David Buckland - 12:26am Oct 15, 1998 PST (#38 of 39) Alfred/Rick: I have had Peninsula Italica for a little while, but only got around to playing it recently (perhaps 'trying to play it' is more accurate). Although I am going from memory (so please bear with me if I get any details wrong), I am fairly sure that it is not a follow-on to Hispania, or linked in any way to the Azure Wish game (more's the pity). It seems to have been first published in 1993, which would put it before Maharajah & Hispania, both of which are 1994 titles. The designer, whose name I cannot recall, was Italian, as indeed is Camelot (the publisher). As to whether the missing rules are important: if you have played others in the sequence, then you can probably muddle through. One example was that nowhere in the rules was there any coverage of Major Invasions. Several of the individual peoples in the game arrive via an "Invasione" according to their cards (others just arrive normally), and this would indicate a parallel with Britannia et al, in which these major arrivals are marked by a double turn for the invaders. The rules are silent on this subject. Just as serious are the problems with the rules that are there. The copy I have appears to be the 2nd Edition, and there seem to have been some major changes from the earlier version, not all for the better. PI has just three types of unit: infantry, archers (or elite infantry), and cavalry. Each have a purchase cost and a maintenance cost. In the 1st Edition, this was 5/1 (respectively) for infantry, the cheapest units, while this is increased to 10/2 in the 2nd. This creates a difficulty in that there is a restriction on the amount of unexpended population/resources that can be carried over from any one turn: 4 points. This in turn makes it very difficult for anyone to "grow" extra forces without owning most of the good terrain in Italy. In fact, given that all three unit types cost 2 in maintenance, but half the areas produce 2 or less in income, the At Start peoples have great difficulty even maintaining themselves, let alone growing. Moving to more subjective points, I thought the combat system was a step backwards. Unlike the other games, here each force (attacker and defender) totals their combat points: 1 point for infantry, 2 for cavalry, etc. One die is rolled for the entire force (rather than per unit), and casualties inflicted, depending upon the size of the force, and modifiers to the die roll (attacking cavalry in plain get a positive modifier, for example). I felt that this was less interesting than the individual unit rolls of the other games - since 4 points is bound to inflict at least one casualty point, combats against enemy "garrisons" frequently become sure things. For those who want to know more about PI, it is very definitely the Plain Jane of the series: a player's peoples have a common colour, but apart from the name of the people (Etrusci, Siculi, Sardi, etc.) at the bottom of the counter, one infantry/archer/cavalry counter is identical to another of the same type. The game covers approximately 2000 years up to the outbreak of the 1st Punic War on a map of Italy (plus Sardinia & Corsica) divided into 50-odd areas of mountain, forest, plain, & marsh. There are therefore slightly more areas than in most of the other games, but the map is smaller (much of it sea). Our suspicion was that the game might work reasonably well by importing wholesale the rule set from another in the series. However, as only two of our group had played anyof these other games, and we were not certain about this, we decided to abandon PI for something less opaque. I have not yet managed to take a more detailed look at PI, to see whether it could work under these circumstances (play balance, for example, would be an issue, as it is with the other games). Despite the negatives in the preceding paragraphs, I am hopeful that PI contains the bones of a good game, and for others who liked Britannia et al, it might be a good investment. On the other hand, to be avoided if it is your first foray with the system.