Thinking of Britannia

One of my groups has played this a few times lately (finally!!), and after mulling it over I have some thoughts to the ‘straight jacket’ critique that I had read so much about.

Britannia’s wide timeline covers enough conflicts to make many, many wargames of. If you think about it, most of these invasions and conflicts could be developed, packaged, and sold as their own wargames. Say for example, Saxons v Normans. This example wargame would have its own set of asymmetrical historical rules for the sides: when certain units come into play, how some units attack, leader specific rules, etc.

However, since the time scale of Britannia is scaled out as far as it is, the rules need to incorporate all of these little historical necessities that would be in all these separate wargames. I can see how some might say that all of these rules are confining, but I think that only really implies if one thinks the game should be more open and free-form like Risk, but doing so you would lose all sense of history. The history that smaller scaled wargames are crucified if aren’t included properly.

Maybe I’m an apologist because I _want_ to like this game, but I find it amazing that the designer was able to incorporate all of these historical nods, for all these multiple conflicts, in a somewhat easy system. Much less the fact that not only are there multiple historical conflicts to take into consideration amongst multiple nationalities, but that it’s as balanced as it’s reported to be (I can’t speak to this after only a few plays).

Truly a great game, and I can see why it has stood the test of time. The only real problem I have is…how can I resist buying it? I've successfully gone down to 5 boardgames and I know folks with Britannia...I think I'm already on deck for NH 3.0, so I'd have to move two games to bring in Brit. Maybe I'll wait a few years for the (supposed) reprint and in the meantime play other folks' copies...

Mr. White wrote: The only real problem I have is…how can I resist buying it? ...

I have no problem resisting games by Lew Pulsipher.

Near as I can tell he simply has some different opinions. Do you only associate with folks you agree with 100% of the time?

Regardless, for some reason, opinions seem to carry more weight than actions. It's not like he's done anything half as bad as FFG (treatment of Wings of Glory designers) or GW (treatment of Tom Anders among so many others) yet they seem to get passes...

When I saw this thread title, the first thing that came to mind was the old quote, "Lie back and think of England."

Mr. White wrote: Near as I can tell he simply has some different opinions. Do you only associate with folks you agree with 100% of the time?

Regardless, for some reason, opinions seem to carry more weight than actions. It's not like he's done anything half as bad as FFG (treatment of Wings of Glory designers) or GW (treatment of Tom Anders among so many others) yet they seem to get passes...

I associate with folks I respect but thanks for the snark.