of probabilities sometimes works that way. I hope that my deus ex machina more often entertains, and lets you face yourself in one of the most hard-fought wars in history. The twofold purpose of games is both to challenge and to teach. I hope you feel that Peloponnesian War accomplishes both.

My own experience with the game has been that, periodically, I will easily triumph due to good play and very favorable die rolls. But, just when I think I have the system beaten, I find that those same processes conspire to make shambles of my strategy in the next game.

Some days you get the bear, and some days the bear gets you.

Articles in this Series: Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4

Author: Mark Herman