PLAYBOOK TABLEOFCONTENTS 14.0 15.0 16.0 17.0 Scenarios.........................................................2 Solitaire & < 4-Player Rules...........................11 Comprehensive Example of Play....................17 Card Personalities...........................................30 18.0 Strategy Guide.................................................35 19.0 Designer Notes................................................38 20.0 Bibliography....................................................43 Pericles Playbook 2 14.1 Thucydides Scenarios 14.0 Scenarios (All Dates are BC) (All Dates are BC) 14.01 First Time Player Training Before playing one of the main scenarios I suggest that you play several short scenarios that are in 14.1, Thucydides Scenarios. I would play the following vignettes in the following order: A.14.1.01, Turn 1B: The Ostracism of Thucydides (Political only mini-scenario, 10 minutes) B.14.1.06, Turn 6B: Sparta Declares War (Political only miniscenario, 10 minutes) C.14.1.01, Turn 1A: The Battle for Central Greece (Theater War only mini-scenario, 20 minutes) D.14.1.09, Turn 9A: War in the Aegean (Theater War only mini scenario, 30 minutes) E.14.1.08, Turn 8A: War in a Time of Peace (One Turn Scenario) F. 14.1.06, Turn 6A: The Archidamian War (Two Turn Scenario) G.At this point you are ready to play any of the longer scenarios and the campaign game. Play Note: If you have four people, play A and B simultaneously, the rest play with four. Phormio Play Note: Phormio works for any one or more turn scenarios. If you have less than four humans for the shorter training scenarios, just have the missing Sides played by one of the players. 14.02 Scenario Inventory • Scenario 14.1 is the Thucydides scenario that covers the entire period of the war in short episodes lasting from a part of a game turn, one game turn, or two game turns. • Scenario 14.2 is a three- to five-turn scenario covering the 1st Peloponnesian War. • Scenario 14.3 is a three- to five-turn scenario covering the 2nd Peloponnesian War. • Scenario 14.4 is the 7-10 turn Campaign scenario, called ‘The Suicide of Greece’, covering the period from 460 to 401. 14.03 Plague in Scenarios All scenarios that begin after game turn 6 are under the PostPlague condition (5.13), which are Turns 7,8,9, and 10. If playing a scenario that begins in game turns 1 to 6 the condition is always Pre-Plague until the Plague occurs normally through an Aristophanes card (Acharnians A, B, C) event. 14.04 Quick Solitaire If you want to play a quick filler game of Pericles, play 14.1.09 Turn 9 A, The War in the Aegean. Design Note: During the creation of Pericles I heard from many members of our tribe that they were intrigued by the period, but did not know much about it. I have found that historical gaming is enhanced by some knowledge of the events being portrayed in the narrative. This led me to conclude that the design’s entertainment value would be enhanced with more historical context and the inclusion of this series of scenarios. This scenario is an experiment in historical story telling, teaching the game, and offering player experiences that take 1 hour or less to play. I have attempted to create interesting vignettes and one- to two-turn scenarios that are focused on interesting periods of the historical narrative. The shorter scenarios are not always meant to be competitively balanced yet should still offer interesting decisions and insights into how to develop your own strategy in the main scenarios. The Battle vignettes in particular are illustrative examples meant to tell part of the historical narrative and not meant for competitive play. On the other hand, the single- and two-turn scenarios are competitively balanced where how you perform will determine the winner. Hopefully you will enjoy my little experiment with interactive history. Historical Preamble In 499 the Ionian Greeks revolted against their Persian overlords. Many of these City-States were of the same ethnic origin as Athens. Athens supported the revolt and in 498 ravaged Sardis, the regional Persian capital. In 494 a resurgent Persia went on the offensive and the revolt was extinguished under reasonable terms in 493. However, the Persians now wanted to settle their score with Athens and in 490 sent an amphibious expedition across the Aegean Sea. This military expedition led to one of the most famous battles in Western history, Marathon. In this pitched land battle the Athenian hoplites smashed the invasion force and Persian aspirations in Greece for a decade. Due to a Persian succession crisis precipitated by King Darius’ death the return match between Persia and Athens had to wait a decade. After killing many relatives and stabilizing the empire the newly minted King Xerxes in 480 led a major invasion of Greece to deal with the ‘Greek problem’. This campaign saw a massive Persian army bridge the Hellespont, march through Northern Greece and encounter a joint Greek land-naval force at Thermopylae-Artemisium. The death of the Spartan King Leonidas and his Greek detachment known as the ‘300’ forced the retreat of the Greek naval units and opened up Central Greece to the Persian forces. Xerxes burned down Athens in revenge for Sardis, but then lost a decisive naval battle at Salamis. In 479 a Spartan-led coalition defeated the Persian occupying army, leading to a series of campaigns that ejected Persian forces from Europe. At this point Sparta’s arrogant generals and political reluctance to pursue the war into Asia caused a Greek leadership vacuum. At the behest of the Ionian Greeks, that position now fell to the Athenians. This leadership change created the Delian League, so named because it was ratified at a meeting on the island of Delos. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC Pericles Playbook Athens continued to lead the war against the Persians, but over time its aggressive policies toward its allies caused revolts and the evolution of the Delian League into the Athenian Empire. The Athenian Empire was a thalassocracy (literally ‘rule of the sea’), so named because its strength revolved around its dominant naval power. As time advanced a series of political crises saw the bonds between Sparta and Athens fray. In 460 Megara felt abandoned during a dispute with Corinth (Isthmus of Corinth) and left the Spartan alliance known as the Peloponnesian League to enter into an alliance with Athens. This culminating event led to the 1st Peloponnesian War chronicled in Thucydides’ Pentecontaetia section and where my design Pericles: The Peloponnesian Wars begins. Legend A#xL/N/B = Athens # of Land/Naval/Base units D#xL/N/B = Delian League # of Land/Naval/Base units S#xL/N/B = Spartan # of Land/Naval/Base units P#xL/N/B = Peloponnesian League # of Land/Naval/Base units Argos: #L = Argos land units 14.1.01 Turn 1: 460, 459, 458, 457, 456, 455 3 War penalties per the normal rules, see 13.2. The side with the most Honor wins. B. The Ostracism of Thucydides Political Training Vignette Game Length: This is a training scenario that commemorates an important political fight that saw Pericles (Aristocrats) consolidate power by exiling his political opponent Thucydides (Demagogues; not the historian Thucydides). This is played out as a single hand, where the Aristophanes card Frog C puts Ostracism on Thucydides’ 1 space. Historical Note: 1st Peloponnesian War and Campaign Scenario Start, 14.2, 14.4. Aristocrats: Card 10 and Card 16, deal 7 random cards. A. Battle for Central Greece Victory Conditions Theater Training Scenario Game Length: Begin this scenario with the Theater phase. All previous phases are ignored for this scenario. Athens and Sparta are at War. The player with the highest Oratory Honor and has won the Ostracism issue wins. A player must meet both conditions to win; otherwise it is a draw. Demagogues: Card 1 and Card 13, deal 7 random cards. C. Isthmus of Corinth This scenario only uses the Isthmus of Corinth (5), Sparta (6), Athens (7), Boeotia (8), S. Sporades (19) and Eastern Mediterranean (20) Theaters. Use the Master Setup chart’s Turn 1 Setup. Issues can only be placed in these Theaters; ignore the rest of the map. Game Length: This scenario is one turn in length. Use the normal sequence of play. Honor order is Aristocrats, Agiad, Demagogues, and Eurypontids. This scenario uses the entire map. Athens Controlling Faction: Aristocrats, have 8 Strategos tokens, 2 Military, 1 Diplomatic issues plus 1 Rumor marker. Controlling Faction: Aristocrats, Assembly Neutral, Black Meeple (Alcibiades), 1 Black Strategos Token (Athenian State Ship) Demagogues have 10 Strategos tokens, 2 Military, 1 League, and 1 Oracle Issue plus 1 Rumor marker. Sparta Sparta Controlling Faction: Agiad, have 8 Strategos tokens, 1 Military, 1 Diplomatic, 1 League issues plus 1 Rumor marker. Eurypontid have 8 Strategos tokens, 2 Military, and 1 Oracle Issue plus 1 Rumor marker. Scenario Special Rules Follow a normal Theater phase (see sequence of play) and then determine the winner based on the final Honor score. All players start with 10 Honor. The Athenian Aristocrats suffer Persian Use the Master Scenario Setup for Turn 1. Athens Controlling Faction: Agiad, Assembly Neutral Athens and Sparta are at War; all players begin with 10 Honor. Persian War is active, see 13.2. Victory Conditions Do not score any Controlling Faction, Geography or Economic bonuses. The City-State with the most Honor wins the scenario and the Faction of the winning side with the most Honor wins the game. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC 4 Pericles Playbook 14.1.02 Turn 2: 454, 453, 452, 451, 450, 449 14.1.03 Turn 3: 448, 447, 446, 445, 444, 443 A. Peace of Callias Game Length: This scenario is one turn in length. Use the normal sequence of play. Use the Master Scenario Setup for Turn 2. This scenario uses the entire map. Athens Controlling Faction: Aristocrats, Assembly Neutral, Black Meeple (Alcibiades), 1 Black Strategos Token (Athenian State Ship) Sparta Controlling Faction: Agiad, Assembly Neutral Athens and Sparta are at War; all players begin with 10 Honor. A. End of the 1st Peloponnesian War Persian War is active, see 13.2. Game Length: This scenario is one turn in length. Victory Conditions Use the normal sequence of play. Use the Master Scenario Setup for Turn 3. If Athens has not met the conditions for the Peace of Callias (end of Persian War), the Athenian Controlling Faction loses 10 Honor. Beyond this potential penalty, do not score any Controlling Faction, Geography or Economic bonuses. The City-State with the most Honor wins the scenario and the Faction of the winning side with the most Honor wins the game. This scenario uses the entire map. Athens Controlling Faction: Aristocrats, Assembly Neutral, Black Meeple (Alcibiades), 1 Black Strategos Token (Athenian State Ship) Sparta Controlling Faction: Agiad, Assembly Neutral Athens and Sparta are at War; all players begin with 10 Honor. Persian War is concluded, see 13.2. Victory Conditions Do not score any Controlling Faction, Geography or Economic bonuses. The City-State with the most Honor wins the scenario and the Faction of the winning side with the most Honor wins the game. Scenario Special Rule If Peace is declared during the Political Phase, play the entire turn under Peace. 14.1.04 Turn 4: 442, 441, 440, 439, 438, 437 A. Periclean Peace Game Length: This scenario is two turns in length, see 14.1.05. Use the normal sequence of play. Use the Master Scenario Setup for Turn 4. This scenario uses the entire map. Athens Controlling Faction: Aristocrats, Assembly Neutral, Black Meeple (Alcibiades), 1 Black Strategos Token (Athenian State Ship) © 2016 GMT Games, LLC Pericles Playbook 5 Sparta Athens Controlling Faction: Agiad, Assembly Neutral Controlling Faction: Aristocrats, Assembly Neutral, Black Meeple (Alcibiades), 1 Black Strategos Token (Athenian State Ship) Athens and Sparta are at Peace; all players begin with 10 Honor. Persian War is concluded, see 13.2. Sparta Controlling Faction: Eurypontid, Assembly Neutral B. Samos Revolt Game Length: This is a one-Theater Battle vignette. It is meant for training and historical illustration purposes. Samos Theater (16) Athens and Sparta are at Peace; all players begin with 10 Honor. Persian War is concluded, see 13.2. The card draw phase is modified as follows: Eurypontids: Card 37, deal 8 random cards. Athens Agiads: Card 34, deal 8 random cards. A4xN, A1xL, 9 Strategos Both Athenian Factions are dealt 9 random cards. Sparta This scenario uses the entire map. P2xL, P1xB, 4 Strategos Flip a Battle card for both sides; the winner of first a naval and then a land Battle wins the scenario, else draw. 14.1.05 Turn 5: 436, 435, 434, 433, 432, 431 Second turn of Turn 4 Scenario Periclean Peace, 14.1.04 A. Victory Conditions Do not score any Controlling Faction, Geography or Economic bonuses. The City-State with the most Honor wins the scenario and the Faction of the winning side with the most Honor wins the game. B. Sparta Declares War Political Training Scenario Game Length: This is a training scenario that commemorates the Spartan debate to go to war. Archidamus (Eurypontid, Controlling Faction) argued for time to prepare, while the Ephor Sthenelaidas (Agiad) pushed for an immediate declaration of war. This is played out as a single hand, where the Aristophanes card Clouds A puts War/Peace on the Agiad 1 space. Each player discards 2 cards from their Entourage leaving: Eurypontids: Card 37, deal 8 random cards. Agiads: Card 34, deal 8 random cards. Victory Conditions The Eurypontid player wins if he has the highest Oratory Honor and the War/Peace issue is in the Assembly zero space. The Agiad player wins if he has the highest Oratory Honor and the War/Peace issue has been won by either side declaring War. A player must meet both conditions to win; otherwise it is a draw. 14.1.07 Turn 7: 424, 423, 422, 421, 420, 419 Second turn of Turn 6 Scenario the Archidamian War, 14.1.06 A. Victory Conditions Do not score any Controlling Faction, Geography or Economic bonuses. The City-State with the most Honor wins the scenario and the Faction of the winning side with the most Honor wins the game. 14.1.06 Turn 6: 430, 429, 428, 427, 426, 425 Historical Note: 2nd Peloponnesian War Scenario Start, see 14.3. A. The Archidamian War Game Length: This scenario is two turns in length, see 14.1.07. Use the normal sequence of play, but the Aristophanes card “Clouds A” is used for the first turn of the scenario. B. Death of Brasidas and Cleon Game Length: This is a one-Theater Battle vignette. It is meant for training and historical illustration purposes. Amphipolis Theater (12) Athens A2xL, D1xL, D1xB, 6 Strategos Use the same setup as the 2nd Peloponnesian War scenario: see Master Setup Turn 6. Sparta This scenario uses the entire map. Flip a Battle card for both sides; the winner of the land Battle wins the scenario, else draw. P4xL, 9 Strategos © 2016 GMT Games, LLC 6 Pericles Playbook 14.1.08 Turn 8: 418, 417, 416, 415, 414, 413 14.1.09 Turn 9: 412, 411, 410, 409, 408, 407 A. War in a Time of Peace A: War in the Aegean Game Length: This scenario is one turn in length. Theater Training Scenario Game Length: Begin this scenario with the Theater phase. All previous phases are ignored for this scenario. Use the normal sequence of play. Use the Master Scenario Setup for Turn 8. This scenario uses the entire map. Athens Controlling Faction: Demagogues, Assembly Neutral, Black Meeple (Alcibiades), 1 Black Strategos Token (Athenian State Ship) Sparta Controlling Faction: Agiad, Assembly Neutral This scenario only uses Sparta (6) and Athens (7), plus Theaters numbered 13-19 (Hellespont, Ionia, Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Cyclades, S. Sporades). Persia has the Alcibiades Meeple in that location with 2 Persian Bases. Use the Master Setup Chart’s Turn 9 setup. Issues can only be placed in these Theaters; ignore the rest of the map. Honor order is Aristocrats, Agiad, Demagogues, and Eurypontids. Persian War is concluded, see 13.2. Aristocrats and the Agiads are the Controlling Factions. Alcibiades is not in Athens, he’s in Persia. Each Faction begins with 10 Honor. Victory Conditions Athens Do not score any Controlling Faction, Geography or Economic bonuses. The City-State with the most Honor wins the scenario and the Faction of the winning side with the most Honor wins the game. Controlling Faction: Aristocrats, have 12 Strategos tokens, 3 Military, 1 League issue plus 1 Rumor marker. Demagogues have 12 Strategos tokens, 2 Military, 1 League, and 1 Diplomatic Issue plus 1 Rumor marker. B. Battle of Mantinea Sparta Athens and Sparta are at Peace; all players begin with 10 Honor. Game Length: This is a one-Theater Battle vignette. It is meant for training and historical illustration purposes. Controlling Faction: Agiad, have 12 Strategos tokens, 3 Military, 1 League Issues plus 1 Rumor marker. Spartan Theater (6) Eurypontid have 12 Strategos tokens, 2 Military and 2 Diplomatic Issues plus 1 Rumor marker. Athens Special Instructions Argos: 4xL, A1xL, D3xL, D1xB, 4 Strategos Follow a normal Theater phase and then determine the winner based on the final Honor score. Place all Honor track markers on 10. The side with the most Honor wins. Sparta S6xL, S2xB, 8 Strategos Flip a Battle card for both sides; the winner of the land Battle wins the scenario, else draw. C. Sicilian Expedition B. The Battle of Cyzicus Game Length: This is a one-Theater Battle vignette. It is meant for training purposes. Game Length: This is a one-Theater Battle vignette. It is meant for training purposes. Hellespont Theater (13) Sicily Theater (1) A3xN, 8 Strategos, Athenian Ship of State Strategos Athens Athens Sparta A3xN, A2xL, D1xL, D1xB, 4 Strategos P4xN, 2 Strategos Sparta Flip a Battle card for both sides; the winner of the naval Battle wins the scenario, else draw. P4xN, P3xL, P2xB, 8 Strategos Flip a Battle card for both sides; the winner of first the land and then a naval Battle wins the scenario, else draw. C. Turning of the Tide Game Length: This scenario is one turn in length. Use the normal sequence of play. Use the Master Scenario Setup for Turn 9. This scenario uses the entire map. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC Pericles Playbook 7 Athens Victory Conditions Controlling Faction: Aristocrats, Assembly Neutral, 1 Black Strategos Token (Athenian State Ship) If Sparta controls the Hellespont Theater at the end of the scenario, they win and the Spartan Faction with the most Honor wins, in case of a tie the Controlling Faction wins. If this is not the case, then do not score any Controlling Faction, Geography or Economic bonuses. The City-State with the most Honor wins the scenario and the Faction of the winning side with the most Honor wins the game. Sparta Controlling Faction: Agiad, Assembly Neutral Athens and Sparta are at War; all players begin with 10 Honor. Peace of Callias, see 13.2. Black Meeple (Alcibiades in Persia) Victory Conditions B. The Battle of Arginusae Do not score any Controlling Faction, Geography or Economic bonuses. The City-State with the most Honor wins the scenario and the Faction of the winning side with the most Honor wins the game. Game Length: This is a one-Theater Battle vignette. It is meant for training purposes. 14.1.10 Turn 10: 406, 405, 404, 403, 402, 401 A3xN, 8 Strategos, Athenian Ship of State Strategos A. Fall of the Athenian Empire Sparta Game Length: This scenario is one turn in length. Use the normal sequence of play. Lesbos Theater (15) Athens P6xN, 8 Strategos Aristophanes card is automatically Frogs B. Flip a Battle card for both sides; the winner of the naval Battle wins the scenario, else draw. Use the Master Scenario Setup for Turn 10. C. The Battle of Notium This scenario uses the entire map. Athens Game Length: This is a one-Theater Battle vignette. It is meant for training purposes. Controlling Faction: Aristocrats, Assembly Neutral, 1 Black Strategos Token (Athenian State Ship) Chios Theater (16) Athens Sparta A3xN, 2 Strategos, Athenian Ship of State Strategos Controlling Faction: Agiad, Assembly Neutral Sparta Athens and Sparta are at War; all players begin with 10 Honor. P4xN, 9 Strategos Alcibiades is in Persia. Persian War is concluded, see 13.2. Flip a Battle card for both sides; the winner of the naval Battle wins the scenario, else draw. Scenario Special Rules D. The Battle of Aegospotami 1. The Athenians and the Spartans may not build any City-State bases or units during this scenario. Both sides may build and deploy League bases and units. Game Length: This is a one-Theater Battle vignette. It is meant for training purposes. 2. Remove 8 Strategos tokens from both sides’ stock. 3. If Peace occurs, the scenario continues, but under the normal restrictions for Peace. Play Note: It is usually not to Sparta’s advantage to declare Peace as you may need the Spartan fleet in Ionia to seal the deal in the Hellespont. Design Note: This scenario is quite interesting as it gives you a perspective on how the war ended. Lysander’s victory at the Battle of Aegospotami destroyed the Athenian navy. This allowed Sparta to cut Athens’ grain supply and initiate a siege that resulted in Athens’ surrender. The inability for the main protagonists to build forces is an application of rule 14.43, the Ravages of War. Hellespont Theater (13) Athens A3xN, 2 Strategos, Athenian Ship of State Strategos Sparta P4xN, 8 Strategos Flip a Battle card for both sides; the winner of the naval Battle wins the scenario, else draw. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC 8 Pericles Playbook 14.1.11 Thucydides Master Scenario Setup Charts The Master Scenario Setup Charts are used for all one-GameTurn or longer scenarios. Each scenario designates a setup game turn. Each side cross indexes the Turn column with a Theater and place the indicated pieces on the map at that location. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC Pericles Playbook © 2016 GMT Games, LLC 9 10 Pericles Playbook 14.2 Pentecontaetia; 1st Peloponnesian War Game Length: Game Starts on game turn 1 and lasts from 3 to 5 turns (see 14.24). 14.21 Display Setup Athens Controlling Faction: Aristocrats, Assembly Neutral, Black Meeple (Alcibiades), 1 Black Strategos Token (Athenian State Ship) Sparta 14.34 Ending the Scenario The scenario ends on Turn 8, 9, or 10 immediately during the Political Issues Segment if Peace is declared, an automatic victory has occurred, or it is the end phase of Turn 10. 14.4 The Suicide of Greece: 460 – 400 BC Campaign Scenario Game Length: Game Starts on game turn 1 and lasts for up to 8 - 10 turns (see 14.44). 14.41 City Display and Piece Setup Controlling Faction: Agiad, Assembly Neutral Use 1st Peloponnesian War Setup, see 14.2. Athens and Sparta are at Peace; all players begin with 10 Honor 14.42 Piece Setup Use the game Turn 1 setup from the Master Scenario Setup Chart, 14.1.11. Persian War is active, see 13.2. 14.22 Piece Setup Use the setup for game turn 1 from the Master Scenario Setup Chart, 14.1.11. 14.23 Scenario Rules Persian War: See Persia, 13.0. Optional: See 14.43. 14.24 Ending the Scenario The scenario ends on Turn 3, 4, or 5 immediately during the Political Issues Segment if Peace is declared, an automatic victory has occurred, or it is the end phase of Turn 5. 14.3 Second Peloponnesian War Game Length: Game Starts on game turn 6 and lasts from 3 to 5 turns (see 14.34). 14.31 City Displays Athens Controlling Faction: Aristocrats, Assembly: Aristocrats, Black Meeple (Alcibiades), Black Strategos Token (Athenian State Ship) Sparta Controlling Faction: Eurypontid, Assembly Neutral Athens and Sparta are at Peace; all players begin with 10 Honor. Peace of Callias: Persian War has ended, see 13.2. The card draw phase is modified as follows: Eurypontids: Card 37, deal 8 random cards. Agiads: Card 34, deal 8 random cards. 14.43 Scenario Rules Ravages of War A.Plague: Any units lost due to Plague (both sides) are permanently removed from play. B.Military Disaster: In any Land Battle for every set of 2 friendly land units eliminated (round down), one is permanently removed from play; Enemy choice. In any Naval Battle for every set of 2 friendly naval units eliminated (round down), one is permanently removed from play; Enemy choice. C.Bottom of the Barrel: Athens and Sparta cannot have their force pool reduced to below 2 land and 2 naval units. Delian and Peloponnesian League cannot have their force pools reduced below 8 land and 4 naval units. D.Leadership Loss: At the end of each game turn that War has been declared, both sides remove from the game 1 Strategos token from their stock. Design Note: The 2nd Peloponnesian War had a profound impact on population. As the war entered its third decade the main protagonists had seen their military age males reduced by more than 65%. For the Athenians their losses from the Sicilian Expedition were mostly Athenian citizens which had a profound effect on their Hoplite and Rower assets. With player agreement this rule can be used in the shorter scenarios. I did not make it part of the shorter scenarios as it usually does not have a significant impact due to the shorter length of play. 14.44 Ending the Scenario The scenario ends on Turn 7, 8, 9 or 10 immediately during the Political Issues Segment if Peace is declared, an automatic victory has occurred, or it is the end phase of Turn 10. Both Athenian Factions are dealt 9 random cards. 14.32 Piece Setup Use the game turn 6 setup in the Master Scenario Setup Chart, see 14.1.11. 14.33 Scenario Rules Optional: Use 14.43. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC Pericles Playbook 11 the other player nominating a War/Peace issue to create the conditions for Peace. 2. A player faction may not nominate Ostracism if his faction is the Controlling faction. B. Both players each pick a faction from one of the City States (Athens or Sparta) and Phormio with or without Brasidas (15.9) plays both factions on the other side. 1. The human players should debate their sides’ issues before debating the non-human, Phormio faction side’s issues. 2. There are two ways to play in this situation. Either use two Phormio factions for the non-human side or use the abbreviated Brasidas solitaire faction rules, see 15.9. 15.0 Solitaire & < 4-Player Rules Pericles can be played with less than four humans using the following rules. The non-human decision processes are known as Phormio. In a given session you may be playing with one, two, or three parallel Phormio faction sets of decisions depending on the number of humans present. The rules should cover all situations that I can conceive of, but I have learned that this is not likely to be the case, so when you come to a fork in the decision pathway, take one by rolling a die to pick between two options. Design Note: This is not a computer program with thousands of lines of code. If you want that type of solo experience, play a computer game. Pericles is a multi-player manual board game with interesting solitaire rules for when you are short handed. If you are looking for a tense competitive experience with Pericles, play with humans. If you want to explore and experience an interesting game narrative, Phormio with his strategy and decision flow charts should fill the bill. 15.1 Human-Phormio Combinations 15.11 Solitaire You pick one of the four factions and Phormio will play the other three sides. Do note that you can play with no humans, but I make no guarantees on what may happen. Play Note: Phormio mimics to the degree possible the mechanics that a human would go through to play the game. If you are playing solitaire and do not want to play out all of the game’s procedures and just want to fight a short war, I suggest you examine the War in the Aegean mini-scenario, see 14.1.09 A or use the abbreviated solitaire rules called Brasidas, 15.9. 15.12 Two Players A. Each player takes one faction from each City State and the humans play out the game leveraging their position on each side to try and achieve an individual victory. Phormio is not used in this variant. 1. When playing this variant, a player may not voluntarily nominate the War/Peace issue with both of the factions he or she controls. In this circumstance the player can declare war on their own, but it would take an Aristophanes card or Play Note: Using 15.12 A is the shortest as the use of the Phormio charts does take some time to execute. You will find that if using the 15.12 B variant that having both players take one side and then using Brasidas (15.9) is faster than if you implement the full Phormio system for the non-human players. 15.13 Three Players Two humans take factions in one City State and the other human takes a faction in the opposing City State and uses Phormio as his compatriot faction. 15.14 Phormio Honor Handicap A. Solitaire: On the all non-human side, each Phormio faction starts any scenario with a +20 honor bonus at the start of any scenario. The Phormio faction on the human side does not receive this bonus. B. Two Players against Phormio: Each Phormio faction starts any scenario with a +20 honor bonus. C. Three Players: Each faction on the all human team side receives a +5 Honor bonus at the start of any scenario. Play Note: In a three-player game it is advisable that one of the opposing players implements the Phormio faction’s decision for the human-Phormio team. Design Note: I have set the handicap for the Phormio at the high end as a single major defeat can close a 20 point gap. If you find that you are never winning against Phormio, suspend the bonus and add some back until you find your balance point. If you find that you are not being sufficiently challenged double the bonus until you lose, then slowly reduce this number until you feel it is balanced for your level of skill. 15.15 Phormio Glossary of Concepts A. PS (Prime Strategy): PS is used in the Phormio flowcharts as an abbreviation. A Prime strategy is based on a City-State’s chosen Theater Strategy, see 15.3. B. PS (Prime Strategy) Theater: Based on the Strategy matrix choice, a Primary Strategy (PS) Theater is chosen. All PS issues are placed in the PS Theater in the order indicated by the Primary Strategy matrix. C. PS (Prime Strategy) Issue: This is an issue associated with Phormio’s prime strategy (PS). When a flowchart indicates © 2016 GMT Games, LLC 12 Pericles Playbook whether a PS issue is available, to be placed, or on the display, the condition is fulfilled if the issue is on its City State faction track or in the zero space, whether Phormio chose it or not. The goal is to get at least one set of the necessary issues onto the Faction track, then won in debate, and then placed in the PS Theater in the order indicated so Phormio can play intelligently to achieve its chosen strategy. Play Note: As a mnemonic I like to use the faction colored markers to remind myself of the types and order of the issues that I need to acquire for Phormio. D. Feasible: Phormio is trying not to make a poor card play. Phormio is trying to make card plays that move issues onto its Faction track. The card feasibility formula is trying to calculate whether a particular card play has a reasonable probability of achieving this objective. The formula for whether a card play is ‘feasible’ or not is whether a card value plus issue attribute minus 2 is sufficient to move a designated issue from its current location onto Phormio’s track. If nothing meets this criterion, then make the card play that moves an issue the closest to the Phormio track to lower the opponents’ oration honor total. This is often how Phormio chooses an unusual unpredictable path. It’s not a problem, it’s a feature. E. Random Choice: There are two situations. If Phormio is trying to randomly choose a Theater, roll the 1d20 to determine the Theater. If the result is the primary strategy theater or the Eastern Mediterranean after the Peace of Callias, roll until another Theater is chosen. In other circumstances Phormio is trying to randomly choose amongst possible options. Assign choices matched to a 1d6 and use the die roll to make the final choice. F. Assembly Path: Phormio during military expeditions will move its units on the map. Phormio will move its units one at a time and take a path that allows the unit to arrive unimpeded at its Theater destination. If this is not possible, Phormio will choose a path that stops the least number of units to allow one or more units to arrive at the Theater destination. If this is also not possible, Phormio will choose the path that will equalize the moving force type in as many Theaters on a path to the Theater destination as possible, but will stop once numerical equality is achieved. If a unit move would put that unit into a Theater that it cannot exit due to a lack of a base, the unit will not attempt the move. Once all possible combinations have been exhausted, Phormio will fight a battle. If you have difficulty sorting out the best option, randomize amongst the options. G. Sudden Death Avoidance: If a Phormio faction were put in a situation where following the flowchart logic would result in an automatic victory for the other side, then override the logic and avoid letting this happen on purpose. For example if Athens begins the turn without a base in a granary theater and for some reason the won Athenian issues would be placed to ensure an automatic defeat or not preserving sufficient Strategos tokens prevents a League base from being built in a granary Theater, don’t let this happen. Place the issues where they can potentially prevent the automatic loss or do not spend the Strategos tokens, regardless of what the flowcharts indicate. If there are multiple ways to solve this issue, use judgment or randomize amongst the options. H. Legal: Phormio is an honest ‘Bot. No matter how you interpret an instruction, Phormio will not violate the rules of the game. I. Endless Loop: If you are in one of the flowcharts and your answers or your perception of the answer to the decision boxes has you moving literally in logic circles, change the answer from yes to no and get to a resolution. Play Note: The team has extensively tested the Phormio charts and they are as good as I can make them, but I know in my heart that there are some edge cases that I have not experienced or foreseen. When I have failed you, use your common sense or roll a die to keep the game moving. 15.2 Aristophanes Segment This segment is played per the normal rules without modification. 15.3 Phormio Primary Strategy Before the Boule segment you need to first determine what each Phormio faction is going to use as its primary strategy. There is a City State Strategy Table for each side. Take the appropriate Strategy table and starting at the top find the highest priority strategy that applies to the situation on the map. Roll a six-sided die, if the die roll is 1-5 that becomes Phormio’s primary strategy. If you roll a six, skip down to the next applicable strategy and roll the die again. If you come to the last strategy, that is automatically Phormio’s primary strategy. Play Note: If a Strategy that would prevent Phormio from losing the game is the highest priority strategy, do not roll the die and potentially skip the strategy, just use the strategy. For example a Phormio Athens has a high priority strategy to avoid losing the game due to a lack of a base in a granary theater. If this issue becomes an option do not roll the die and risk losing the game, just use this strategy. When Phormio represents both factions on a side, the Controlling faction takes the highest priority strategy that applies and then the Opposition faction bypasses the Controlling faction’s choice and continues down the chart to the next applicable strategy as its primary strategy choice. Play Note: Each Phormio faction on the same side will always choose a different primary strategy unless it is the last choice in which case they will pick different Theaters. In the highly unlikely case that each Phormio faction gets to the last possible choice then and only then will they use the identical primary strategy. 15.31 Strategy Table Descriptions and Implementation A. Each City State has its own unique Strategy Table. The first two columns of each table broadly describe the Conditions and the Strategy title. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC Pericles Playbook Example: On the Athens Phormio Strategy Matrix the first strategy priority is the condition on whether or not the Athens space is contested. If there are Spartan units in the Athens space then this strategy is the highest priority. If Athens controls the Athens Theater (no Spartan units) this this strategy is skipped and you move down to the Granary Strategy and see if it does or does not apply and so on until you find one whose conditions do apply. Once you find a strategy condition that does apply, remember to roll a 1d6 to determine if you use this strategy (die roll of 1-5) or skip and move to the next one that apply (die roll of 6). B. The issues column is written in priority order from top to bottom. The Strategy table usually designates two to three issues for a given strategy. Phormio wants to win these issues in order to implement its primary strategy. Phormio will choose these issues, before making choices based on the political cards that faction is dealt. The intent and goal is for Phormio to try and win these issues during the Assembly debate and will not turn to other choices until the indicated issues are on its faction track. During the Boule segment it is entirely possible that by happenstance the Aristophanes card has placed one of the necessary issues onto Phormio’s faction track; in this case Phormio considers this issue won for the time being and proceeds to the next priority issue on the list or randomly based on its cards. Example: Once again on the Athens Strategy Matrix, if due to an Aristophanes card the “Will of Assembly: Build or Convert a base” was the event and this strategy is chosen, then Phormio is tasked to win in priority order a military, league, and oracle issue. If the Aristophanes card had put the league issue on Phormio’s faction track, then the priority order for choosing issues would be military then oracle. C. Theater: Based on the strategy chosen there may be multiple Theaters that meet the strategy’s conditions. In these cases the Theaters are arrayed from highest to lowest priority. Choose the highest priority Theater that meets the conditions of the prime strategy. Example: On the Athens’ strategy matrix the Control of Naval Chokepoints strategy is chosen if Naupactus, Hellespont, or Corcyra Theaters are contested. If Naupactus and Corcyra are both contested, then Naupactus is the prime strategy Theater since the list is in priority order. D. The Theater, Issue order, and Issue Implementation Notes all apply to the Theater segment and are described in those sections below. As a general concept, the priority order for choosing the issues is reversed when you place them during the Theater segment as the game is using a Last in-First out (LIFO) queue, so the highest priority issue needs to be placed last so it is resolved first. E. Usually the PS issues are placed in the Primary Strategy theater , but note that there are times where a military issue is placed in Phormio’s City State Theater, usually to build additional forces that could be used in support of the Primary Strategy Theater. Important Note: In all cases the strategy matrix takes precedence over the decision charts when they disagree. 13 15.4 Card Draw and Boule Segment Play Note: You can substitute this section and 15.5 with the Brasidas procedure, 15.9. 15.41 Phormio Boule Segment Flowchart Use this flowchart for Phormio’s issue choices. The normal Boule segment rules are used; the chart is just making the faction choices. You always begin by choosing the Primary Strategy that indicates which issues are PS issues (see 15.15 C). If this is done, then go to the Start decision diamond. A. “Is there a PS issue available?” means is there an undesignated issue of the required type that is not yet on the City State’s faction track. It can be on either factions track or in the issues space. B. Another decision diamond asks “Are all PS issues on the faction track?” Regardless of who chose the issue, if all of the PS issues are on the faction track in the Issues space—or on either faction’s side of the track—the answer is yes; otherwise it is no. C. “Are all Boule issues chosen?” is based on whether that side has chosen the requisite number of issues per the rules, Controlling faction would have chosen 4 in total and the Opposition faction would have chosen 3 in total. 15.42 Phormio Nine-Card Hand The Phormio factions do not play with an Entourage, but always play from a nine-card hand with the three unused cards automatically discarded next turn. Each Phormio faction is dealt a nine Political card hand each turn. 15.43 Phormio Has Hostages If Phormio has hostages available he does one of the following in priority order: A. If the Aristophanes card has put the War/Peace issue onto the opponents’ track, Phormio does not use Hostages and holds onto them. B. If Peace, Phormio does not use Hostages and holds onto them. C. If War and Phormio’s city state is losing or tied, Phormio will use his hostages to put the War/Peace issue into play. D. If War and Phormio’s city state is winning or tied, Phormio will not use Hostages and holds onto them. 15.5 Assembly Debate Procedure Play Note: You can substitute this section and 15.4 with the Brasidas procedure, 15.9. 15.51 Use the Phormio Assembly Segment Flowchart A. Each time an issue debate occurs, begin in the Start decision diamond. If this is not Phormio’s issue choice the answer is no. If this is Phormio’s turn to designate the debate issue the answer is yes. B. Are all PS issues required for the strategy on Phormio’s track means that the number and type of PS issues Phormio is tasked to win are all on Phormio’s faction track on a one or © 2016 GMT Games, LLC 14 Pericles Playbook better box. Once Phormio is winning the necessary number and type of issues, the answer is yes; if not, the answer is no. It is possible that this answer will change over the course of the debates as an issue that was for a time on Phormio’s assembly track may have moved off and subsequently Phormio will have to reengage on that issue to reacquire it. Example: Phormio is tasked to win a military, league, and oracle issue. Once Phormio has one military and league issue on its assembly track the fact that there are additional military and league issues available to debate does not deter Phormio from going after the Oracle issue. C. Once all of Phormio’s PS issues are on its track it will check to see if the other faction is trying to win the Ostracism issue and the circumstances of the War/Peace issue. The answers of yes and no are based on these potential circumstances. D. Usually by the third round of debates Phormio will either run out of PS issues that it requires or it will determine that debating those issues are no longer feasible. Once this occurs Phormio is going to try and play its strongest card whether it is or is not aligned to an issue (issue bonus applies) that it can potentially move onto its faction track. If no issue meets this criterion then Phormio is going to try to move the lowest value issue closest to it to reduce its compatriot’s oration value. Play Note: The notion of what is feasible will in some cases be tedious to determine. My advice is to save yourself the time and mental pain and just randomize amongst reasonable choices or better yet, just pick what you would have picked. I have given you a simple formula that offers quantitative guidance. However, this is where all of the rules questions are likely to occur, as folks want to know is this the most feasible card/ issue combination or a host of complicated situations that the design creates on purpose. Remember, the rule in all cases where you are not sure between two or three options is to randomize the choice. On occasion this is going to create some less than perfect decisions, but often these are more interesting decisions. 15.52 Faction Leader Card Per the flow chart Phormio will use its Faction leader card if Ostracism or War/Peace (under certain circumstances) is being debated and this is its strongest card versus that issue. If the indicated circumstances do not occur, the Phormio faction will not use its Faction leader card, but will save it for the Strategy Board segment. Phormio will never use the Brain Trust option, unless you override his actions. 15.53 Phormio’s Strategy tokens Per the normal rules, Phormio accumulates Strategos tokens through the play of Political cards aligned to the issue it is debating and from the card played during the Strategy Board segment, which is usually the faction leader card. Phormio is usually attempting to align its strongest card with the issue being debated. When there is a choice between two cards of equal strength the card that yields the most Strategos tokens wins ties. Consequently, Phormio over the course of the debate should receive its fair share of available Strategos. 15.6 Theater Phase 15.61 Theater Issue Placement Use the Phormio Theater Issue Placement Flowchart. Be mindful of 15.15 G, Sudden Death avoidance. Important Note: In all cases the strategy matrix takes precedence over the decision charts when they disagree. A. Each time it is Phormio’s turn to place one of its issues, first examine the strategy matrix to see if it has an instruction else begin in the Start space on the decision matrix. If all of Phormio’s issues have been placed the answer is yes and he passes. If Phormio has one or more issues/rumor markers to place the answer is no. B. If Phormio has one or more Rumor markers available he will place them every third chance he has to place an issue. If there is a Theater queue that has an Enemy issue on top he places his Rumor marker on that queue. In the likely event that there is more than one Theater that meets this condition, randomize where it is placed. If there are no Theaters that meet this condition, then choose the Theater randomly (1d20). C. The main focus of Phormio is to get the PS issues into the location and order specified on its Strategy matrix. Not all PS issues are placed in the PS Theater, but in many cases are placed where they can be used to build forces that will culminate in a military expedition into the PS Theater. Read and follow the instructions on the Strategy matrix. In the event that Phormio did not secure all of the necessary issues, follow the instructions for which issues to forgo in the placement. When in doubt place the available issues in the PS Theater in the order specified. D. Phormio at times will win an extra League issue or two that are not called for by the PS strategy. In these cases the decision flowchart is trying to place the League issue where it can build forces to protect an uncovered base, else it is trying to build a League base in a controlled theater that contains only friendly military units. If none of these situations apply, then place where it can remove a Treachery marker. Each Theater on the map (Persia is not a Theater) is numbered from 1 to 20. When you need to randomize a Theater, roll a 1d20 and place the issue in the theater whose number matches the die roll. Play Note: Phormio will often do interesting things and sometimes will do things that cannot be accomplished with its remaining issues. This is why Phormio gets an honor bonus at the beginning of the scenario as compensation. If you are playing solitaire feel free to pick the secondary Theater or leave it to fate (1d20). © 2016 GMT Games, LLC Pericles Playbook 15.62 Issue Resolution Issues are revealed according to Honor order. When it is a Phormio faction’s turn to choose it uses the Phormio Theater Issue Decision chart to see which issues it will choose. The flowchart is just following the rules with no particular priority beyond playing legally. Once an issue is revealed that Phormio is the issue owner of, follow the flowchart that applies to the indicated issue. Important Note: In all cases you use the decision charts to drive the decisions, but at times the Strategy matrix will give specific instructions that will contradict the decision flow charts. In all cases the Strategy matrix specific instructions take precedence and priority over the flow charts. A. If a Diplomatic issue is being resolved by Phormio, use the Diplomatic Issue flow chart. Examine the Strategy matrix to see if it has instructions that override the flow chart. Play Note: Phormio is trying to determine whether it needs to save Strategos tokens for a yet to be resolved military issue. Otherwise, depending on the Theater conditions, Phormio will either attempt to convert an Enemy base or build a base in a neutral Theater. B. If an Oracle issue is being resolved by Phormio, use the Oracle Issue flow chart. Play Note: Without Strategy matrix guidance, Phormio usually opts to take the Honor bonus. C. If a League issue is being resolved by Phormio, use the League Issue flow chart. Play Note: When Phormio is not directed by the Strategy matrix with a specific instruction, he is usually attempting to build up forces for an upcoming military expedition, else he is trying to do something useful like build a base or remove Treachery. The humans need to be mindful of how many Strategos tokens are available for future requirements associated with the primary strategy and not let the instructions cause Phormio to run short. D. If a Military issue is being resolved by Phormio, use the Military Issue flow chart. If the current condition is Peace, do not execute any moves that are illegal. Specifically use League units to substitute for City State units that cannot legally enter a Theater. Be mindful of 15.15 G, Sudden Death avoidance; specifically reserve Strategos tokens to build a critical base in lieu of additional commitment for a military expedition. 15 Play Note: Phormio is often trying to conduct a series of supporting issues to set up a military expedition in its prime strategy Theater. If this is going to generate a battle, Phormio will send in a maximum effort. If the resolution of the military issue is not going to result in a battle, be mindful of how many Strategos tokens are available if there is an as yet unresolved league or military issue that will require resources. I have done the best I can to create logic for the main situations you will run into, but there will be other times that you need to make a decision on the best use of this limited resource, so again when in doubt, randomize amongst the two best choices. E. When Phormio is the commanding general leading a Military Expedition, he uses the Phormio Commanding General Military Expedition flow chart to resolve the issue. F. If Phormio is the commanding general and the Athenian controlling faction, he will commit the State Ship Strategos at the earliest opportunity. Play Note: Phormio is trying to win the battle, therefore he is going to go all out to assemble the strongest force possible and hit as hard as he can. Sometimes he is going to get into a battle that he cannot win. Welcome to the Peloponnesian War where not everything works out as planned; just ask the Spartans about Pylos. Design Note: This is why in a three-player game; the human team is given an Honor bonus as compensation. 15.63 Strategos Honor At the conclusion of the Theater phase a Phormio faction will trade in surplus tokens (sets of four) for Honor. Design Note: I want to set expectations, I have done my best to cover the basic situations that you will tactically encounter to resolve a Phormio-controlled issue. I cannot write instructions for the millions of possible combinations of board position, issue, Enemy forces and overall game situation that will optimize the ‘Bots performance. Do what the Strategy table is asking you to do and do not try to over-think the simple instructions. When for some reason nothing makes sense to you, roll a die to resolve any reasonable choices. Remember this is a manual game and if you are playing solitaire the goal of these instructions is to give you a framework to have some fun exploring the design when no one is around. Important Note: When assembling units from Theaters that have a Theater queue, maintain at least one unit per base aligned to the Theate type (land or naval). When given the choice to violate this restriction or assemble less units than allowed, assemble less units. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC 16 Pericles Playbook 15.64 Battle 15.92 Ostracism A. If Phormio loses, take losses, and then if possible eliminate the maximum number, versus strength, of Enemy units possible. 15.93 Oration Honor At this point all available forces are present in the battle. Use all normal Battle resolution rules and procedures. B. If Phormio wins eliminate Athenian or Spartan units as a priority to gain Hostages and once that is accomplished, eliminate the maximum number—not strength—of Enemy units with the remainder. C. If Phormio wins and has an equal or greater amount of combined strength in the optional follow-on battle (naval in a land Theater or land in a naval Theater) then conduct that battle. If this is not the case, no further battles are fought and the military issue is resolved. If it’s a close call, especially near the end of the game when victory or defeat is on the line, let a random die roll decide. 15.7 Maintenance and Redeployment If the Ostracism issue was placed on the Assembly by the Aristophanes card, that faction has won the Ostracism issue. Follow the normal rules for the Favor of the Assembly and Honor awards. Assuming that there was no Ostracism issue in play, roll 1d6 for each Phormio faction and compare the results: add the differential to the Honor of the faction with the higher die roll and subtract this value from the other Phormio faction. If the die roll is a tie, do not alter the Honor, but see 15.96, Unique Issues. If the differential was 5, an Ostracism issue has automatically occurred: implement rule 15.92. 15.94 Determining Controlling Faction If there was no Ostracism issue awarded, the side that gained the higher Oration Honor die roll in 15.93 becomes the Controlling faction, gains the Favor of the Assembly, and moves the marker toward their faction. 15.95 War/Peace Conduct per the normal rules. If possible, Phormio will redeploy at least one unit aligned to the Theater type (land unit to land theater, naval unit to naval theater). If there are choices on where to redeploy units, determine Delian and Peloponnesian League moves randomly and leave (when possible) one unit in a Theater to give Control or Contest that location. 15.8 Phormio Dead End The War/Peace issue can only occur if called for by the Aristophanes card. In situations when this occurs the War/Peace issue is won by the faction whose track the War/Peace issue is initially placed upon and is considered a won issue that can individually cause Peace to change to War, or if a War/Peace issue is simultaneously won by the opposing side, War changes to Peace with the normal Honor award. 15.96 Unique Issues If you follow the Phormio flow chart logic and you find yourself without a path forward, then you need to establish two choices that come the closest to fulfilling the instructions and randomly choose one of the options. Overall, Phormio will use maximum effort if a lesser one is not indicated by his instructions or this rule. Also, be mindful of 15.15 G, and avoid an obvious defeat when possible. 15.9 Brasidas Abbreviated Solitaire Variant Design Note: In situations where you are playing solitaire or both humans are playing against two Phormio factions you can speed things up by substituting the Brasidas procedure for rules 15.4 and 15.5. If the Oration honor die roll resulted in a tie, one of that side’s unique issues will occur if one is available. If there is only one unique issue that issue is awarded to the Controlling faction. If there are two unique issues available, randomly choose one of them; that issue is awarded to the Opposition faction. 15.97 Strategos Tokens Give each faction 10 Strategos tokens or half of those available in the Stock and the Strategy Board, whichever is larger (the odd token goes to the Controlling faction). If there are Strategos tokens remaining in the stock, then roll a 1d6 and give each faction Strategos tokens equal to half the value of the die roll, round down or half of those remaining, which ever is less. For example a die roll of 1 yields no additional Strategos tokens. 15.91 Issue Award In this variant take the Primary Strategy Issues called for in the Strategy Matrix (see 15.3) and award them as won issues to the Phormio faction. If the Aristophanes card placed any issues on the Assembly display, that faction automatically wins that issue in addition to those awarded by the Strategy matrix. If the total number of issues awarded to either faction is less than 3, reveal the top card of the Political deck and give that Phormio faction the issue that aligns to the issue bonus for that Phormio’s faction. If the card chosen is for an issue that is not available, then continue drawing cards until the requisite number of issues has been chosen. Do this until Phormio has 3 issues. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC Pericles Playbook Diagram: The Aristophanes card has several elements. At the top is a quote from the Clouds play. Next comes an instruction to place the War/Peace issue on each opposition faction’s one space, so the War/Peace issue is placed on the Athenian Demagogue and Spartan Agiad 1 space. The last portion of the card is an event titled Peace Party so each side has its Strategos Stock reduced from 21 to 15 for this turn. 16.0 Comprehensive Example of Play Design Note: I first started doing these with my Pacific War design back in 1985. I believe they are very important to help players integrate the rules and lower the barrier to entry. For this edition of my over 3 decade tradition I am going to try and have these reflect elements of the training regime (14.1) by using the Archidamian War scenario (14.1.06 A), while also integrating the solitaire rules. The chances that there will be zero mistakes even after many people have looked these over are slim to none, but be of good cheer and remember, “time heals all errata.” 16.1 Setup This example of play uses the Turn 6 Setup that begins the Archidamian War 14.1.06 A and 14.3 Second Peloponnesian War (See Diagram). If you look at the Sequence of play, each turn begins with an Aristophanes Phase. Due to the special rules for this scenario the first Aristophanes card is Clouds A. Diagram: This is the Master Chart Turn 6 Setup, which portrays the situation at the beginning of the 2nd Peloponnesian War and the Archidamian War scenario that will be covered in this comprehensive example of play. Note that the human is playing the Spartan Eurypontid faction; Phormio is playing the Agiad faction. The Athenians are also being played by the Phormio 17 Since this Aristophanes card does not have a Will of Assembly event nor a Plague event, we now go to the Draw Political Card segment. It so happens that the mini-scenario 14.1.06 B Sparta Declares War uses the same start as the Archidamian War, so this next portion is the comprehensive example of play covers this training scenario also. The special scenario rules indicate that each Spartan faction begins this scenario with their Faction Leader card (as always) rules, but I will use the Brasidas solo rules to handle the political element to speed up play. Since this is how the scenario is being played, both Athenian factions get a +20 honor handicap, but the Agiad faction that is on the human’s side gets no handicap, so both Spartan factions begin with 10 honor points per the normal scenario instructions. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC 18 Pericles Playbook plus a specified card (Eurypontid card 37 and Agiad card 34). Note that each card has been turned so it reads right side up for the owner of the card. In addition each player receives eight random cards. It should be noted that in a four player all-human game these activities would be performed by each faction simultaneously. Since the Agiad faction is being run by Phormio, the sequence of play is interrupted while Phormio chooses his strategy for the turn. This is done by examining the Spartan Strategy Matrix and determining Phormio’s strategy. What is going to happen is we are going to choose the first strategy whose conditions are applicable. The first applicable strategy is Protect Key Allies; in particular Boeotia theater. This Spartan decision was arrived at by determining that the Defense of Sparta and the two Will of Assembly strategies were not applicable. We roll the die and it is not a six, so this strategy is chosen as Phormio’s Primary Strategy (hereafter PS). If the die roll had been a six, we would have skipped this strategy and gone to the next applicable one available. Diagram: Per the Archidamian War scenario scenariuo instructions (14.1.06 A) both Spartan factions start with these cards plus 8 additional random cards. We now examine what Phormio will attempt to accomplish. First off, Phormio has to attempt and win specific issues in a specific order known as his PS Strategy issues. For the Protect Key Allies strategy Phormio will focus on winning in the specific order of a military, then a league, and last another military issue. There are more instructions that we will reexamine during the Theater phase, but briefly, these three issues will be placed in Boeotia and Sparta based on the order of placement, from first to last that correspond to the issue implementation notes column. (More on these details later in this narrative.) We are now ready to execute the Boule segment. Since this is the first turn of the scenario there are no hostages available, so the Controlling faction, which is the human player, decides to choose a Diplomatic issue that is placed on the Eurypontid track on the 2 space. Now the Opposition faction chooses an issue and based on the required PS strategy issues, Phormio chooses a military issue and places it on the Agiad 1 space. Now the human Eurypontid faction chooses 3 issues and based on the cards chooses to pick one military, one league, and one oracle issue that are all placed in the large issues space on the assembly display. Diagram: Opening Spartan hands; since the Eurypontid faction is the human, that player needs to establish an Entourage by placing three cards face down. The human decides to place card 37 (Gerousia 5), card 46 (Gerousia 14), and card 58 (Gerousia 26) into his entourage. On the other hand, Phormio does not use an entourage and has access to all nine of his cards during the remainder of the Boule segment and Assembly Phase. Now the Phormio opposition faction looks at the situation through the decision charts. The first question is: are all of the PS issues required to execute its strategy on the display? The answer is yes since there are two military and one league issue on the City States faction track on the Issues zero space, or on either faction’s side of the track. This means that we pick the two issues based on the two strongest cards as aligned to an issue. Note that the faction leader card is never used for this determination. In this case card 35 (Gerousia 3) is an 8 value for military and card 34 (Gerousia 2) is equal in strength, but since there is only one War/Peace issue and it is already on the display, we pick a military issue. For the second choice card 34 is still the remaining strongest card, but for the same reason as before this is moot, so the second strongest card is a tie between cards 36 (Gerousia 4) and 39 (Gerousia 7) that both have a strength of 7 when aligned to their issue. Since we have two choices we randomize using the 1d6 and it is determined that card 36 prevails and the second issue chosen is the league issue that is placed on the central issues space. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC Pericles Playbook 19 able, the human chooses to play a weaker card so the issue gets played to the mutual benefit of Sparta. Now the human could just play card 59 (Gerousia 27) that has a 1 value if not played on the games issue, but that might give the Opposition too strong a move when one considers oration honor; yet it turns out that given other considerations that is what is played. The result is Phormio’s 7 versus the human’s 1 value places the league issue on the Agiad six space with Phormio receiving 3 Strategos tokens. Since the human’s card was not aligned to the issue he receives no Strategos tokens. Diagram: Spartan display at the end of the Boule segment. Now in a four player game the Athenian display would look similar at this time, but since Athens is being played by two additional Phormio ‘Bots, we will pick them up after we have concluded the Spartan Political Phase to preserve some mystery to the solo experience. Since Sparta and Athens are at peace we use the white pawn to designate the issues that are being debated during each of the six rounds to follow. If we were at war we would use the black pawn as a mnemonic. The human Eurypontid faction designates the first issue. Any issue on the display whether in the middle of the issues (zero space) or on either player’s track can be chosen. With the reduced number of Strategos tokens available, the human chooses to designate a Military issue on the issues space by placing the white pawn on the issue. Now each player, if human, would pick a card and hold it face down, then simultaneously reveal and see how the issue is moved. Since we are playing against Phormio, the human chooses card 33 (Gerousia 1) that is an 8 strength military card if played on a military issue and if played this way will yield 4 Strategos tokens to the Eurypontid player. Now we examine the Assembly debate decision chart and since Phormio is not choosing an issue he plays his strongest card aligned to the issue if he has one, which he does and he plays card 35 (Gerousia 3) with an 8 value. Since the differential between the two cards is zero, the issue does not move. The Eurypontid faction gains 4 Strategos tokens with the Agiad faction gaining 3 Strategos tokens. Place these behind each faction’s shield. Now it’s the Agiad Opposition faction’s turn to designate an issue, so returning to the Assembly decision chart, we determine that Phormio is choosing the issue and then we are confronted with the question of whether all PS issues are on Phormio’s track. Since Phormio needs a military, a league, and another military in that order, we need to designate a league issue since one military issue is already on Phormio’s track. Hence with a No answer we need to choose the league issue and choose Phormio’s strongest league issue card. As it so happens card 36 (Gerousia 4) has a strength of 7 when used on a league issue and it is played. The human only has card 55 aligned to the league issue. The human does not have to play a card aligned to the issue, but if he does so he will gain 1 Strategos token whether he wins or not. However, since there are two league issues avail- Now the human designates the league issue that is on the center space and plays card 59 (Gerousia 27) with a value of 5 and 1 Strategos token. Phormio does not have a card aligned to the league issue, so plays its strongest card, which turns out to be card 34 (Gerousia 2) that is also a 5 card. This results in the issue remaining in place with the Eurypontid faction gaining another Strategos token. The choice now moves back to Phormio who now has a military and a league issue on its track, so it chooses another military issue in the center. Phormio chooses card 39 (Gerousia 7) with a value of 7 on the military issue. The human now determines that Phormio has won three issues and is likely to gain control of the government, so chooses to limit his losses by playing card 44 (Gerousia 12) with a value of 6. Phormio wins the issue by one and moves the military issue onto its 1 space. Now between the two sides 5 Strategos tokens could be awarded, but there are only four left. Starting with the Controlling faction (Eurypontid) the two sides alternate taking one Strategos until all have been expended. In this case each side gains two, expending the remaining Strategos in the stock. Hereafter no further Strategos will be awarded until the Strategy Board segment. Now the human is positive that the control of the government will shift, so he chooses the military issue on the center space as opposed to going after one on Phormio’s track, which would actually hurt the Spartan cause in the ensuing Theater phase. Since the human wants to win the issue, he decides to use his faction leader, whose value against any issue except War/Peace is 7 and 1 Strategos, but with none remaining this bonus is moot. Phormio will only use its faction leader if Ostracism or War/ Peace are being debated, so since this is not the case he plays his strongest card, which is a 4, so the human places the military issue on its 3 space. For the sixth and final round Phormio determines that all of its required PS issues (two military and one league) are on its track, so now it plays its strongest card to bring an issue onto its track. In this case the strongest is card 54 (Gerousia 22) with a value of 6 when played on the Diplomatic issue. But since the diplomatic issue is on the Eurypontid track we have to test for feasibility, which is the issue aligned value of the card of 6, minus 2 which would yield sufficient movement to get the issue onto the Agiad track, so the Diplomatic issue is designated and this card is played. It so happens that the human has card 38 (Gerousia 6) with a value of 7 on a diplomatic issue, so the issue moves up one more space from the Eurypontid 2 to the 3 space. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC 20 Pericles Playbook This ends the Assembly phase, so now we begin the Political segment. Again if this were a four human game both sides would have to finish their Assembly phase before the Political phase could begin. Diagram: This is how the Spartan display looks at the end of the Assembly phase. The first thing determined is oration honor. The Eurypontid Oration total is 6 (two issues on the three space) versus the Agiad 9 (one issue on 6, and three issues on 1 spaces). This is a differential of 3, so the Eurypontid honor is reduced from 10 to 7 and the Agiad honor is increased from 10 to 13. Remember, you can never gain or lose more than 3 Honor due to Oration. Next there is a determination on which faction controls the government until the next political phase. The faction that wins the most issues controls the government. In this situation the Agiad faction won four issues (value does not impact this unless there is a tie) versus two won by the controlling Eurypontid faction. Therefore the Agiad faction is now the controlling faction; the Assembly marker is moved to the Agiad space on the Assembly track, and the control marker is shifted to the Agiad side of the faction track. At this time all non-military, league, diplomatic, and oracle issues are resolved in a specific order (see Sequence of Play). The only issue in this category is the War/Peace issue. When at peace, which is how the scenario begins if either or both sides have a faction that wins the War/Peace issue, War is declared (substitute the black for the white pawn to denote this change in status). During the Strategy Board segment each side, starting with the Controlling faction (currently the Agiad faction) reveal their 7th card in their hand. All cards except the faction leader award one Strategos token. As it so happens Phormio still has his faction leader card available and since the scenario begins in a Pre-Plague condition, the Agiad faction gains 2 Strategos tokens from the five available. The human player used his faction leader during the Assembly Phase, so his last card is not a faction leader card and gains one Strategos token. The last portion of the Political Phase is the Theater Award issue where each faction substitutes one of their faction Theater issue markers on a one for one basis with the type of issues that they won during the Assembly Phase plus add their two rumor markers. Diagram: Here we see the won issues being replaced with the faction Theater issue markers that will be placed secretly on the map plus two rumor markers. Note that the War/Peace issue does not have a Theater issue marker as it was resolved during the Political Phase, Sparta is now at war with Athens. Also note that the Oracle and League issue in the issue center space were not won by either side and are removed. If this were a game with four humans the Athenians would identically execute the process that the Spartans just concluded. However, in this comprehensive example of play I want to show how you can use a combination of the Phormio Primary Strategy determination with the Brasidas abbreviated solitaire procedure for speeding up the normal Phormio process. Now it is perfectly permissible for the human to play out two Athenian Phormio processes, but for this example we will use the Brasidas process. So, the Brasidas process works like this. It begins in the same manner as Phormio whereby each Athenian faction, starting with the Controlling faction (Aristocrats) picks its Strategy. As this is technically taking place simultaneously with the Spartans, we work all of these decisions under Peace, not war. In this case the Aristocrats choose the Granary strategy (die roll of 2 not 6). This yields a military and a league issue. The Demagogues now skip past this issue and end up with an Expansion strategy targeted on Macedonia, the first theater that meets the neutral condition specified in the strategy. This also gives a military and a league issue to the Demagogues. As both factions need to gain at least three issues we examine the Demagogues; due to the Aristophanes card the Demagogues have three issues (military, league, War/Peace) whereas the Aristocrats only have two. So we draw the top card of the Athenian deck and it is card 29 (Antiochis X) where the Aristocrat aligned issue is the Oracle, so this is awarded to the Aristocrats. In addition both Athenian factions are given their two rumor markers. Next, oration honor is calculated by rolling a 1d6 for each Athenian faction. The Aristocrats roll a 3 versus the Demagogue 5 producing a differential of 2, so the Demagogues’ honor is increased from 30 to 32 and the Aristocrats are reduced to 28 from 30. With the Brasidas procedure the Demagogues’ higher oration honor makes them the new Controlling faction and the Favor of the Assembly moves from the neutral space to the Demagogue space. We now examine the non-Theater issues and we discover that the Athenians also declared war on Sparta, so war it is. It should be © 2016 GMT Games, LLC Pericles Playbook noted that during Peace if either or both sides win a War/Peace issue, war is declared. If at War both sides have to have a faction that wins the War/Peace issue in order for Peace to be declared. As there are twenty Strategos tokens remaining after six were removed by the Aristophanes card, each faction is given 10 Strategos tokens. We are now ready to begin the all-important Theater phase. The first act is to begin the Theater Issue Placement Segment by first determining the Honor order, which is Demagogues, Aristocrats, Agiad, and Eurypontid. As a mnemonic each faction is issued a counter to this effect. So here is the situation. Diagram: Ordinarily in a four-player game the Theater issues would be behind their faction shield to keep them secret from the other City State. You are allowed to show them to your City State’s other faction. Honor order is not a secret and is shown here. For the remainder of this Theater Phase this is the order of activity and it does not change due to circumstances that alter Honor during the action that follows. We now start placing the Theater issues onto the map. The Demagogues are going first and use the Phormio Theater issue placement decision chart. We start at the top and the following decisions need to be evaluated. 1. Have all issues been placed? No (we just started) 2. Is this the 3rd, 6th, or 9th issue to be placed? No (we just started, but when this occurs we will be deploying rumor markers down the road). 3. Is there a friendly base in a granary theater or no base and a league issue in a granary queue? Yes (the Hellespont meets this condition) 4. Are any PS (Primary Strategy) issues available for placement? Yes We now need to place a PS issue. If we examine the Demagogue Strategy of Expansion in the Macedonia Theater we look in the Issue Order column and we note that we are supposed to play a league issue in Macedonia (face down). Now it is important here to talk briefly about Theater queues. What is going to happen is all of the Theater issues in the diagram are going to be placed on the map. Whenever a second issue is placed in a Theater it is stacked on top in a LIFO queue (Last In, First Out). This is perhaps the hardest concept to wrap your strategy thoughts around. Whatever you want to happen first, needs to be the last thing in a queue (on or near the top). The thing you want to 21 happen last is the first thing (near the bottom) in the queue. So to translate this into what the Demagogues are trying to do is place a league issue into the queue before they place a military issue. The reason for this is the military issue will be executed before the league issue. If the Demagogues are successful in deploying military forces into the neutral Macedonia theater they will enable a subsequent league issue to build a base. The reason for the order is you cannot build a base in a theater if you do not have friendly military forces present. Hence Last in (military issue yet to be placed), first out and executed. Now the 2nd in the Honor order places an issue, so the Aristocrats according to the chart, following the same logic as the Demagogues above, place a league issue in Sicily. Then the Agiad faction places a military issue, but we note that the first military issue is placed in Boeotia. The basic plan is depending on how things during the Theater phase resolve in Boeotia that league issue will raise local Peloponnesian forces in Boeotia, hopefully with Spartan forces reinforcing, followed by a military issue in Boeotia resulting in a successful battle to clear the theater of Enemy forces. Now it is finally the human’s turn. The human has one piece of information that was not available to the Phormio ‘Bots; Sparta is now at war with Athens. The human has a diplomatic and military issue available. Sparta is under a naval blockade via Naupactus and Athens that prevents Sparta getting into the Aegean. So my thinking here is to try and use the Diplomatic issue to cause a Delian League base in the Aegean to revolt and convert to Peloponnesian. I will use my military issue to protect my Peloponnesian allies. It appears that the Spartan Phormio is handling Boeotia, so I will put a military issue into Chalcidice. As I would like to have the diplomatic issue resolve before any Enemy activity I will hold it for as long as possible. Since I want to win the last battle in Chalcidice this turn I want the military issue to be the bottom of the queue so my first action is to place the military issue in Chalcidice. The action now rolls back to the Demagogues (Honor 1) and following their instructions the next issue placed is the military issue in Macedonia. The Aristocrats now follow this by placing their military issue into Sicily. Then the Agiad faction places the military issue in Boeotia. Now it’s my choice and my plan is to place my two rumor markers before committing my diplomatic issue to the Cyclades where I hope to create a revolt. I would like to slow down the Athenians, so I place my rumor marker in Sicily. Now when we look at the decision chart we note that it is now the 3rd issue placement, which means that Phormio will now deploy one of its available rumor markers to the map. It is placed randomly on top of any queue that has a Spartan issue on top. There are currently three locations that meet this criteria: Sicily, Boeotia, and Chalcidice. I assign die rolls to the options and roll a 1d6 that results in the rumor marker being placed in Boeotia. Then it is the same decision for the Aristocrats where Sicily and Chalcidice are the targets and where the rumor marker is placed. The Spartan Phormio also places a rumor marker with the choices Boeotia and Macedonia with the rumor marker being © 2016 GMT Games, LLC 22 Pericles Playbook placed in Macedonia. I choose to place the remaining Eurypontid rumor marker in Macedonia so I can potentially control the timing of how things happen in the north. As it now turns out, the Demagogues are out of issues and place their last rumor marker in Sicily from the others available. The Aristocrat faction now enters a different set of decisions as all of its PS issues have been placed. So, we now are asked whether this is a league issue, which it is not, so we now are told to choose the issue randomly. As there is only the Oracle issue we are told to do this randomly with a 1d20 (result of 3), resulting in the Athenian holy men going to Aetolia (theater 3 corresponding to the die roll). Spartan Phormio still has a PS issue (league), which per its strategy is placed in Boeotia. I place my last issue (diplomatic) in the Cyclades. Now it is the Demagogues turn, but they are out of issues, so they pass, the Aristocrats place their last marker (rumor) randomly on a queue. Amongst four choices, it randomly goes into the Cyclades on top of my diplomatic issue. Then the Agiad faction places their last issue in Sparta. That ends the Theater issue placement segment. So, now we have debated strategy, expressed those strategies as issues placed on a map and now we get to see how it all resolves in the Theater Resolution Segment. Continuing with Honor order, the Demagogues must reveal one Athenian issue that is on top of a queue. Using the logic on the Theater Issue Choice decision chart, the Phormio ‘Bots will try to resolve issues in their Primary Strategy Theater, which in this case is Macedonia, but there is a Spartan issue on top, so the Demagogue must choose randomly. That ends up being Sicily, the Aristocrat primary strategy theater. Next up is the Agiad faction whose primary strategy is Boeotia where there is a Spartan issue on top of the queue that is revealed as an Agiad league issue. Based on the instruction, since this is not in an Enemy city state and there is a yet to be resolved military issue, the Agiad faction is going to build military units. According to the strategy matrix, since this is a PS issue we are instructed to build a naval unit, which is contradicted by the league decision chart. In all cases the strategy matrix takes priority over the decision charts. In this case the decision chart says to build land units in a land theater, but the strategy matrix specifies building naval units. Since there is one Peloponnesian base in Boeotia one Peloponnesian naval unit is placed in that theater. It is now my (the human) turn. Since the Chalcidice only has one issue located there and since I placed it, I know it is a military issue. I think I can steal a march and get some forces into that region and potentially win big in the north. I flip over a Eurypontid (human controlled) military issue. Since I am human I do not use any charts per se, but I will need to use the charts to see how the three Phormio factions will respond. If we examine the abbreviated Military Issue Sequence (9.0) the first relevant action is point 4 since the Chalcidice is a contested Theater. I have the choice to either raid or conduct a military expedition. I choose to launch a military expedition. This starts with Expedition Assembly and Strategos commitment. As the sole human and the commanding general (issue owner is always the commanding general) I commit 4 Strategos tokens (out of a possible 5 for a commanding general) to the battle. Now if this were a 4 player human game then each of the other three factions would now commit from 0-4 Strategos tokens. Each person would have put the tokens in their hand and then ONLY the Commanding General and their Compatriot would reveal how many tokens were committed. Since we are using Phormio as our opponents you examine the Military Resolution decision chart. All three of the Phormio ‘Bots will follow the same decision path in this situation as you will conclude that Phormio is not the commanding general and as this is early in the Theater Resolution Segment all of the ‘Bots have outstanding theater issues that have yet to be resolved, so they will all commit zero Strategos. Diagram: Sicily Theater queue where the Athenians control the first issue to be revealed. Flipping over the top Athenian issue, we find that it is a Demagogue rumor marker, which is removed. The Aristocrats are focused on Sicily, but now there is a Spartan issue on top, so the choices are Aetolia and the Cyclades with Aetolia being chosen. This is an Aristocrat Oracle issue, so we go to the Oracle decision chart. Since this issue is not associated with the Aristocrat primary strategy, they resolve the issue by gaining 3 Honor (28 to 31). Design Note: I have wrestled to have the ‘Bots be a bit more nuanced in how they commit Strategos by using a random die roll, etc., but in the end the solo human will find it way to easy to manipulate this logic and run the ‘Bots out of Strategos and prevent them from executing their strategies. I have found from extensive solo playtesting that the ‘Bots do much better if they follow their own plans. If you want more nuance, randomly have the ‘Bots commit Strategos, but be aware of what else the ‘Bot needs to accomplish when you do this. The commanding general (4 Strategos) and his Phormio ‘Bot Compatriot (Zero Strategos) in total have committed 4 Strategos. All of the Strategos for any commitment must come from those available to that player, so in this case all four come from the previously won Eurypontid 8 Strategos total and these 4 Strategos are placed in the Chalcidice Theater leaving four for future use. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC Pericles Playbook 23 Play Note: Four is the magic number in many cases, so be aware when you are committing Strategos that take your available below four. In this case this battle is very important, so I am betting Spartan strategy on Nike (victory), but I believe 4 is sufficient since I will not be able to get a naval unit into this Theater that will be explained below. So now the commanding general conducts movement with up to 4 military units (either land or naval) total that can attempt to move to Chalcidice. In a nutshell I want to try and win a land battle and a naval battle, but to do that the Spartans first have to win a land battle. We will find that the naval battle is a trireme too far, but I want to walk you through why that is the case step by step. Hereafter I will not go into as much detail on movement, but what follows is the blow by blow of how one simple rule can create a great deal of nuanced movement. All Theaters are connected to other Theaters by routes. In order for any land or naval unit to exit (not Enter) a Theater along a route they must meet the exit criteria. So let’s try and move a Spartan land unit from Sparta to Chalcidice. Sparta has two exit routes, one is a naval only route, and so no land unit can move along that route. The other route is the deep blue that requires that for a land unit to exit Sparta, the Spartans must have military forces whose land unit strength is equal to or greater than Athenian land unit types (remember bases are both land and naval unit types). The Spartan land strength is 20 (two strength for each of the 8 Spartan land unit and two Spartan bases) to zero Athenian, so clearly the Spartan land unit can exit Sparta. Important Player Note on Battles: Unlike other wargames you may have played, there is no minimum value of units required to have a land or naval battle. Strategos tokens and Treachery markers have a value of one, not to mention the value of the Battle card. Even when there are no land or naval units present, you can have a land or naval battle with Strategos tokens alone supplying the total strength for one side. You can also have a side with a value of zero in a battle plus the Battle card value. Obviously if one side has no forces present, they are not going to take any losses, but they would lose the land or naval battle, which might allow the optional second battle to occur or not, based on the wishes of the first battle winner. If you read the rules literally and do not try to impose the logic of other wargames on Pericles you should no problems. Diagram: In the following illustration we see the Spartan unit exiting Sparta and about to enter the Isthmus of Corinth. This unit will continue through Boeotia and enter Thessalia where it will have to stop as the total land strength in Thessalia—once the Spartan unit enters—will be 2 (Spartan land strength) versus Athens’ 4 (two one-strength land units and one two-strength base) preventing it from exiting Thessalia. Its movement is complete for this military expedition, but not necessarily for the remainder of the Theater Resolution segment. Our intrepid Spartan land unit has now arrived in the Isthmus of Corinth, where Spartan land strength is 6 (two land units with one strength and two bases of two strength each), so our Spartan land unit can exit this Theater and continue moving. There are multiple routes that exit the Isthmus of Corinth. The Spartans can move into Athens, but then they would be prevented from exiting Athens, as Athenian land strength is 10 (six land units with strength 1 and two bases with a strength of 2 each). So, that route is blocked. The Spartans could try to go to Naupactus, but then they would again be stopped by the land strength of 3. The last route goes to Boeotia, which is a land route only, so we continue to march north. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC 24 Pericles Playbook Now that we went through that mental calculation, hereafter we realize that all paths to Chalcidice must go through Thessalia (where incidentally Thermopylae is located). As we examine the path we note that our forces have land and naval strength equality or greater in the Isthmus of Corinth and Boeotia, but in Thessalia the Athenians have four land unit strength and two naval strength (remember bases are both land and naval unit types). There are currently no forces in Macedonia, so my plan is based on getting through the ‘hot gates’ in Thessalia. To thread this needle I do the following. I have to get four land and two naval strength into Thessalia to allow for any other military forces to arrive in Chalcidice. To accomplish this I first send one Spartan land unit into Thessalia followed by a second. As Spartan land units are two land strength each I have now equaled the land strength in Thessalia, permitting other land forces to move through that Theater. As you become more familiar with this simple rule, you will find it faster to move units in groups. naval unit and one base with a strength of two each) and Athens 16 (six Athenian naval units and two bases with a strength of two each). The Peloponnesian naval units can enter Sparta, but then they have the same issue with Athens. The last route out of the Isthmus is a land only route, so we conclude that these three naval units are not going to arrive in Chalcidice. Now we see the advantage of the earlier strategy instruction to build a naval unit in Boeotia as this puts one naval unit outside the dual blockade of Naupactus and Athens. Now we examine Thessalia and since it has a base with a naval strength of 2, our single naval unit in Boeotia is not going to arrive in Chalcidice. The point of this last piece was to explain why I now realize that I cannot get a naval unit into Chalcidice and I am going to focus my efforts on winning a land battle. For my last two units I decide to send one Spartan unit from Sparta to Chalcidice that now with an open route traces its move into Chalcidice. For my last unit I choose to send a Peloponnesian land unit from the Isthmus of Corinth to Chalcidice; since there are no Athenian issues present there is no threat in the Isthmus this turn. I could have taken the Peloponnesian unit from Aetolia or Boeotia, but based on other considerations I take it out of the Isthmus. Now the Spartan special unit is the 300, which is both a Strategos and a land unit. This gives the unit the ability to be self deploying since it is also a Strategos token. I see no reason not to send it, so the 300 also march into the Chalcidice. Diagram: Here we see that two of the 4 Spartan military units have moved into Thessalia and now equal the strength of the Athenian forces. Subsequent Spartan land units can now enter and exit Thessalia on their way into Macedonia then terminating in Chalcidice where the military issue is being resolved. So now that I have opened the land route to Chalcidice I make a calculation as to whether I can do the same for my naval units, as my objective is to win first a land battle and then a naval battle to crush the Athenian position in Chalcidice. Sparta has naval units in three theaters: Sicily, Isthmus of Corinth, and Boeotia. The naval unit in Sicily has a naval strength of 1 so we quickly see that we can exit Sicily, but we cannot get this naval unit through Corcyra that has a naval strength of 4 (two naval units and one base—only Athenian, not Delian, naval units have a strength of two). I then examine the Isthmus of Corinth where there are three Peloponnesian naval units. What we are about to discover is how Naupactus and Athens (actually the port at Piraeus) historically blockaded the Peloponnesian (historically Corinthian) fleet as the strength in Naupactus is 4 (one Athenian Diagram: Chalcidice on the eve of battle. We see Athens has its original forces of a Delian league base and an Athenian naval and land unit. The Spartans have one base, one Spartan land unit, two Peloponnesian land units, one Spartan Treachery marker, the Spartan 300 and four Strategos tokens. The Athenians commit their Ship of State token. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC Pericles Playbook 25 the Athenian State Ship is flipped to its unavailable side (the non-embossed side). Battle Calculation Battle Location: Chalcidice Forces in Chalcidice: Athens 1 Delian Base, 1 Athenian land, 1 Athenian naval Sparta 1 Peloponnesian base, 2 Peloponnesian land, 2 Spartan land, 1 Treachery marker, 4 Strategos tokens Each player turns over the top card of their battle deck (cards not used during the Assembly Phase), the Spartans turn up a 2 (you only use the value of the card, no bonuses) and the Athenians turn up a 3. Battle Note: The opposing side does not send any forces, only those already in that theater. If they had wanted to reinforce their position they would have needed an earlier resolved military issue of their own to send forces into the Isthmus. Battle: Chalcidice is a Land Theater so a mandatory land Battle is conducted. Spartan land total is 14: 2 Spartan Land for 4 + 2 Peloponnesian Land for 2, 1 Base for 2, 5 Strategos tokens (note one of them is the 300 Strategos) for 5 + 1 Treachery marker for 1 plus a random Battle deck card of 2 value = 16 Athens land total is 4: 1 Athenian Land for 1, 1 Delian Base for 2, 0 Strategos tokens for 0, State Ship for 1 plus a random Battle Deck card of 3 = 7 Land Battle outcome: Land Battle outcome: Sparta 16 – Athens 7 = 9, so the Athenians must lose 9 land value, since there is only 1 land unit, it is eliminated. We know this because if you look at the Land Combat Losses: Battle loser table we see that for each Spartan land unit two Athenian side land cubes of any type (Athenian, Delian, or Argos) are removed. Since the Delian League base has a friendly naval unit located in the Theater the base cannot be eliminated and the remaining potential 8 losses are forfeited. Based on the Losing Side’s eliminated units (1 land), we see that it takes 2 eliminated Athenian land units to eliminate 1 winning Peloponnesian land unit, so no winner losses are assessed and the land Battle is concluded. This is found on the Land Combat Losses: Battle Winner table. We note that we would have to have lost four land units (any color) in order to eliminate one Spartan land unit or two land units to eliminate one Peloponnesian land unit. Based on the results the Spartan commanding general (Eurypontid) receives 2 Honor (twice the number of units eliminated) moving his score from 7 to 9, the Agiad faction gains 1 Honor (13 to 14 total Honor) and each of the Athenian factions lose 1 Honor (Aristocrats from 31 to 30 and Demagogues from 32 to 31). Optional Naval Battle: Sparta now decides that it does not want to fight the optional naval Battle, so the military issue is resolved and all Strategos tokens are returned to the stock and Diagram: Post-battle situation in Chalcidice. Continuing with Honor order, it is now the Demagogues’ turn and there are two Theater queues with an Athenian issue showing (Boeotia and the Cyclades). Randomizing, the Athenian issue in the Cyclades is revealed to be a Demagogue rumor marker. Now the Demagogues are faced with only one choice, so the Boeotia Theater marker is revealed to be the other Demagogue rumor marker. The Spartan Phormio Agiad ‘Bot now chooses to follow its primary strategy. Since the Boeotia Theater queue is a Spartan issue, the Agiad ‘Bot flips up this issue and reveals an Agiad military issue. We first look at the Strategy matrix as it takes priority over the decision chart when it is the ‘Bots primary strategy and we are instructed to commit 5 Strategos tokens and conduct a military expedition. This is the same procedure that we followed for the last military expedition where the ‘Bot will use 5 of its 10 available Strategos tokens that are placed in Boeotia. I (human) need three Strategos for my future Diplomatic issue in the Cyclades, but this is going to be an overwhelming attack. I choose to commit zero tokens and save one for later. As both of the Athenian ‘Bots have yet to prosecute their main strategies they respond just as Athens did when Plataea was put under siege, not much. So they commit zero Strategos tokens. We now use the Phormio Commanding General Military Expedition Resolution decision chart (that’s a mouthful). We start and the first question is: “Have units equal to Strategos commitment been assembled?” Obviously the answer is no and it will continue to be no until 5 units have moved. The next question is theater type; Boeotia is a land theater (brown border). “Can a land unit assemble in Theater without naval support?”—the answer is yes and will be throughout this assembly. Then “Is there a land unit available?”, which is yes, so we send the strongest unit and cycle through until we run out of available land units or move 5 of them. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC 26 Pericles Playbook Clearly the strongest units available are the Spartan units, but per the rules you must always try and leave one Spartan land unit per Spartan base in Sparta, so we have two available. Per our earlier analysis we have a clear land path from Sparta to Boeotia via the Isthmus of Corinth, so two Spartan land units move to Boeotia. I am going to send 5 units, but one of them is going to be the 300 Spartan unit. Technically the 300 is self deploying, but Phormio does not make this distinction. So for the third and fourth units we send the two Spartan units (300 and land unit) in Chalcidice that can still move through Thessalia and they now arrive in Boeotia. For the last land unit we find that one of the two Peloponnesian land units in Chalcidice is our fifth unit because you do not take the last land unit from a land theater if possible. Diagram: The post-battle situation in Boeotia. So now it comes back to me (human) and I choose to execute my Cyclades Theater issue, which I remember to be a Diplomatic issue. I now commit three of my four remaining Strategos tokens and since the 3 Strategos tokens are greater (not equal) to the Athenian military strength of 2 (base). This converts the Delian league base (Athenian and Spartan bases are immune to this issue) to a Peloponnesian league base with the Eurypontid gaining 2 Honor (to 13). The Demagogues by virtue of being the Athenian Controlling faction are reduced by 2 Honor (29 to 27). Diagram: The pre-battle situation in Boeotia. Clearly this is an overwhelming attack that very closely approximates what the historical Plataea experienced in 429 (Thucydides Book 2.73). First the Spartans have to conduct a mandatory land battle. The Spartan forces have a military value of 22: 4 Spartan land units (8), 5 Peloponnesian land units (5), 1 Peloponnesian Base (2), 5 Strategos tokens (5), 300 Strategos token (1), 1 Treachery marker (1) versus Athens with 3: 1 Delian League land unit, 1 Delian league base (2). Each side flips the top card of their battle deck, but it won’t change the result, so the Spartan card is a 1 and the Athenian card is a 5 for a final score of Sparta 23 versus Athens 8 for a differential of 15. There are more than sufficient numbers of Spartan land units to eliminate the single Delian land unit, and the Delian base, without any surviving military units (land or naval), is eliminated with two of the differential with the remaining 12 forfeited. We should note that we now calculate how many winner losses are taken. If we look at the Land Combat Losses: Battle Winner chart, while two Athenian side units have been eliminated, only one of them is a land unit, so no Spartan units are eliminated. Also, note that bases never effect actual losses just military value, so the loss of the base does not impact this calculation. This battle outcome yields 4 Honor for the Agiad faction (2 Enemy units eliminated times 2) and the Eurypontid faction gains 2 Honor (2 Enemy units eliminated times 1), which increases the Agiad to 18 (from 14) and the Eurypontid to 11 (from 9). Both of the Athenian factions lose 2 Honor each (Demagogues to 29 and Aristocrats to 28). We now continue with the Demagogues who must pass, as there are no exposed Athenian issues and the same for the Aristocrats. The Agiad ‘Bot still has a primary strategy issue in Sparta but it is covered and randomly chooses to remove the Spartan issue in Macedonia which is a Eurypontid rumor marker that is removed. I then choose to remove the other rumor marker (Agiad) from the Macedonia theater issue queue. Now it’s the Demagogues’ turn and their PS issue is available in Macedonia, which is revealed as a Demagogue military issue. This is a neutral theater, so only the commanding general commits any Strategos and according to the Strategy matrix instructions the Demagogues are to commit 1 Strategos token to move a unit into Macedonia. According to the Decision chart this unit is meant to be the opposite of the theater type, so a naval unit. There is an open path via Chalcidice to move an Athenian naval unit from Athens to Macedonia. This resolves the military issue. Now the Agiad faction goes and randomly chooses to reveal the Spartan rumor marker in Sparta. Now I (human) go and I choose the only available Spartan issue removing my (Eurypontid) rumor marker from Sicily. As we move toward the conclusion of the segment the Demagogues now have one of their PS issues available in Macedonia that is revealed to be a League issue. The strategy matrix instructs us to build a Delian league base plus gains 2 Honor (Demagogues go from 27 to 29). The Aristocrats now have a PS issue in Sicily that is revealed to be an Aristocrat military issue. The Strategy instruction is commit 5 Strategos tokens and move Naval units in excess of the Enemy naval units present in the Theater. The Demagogues will commit their last Strategos. This means that two naval units must attempt to arrive in Sicily with the remainder being 4 land units. The path from Athens to Sicily for naval units is open via © 2016 GMT Games, LLC Pericles Playbook Corcyra. I move two naval units; that meets the instruction to send two naval units (in excess of the one Peloponnesian naval unit in Sicily) and now the remainder are prescribed to be land units, so 4 Athenian land units move from Athens to Corcyra, but to move from Corcyra land units in addition must also have a friendly base in Corcyra, which is the case. This allows 4 land units to arrive in Sicily. Now the Agiad faction has 5 Strategos available and the Eurypontids have 1 that I am going to commit. For the Agiad faction we look at the decision chart and determine that the Agiads will commit 4 of their 5 Strategos. 27 As there are no Spartan issues available both Agiad and Eurypontid factions pass. The Demagogues with all of their PS issues resolved randomly choose to reveal the Athenian issue in Sparta that is an Aristocrat rumor marker. This is followed by the Aristocrats revealing their last PS issue in Sicily that is a League issue. The Aristocrats commit four of their remaining five Strategos tokens to build a Delian league base in Sicily and gain 2 Honor (Aristocrats 35 and the Demagogues 33). Diagram: Sicily after the Athenian campaign; note that there are opposing bases in the Theater with room for a third down the road. Syracuse is feeling the historical heat of a Sicilian Expedition. Diagram: Sicily prior to the opening land battle. Since Sicily is a land theater we open with a land battle. Athens strength is 10: 4 Athenian land units (4), 6 Strategos tokens (6) versus Sparta’s 9: 2 Peloponnesian land units (2), 1 Peloponnesian base (2), 5 Strategos (5). Sparta pulls a 3 card from its Battle deck and the Athenians pull a 4 resulting in final strengths of Athens 14 versus Sparta 12 yielding a difference of 2. This eliminates the two Peloponnesian land units and since two Peloponnesian land units were eliminated, according to the loss table one Athenian land unit is also eliminated. The Peloponnesian base is not affected as the differential has been used and because there is a Peloponnesian naval unit still present. The Aristocrat commanding general gains 4 Honor (2 eliminated land units times 2) and 2 Honor for the Demagogues (now 32 and 31 respectively). Each of the Spartan factions lose 2 Honor (Eurypontid to 11 and Demagogue to 16). Since Athens won the land battle they have the option to now fight a naval battle. The Demagogues say, heck yes, so now we calculate a naval battle. Athens has a strength of 10: 2 Athenian naval units (4), 6 Strategos tokens (6) versus Spartan strength of 8: 1 Peloponnesian naval unit (1), 1 Peloponnesian base (2), 5 Strategos (5). The Spartans pull a 3 and the Athenians pull a 2. This gives a final result of Athens 12 versus Sparta 11. This differential is sufficient to eliminate the Peloponnesian naval unit, but the Peloponnesian base survives. This gives the Demagogue commanding general 2 and their Compatriot Aristocrats 1 Honor (33 Honor each) and reduces each of the Spartan factions by 1 Honor (Eurypontid 10 and Agiad 15). This resolves the military issue. The Agiads close out the segment by revealing the last issue in Sparta that is an Agiad military issue. Since this issue is in the City State space, the Agiad player builds Spartan units in Sparta. Each base can build two land units or one naval unit. Since there are only two land units available Sparta builds two land units and one naval unit. If any Athenian units were present it might cause a battle, but since the Theater is Spartan-controlled the military issue is resolved. Diagram: This is Sparta after resolving the Agiad military issue. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC 28 Pericles Playbook Now that all Theater issues have been concluded, each faction returns their remaining Strategos to the stock. The Agiad and Demagogue factions each have one; that is insufficient to gain additional Honor (need at least four) and the other factions have none remaining. The Theater resolution segment is concluded. It is now the beginning of the End Phase. Since this is a two turn scenario according to the scenario instructions it would only end by an automatic victory. While the current score is Athens 70 versus Sparta 25, the conditions for an automatic victory are not in effect as the lead is insufficient (see 11.11, 11.12, 11.13). We now enter the Maintenance segment. First we look at how many bases each side has on the map. Athens has 15 to Sparta’s 9. Athens can support 60 points of units (4 maintenance points per base) with each naval unit counting for 2 and each land unit costing one. Athens has 14 naval and 14 land for a total of 42, so well under the maintenance limit. Sparta can support 36 points of units and has 5 naval and 17 land for a total of 27, so also well under the limit. If either side had had units in excess of its maintenance limit, units would have been removed (owners choice) from the map. The Redeployment segment allows players to reallocate units amongst their bases. This is an important element in this chess game as units are placed, not moved as they are during military expedition. See 11.3 for the details, but a Theater without a friendly base can only have one unit (land or naval) remaining at the end of redeployment and any theater with at least one Diagram: The situation prior to redeployment. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC Pericles Playbook 29 base can contain up to 15 friendly units. League units must be in Theaters with League bases, Sparta in Theaters with Spartan bases. Athens’ advantage is that they can place their units in Theaters with Delian league or Athenian bases. the Isthmus of Corinth and all Spartan land units in Boeotia move back to Sparta. In Thessalia one of the two Spartan land units must leave since there is no base, but since the only remaining unit is a Spartan land unit it is allowed to remain in Thessalia. According to the rules you attempt to ensure that all bases are covered, with choices done randomly. Starting with the Delian League we determine that no units need to move and by choice there is no redeployment. Athenian forces are now determined and the Athenian forces randomly determine to shift one Athenian land and naval unit from Sicily to Athens while the remaining forces stay where they are. Then the Peloponnesian League sends a land unit from Boeotia to Sicily, a naval unit from the Isthmus of Corinth to the Cyclades, a land unit from Boeotia to The last item on the turn’s sequence of play would be to now determine how an Aristophanes card’s Will of Assembly objective had resolved. Since this was not the case in this turn we now move to the second turn of the game. I would suggest that if this is your first time you may want to try and play out the second and last turn of this scenario using your own strategy. Diagram: Final position at the end of the first of two turns of the Archidamian War scenario. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC Pericles Playbook 30 17.0 Card Personalities by Carole Herman Historical Note: The major source for who’s who during the 5th century BC is Thucydides and Xenophon as supplemented by Plutarch and Diodorus. The sources do not always agree and it should be noted that several individuals have the same or similar names (e.g., Jon, John). In many cases all we know about some of these individuals is based on a single passage. That said, we have tried to convey some details on who these personalities on the cards were and some sense of their impact and role during this period. 17.1 Faction Leaders Historical Note: The names of the factions deserve some conversation. The Spartans were easy as there were two royal houses, so the faction names coincide with the names of the royal houses. When it comes to the Athenians there were several ways to go. During this period Athens had many factions, but at the broadest level there was a ruling faction and an opposition faction. Thucydides used the term Demagogues to reflect the opposition party, especially when under the leadership of Cleon. I leaned toward calling the ruling party conservatives, but chose in the end to use Plutarch’s term Aristocrats. The names of the faction leader changed due to death or disgrace over the course of the sixty years in this game. In some cases the faction that an individual led changed. For example in the beginning of this game, Pericles was the faction leader of the Demagogues or in this period the opposition, with Cimon leading the Aristocrats. After Cimon’s death, Pericles became more conservative and had morphed into the faction leader of the Aristocrats with Cleon leading the opposition Demagogues. As a consequence I use the faction leader cards to represent the evolving leadership for the opposing factions based on votes or succession (King). 17.2 Athenian Personalities I attempted where known to associate a personality with his Athenian tribe, which is at the top of the Athenian cards. I would say that there was sufficient historical evidence for only about half of these associations with the other half more heroic guesswork than fact. Aeschylus was a Greek tragedian who fought in the Battle of Marathon. Sometimes called “The Father of Tragedy”, his plays, along with Sophocles’ and Euripides’, are amongst the only works of Classical Greek literature to survive. Adeimantus, son of Leucolophies was a general who avoided execution after the victory at Arginusae by not returning to Athens. He also served under Alcibiades in the expedition against Andros and was present at the climatic Battle of Aegospotami where he was accused of treachery, taken as a prisoner, and impeached by Conon. Alcibiades was the scion of the Alcmaeonidae clan whose tumultuous career literally saw him fight on all sides in the conflict. He was handsome, rich, and was parodied by Aristophanes as speaking with a lisp. He was at times a brilliant politician and military leader who seems to have lacked a moral compass. His father was killed in 447 BC at Corona, Boeotia and Pericles became his legal guardian. He served with Socrates at Potidaea and defended him when he was wounded at the Battle of Delium. He fought for Athens, Sparta, Persia, then Athens before finally being exiled for the second time. He died from assassins of unknown origin or avenging brothers of a wronged woman in 404BC. Anaxagoras was a philosopher who discovered the true cause behind eclipses. He was an ardent supporter of Pericles, but was prosecuted for impiety by asserting, “The sun is an incandescent stone larger than the region of the Peloponnese”. Pericles managed to have the charges dropped, but Anaxagoras felt compelled to leave Athens and spend the rest of his days in self-imposed exile. Anthemocritus was an envoy who was murdered by the Megarans. Archestratus led the the Macdonian and Chalcidician campaigns. Aristocrates was an ambassador and signer of the Peace of Nicias. Axiochus hailed from the ancient Alcmaeonidae clan. He was a politician who spoke on domestic and foreign policy issues. Callias was a major Athenian diplomat who negotiated the peace with Persia that bears his name (Peace of Callias). Although the war with Persia was officially ended, according to Kagan, sporadic hostilities continued in what he calls an ancient ‘Cold War’. Callias II was a diplomat who was killed during the Battle of Potidaea. Callimachus was a famous sculptor and architect. He was commissioned by Pericles to build the Temple of Athena Nike on the Propylaea (gateway) to the Acropolis. Callixeinus led the effort to execute the victorious generals after the Battle of Arginusae. Cimon, son of Miltiades was an Athenian aristocrat, brilliant general, and political leader who was at the Battle of Marathon and later ostracized by Pericles. Cleophon, son of Cleipiddes was considered “the greatest demagogue at that time” who opposed the oligarchic coup. His constant sparing with Critias earned him a spot in Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Like many politicians he was the butt of satirical attacks by the comic poets who portrayed him with as being contemptible. Some have considered him a true revolutionary. He was murdered in 404 BC by a mob. Cleon was the poster child of an Athenian demagogue. Cleon was considered a “new politician” as he was without noble ancestry. He had radical ideas that he delivered with an aggressive oratory style that was both effective and unpolished. His wealth © 2016 GMT Games, LLC Pericles Playbook was not based on land but on trade and his tannery business. After the death of Pericles, Cleon became the de facto leader of Athens. He fought bitter political battles with Nicias. Nicias backed Cleon into leading the offensive to take the Island of Sphacteria. Cleon smartly took General Demosthenes as his second in command, leading to the dramatic success that captured the Spartan force. Unfortunately this success caused him to go up against the brilliant Spartan general Brasidas that saw both die in the Battle of Amphipolis (Aristophanes card Knights B event). The death of Cleon and Brasidas opened negotiations that led to the Peace of Nicias. Conon was the Athenian admiral who lost the Battle of Aegospotami and the war. Critias was an Athenian noted for his tragedies, elegies, and prose works. Also for tyranny and political murder, right after the war ends Democlidas led several Thracian campaigns and was the founder of the colony of Brea. Demosthenes, son of Callisthenes, was an important Athenian general from the 2nd Peloponnesian War until his death in the Sicilian expedition. In 425 BC he fortified Pylos and along with Cleon, captured the Spartans on Sphacteria. He was one of the signers of the Peace of Nicias in 421 BC. After his defeat in Sicily by the Syracusans, he and Nicias were captured and were executed despite Gylippus’ orders that they were to be made prisoners instead. Diomedon was a late war general who contributed to the victory at the Battle of Arginusae. Diotmus commanded part of the Athenian naval forces at the Battle of Sybota. Ephialtes was an Athenian demagogue, politician and early leader of the radical democratic movement in Athens. He began by diminishing the power of the Areopagus and set forth new laws that included control of office holders and the judicial handling of state trials, for public officers to receive pay, a reduced property qualification and a new definition of citizenship. He unfortunately never got a chance to participate as he was assassinated during an oligarchic coup. Epilycus, was an Athenian aristocrat, and a member of the Boule who helped negotiate a treaty with the Persian King Darius in 424- 423 BC. Eurymedon was a general during the 2nd Peloponnesian War. He was sent to intercept the Peloponnesian fleet, which was on its way back to Corcyra. Upon arriving Eurymedon took command of the combined fleets after Nicostratus with a small squadron from Naupactus secured the island in the name of Athens. He was then appointed command of an expedition to Sicily along with Sophocles. On his way there he stopped by Corcyra in order to assist the Democratic Party against the oligarchic exiles. When he finally arrived in Sicily he was forced to accept the pact made by the Syracusan Hemocrates with the erstwhile Athenian allies. However, the terms were not satisfactory to the Athenian assembly who blamed his actions on bribery. As 31 a consequence Eurymedon was forced to pay a huge fine. His last command as it turned out was to sail with Demosthenes to aid the Athenians at the Siege of Syracuse, but he was killed in a skirmish enroute. Euripides was an Athenian aristocrat and one of the three famous Greek tragedians who wrote Medea and The Trojan Woman. Glaucon was Plato’s older brother known for his Socratic dialogues. Hagnon was the son of Nicias and father of Theramenes. At the ripe age of sixty he was elected along with Sophocles as a Proboulos of Athens. His military career saw him found the colony at Amphipolis. He participated in the Samian and Chalcidice campaigns and was one of the signers of the Peace of Nicias. Hyperbolus was a politician who came to prominence after the death of Cleon. Aristophanes referred to him in the play Peace as a lamp maker before he was a politician. Hated as much as Cleon was, he is also associated with the alleged decline in Athenian political culture that led to Athens’ defeat. In 411 he was murdered at Samos where he had lived in exile since 416. Thucydides mused that his death was caused by his “giving pledge and good faith” to the Athenian oligarchal coup. Ictinus was one of Athens’ most celebrated architects who designed numerous works, most famously the Parthenon. Iolcius was an ambassador to the Peace of Nicias. Lacedaemonius descended from the Philaidae clan who were land owning aristocrats. His father Cimon so admired the Spartans that as a sign of goodwill named his son after the city of Lacedaemon. He commanded a squadron of 10 triremes during the initial Corcyra crisis with Corinth. Laches was a general who after an early failure in Sicily was prosecuted by Cleon, but acquited of any wrongdoing. Laches along with Nicias negotiated the Peace of Nicias, but when the peace fell apart he once again went into the field. He was killed in 418 at the Battle of Mantinea. Lamachus was known for his military skill and courage. Aristophanes commented on him favorably in some of his dialogs. He was one of the generals placed in command of the ill-fated Sicilian Expedition, where he was killed in battle. Lampon was an ambassador of the Peace of Nicias. Leocrates was a general who led the siege that conquered Athens’ naval rival Aegina. Leon was a staunch democrat and general during the latter part of the Peloponnesian War. He and Diomedon took charge at Samos and attacked the Island of Rhodes when it revolted against the Delian League. Lysias had his wealth stolen from him by the 400 Oligarchs. Lysias was one of the generals executed after the failed mission to save the drowning sailors at the Battle of Arginusae. Lysicles was a general killed during an expedition to collect tribute in Caria. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC 32 Pericles Playbook Mnesicles was hired by Pericles to be the architect who built the Propylaea, the Periclean gateway to the Athenian acropolis. Myrtilus was an ambassador to the Peace of Nicias negotiations. Myronides led a successful counterattack winning the battle of Oenophyta during an early Boeotian campaign. Nicias was an Athenian aristocrat, a general and political leader who came into power after the death of Pericles. After a decade of war the conditions for peace were created after the simultaneous deaths of Cleon and Brasidas at the Battle of Amphipolis. Nicias was the leader of the Athenian peace movement that lead to the cessation of hostilities later titled the Peace of Nicias. He reluctantly accepted a joint command of the Sicilian Expedition that resulted in the turning point of the Peloponnesian Wars. After he surrendered Athenian forces to Syracuse he was summarily executed over the protestations of Gylippus the Spartan commander. Pericles the Younger was an Athenian aristocrat and the illegitimate son of Pericles. He was one of the six generals executed following the Battle of Arginusae for failing to pick up survivors in a storm. Pericles, Son of Xanthippus, was an Athenian general and politician from the Acamantis clan who came in to power after he ostracized his rival Cimon. He is considered one of the greatest figures in Greek history. He enacted the controversial decisions that siphoned off Delian League funds to enhance Athens with a massive building program that included the Parthenon. As a general he put down the Samian revolt and during the 2nd Peloponnesian war conducted large raids of the Spartan coast. He died of the plague in 429 BC. Phormio was an Athenian aristocrat and was considered by Thucydides to be an exemplary commander. He led the siege of Chalcidice and won two extraordinary naval battles over superior-sized Peloponnesian fleets that led to agreements with the Acarnanians. He died in 428 BC after being charged with corruption. Phrynichus was an Athenian demagogue and sycophant general who along with Theramenes, Piesander and Antiphon, overthrew the government during an oligarchic coup. The Sicilian Expedition along with many other events left the coffers of Athens in a dismal state. The “Four Hundred” was set up to revise a better way to handle these finances, but only lasted for four months. Thucydides stated: “they would have preferred to establish an oligarchic government and maintain Athenian rule over the empire.” As the Athenians became suspicious of their real intentions, they arranged to betray their city in exchange for their own safety. In 411 Phrynichus was stabbed to death as he was leaving the council-chamber. Scironides was an Athenian aristocrat and a general elected in 412 and later charged with dereliction of duty when he voted to withdraw from Iasus and Amorges. Socrates, son of Sophroniscus a stone mason and sculptor, was known as the founder of the Socratic method. He is credited with saving Alcibiades’ life after he was wounded at the Siege of Potidaea and was against executing the eight generals during their trial after the Battle of Arginusae. After Athens’ defeat in 404 saw the short period of the 30 Tyrants followed by the re-establishment of Democracy. The new Democracy brought Socrates up on impiety charges that led to his execution in 399. Sophocles was an Athenian aristocrat and general who fought with Pericles during the Samian revolt and during the late Peloponnesian war was reelected to the Strategy board. He was famous in his own lifetime and is best known as a tragedian who wrote over 120 plays, including Antigone and Electra. Design Note: Sophocles is one of my favorite personalities of this period. He was a Renaissance man long before the term could have any meaning. Strombichides was a general and staunch democrat who commanded eight ships sent to the coast of Asia Minor following the revolt of Chios. Theramenes was a central figure in four major episodes in Athenian history. After the Battle of Arginusae he served as a trierarch, whose job was to rescue the sailors from sunk ships, but was diverted by a storm. He was one of the leaders in an oligarchic coup, served as a general and after the Athenians’ defeat at Aegospotami, arranged the terms for which Athens surrendered to Sparta. He was a member of the Thirty Tyrants, leading Sparta to impose harsh rules upon Athens. Theramenes was a controversial figure, whose disagreements with members of government, and protests against the Thirty Tyrants caused them to denounce him. When they could not decide how to punish him, he was thrown to a crowd of angry citizens and executed without a trial. Thrasycles was a general who along with Strombichides was sent to the coast of Asia Minor to quell the Chios revolt. Thrasybulus, son of Thraso was a general who led democratic resistance to the Oligarchs. He blamed the disaster at Notium on Alcibiades, accusing him of conducting the campaign like a “luxury cruise.” Alcibiades was also accused of “engaging in debauchery by getting drunk and visiting whores.” It looks like what was old is new again. Proteas was a commander at the Battle of Sybota. Thrasyllus was a leader who played a role in organizing democratic resistance in an Athenian fleet at Samos. He was elected general by the sailors and soldiers and held that position until he was executed in 406 after the Battle of Arginusae. Protomachus was a general who participated in the Athenian victory at Arginusae. Despite the victory the generals were accused of failing to recover Athenian survivors and the bodies of the slain. Fearing the anger of the people along with Protomachus and Aristogenes, he chose not to return to Athens to stand trial and avoided the fate of the other six generals who were executed. Thucydides son of Olorus was an aristocrat, an admiral, and historian. His writings are from the point of view of a rich Athenian, who had oligarchic leanings. He admired Pericles for exerting a firm control over the undisciplined Athenian democracy. As an admiral he failed to save Amphipolis from Brasidas and was exiled until after the surrender of Athens. During this time he © 2016 GMT Games, LLC Pericles Playbook 33 wrote “The History of the Peloponnesian War”. He returned to Athens and lived in Thrace, during his retirement, and was possibly killed during a robbery. His daughter and Xenophon finished his work. Lysander whose naval victory brought Athens to surrender after a lengthy siege. Thucydides son of Melesias was a prominent politician who opposed Pericles after the death of Cimon. He believed in the philosophy of the so called “old oligarch” and strived to bring back the days of Cimon. His political power reached its peak in the beginning of the First Peloponnesian War. His strategy establishing an assembly where all his supporters unite as one voice allowed him to show the differences between himself and Pericles. He was however, later ostracized by Pericles and possibly traveled to Sybaris. Agesandridas was a Spartan general who commanded Peloponnesian ships that raised Euboea in revolt. He also led several Peloponnesian fleets to victory in the Eretria campaign. Agesander was a war party ambassador at the beginning of the 2nd Peloponnesian War. Aisimides was a Corinthian admiral at the Battle of Sybota. Alcamenes, son of Sthenelaides was a military governor who was appointed by Agis II as the commander of the Lesbos revolt. He sailed with 21 ships to Chios, where he was pursued, attacked and killed by the Athenian fleet off the Isthmus of Corinth. Tolmides was experienced general who commanded many expeditions that encompassed raids on the Peloponnesus, took Chalcis, and successfully defeated Sicyon. He was a major political rival of Pericles who died in battle during an underresourced Boeotia campaign. Alcidas was a vicious Spartan Admiral who during the Ionian Revolt executed prisoners even while he fled from Athenian pursuers. Other than several atrocities he accomplished little, although he forced the Athenians to spend precious resources to neutralize his voyage. Xenophon was an Athenian with expressed sympathies for Sparta. He was a Greek historian, mercenary and philosopher. He is famous for many important works, such as Anabasis, a military memoir with vivid and brutal descriptions from his journal. His Hellenica was a personal memoir supposedly only intended for his friends who experienced many of the events. His account starts in 411, after Thucydides breaks off his narrative and ends in 362, the year of the 2nd Battle of Mantinea. Xenophon was also a student of Socrates and a foremost authority on his teachings. His work, The Apology of Socrates to the Jury recounts details of Socrates’ trial. After the 2nd Peloponnesian war, he left Athens and joined the expedition of the Achaemenian prince Cyrus the Younger to overthrow his brother King Artaxerxes II, which resulted in Xenophon’s Anabasis and his exile from Athens. He was killed in Spartolos in 429 BC. Antiphus was an ambassador to Peace of Nicias. 17.3 Spartan Personalities The major ruling body of Sparta was the Gerousia that consisted of 30 individuals who had achieved the rank of Ephor. I have chosen to title the Spartan cards in this manner. Where it is known I have associated the various personalities with the royal house they were associated with, but for the most part the information on Spartan personalities is tougher to come by since Thucydides and Xenophon were Athenian and were obviously more familiar with people that they personally knew. The main faction leader personalities were the Kings of Sparta. Sparta had two Kings at any time but due to age differences one King was often more important with a Regent for a younger royal. At the very beginning of the period King Pleistoanax led the invasion of Attica that turned back and he was exiled on bribery charges. At the beginning of the 2nd Peloponnesian War, King Archidamus of Archidamian War fame was running the show, but without any fanfare he disappears from the narrative and is presumed to have died of causes unknown. The main royal in the latter part of the war was Agis II with an older Pleistoanax returning to Sparta. The architects of the Spartan victory are attributed to Agis II with his army in Decelea and Antisthenes was a naval commander who led a Spartan fleet from the Peloponnesus to Miletus. Aristeus, son of Pellichas, was a Corinthian general who led the Chalcidice revolt. Astyochus was a navarch ordered to execute Alcibiades who had defected to Persia. Brasidas, son of Tellis, was a brilliant Spartan general who Thucydides referred to as intelligent, competent and brave. He saved Methone from an Athenian attack and was elected ephor. He led freed Spartan helots and Peloponnesian mercenaries into the north, where he re-energized the Chalcidian rebellion against Athens and captured Amphipolis. He died there fighting Cleon in the failed Athenian counterattack. His death in the same battle as Cleon’s demise cleared the way for negotiations that led to the Peace of Nicias. Callicratidas was a navarch who fought and died at the Battle of Arginusae. There are two versions about what happened to Callicratidas at that battle. Diodorus’s account is bit more spectacular, stating Callicratidas “went out in a blaze of glory”, ramming ships to his left and right until he finally met his violent demise when he hit Pericles’ ship. The other version, written by Xenophon, paints a somewhat different, if not more somber picture. According to Xenophon in 406 Callicratidas fell overboard and drowned when his ship was rammed by an enemy trireme near Mytilene. Apart from the fact he died, there is very little detail about what exactly happened in that battle. Calligitus was a Megaran ambassador who advocated aggressive support for the Ionian revolts. Chalcidaeus was a general who supported Alcibiades during the Aegean campaign. In 412 the Athenians killed him near Miletus. Cheirisophus was a late war Spartan commander who is best known for leading the ten thousand in the Greco-Persian Wars. Chionis was an ambassador to the Peace of Nicias. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC 34 Pericles Playbook Cleandridas was a political advisor to Agiad King Pleistonax. Clearchus, son of Rampias, was a hated military governor of Byzantium, a naval commander who lost the city to revolt and supported Pharnabazus in the Hellespont. His love of warfare and battle was considered extreme even by Spartan standards. Clearidas was a Spartiate and sub-commander at the Battle for Amphipolis. Cleobulus was an Ephor who opposed the Peace of Nicias. He also advised the Boeotians and Corinthians to act together to form an alliance with Argos in an effort to sabotage the peace. Cnemus was an admiral at the Battle of Naupactus. Deiniadas was a Laconian periokios who caused Methymna on Lesbos to revolt. Dercylidas was a Spartan admiral known for being crafty and cunning. King Agis II sent him from Amphipolis to the Hellespont to bring about the revolt of Abydos, which was a Milesian colony. Diathus was a Lacedaemonian ambassador to the Peace of Nicias negotiations. Dmagon was one of the founders of Heraclea, along with Leon and Alcidas. Dorcis was an unpopular Spartan commander who took command after the Battle of Mycale. Eccritus was a Spartan general who led 600 helots and “neodamodeis” as reinforcements during the Sicilian campaign. Empedius was a Spartan ambassador to the Peace of Nicias. Endius was an Ephor who supported Alcidas during the Chian Revolt. Epicydidas was a Spartan commander who lost a fleet during a storm. Epitadas was a Spartan commander who was killed at the Battle of Sphacteria in 425 BC. Even with 420 hoplites Epitadas could not stop the Athenians from blockading his forces. The Spartans were willing to negotiate a peace, but Cleon smelling blood dismissed the idea and captured this force. Sphacteria was the first time that a Spartan army had surrendered rather than be killed on the spot. Eteonicus was a Spartan commander during the Arginusae and Aegospotami campaigns. Eualas was a Spartan commander during the Aegean revolts. Eubulus was a Spartan naval commander during the Methana campaign. Eurybatus was a Corinthian admiral at the Battle of Sybota. This battle was perhaps the largest naval battle between Greek city-states up to that point and is considered one of the catalysts for the 2nd Peloponnesian War. Eurylochus was a Spartan commander during the Aegean revolts who marched a large army from Delphi threatening Naupactus and laid siege to Amphilochian Argos. In 426 BC he died in the battle at Olpae. Evagoras known as a tyrant, served as a Spartan commander in Cyprus. Gylippus was a general whose place in Spartan society was hindered by his mother being a helot. He led the successful relief of Syracuse but after the Battle of Aegospotami in 405, he stole money he was carrying to Sparta and like his father before him, he was condemned to death and fled into exile. Hateomaridas was a peace party Ephor. Hegesandridas was a Spartan admiral who led several successful campaigns, most notably the capture of Euboea. Hetoemaridas was of noble birth and a very well respected Spartan citizen. As a peace party Ephor on the eve of the 2nd Peloponnesian War, he felt Athens should be allowed to keep her naval hegemony, “since it was not advantageous to Sparta to dispute over the sea.” Hippagretas was a Spartan commander at the Battle of Sphacteria. Ischagoras was a Spartan ambassador to the Peace of Nicias. Laphilus was a Spartan ambassador to the Peace of Nicias. Lichas, son of Arcesilaus, was a Spartan diplomat who negotiated a treaty for Persian aid, but objected to turning over Greek cities to the Great King’s rule. Lysander was the brilliant Spartan admiral who was very close to the Eurypontid King, Agis II. He won many victories including in the Hellespont region where he won the decisive final battle of Aegospotami. Over the next year his blockade forced the Athenians to surrender, bringing an end to the 2nd Peloponnesian War. Metagenes was a Spartan diplomat at the Peace of Nicias negotiations. Mindarus was an admiral who took over command of the Spartan fleet at Miletus. He felt that the support that he was receiving from the Persian satrap Tissaphernes was insufficient and was enticed to shift his support to another satrap Pharnabazus in the Hellespont. While in the Hellespont with an expanded fleet he was brought to battle by Alcibiades and Thrasybulus at Cyzicus. In a confused set of naval and land engagements, Mindarus was killed and his fleet was eliminated. Naucleides was a Plataean traitor whose failed coup was one of the causes of the 2nd Peloponnesian War. He and the other wealthy citizens of Plataea despised Athens and wanted to seize power. He had the backing of one of the most powerful men in Thebes, Eurymachus, whose father Leontiades betrayed Thebes to the Persians in 480BC. Nicomedes, son of Cleombrotus, was a royal agent who under the authority of King Pleistoanax, son of Pausanisas, aided the Dorians in Boeotia. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC Pericles Playbook Pausanias was a Spartan commander and son of Cleombrotus who served as regent after his death. He was the father of Pleistoanax who later became king. According to Thucydides and Plutarch, many Hellenic League allies joined the Athenians because Pausanias was arrogant and misused his power. In 478 he was convicted of conspiring with the Persians. He was betrayed by one of the messengers he used to communicate with Xerxes with a letter providing evidence of his intentions that gave the Ephors enough evidence to convict him. His home was surrounded and he eventually died of starvation. Peisander was a Spartan commander and the brother of Agesilaus. Pericledias was a diplomat and signer of the Peace of Nicias. Philocharidas was a Spartan commander and one of the Ambassadors to the Peace of Nicias negotiations. He was sent as an envoy to the cities in the Thracian region, to demand the Spartan commander Clearidas hand over Amphipolis to the Athenians. Clearidas refused to accept them. The failure to fulfill the main Athenian objective for peace inevitably set the conditions for the renewal of conflict. Phrynis was a Spartan ambassador and perioikoi. He was sent to Chios to see if they had sufficient forces to gain Sparta’s support to revolt. When Phrynis stated they had told the truth, the Spartans entered into an alliance with the Chians and Erythraeans, dispatching 40 ships and initiating operations in the Aegean. Ramphias was a peace party ambassador at the beginning of the 2nd Peloponnesian War. Sthenelaidas was an influential war party Ephor who demanded that Sparta declare war against Athens: In his powerful speech he gave to his fellow Spartans, he pleaded for them to: “Vote therefore, Spartans, for war, as the honor of Sparta demands, and neither allow the further aggrandizement of Athens, nor betray our allies to ruin, but with the gods let us advance against the aggressors.” Tellis was one of the signers of the Peace of Nicias. Therimenes was an admiral during the latter part of the 2nd Peloponnesian war. Xenares, son of Clinias, was a Spartan Ephor who along with Cleobulus advised the Boeotians and Corinthians to act together to form an alliance with Argos in an effort to sabotage the Peace of Nicias. Zeusidas was a Spartan diplomat and signer of Peace of Nicias. 35 18.0 Strategy Guide Introduction As with any new design of mine the issue is often not that the mechanics are complex, but the strategies for success are not immediately obvious. Here are some basics to improve your enjoyment in your early matches. In my University classes I teach a technique that I call ‘right to left thinking’ that is my way of translating the Zen concept of ‘be the target’ into actions. The idea is to understand where you are going before you start the journey. Pericles is a political-military game, so while you begin with politics and choose issues to debate, which issues to pick and why are the important questions that need to be answered. If you begin by looking at the map, you should ask yourself what do I want the situation to look like after the turn is concluded. Once you understand what you want to happen militarily then you should ask yourself, which issues do I and my Compatriot need to put into play to make that happen. Then it is a matter of nominating and successfully debating those issues to enable your chosen path. What follows are some important tactics, but while no plan survives impact with the enemy, without a solid foundation in strategy you will find yourself treading water instead of advancing toward your goals. Now here comes the interesting wrinkle to all of this. During the war it is ‘us versus them’, but in the political dimension it is ‘me versus you’. This means that at times you are fighting a two front war, especially as a scenario is drawing toward a finish. That is what I think makes this historical situation so fascinating. In this period faction loyalty often took precedence over City State loyalty. Welcome to 5th Century Greece! Theater Campaigns The heart of the Pericles system is the Theater phase that drives the action. During the political portion of the turn players will win issues. During the Theater phase they place those issues on the map in one of the twenty Theater spaces plus Persia. The first issue placed establishes a Last In-First Out (hereafter LIFO) queue. The counterintuitive part is the first thing you want to happen in a Theater has to be the last thing you put in the queue. The last thing you want to happen is the first thing you put in the queue. In a Theater of war it is this sequence of opposing issues in the Theater queue that captures the thrust-counterthrust narrative of the Peloponnesian Wars. Once you have this basic concept in your mind all else follows. What is a Theater? There are twenty Theater spaces on the Pericles map plus Persia. A Theater is either a land or a naval Theater. What this means is if you decide to initiate a battle in a land theater you must fight a land battle and the winner can optionally fight a naval battle. The opposite applies in a naval Theater. Each side has bases that anchor military forces and represent economic infrastructure. In the final counting a City State gains Honor for control of Theaters and their bases. Why a particular Theater is important to your side will be covered later in this guide, but let’s postulate that Boeotia (Land © 2016 GMT Games, LLC 36 Pericles Playbook Theater) is important to your strategy. Let’s also postulate that this is the beginning of the 2nd Peloponnesian War and Boeotia (Central Greece) is a contested Theater. A contested Theater has both sides’ forces present. Sparta has a Peloponnesian base (Thebes) with four land units opposed by a Delian League base (Plataea) with one land unit. The raw land strength count is Sparta 6 versus Athens 3 as each land unit counts for one and bases count for 2. A good place to start this conversation is how does Athens defend Boeotia and how does Sparta attack Boeotia? Thucydides describes a war of thrust and counterthrust. This is an era of small armies and large spaces. Geographic chokepoints and enemy bases are where the battles were fought because without airplanes, radios, or drones, it was hard to time the arrival of forces to block enemy activity. The Theater issue queue is how Pericles captures this chess-like move-countermove dynamic. Imagine you are Pericles (Aristocrat faction) standing before the Athenian assembly proposing a military expedition to Boeotia to punish Thebes for a failed coup against your ally Plataea. You propose your nephew Alcibiades to lead the attack while Cleon (Demagogue faction) counter proposes Demosthenes. Pericles barely wins the debate naming Alcibiades as the commanding general (3 Strategos tokens), but Demosthenes is also given a command (4 Strategos tokens). Unless there is further debate on this issue Athens will conduct a military expedition to Boeotia. How you allocate and deploy your Strategos tokens amongst your various enterprises and how you respond to Enemy actions is the heart of the narrative that determines the winner of the wars. In a traditional wargame like For the People you have named generals and everyone knows that Robert E. Lee should be a go to guy for the South. In this period there were equivalent great generals, such as the Athenian Demosthenes, who held a similar distinction until his death. In Pericles how you deploy your Strategos tokens determines whether you are sending a Demosthenes (great general) or a Diomedon (an average general). As a rule if you and your teammate were to gain all of the available Strategos tokens with a full agenda of issues, your team could send out multiple military expeditions, diplomatic missions, muster forces, build several League bases and even invoke the gods (Oracle issue). Likewise the other team is conducting the same process to generate their response. I will cover political strategy in more detail later in this guide, but now back to the main question, how to gain control of Boeotia? This is a period of militia armies. There are no standing armies akin to ancient Rome. Even the vaunted Spartan army needed to be mustered. Historically it took months to prepare and launch a military force, so unlike later ancient periods with standing armies you cannot react after an attack has already begun. Remember, no radios or satellites, just information arriving once things are in motion. If we do not correctly anticipate our enemy’s strategy your reinforcements will arrive too late, so you have to anticipate your opponents actions and get there first. Failure to correctly counter your opponents’ moves will let you walk a mile in Admiral Thucydides’ sandals, who was cashiered for being a day late and a trireme short. In Pericles the side with superior planning and timing will prevail. So, how does this translate into Athens defending its position in Boeotia? Athens has several choices, but let’s say we simply want to improve our situation in Boeotia. If our issue is at the top of the Boeotia Theater queue we will have first mover advantage in Boeotia. The three major choices are a League, Military, or Diplomatic issue. Athenians as their first action (last into the queue) in the Theater could resolve a League issue, build two more land units (each base can build two land or one naval per base) and now our forces are just under one to one with the Enemy forces present. Perhaps the better option might be to build one naval unit. Now our base has a sea line of communication and while our small army might get smashed, we will not lose the base unless Sparta can win first the land and then a naval battle. At this point Athens naval supremacy and control of the Saronic Gulf chokepoint (Athens Theater) makes it very unlikely that Sparta could assemble a fleet and successfully sail it to Boeotia, so our single naval unit ensures our base’s survival. Athens could instead have put a diplomatic issue into play. This activates a conspiracy of opponents within the Peloponnesian base. As the Peloponnesians have a large army present, I have no chance of a successful coup at this time, but for the expenditure of three Strategos tokens, I place three Treachery markers, effectively increasing my local strength by 3 due to conspirators and other minor City State forces in Boeotia. Another option is to reveal a Military issue, and assemble several land and naval units in Boeotia, but resolving Military issues in Contested Theaters will bring on a battle or a Raid. A Raid avoids fighting a battle and for the expenditure of three Strategos tokens you gain three Honor points, while forcing our opponents to lose from one to five Strategos tokens due to ravaging. Raiding should be a major component of your military strategy. One of the truths in war is: “The enemy gets a vote.” While Raids are subtle we all understand marching to battle. Remember the issues in a queue are secret until revealed. Let’s say that the Spartans had put a military issue into Boeotia at the bottom of the queue. If Athens has a military issue higher in the queue what could occur is the Athenians send in an army to fight with Thebes, so now Athens has an army in Boeotia. If another Athenian military issue in another theater is resolved before the Spartan issue at the bottom of the queue resolves, this Athenian force could move off. On the other hand if the Spartan military issue is revealed before the Athenians can move off you could find yourself rediscovering why the Athenian strategy for Central Greece collapsed for following this exact strategy. You have been warned. Hopefully this gives you an idea on how you need to think about Theater queues. I would be remiss if I did not relate one other aspect of Theater queues is how they play out across multiple theaters. The key rule is that when it is your turn to reveal an issue and there are one or more of your side available you must reveal one of them. So, how to control or disrupt your enemies’ issue timing is an important tactical consideration. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC Pericles Playbook Each faction places two rumor markers each Theater phase. By getting a rumor marker on top of a queue prevents your opponent from revealing those issues until the rumor has been resolved. The collective effect of the eight rumor markers in the various queues creates true chaos. Have no fear, the rumors all get resolved, but how the issues in various queues reveal themselves and how this all turns out will give you a front seat on a roller coaster ride with its inevitable ups and downs that brings up the next question. How does one think about integrating multitheater issue queues into a coherent military strategy? Strategy Military academies and senior training institutions, such as the Naval War College where I have taught, have used the Peloponnesian War as a case study for decades. The two main themes of the case study examine the effects of long periods of conflict on a Democracy (Athens) and the asymmetrical character of Athenian naval power versus Spartan land power. It is this last point that is important to how you develop a strategy for your side. The Athenians are a naval power and if you remember the simple rule that in a naval theater you always fight a mandatory naval battle before you fight the optional land battle you have the basis of your strategy. Fighting land battles is apt to have you relive history. If you want to understand the Athenian Sicilian disaster or the loss of Central Greece (Boeotia), just get a large land force exposed to a Spartan riposte. If this happens to you, don’t despair, just revel in the fact that you have simulated history without a special rule. This is not to say that Athens cannot win a land battle, but only when you time it so you avoid a Spartan response. Historically after a Spartan raid of Attica (Athens) had returned home, the Athenian army would raid the Isthmus of Corinth (Megara). So, it is an important strategy, but you have to time it right. The main strategy for the Athenians is to follow the Periclean strategy that is to maintain naval supremacy, protect the empire, and avoid dangerous adventures. You can and should experiment with alternate paths, but if you follow this one build bases in naval theaters. Remember a base in a Theater with a naval unit cannot be eliminated unless the Spartans can eliminate the naval unit. Also remember that you can have up to three bases in a Theater. Remember establishing bases brings honor. Your offensive options revolve around getting a naval unit into a Theater to make it a contested Theater and then use military issues to Raid to gain Honor and reduce the number of available Spartan Strategos. The other important consideration is in a long scenario’s end-of-game scoring, Sparta and Athens gain Honor for Control of a Theater. Contested Theaters do not score, so ensure that most if not all land Theaters on the map have a friendly base with naval support. The basis of Spartan power is their Spartan land units. What I have found is most wargamers intuitively understand Spartan strategy. Sparta is always looking to score a knock out blow against an Athenian army. I have found that most Athenians new to this system will naturally make this mistake. But be careful that you do not inadvertently spread out your Spartan land units. 37 I have seen a medium sized Peloponnesian army with a single Spartan land unit get ambushed late in a Theater phase by an Athenian military issue that wins the battle and eliminates the Spartan unit for hostages and lots of Honor. If this happens you have relived the Spartan defeat at Pylos. Assuming that Athens plays cautiously what should the Spartans do? The simple answer is raid Athens. The basic tactic that mirrors the war is to send a strong Spartan army into Athens where Athens will win the naval battle, no losses are taken or honor is lost, but now the Spartans are contesting Athens. Then build a base in Athens (Decelea) and Raid with military issues. Note that this same strategy works for Athens with naval units in Sparta ala Pylos and vice versa. If Athens builds the third base in Athens find a way to do it in some other Theater like Naupactus. In all cases you need to contest Theaters that you can reach by land and build up your bases. Another piece of Spartan strategy is taking advantage of the spread out nature of the Athenian empire and using diplomatic issues to convert Delian league bases and then build naval power outside the geographic chokepoints of Athens and Naupactus. If you can do this in Ionia or due to a fortuitous Alcibiades event, build Persian bases and then use Persian gold to develop sufficient naval power to defeat the Athenians in detail. This takes time and like Athens on land you have to pick your spots, but the creation of a legitimate naval threat will pay big dividends if properly applied. Politics This is the portion of the game that shows its Churchill lineage. Each team of two factions debates issues. I am not going to go into this in detail, but the main strategy point is this is the arena where the two factions cannot change their total Honor points, but redistribute their City State’s honor based on political performance. So, while you are a team during the war, it is YOU versus ME as measured by who wins issues with a higher oratory score (box number on the track where an issue is won). Political strategy is very important in Pericles. Becoming the Controlling faction comes with Honor perks and potential penalties. Successfully ostracizing your teammate has a large benefit, but once this issue is in play it can boomerang on you. As I said, assuming your side wins the war, how you play in the political arena will usually decide the winner of the game. Lose the war and your orations become a footnote. The downside of excessive infighting is political gridlock. If your side cannot collectively generate won issues, your side is going to place fewer issues into play than your opponents. If your side is generating less activity than your opponents, your team is going to find it difficult to win the war. This is the delicate political balance that each side has to consider during political debate. An important card design element is issue alignment. Cards all have a value from one to five and both decks are identical in this regard. Where the decks differ is in their issue alignment. Issue alignment is the value bonus and Strategos award a faction receives when a card is played on its issue. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC 38 Pericles Playbook There are no weak hands in Pericles, just hands that are weak against certain issues. If you are weak in an issue you need for your strategy—pick it first as it starts in your win column barring a poor debate performance. If you look at the cards carefully you will notice that there are no weak cards if you play the low value cards on their aligned issue. The advantage of the stronger value cards is they are more flexible and are usually the strongest cards when played aligned with their issue. This is important when you receive your cards and consider which issues to nominate in debate. I designed into the deck that the average value of an issue aligned card is approximately five. If both factions play symmetrically you will get political gridlock. This is intended and can be very frustrating especially if you remember that you cannot discuss any aspect of your card play with your opponent. At times you may have to play a weaker card to ensure that it gets into play with the obvious downside that you are giving away oration honor to your Compatriot. How the two factions learn to compete while working for the greater good of the City State is a key aspect of the Pericles political model. Your faction leader represents you in the assembly. It is often best to use your faction leader to gain some portion of the Strategy board, but if you know you are going to lose control of the government you might be advantaged to use your faction leader to capture an important issue in debate. Another resource, especially late in a scenario, is to use the brain trust. Unless you are playing one of the longer scenarios, the brain trust option is usually a once per scenario opportunity. It is a very powerful way to really gain control of an issue such as Ostracism or War/Peace when it can decisively alter who is in the lead on your side. If you think this may happen it is best to choose three stronger card values to go into your Entourage. This way if your faction leader is not opposed by your compatriot’s leader you can turn a 6- or 7-value play into a 10+ value play for leverage in determining oration honor. If done on the last turn of the scenario or if causing Peace ends the scenario it can be a game winning play. Last, I would like to discuss how the Aristophanes cards impact strategy. The most notable effect is which issues are put into play. If this is Ostracism or War/Peace it can break a fragile political relationship and shake up a City State’s political landscape. Alternately, the free issue given to one side can cause a change of government on winning more issues. Aristophanes events usually alter the size of the Strategos stock or impose a Will of Assembly mission. Your side needs to pay attention to these missions as it can lead to a 20 point Honor swing if one side succeeds and the other fails. The placement of the Will of Assembly markers is meant to throw the chaos of the masses onto your desired path. All in all, this creates some great situations as both sides try to cause the other side to fail even as they struggle to meet the will of the assembly. Conclusion Hopefully this short strategy guide will give you some thoughts on how to play in your early contests. That said, some of the strongest lessons come from making mistakes and achieving unexpected successes. Good luck! 19.0 Designer Notes 19.1 The History behind the Pericles design One of the key lessons that I learned from Jim Dunnigan and my time at SPI is that popular views of what constitutes an accurate view of an historical event are sometimes not based on a deep understanding of the known facts and more importantly a quantification of those details. Much of this numerical analysis comes directly out of Hanson’s book, A War Like No Other (see bibliography), and confirmed by my own research into the period. My purpose in this section is to convey some context and texture to the history represented in the design. At the big picture level 5th Century BC Greece was composed of ~1500 autonomous City States. There are various formal city-state definitions, but at its core there were three elements: a territory that rarely supplied more than a subsistence level of agricultural products, a central market and administrative center that supported a citizenry coalesced around a common origin myth culture. Land was sacred and central to the soul of a city-state and the traditional method of resolving disputes or expanding territory was for an invading army to literally plant itself on the Enemy’s soil and threaten to ravage their land. This usually caused the invaded city-state to muster its militia army, composed mostly of the land owning class, who suited up in their armor panoply and fought a short decisive engagement that settled the issue one way or the other. This style of warfare takes it name from the technologically advanced shield known as a Hoplon from which the Greek Hoplite derives his name. It should be noted that ~75% of the time the defending army won the Hoplite battle. The outlier to this model developed in the late 6th century BC and became an accepted fact that the Lacedaemonians (Sparta) were a cut above the rest. Sparta in the 7th century BC conquered Messenia and enslaved its population, known to the Greeks as Helots. Spartan citizens were allotted plots of land worked by Helots and the tithe of food taken supplied the Spartan armies’ mess requirements. This economic system enabled Spartan citizens to train and muster on a permanent year-round basis. Through this economic model Sparta created a standing militia © 2016 GMT Games, LLC Pericles Playbook force that can be argued was the first city-state professional army. I tend to view it as a very well trained militia army as the main role of the army was to garrison their territory to maintain Helot subservience and not campaign, which was a rare event. This is borne out by the fact that between 431 and 425, the Spartan army campaigned a total of 3 months during the first 84 months of the war. The three Spartan commanders Archidamus, Cleomenes, and Agis (Spartan faction leaders) all failed to launch a second attack in the same year. So, during the 81 months the Spartan army was not campaigning during this period it did what it was designed to do, ensure that the order of magnitude more numerous Helots remained suppressed and growing food. During the 2nd Peloponnesian War (431) one of the unintended consequences of the Spartan raiding strategy was it concentrated the Athenian population in the city with inadequate water and sewage infrastructure just as a plague hit the city. This was a significant factor in the war that killed 30% of the Hoplite class (over 10,000 hoplites) with a commensurate loss amongst the Thete class. The Thete class supplied the rowers for the fleet that required from 40-60,000 oarsmen to operate. It is hard to argue with the then-prevailing view that the plague was an act of god. The plague was associated with Apollo whose Delphic oracle was a known Spartan supporter. There were at least two and likely up to four waves of the plague, though of reduced severity as the survivors became immune to the disease. The military effects of the plague were that for many years Athens was unable to prosecute significant land or siege operations. My point is that during the Peloponnesian wars the Spartan army’s reputation, more than its performance, was a strategic factor in the war. The reason that the minor defeat at Pylos carried strategic weight was it destroyed the myth that Spartans could not be defeated and would die rather than surrender. The Spartan response was that it was not a fair fight, but were dismayed that the small Spartiate force on the island of Sphacteria chose to surrender rather than die heroically. Despite the impact of Pylos on Spartan morale, at the critical moment in the war the Spartan phalanx prevailed at Mantinea. While there were a few other important Phalanx battles such as the medium-sized battle at Delium, Mantinea was the only large hoplite battle of the period and the only one that could have won the war for Athens. The reason that Athens did not fully support the Argos coalition at Mantinea was that Nicias neutered Alcibiades’ strategy to the long-term detriment of his City State. Mantinea confirmed that in a traditional stand up fight, the Spartan hoplites were still the premier infantrymen of the period. Sparta would not be tested again in a Hoplite battle for the duration of the war. The second and third best Hoplite infantrymen of this period were the Thebans and the Athenians although Argos could make a claim for the third position. One of the arguments that the Athenians were not up to the Hoplite standards of the period is based on the fact that they would not come out and fight the Spartans on the few occasions when they showed up in Attica. This argument falls apart when you consider that the Spartans and their Peloponnesian allies usually raided Attica with armies 39 ranging in the 30,000 force range outnumbering the Athenian hoplite militia by a factor of 2 or more. No army in this period, to include the Spartans, could prevail in a Hoplite battle with both of its flanks exposed to envelopment. I wrestled with whether to make a finer distinction and raise the Thebans up a notch, but in the end while these were some of the better Hoplites the data suggests that they weren’t superior enough to warrant a strength advantage over the other city-state militias in this period. For context, it would take the emergence of the Theban military genius Epaminondas to create new tactics that shattered the Spartan army at Leuctra and made them the preeminent land force in the early 4th century. Thebes held this preeminent distinction until the Battle of Chaeronea when Philip of Macedon, supported by his brilliant cavalry commander Alexander, shattered the primacy of Greek city-state military power for all time. The ineffectiveness of traditional Hoplite warfare to bring the war to a conclusion saw the rise of new concepts around smallscale irregular warfare, often conducted at night. The new tactical unit was the peltast, a lightly armored, missile throwing force of infantry who were at home in difficult terrain and their specialty the night attack. The historical sources document 43 such types of night operations that led to significant casualties that dwarf what occurred during the two main Hoplite battles during the 2nd Peloponnesian War (Delium and Mantinea) and the smaller clashes at Solygia and Syracuse. Another aspect of this form of warfare is it targeted civilians and their property leading to an environment of brigand raids against isolated regions. Raiding developed during the Peloponnesian Wars as a tactic of economic warfare in its own right, rather than a catalyst to pitched battle. One of the major myths around the primacy of the Hoplite battle is borne out by the fact that during the 27 years of the 2nd Peloponnesian War there were approximately 5 hours of traditional Hoplite combat. It was the skirmish battles that swirled around raids that dominated land combat in this period and generated the majority of the military and civilian casualties. One of the grimmer factors in this war is that raiding developed into a no quarter doctrine where captives swept up in this style of warfare were almost always executed. Raids, while they generated a great deal of death and destruction, were due to logistic considerations usually of short duration. So, while the Athenians enthusiastically embraced raiding as their primary strategy, its main purpose was to demonstrate Spartan impotence in the war for honor and primacy in the minds of the Greek world. What made the Athenian raiding strategy so effective was it rested on naval power. The Athenian military expeditions could arrive out of nowhere from the sea overwhelming the local defenses with 100 triremes (over 10,000 men) while preventing any reaction by minimizing time spent conducting land operations. Sparta never developed a response to the Athenian raiding strategy that highlighted the ineffectual nature of its own military doctrine. Spartan raids during the Archidamian war ended after Pylos when the threat to execute the Spartan hostages secured Attica until the Peace of Nicias repatriated them. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC 40 Pericles Playbook Another component of raiding was its timing. This is a period of small armies, large spaces and short campaigns. It was common during the Archidamian war for a Spartan army to arrive in Attica, destroy some agricultural infrastructure, and go home only to see the Athenian army then raid the neighboring territories of Thebes and Megara. The important point is the concept of intercepting an Enemy army on the march just did not occur during this period, as it was too easy to refuse battle in the absence of significant cavalry forces. One of the reasons for the Sicilian disaster is the superior numbers of Syracusan cavalry imposed logistic pressure on the Athenian land forces. Raiding was raised to the next level with the advent of the Epiteichismos (forward fortification) strategy. Epiteichismos was the brainchild of Demosthenes who manipulated events to build a fortification at Pylos that through perseverance, Spartan mistakes, and chance resulted in a decisive advantage that ultimately ended the Archidamian War. The basic notion was to fortify a location inside the Enemy’s territory as a refuge and a means to deny the use of farmland on a continuous basis. This technique was adopted by the Spartan king Agis as preached by the treacherous Alcibiades while a ‘guest’ in Sparta. This led to Agis occupying Decelea in Attica for the remainder of the war. The permanent presence of a Spartan army in Attica ultimately bankrupted the Athenian aristocracy whose civic duty was to directly support the Athenian navy as Trierarchs (build and maintain a Trireme), besides denying access to the important Laurium silver mines. In spite of all of this, Athens continued to survive and at times prosper because its navy maintained its overseas supply lines and kept their Allies in check. This would all change once Sparta contested and won naval superiority in the later part of the war. The core of Periclean military strategy was a radical doctrine centered on the convergence of two technologies. The long walls that connected the city of Athens to its port Piraeus made the city invulnerable to siege as long as its navy maintained control of the seas. There were 101 documented assaults against fortifications during this period of which 50% were successful. The Athenians were superior to the Spartans in siege warfare as their ability to isolate a port, especially one on an island, enabled them to starve an Enemy into submission or benefit from the timely intervention of collaborators on the inside opening a gate (14 instances from 431 to 406). Although the Greeks understood all of the traditional methods of building ramps, battering rams, and escalades these techniques took time to build and implement and were antithetical to the logistic constraints that limited the duration a Hoplite force could remain in the field. In the end fortifications, even modest ones, could usually buy the besieged sufficient time to out wait the besiegers. One of the interesting questions is why it took so long for the Spartans and their Allies to focus on destroying the source of Athenian power, its navy. Having rowed in college I can appreciate that Athenian naval superiority rested on the physical and nautical talents of its trireme crews and the infrastructure that supported the fleet. It took years to train a trireme crew and one of the elements of the Athenian raiding strategy was to deny Sparta and her Allies the ability to train. Without this training Peloponnesian fleets, even when they outnumbered the Athenians by 4 to 1 odds, could not prevail against the quality of Athenian admirals, tactics and their experienced trireme crews. The other component was the skilled artisans and elaborate infrastructure resident in the Piraeus (Athens’ port) that maintained the numerous yet fragile Triremes. A Trireme is a wooden vessel whose motive power is based on a crew of 200 of which 170 were the rowers. Athenian naval doctrine had overturned the use of triremes locked together enabling a land battle on floating platforms. Athenian tactics emphasized maneuver and the primacy of the ram. A Trireme’s speed and maneuverability were its main strengths and its wooden construction its vulnerability. A Trireme could not spend long periods in the water or it became waterlogged reducing the speed required for the new tactics. Too long out of the water it dried out and leaked. On average it took a month to ready a Trireme for campaign and due to the cost of operating the fleet most of the 300 Athenian triremes sat in sheds in the Piraeus with only a few operational until a campaign was planned. Most military operations were of small size (~25 Triremes) used for most offensive operations, with major raids comprising 100+ Triremes composed of over 20,000 men. It would take the Sicilian disaster of 413 to create a level of naval parity. Yet, while the Greek world saw Sicily as the beginning of the end for Athens they were sadly mistaken. From 411 till the end of the war the Athenians continued to win most of the naval battles, but the constant naval war in the Aegean wore down the Athenian fleet. This eventually opened the door to Persian money, Delian league revolts, and rising Peloponnesian naval quality that finally annihilated the last Athenian fleet at Aegospotami, leading to a negotiated surrender. To put the Ionian war in perspective, from 411 to 405 BC the Athenians lost 270 Triremes and over 50,000 sailors whereas in total the two sides lost ~500 Triremes and 100,000 sailors. It turns out that this final stage of the conflict was the bloodiest. Closing Thoughts What is fascinating to me about this period is how the traditional Greek concept of battle epitomized by the Hoplite battle line was found to be ineffective in settling the disputes that brought on a sixty year period of conflict. What evolved were new concepts such as the Athenian strategic concept of an inviolate city state supported by naval superiority that saw the raid and small scale operations overthrow tradition. That said, it was Athens’ inability to defeat the Spartan hoplite army that kept the war from reaching a conclusion in their favor. Time and a misguided Athenian strategy gave the Spartans an opening that enabled them over a decade of naval conflict to finally achieve victory. 19.2 My Periclean Journey Thucydides My first exposure to Thucydides was when I was in High School. I found a copy in the library and was exposed to one of the greatest history books ever written. While Admiral Thucydides is clearly using the work to settle old grudges and put his spin on things, it remains an epic account of the death match between © 2016 GMT Games, LLC Pericles Playbook Athens and Sparta in the latter half of the 5th Century BC. For a book written over two millennia ago it has a surprisingly readable style that is unusual for literary works from this period. Back to the Future Thucydides re-entered my life in the early 90’s when I taught Military Strategy and Policy for the Naval War College in the Washington DC area. Simultaneously my friend and mentor Jim Dunnigan asked me to design a game for S&T magazine during his second short stint as its editor. For this design I decided to do a solitaire game on the Peloponnesian War. As it so happened the Naval War College experience also gave me access to a large catalog of taped lectures on the various case studies in the class I was teaching. My favorite lectures were those on the Peloponnesian war given by a major ancient scholar, Al Bernstein, who studied under Professor Kagan, considered the leading expert on this conflict. Then fate stepped in and I met and befriended Al when he taught at the National War College in Washington, DC. Early in our association I asked Al if he would take a look at my nascent design. As a serious scholar he was skeptical that any game could represent this war. I remember the first question he asked me when I showed him the map, “How do you account for the Athenian raiding strategy?” I then showed him how it worked and he really warmed up to what he was seeing. I spent many hours over the remainder of that game’s development discussing details of the conflict with him. I really wish Al were still around as a sounding board for Pericles, as many of our conversations were about Athenian politics and how strategy was developed to prosecute the war. In fact it was my inability back in the 90’s to show the political dimension of the Peloponnesian War that led me to revisit this topic now that I am armed with my Churchill debate mechanic. I am dedicating this game in memory of Al and I hope he would approve of what I have done with the topics of our long-ago conversations. The results of these conversations and study led to the publication in 1994 of my last Victory Games design, The Peloponnesian War. This earlier effort was primarily a solitaire game, but it had two-player and multiplayer variants that found a small but dedicated following at early WBC tournaments. It is a design that I still play on occasion, primarily because my late twentieth century solo system, that are now called ‘Bots, still has a winning record against me. More relevant to this design, I used to lecture on the Peloponnesian War for another great American, Admiral Stansfield Turner. I gave Admiral Turner a copy of my VG design and he asked me if I could modify it for his National War College class. This resulted in the game being computerized and used for a time in the University’s seminar program. The gist of this modified VG Peloponnesian War effort was that the class was broken into three teams, Athens, Sparta, and Persia. Within each team there were factions that had to cooperate to develop strategy to win the war, yet only the faction in power when victory occurred was declared the winner of the exercise. Basically I have playtested the basic concept for Pericles across a diverse audience of military and civilian students for over a decade. 41 RAM vs Faction Model The acronym RAM is a political science term that stands for rational actor model. The concept is used as a simplified way to model a nation’s behavior. The major assumption of this model is that a nation’s international behavior can be understood as a coherent singular set of policies. In his classic work, “Essence of Decision”, Graham Allison examined the Cuban Missile crisis through this and other models and concluded that the RAM was inadequate to model a polity’s action. What I find interesting is most strategic wargames have traditionally used the RAM focused on the player acting as the omnipotent representation of a combatant. Pericles eschews the RAM and looks at the opposing City States’ policies and strategies as the output of an internal struggle for power. In the 5th century BC there were times that faction loyalty dominated City State affiliations. This was an important consideration in how I constructed the Pericles model and how I tried to more strongly align this design with history. Aristophanes One of the things that working on Pericles has done is it has caused me to re-read the plays of Aristophanes. Aristophanes was one of the original creators of Western satirical comedy and his plays were performed while the Peloponnesian Wars were being fought. This makes the plays a rich source of information as Aristophanes parodied many of the leading politicians and generals of his day. He particularly disliked Cleon and any reference to a tanner, Paphlagonian, or leather merchant was code for the leading Demagogue of his day. I used Aristophanes as a vehicle to bring some random context and events into each game turn. In Aristophanes’ play Clouds, he satirizes Socrates and his philosophy. What I find fascinating about these plays is Aristophanes knew and saw some of these legendary figures on a daily basis in the Athenian agora. He spoke to them, had all the gossip on them, and then he made fun of them in front of the entire city. Sometimes the only clue we have of an event not mentioned in the Thucydides text is Aristophanes where it appears in a humorous dialog. A secondary effect of this research is it caused me for personal reasons to do some extra research on Socrates. The précis version is, “a life unexamined is not worth living.” So here it goes, my nature and desire is to always push the game design envelope. This has many unintended consequences. First, if you have played one of my games, you have played one of my games. Even my CDG designs are quite dissimilar from each other as is Pericles from its point of origin, Churchill. This means that I have been a total failure in developing a consistent series that people can use as the basis for learning my next design, although Great Battles comes close, but more due to Richard Berg than myself. Second, it has gained me a reputation for designing complex strategy games for which I am guilty as charged. This means that I am unlikely to ever design a game that becomes a worldwide phenomenon even though my mechanics have fueled the efforts of others. My design philosophy has always been to design deep strategy games with bespoke mechanics that can stand the test of time. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC 42 Pericles Playbook This means that I am unlikely to have a marketing hit with one of my historical designs. In essence I am at my core an historical game designer, not one who takes a themed mechanic and dresses it up with meeples in ancient clothing and calls it history. Others will have to judge whether I have been successful in this regard, but the heirs to We The People are still being played over two decades and counting. As the guy who jumped off the Empire State Building said as he passed the 80th floor, “so far, so good.” That’s enough introspection, so now back to Pericles. Simplicity on the other side of Complexity I think when you know a topic intimately you have a chance at achieving mechanical simplicity that translates the complexity of the topic into a useable format. This was my intent, although as usual it is likely more than the general gaming audience can tolerate. I believe that that Aristophanes would have recognized these inadequacies and satirized me for it. An example of what I am talking about is the all-important sieges that were attempted and successful about fifty percent of the time. How do I know this? My research for Pericles found a paper published 1997 after I did my VG design by Scott Rusch, titled, Poliorcetic Assault in the Peloponnesian War. It is a 969 page doctoral dissertation that covers sieges in a highly detailed and well documented manner. I was able to purchase an electronic copy of this work whose facsimile is a typewritten manuscript. My guess is Dr. Rusch used a lot of white out in its creation. The conclusion of the study was in the first sentence, but you will have to believe me or read the paper to confirm that in his words, “We discover, in fact, that 101 assault incidents occurred in the Peloponnesian War, of which one-half ended in successes for the attackers.” By the way, this was my conclusion from my earlier research for my VG design. I can also count, but no PhD. While I am sure there is a small group of gamers who would like to have a rule for each historical siege and analytic metric cited in the paper, I chose to boil it all down to one rule in about a dozen words. So, when I say that I am an historical game designer and I researched sieges in detail, this is what I mean. Based on that research I accounted for sieges accurately and hopefully elegantly within the Pericles construct. By the way Poliorcetic is Greek for (approximately) ‘the taker of cities.’ This hopefully illustrates how I strive to find simplicity on the other side of complexity. ‘gymnasium’ where you can ease into the design, I hope you take advantage of this offered path into the game. The Persians This was perhaps the greatest design challenge I faced. When I taught this topic in graduate school—to see if my students had actually read the material—I would ask, “Who won the Peloponnesian War?” A reasonable answer is Sparta; in my mind the more correct answer is Persia. As Pericles covers the period from 460 BC to 400 BC it should be noted that the Persian War of Salamis fame was still active during the first decade of this game. The reason that I state that it was the Persians who won the Peloponnesian war is based on the treaty that ended the Persian war. That treaty between the Greeks and the Persians stated that the Persian navy could not enter the Aegean Sea and that all coastal colonies in Ionia could not be approached any closer than a 3 day march by Persian land forces. In return the Greeks promised to stop attacking the Persians. At the end of the Peloponnesian war essentially both of these major conditions collapsed as an exhausted Sparta succumbed during the Corinthian war that followed in the 4th century BC. Having seen 30 military officers in three teams fight the Peloponnesian war, you find that the Persian role—while significant—was one of finance and political manipulation. Perhaps I will do an expansion to Pericles some day, but the increase in complexity to introduce an aggressive third side was outside the historical narrative and would take the focus of the design off of where I thought it belongs. As it stands, the Persian rule allows Sparta to gain Persian finance by building nearly untouchable bases that support a larger military, which at its core was the tangible Persian contribution to this conflict. I feel that this is the best balance of history and complexity for this design. Conclusion I could write a great deal more about the design, but luckily I have Rodger MacGowan’s c3i magazine for future discussions on one of my favorite historical topics. I hope you enjoy the game. That said, one of my lessons learned from Fire in the Lake is that Volko’s superior play aids are a great way to make a game more accessible and control the design’s complexity budget. I designed most of the game based on what I could summarize in one play aid. So, once you have gone over the rules, you should never have to look at them again if you use the play aid. Of course that will not work for everyone, but the rules safety net should solve any remaining questions. While the rules are not shorter than the play aid, they are by my standards fairly straightforward using simple mechanics, so hope springs eternal that it will be a low barrier to entry design. Toward that end I have spent considerable time developing my version of a training © 2016 GMT Games, LLC Pericles Playbook 43 Durant, Will, The Life of Greece, Simon and Shuster 1939 One of my goals before I die is to finish his eleven volume opus on civilization. For this design I finally read volume 2. It is quite good and the title of the campaign scenario comes from the chapter about this conflict, ‘The Suicide of Greece’. Green, Peter, Armada from Athens, Doubleday, 1970. An old favorite whose main thesis is: the Sicilian expedition arose out of Athens’ desire to control a rich grain location. This is based on a single line in Thucydides that has been eroded by recent research and commentary. Since almost all commentary on this period is a combination of scholarly work and conjecture, decide for yourself. I found that my read of Feeding the Democracy (see below) with its more statistically based analysis somewhat supported this older perspective. Herman, Mark, The Peloponnesian War, Victory Games, 1991. I used much of my original research for this design. I have yet to find a comparable summary of the naval battles and statistics published in the playbook. 20.0 Bibliography Following is a list of the key sources that I have read and studied on this period and used to design Pericles and my earlier The Peloponnesian War. I have consulted or read at least another 50 works since college included in the various bibliographies of these books. Aristophanes, The Complete Plays, various English translations and editions. One of the important and interesting commentaries on the Peloponnesian War is the political satire of this great playwright (Aristophanes). In some cases he is the only source for possible Peace missions that are not mentioned by Thucydides. There are only 11 existing complete plays; the first Acharnians was performed in 425 BC. No one is quite sure how many plays he actually wrote, but there were 1st and 2nd editions of the plays we have and another 30 or so that are referenced for which no copies exist. I will mention that several of Aristophanes’ plays cover adult material with extremely adult words, so parental discretion is advised. Bagnall, Nigel, The Peloponnesian War, Pimlico, 2004. A good standard work on the period, but given the other choices I would suggest you start with Lendon or Kagan. Bernstein, Al, Audio tapes Naval War College lectures, unpublished. I first became acquainted with this fellow New Yorker and former Kagan student from his Peloponnesian War lecture tapes that the Naval War College made available to its professors. I then met and became close friends with Al, who was my consultant on my earlier Peloponnesian War design. I dedicate this work in memory of my old friend. Hanson, Victor Davis, A War Like No Other, Random House, 2005. This is a must read once you have read Thucydides. This book analyzes the key dimensions of the 2nd Peloponnesian War and has some great insights; such as there were only 4-5 hours of traditional Hoplite battles during the entire 27 year conflict. Highly recommended. Kagan, Donald, The Peloponnesian War (multiple works), Viking, 2003. For brevity I have listed the one volume version of his fourvolume opus that I discovered back in the 1990s when I designed The Peloponnesian War (VG, 1991). If you want to get serious about this topic you need to check out the four-volume set consisting of The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, The Archidamian War, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition, and The Fall of the Athenian Empire. I accessed these four volumes for my original Peloponnesian War design via inter-library loan, and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I also used for this and my earlier design the two works, Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy and Thucydides, by this author. Lendon, T. E., The Song of Wrath, Basic Books, 2010. This is one of the most exciting and well-written books that I have ever read on this topic. While it purports to only cover the first 10 years of the conflict known as the Archidamian War, it actually does an amazing job of covering the 1st Peloponnesian War and the Persian War that preceded this conflict. The entire concept of Honor and how the victory conditions operate in this game were inspired by this work. Besides being a talented scholar, Ted Lendon is also an ancients wargame collector and a very cool guy. © 2016 GMT Games, LLC 44 Pericles Playbook Moreno, Alfonso, Feeding the Democracy, Oxford University Press, 2007. One of the big questions that I wanted to understand for this design was how vulnerable Athens was to having its grain supplies cut off. The answer is that Athens had many sources of grain available on the market, but the Hellespont represented the most reliable on a regular basis. This work has answered this question to my satisfaction. Rusch, Scott M., Poliorcetic Assault in the Peloponnesian War, U of Penn., 1997 A doctoral dissertation that covers every assault on a fortified work during the entire period covered by this game. This nearly 1000 page paper confirmed my earlier rule in my VG design that this type of attack worked fifty percent of the time. Rusch, Scott M., Sparta at War 550-362, Frontline Books, 2011. A very detailed historical account of Spartan culture and strategy before, during, and after the war by the same author as the Assault paper. Siculus, Diordorus, The Persian Wars to the Fall of Athens Books 11-14.34 (480-401 BCE), University of Texas, 2010. This translation is by Peter Green (see above) and covers the entire period of this design. In the preface it quotes a commentator who says, “…the historian (Diordorus) whose work every modern historian of ancient Greece must use, while fervently wishing this could be avoided.” He survives, as he is the only voice that connects the entire 5th century into a complete narrative. Use with caution, especially when you consider his epic work was written several centuries after the events he describes based on sources we no longer possess. Thucydides, Son of Olorus, The Peloponnesian War, various English translations and editions. This is my favorite book, so I have read it many times and is our main source for this period. Over my lifetime I have read most of the available English translations. The one I would suggest is the Landmark Thucydides (Strassler translation) that has extensive maps with excellent summary notes in the margins. The Crawley translation is considered the truest to the original text and then there are the Finley, Warner, and Hammond translations. The great news is many translations of this legendary history are available at your local library (remember when this is how we obtained books) with several free or very inexpensive e-versions ($0.99). Xenophon, Hellenika, various English translations and editions If you read Thucydides you will realize that his history ends in 411 BC, almost in mid-sentence. So how, you ask, do we know how the war ended and who won? The answer is Xenophon’s history picks up where Thucydides left off and continues the story till its end. Clearly they were working together at some point. So, you need to read at a minimum the first third of Xenophon’s history if you want to see how the movie ends. CREDITS Game Design: Mark Herman Research: Carole Herman Game Development: Francisco Colmenares Art Director & Package Design: Rodger B. MacGowan Rules Editing: Steven Mitchell Rules, Playbook and Player Aid Cards: Charles Kibler Map, Counters and Card Decks: Francisco Colmenares and Knut Grunitz Proofreading: Jonathan Squibb Graphic Design: Peter Cluen and David Dockter Developmental Support: Steven Mitchell, Franciso Colmenares, JR Tracy, Jonathan Haber and David Dockter Producers: Gene Billingsley, Tony Curtis, Andy Lewis, Rodger MacGowan, and Mark Simonitch Production Coordination: Tony Curtis Playtesting: Carole Herman, Grant Herman, Dan Schriebstein, Jonathan Haber, Tom Stein, Ken Stein, James Diener, JR Tracy, William Terdoslavch, Steven Matthews, Scott Muldoon, Andy Lewis, Charles Finch, Gordon Pueschner, David Dockter, Chris Greenfield, Steven Mitchell, Drew Gilbert, Rory (Hawkeye) Aylward, Greg Schmittgens, Jim Lacey, Jimmy O., Wendell, Mark Mimh, Peter Perla, Richard Phares, Gary Gonzalez, and the 1st Minnesota Special Thanks to Francisco Colmenares (card design and all around graphic support), David Dockter (playtest map redesign), and Jonathan Haber with Cluen for his perspective and support for this design. GMT Games, LLC • P. O. Box 1308, Hanford, CA 93232-1308 • www. GMTGames. com © 2016 GMT Games, LLC
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