Britannia (board game)
Britannia is a strategy board game, first released and published in 1986 by Gibsons Games in the United Kingdom, and The Avalon Hill Game Company in 1987 in the United States, and most recently updated in late 2008 as a re-release of the 2005 edition, produced by Fantasy Flight Games. It broadly depicts the wars in, and migrations to, the island of Great Britain in the centuries from the Roman invasions to the Norman Conquest. "Britannia" was selected among the anthology "" and is ranked by members of the Board Game Geek site in the top 350  of over 10,000 ranked games. "Britannia" has spawned a subgenre of wargames characterized by epic time scales with players taking the part of multiple tribes or nations over the course of the game. Gameplay. "Britannia" is a 3-5 player game that takes about four hours to complete. Primary rules are for four players using the counter colours, but there are variant scenarios for three and five players, as well as a 3-player shorter Game and several short 2-player scenarios. Each player controls several nations. The game begins with one army in each area of Britain, with each  part of the island occupied by different nations: the Belgae, Welsh, Brigantes, Caledonians (representing the distinctive Broch culture) and Picts. A force of Romans begin in the English Channel and are the first nation to move. Through their superior fighting power and mobility the Romans will come to dominate most of the board, but eventually the Roman Empire will withdraw their forces from Britain completely, leaving behind just the scattered Romano-British. Meanwhile, throughout the game, further nations arrive from across the seas: the Irish and Scots, and later the Dubliners, from the west; the Norsemen from the north; the  Saxons, Angles, Danes and Norwegians from the east; the Jutes and Normans from the south. All of these nations will compete with each other, as well as the existing nations, for turf. Some nations will be destroyed, and the recurring theme in "Britannia" is that nations will rise and fall. However all nations will make their contribution to a player's Victory Point total and eventual victory or defeat. At the end of the game all four players will have the possibility to become the King of England through their control of Harold the Saxon, William of Normandy, Harald Hardrada  and Svein Estrithson. It is possible that no nation will be king if all four of these leaders have been killed or if they lack the required number of regions. However this in itself will not determine who will win the game. Nations take their turns in strict order, each taking one turn in each Game Round. Each nation's turn has five phases. A nation is made up of several different playing pieces: The player whose nations have achieved the highest Victory Point total at the end of the game is the winner. Nations can score Victory Points on  any Game Round, such as for eliminating certain opposing pieces or temporarily capturing certain areas, but will mostly score for holding different areas of Britain during the Scoring Rounds of Round V, VII, X, XIII and XVI. Also nations can score additional points by achieving Bretwalda or King of England. Nations all have their own Victory Point objectives listed on their Nation cards, and each player colour will accumulate Victory Points at different rates through the game. This means that at any given moment who is actually winning will not be immediately obvious. Experienced players develop an idea of what  typical scores are at different stages of a game and so will be able to tell what is really going on. An ideal game ends with a close finish with several players still being able to win, and the outcome resting on one battle or roll of the dice. Development history. This game was created by Lewis Pulsipher in 1983 under the working title of "Invasions". It was first published by Gibsons Games as "Britannia" from 1986 in the United Kingdom in two slightly different versions after development by Roger Heyworth. A German-language version was released by Welt der  Spiele and the game was later republished in the United States by Avalon Hill. The game developed a devoted following across the world, generating variants and additions. One of the most popular additions was the 'Oh Danny Boy' By Jim Lawler, which included a variant for the First Edition rules. The rules included Isle of Man (part of England) and 4 Irish areas, an extra leader 'Brian Boru' was also an option. In 2003, after a long break from board game work and having regained the publishing rights, Lewis Pulsipher announced he would be extensively revising the game, a great  deal of player input contributed to the revision, which not only tidied up the rules, but also brought in a number of new features. Consequently, the newest version published by Fantasy Flight Games is sometimes known as "Britannia Second Edition", or "Britannia II". This version was first published in 2005, and when the first print run sold out a reprint was produced in 2008, incorporating all official errata and corrections, as well as new language versions in German, French, Spanish and Hungarian. The Fantasy Flight version went out of print in mid-2012. A new edition, including two new, shorter games  (one diceless) using new boards has been developed by Pulsipher, the designer. This was published in 2020 by PSC Games. It includes a two-player 'Duel Britannia' game. Pulsipher is said to be working on 'Epic Britannia', an extension to include the Isle of Man and six areas in Ireland. Other possible options include extra Welsh leaders and Danish Burhs. Changes between versions. At each stage of development and publication of "Britannia" changes were made to the rules of the game, as well as to the scenario and materials: Reimplementation. The game "Maharaja", also published by Avalon Hill, reimplemented the  same system, on the Indian subcontinent. Other published designs using systems developed from the "Britannia" pattern with additional complexity include "Hispania", covering the Iberian peninsula and "Italia", covering Italy.