Looking for game for Punic Wars and Gallic Warfare

[Al Amos]

Good links went to them before.... had some seventy links before a computer meltdown :-(

Cohort in Ceasar's time consisted of six centuries. No overall leader to it, just six centuries working together, kind of like a 'group' in Paul's game engine. It works, a player can deploy the cohort over two, three or six hexes depending upon the tactical situation. If they are strong enough I prefer deploying in three hexes with two centuries each. That gives a nice one-two punch in melee during the phases. The phases, and the ability of both centuries (or three if stacked that way) meleeing shows (abstractly...but then we don't really know how they really did it) of how the Romans rotated units to the front (presumably during the many lulls during a battle.) To allow the cohort (group) to move within the confines of the engine a leader must be added. I add three leaders representing the six centurians and asst ldrs found in a cohort. This gives the group a bit of reslience compared to a Gallic group (tribe) with only a single leader per 5-7 combat units. Its a fair representation.

As Ceasar's campaigns continued his number of legions increased but the strength of those legions shrank. So for larger battles with several legions, I recommend having single counter cohorts. At say 360men that would represent six -60 man centuries, a bit weak, but workable. The formation within the hex could be imagined as being six wide, four files per century (In the game each rank is considered to be 24 files) with 15 ranks deep. Or, you could envision three centuries wide with two centuries deep. In that case each century would be eight files wide and 7 or 8 ranks deep. The posterier centuries would be behind the Prior centuries, and we could imagine an internal rotation during each phase.

So the game engine can support the legion if using centuries formed in maniples or in cohorts. It's not perfect, no game is, but it is fun and a good representation of history .... since we don't know exactly what happened back then... but battles fought with this engine do end up with similar results we read about from the historical battles.

I read, I learn, I grow.

al