We are quite proud that Rebellion: Britannia can be played solo and, in our opinion, quite well. Some designs have solo playability enmeshed in them from the outset, and some have it built into them later. In this case, the solo mode was developed in step with the design as a whole. (Maurice: I personally have a strong tendency to do this – it helps me design/test rapidly in the early stages when everything is still in flux.)

Players can still choose to be any of the four factions: Rome, Silures, Brigantes, or Iceni, and the game system ‘runs’ an opposing faction. If players choose to play as Rome they will have a different kind of game depending on their selected opposing faction, given the various different British tribe asymmetries. If players choose to be one of the British tribes Rome must be selected as the AI faction used in the game – they’re the big dog in this fight so they need to be present. In fact, if players so choose they can add multiple factions into their game, including playing with all four factions, three of them run by the game system. We’ve not yet tried it, but in theory, the game could even play itself, playing all four factions together through its simple AI system – although it would need a willing human to mechanically turn cards, comply with instructions and move pieces (no such human is provided with the game).

The solo mode doesn’t require any extra pieces, or extra cards, it requires just one minor modification in the sequence of play and one slight modification to the way play is set up. The simplicity of this approach is possible due to the Event deck, and the way the card details for each faction’s own cards are written, which means that playing a solo game against an AI faction feels very similar to playing against other players – at least mechanically..

As just mentioned, the sequence of play for the solo game is nearly identical to the multiplayer game. As with the multiplayer game, at the top of each round, an Event card is drawn and its effects are applied. The Event deck makes a number of things happen: it triggers bad weather (which hampers Roman supply), it incentivizes the control of specific regions with the reward of Victory Points, and it adds cultural tokens to specific regions (also incentivizing control of the region or the destruction of the token), it causes leadership to change within all four factions (resulting in shifting motivations and abilities for them all), and it causes Tension in various regions to increase or to decrease. The mechanical impacts built through the Event deck imbues the game state with dynamism – so regions keep shifting in terms of their threat level to Rome, and the opportunities they provide to all the factions.

After the Event card draw, the sequence for the solo player is the same as the sequence in the 2-4 player game for each player-controlled faction:

• Play a prepared card (if optionally done during the last round)
• Play a card from your hand
• Prepare a card from your hand by placing it face down in front of you (optional)
• Discard unwanted cards (optional)
• Draw up to hand limit

If you’d like to see this Sequence of Play in action, check out Daniel Burt’s excellent playthrough video (Link).

Instead of this sequence above, the sequence of play for any AI-controlled faction is simply:

• Play 2 cards, one after the other, from the top of the Faction deck.

That’s it. That’s the difference! This is made possible because each card within a faction’s own deck contains instructions on how to use that card if it is an ‘AI faction’. In other words,  an AI faction has no hand. Therefore, on the AI faction’s turn, one card is drawn, and the AI-specific instructions are carried out as completely as possible. Repeat that simple process for the second card and then both cards are removed and won’t return to the game.

The reason that the AI card play system is so elegant is due to the dynamic nature of the Event deck system— there’s an interplay between two simple systems that combine for a much more robust experience than the sum of their individual parts.

And that, in essence, is how the solo play works in Rebellion: Britannia. We are looking forward to playtesting this further as Rebellion: Britannia journeys towards becoming a reality, and we are hopeful that players will find this solo experience as delightful as we have.

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