Neil Randall (nrandall) Please do not post to this thread - I'd like to keep this restricted to official clarifications and corrections without discussion. Please post questions or discussion to a separate thread. - Thanks, Neil 1. Clarification to 9.5: "Campaign cards allow two or more leaders and their armies to be activated"... 2. Correction to 8.1: "For each new Legion raised, the Crisis marker is immediately moved 1 space towards Anarchy." [not 2 spaces] - the Player-Aid card and 20.3 are correct. 3. Correction to Scenario Setups: Legates should not be placed in the Proconsul Pool. 4. Clarification on Cards 68 and 69, Minor Campaign: These are Republican Event cards, as the icon denotes. Ignore the last sentence of text. 5. Clarification to Summary of Political Control Changes table (p. 17): add the highlighted clause to point #1 - "1. To convert ENEMY Major City or Tribal spaces, or NEUTRAL Major City spaces, to your political control, you besiege (major cities) or subjugate (tribal spaces); 6. Correction to 12.2: 12.2 Interception: The inactive player may attempt interception when the active player’s force moves into a space adjacent to an inactive force not already occupied by a CU belonging to the active player (exception: a force may intercept into a major city space containing friendly CUs if the CUs were previously declared to be inside the city - see 18.4). 7. Correction to 23.2.3: Determine the number of battle cards for the attacker and the defender and deal out the required number of cards from the battle deck. The maximum number of battle cards per hand is 13 battle cards. The base amount for each side is two battle cards, with other battle card allocation determined as follows: 8. Modify 16.2.1 as follows: "Enemy PCs are converted in the space adjacent to a Republican army by expending 1MP per space converted (or 2 MP if the space is across a mountain pass) 9. Add to 13.0: For the battle, the active player may use only as many CUs as his generals can command; the defender may use all CUs in the battle space. 10. Clarification to 16.2.1: In the first line, change "An army conducts" to "A force conducts" 11. Correction to 5.2 and Play-Aid card: The sequence of play and the play-aid card say that you don't do the Consular Election Phase in any scenario. In fact, you do that phase in Scenarios I and II. The scenario setups are correct in this regard for all scenarios. 12. Clarification on card #62, "Danger in the Provinces": A clearer instruction on this card would be, "Play if at least one of the following regions is completely free of Republican combat units: Spain, Gaul, or Asia Minor." 13. Clarification to 7.2.4: Lepidus may not leave Etruria after his placement until Etruria is Sertorian-controlled (unless it already is at that instant, a very rare occurrence). Once this condition has been met, Lepidus's Etruria restriction is lifted. 14. Add to 5.10.3 Republican Crisis Track Adjustment: Adjust the track due to any end of turn adjustments--see 20.3 and 20.4. All adjustments towards Stability are done first, followed by all adjustments towards Anarchy. 15. Clarification to card #37, "Slave Army Enamored with Italy": Units from the activated Servile force may not be dropped off. 16. Change to 13.1, step #3, first sentence (i.e., the combat sequence): Each player rolls a number of dice equal to the number of steps he has in his force, up to a maximum of three. 17. Change to 23.5, Additional Republican Reinforcements: Remove the “(Optional Rule)” designation from Rule 23.5, "Additional Republican Reinforcements". 23.5 is now a standard rule. 18. Change 20.4, bullet point #1 (and to the corresponding bullet point on the play-aid card) as follows: • Number of provinces anywhere on the map (except Italy) controlled by the Republican player: 1 space per province (Victory Check Phase)—calculated every turn Neil Randall (nrandall) To all Spartacus players: John Firer and I have read and discussed all the various postings about Spartacus (thanks for these, folks). We have decided that the following two changes will address these comments simply and effectively (which is our goal for any change). - Neil Randall Change #1. Remove the “(Optional Rule)” designation from Rule 23.5, "Additional Republican Reinforcements". 23.5 is now a standard rule. Change #2. Change 20.4, bullet point #1 (and to the corresponding bullet point on the play-aid card) as follows: • Number of provinces anywhere on the map (except Italy) controlled by the Republican player: 1 space per province (Victory Check Phase)—calculated every turn Note that the change here is “(except Italy)” – therefore, provinces in the Region of Italy (which includes Sicily) are not counted by the Republican player. ------ Rationale The two primary issues raised have been (1) the difficulty for the Republican player to get reinforcements and (2) the unlikelihood for the Crisis Track to move significantly towards Anarchy until late in the game. Here are the official changes to the rules addressing these: 23.5: The Additional Republican Reinforcements rule was used in several games during development. We considered it for inclusion in the standard rules, but in some games (certainly not all) the Republican player managed to recruit legions significantly above the historical number. However, when combined with the greater emphasis on the Crisis Track introduced with the second change, this rule now has proven to work effectively, and it provides the Republican player with more options and a stronger ability to recover from battle disasters. 20.4: During development, we tested the game with and without the Republican player counting the Italian provinces. In the end we decided against excluding them, but player comments, combined with our own subsequent tests, have convinced us to rescind that decision. The game’s initial design focused very strongly on the Crisis Track, in fact too strongly, but allowing the Republican player to count the Italian provinces causes the Crisis Track to have very little focus until the second half of the game. This change brings the Crisis Track more sharply into focus once again, and in fact, when combined with moving 23.5 to the standard rules, forces the Republican player in particular to manage crisis points extremely carefully. We can also easily rationalize this rule from an historical standpoint: the people and politicians of the Republican expected the home provinces to be kept free of invaders (the fear of invasion had lingered since the days of Hannibal); there was nothing positive about Republican control, but much negative about not having this control. Frank McNally (FrankM) Any reason why the goal of #2 was not accomplished by excluding Asian provinces until Mith appears? I thought these free Roman provinces were the primary cause of Roman stability in the early game. I suppose exlcuding Italian provinces is much more potent and has the sense of not getting credit for what ought to be taken for granted. Neil Randall (nrandall) It was another option, but see my added sentence to the end of the rationale. The fact is that the Republic did control provinces in Asia Minor, and that was considered a positive thing. So it makes sense for the Republic to count those provinces. Your final sentence is exactly correct.