Britannia
April 18th, 2006Four of us played Britannia last night. I had fun, but mainly due to the company. My game experience itself was horrific. I can see why this game is a classic, but it is not my sort of thing.
The most important thing to mention is time. We had a half-hour rules explanation and started at 5pm. We screwed up the rules about activating nations completely, so restarted at 6pm and finished at 11.15pm – five hours and fifteen minutes later. It was a learning game and we were fumbling our way through the rules, but we tried to keep the game moving at a decent rate and I cannot see how the game could be pulled down to four hours without lots of experience.
I picked green, purely because that’s my normal colour. According to Lew Pulsipher’s introduction to the FAQ, it’s the weakest colour, so I should have been wary that I was going to get a trouncing. Green’s main nations are the Welsh, and the Danes. No one had played before and I was not told that the Romans would suddenly leave around 500AD (I should have considered that as I have an archaeology degree), so I did not submit to (ally with) the Romans immediately, but instead tried to see if I could stick it out. The Romans took offence to this and shoved the Welsh completely out of Wales, just leaving us a toehold in Cornwall. From that point onwards, 45 minutes in, my game was over as the Welsh are a slow but substantial income generator for the Greens. My advice to new Green players: hurl yourself at the Romans’ feet as soon as you possibly can. I cannot see why you would not. You give them a few victory points, but there is no benefit to you in hanging on. I will know next time, but my experience of the game after that was awful. Green’s other nations are marginal, until the Danes come along about two thirds of the way through. As it happens my Danes were crushed, due to poor dice rolls and worse decisions, but I cannot see how they could have pulled back my initial disadvantage. I wish I could have been eliminated completely, rather than having to wait around for another four hours.
On the positive side, this game has great historical flavour. The Dark Ages were never on any of my syllabuses, so, being the lazy student I was, I never read up on them. As a Briton, it was great to get a feel for movements of the different groups fighting over Britain at the time.
The components are great, although let down by the board. Why the blazes isn’t Britain green? Anyone who has felt a guilty pang of joy when peering out of a plane window flying back over the overcast fields surrounding Gatwick Airport will know why this matters.
Although I have played a few multiplayer wargames, I have not played one like this before. Unlike the others, this one strives to be very competitive, while keeping a firm grasp on historical narrative. You cannot play this casually purely for the experience or you will get destroyed.
Sadly, it is way too long for what it is. They may have refactored it for the 21st century but it still has a very 80’s playing time. The most damning thing you can say about Britannia is that you could almost play A Game of Thrones twice in the same duration.
Although last night was pretty awful, while I have been contemplating the game and writing about it, I have warmed to the idea of playing again. I might just have to leave it for a while so my wounds can heal.
4/10 – but that should climb with further plays. If it were three hours long, I would give it a 7 and be excited about exploring it more.
April 18th, 2006 at 11:16
Avalon Hill Britannia has green Britannia, looks nice except the green chits tend to blend in a bit.
It’s a nice game, and the theme is great, but I sold mine few years ago because of the length. I mean, I played it in three or so hours as a solitaire, so I can’t really see how it could play any faster without really extensive experience for each player.
The Green team is tough to play, I admit that. In general Britannia is a game that really benefits from everybody being familiar with the basic structure of the game. Otherwise the newbies tend to suffer and the experience is far from perfect.
Which is of course nice, considering the game takes hours to play – it’s a long time spent on educating people so you can enjoy the game properly. I for one won’t blame anyone for not going that route.
April 18th, 2006 at 11:20
I remember you posting about it back then, which was why I never bought it, but my friend did and it’s a classic, so I thought I should try it out.
You’re right, this is definitely a game that rewards many replays.
April 18th, 2006 at 16:59
I played it ages ago, but I actually remember it being a longer game than 3 hours. I seem to recall a play taking something like 5. My complaint at the time was the head-exploding scoring. Juggling all the nations and their varied scoring opportunities just seemed fiddly and hard. Knizia sometimes gets flak for complicated scoring, but nothing he’s done holds a candle to Britannia on that count.
Having said all that, now that it’s back in print I’ve been interested in giving it another shot myself, mainly because I have a lot more interest in and knowledge of the period than I did back then. But with expectations properly adjusted
April 18th, 2006 at 20:02
I didn’t find the scoring complicated, but it would be tough to remember all the scoring for all the other nations while making your moves.
I’m very interested in hearing what you have to say.
April 18th, 2006 at 22:50
I agree with cfarrell – the scoring is complex. I had trouble enough juggling my own Dubliners and Norwegians to max their combined score, but trying to understand the scoring of other players as well was just too tough. Territory-wise, a zero-sum game would certainly be simpler.
As a relative new-comer to games, I found the rule mechanics less taxing than the playing strategy, which has to be a good thing.
We all agreed that Welsh submission to Roman rule must be better than trying to fight it out. I suspect that wouldn’t work, even if no nation submitted to Roman rule. The only advantage to me of wailing on the Welsh was that the Romano-British had a nice bolt-hole after the Romans left – fighting any English nation wouldn’t give the same security. But, running off to Wales, even though they survived the entire game, didn’t actually generate many points – after the initial fighting, they only gained twelve more VPs in the whole match. They might have been better off fighting all the way down instead.
My Roman play was obviously not aggressive enough in the North, but I think I scored better than I might normally have expected to. I had 99 points by the time the Romans left, and a large part of that was due to holding all the right territories at the end of turn five. I wonder if the turn five invaders would have been more aggressive toward my remaining forces if they knew what they were worth to me?
Smashing the Picts might have led to a very different result, as blue must have made about 100 points off them. No other player looked competitive in Scotland until the last couple of rounds.
I’m not sure if the Irish and the Dubliners were lucky to establish lasting territories in England – I guess your survivability depends in part on what the major nations are up to when you land.
I was never in a position to be kingmaker or king, so that part of the game passed me by.
The thing I’m left guessing about is what the major invasions in the last two turns are worth. The hilarious elimination of much of the Normans’ attacking power by my Romano-British must be atypical, and I can’t work out who would normally be best able to maneuver their leader and forces into decisive battles.
April 19th, 2006 at 08:47
I agree that the scoring system is complex to play well, but at least it’s intuitive. Some of Reiner Knizia’s scoring systems are a bit obscure.
You didn’t seem like a new comer to games to me! You played very well. I can’t remember who the turn 5 invaders were?
There’s no doubt it’s an interesting game, it just outstayed it’s welcome for me. I’m sure I’ll enjoy a rematch more.
April 21st, 2006 at 10:36
The Turn 5 invaders are the Saxons and Jutes, followed by the Angles a turn or two later. As the Saxons I didn’t mind the Romans scoring well at that point because I wanted to save up my raiders to make the most of my major invasion later.
I thought the scoring was quite quick when people were just shouting out the points as they racked them up and allowing the other players to count them up. I would definitely use the paper scoring track to record the end of round scores in future though.
In terms of how the scoring affects the game play I think it was one of those games where you focus on your own scoring goals and let the other players work on theirs. Scoring Rounds are tough on players who go early in the round because you have to make a lot of guesses about how the situation will develop. However you know that you are not going to hold everything you want so you need to spread your chances.
Iain as Green put all his eggs in one basket twice in the game (Kent as the Jutes and York as the Danes) and suffered as a result.
The end game leader situation is an interesting one. Harold the Saxon would probably like to defeat Harald the Dane but will probably lose territory to William. William would like to blitz through Southern England and eliminate both Harolds making himself king.
As the Normans I would be tempted to attack Harold during Turn 15 at all costs and then hoover up English provinces if I could not reach Harald in the Second Move turn or Turn 16. Normans seem to have a big offensive for small numbers that would reward aggressive play.
April 23rd, 2006 at 21:54
I agree I stuffed up the Danes, but I thought I did OK with the Jutes. They are weak and only score decent points from Kent.