Our first playthrough of Hannibal & Hamilcar (2018 version) from PHALANX. This one has been on our shelf of shame for a while now and we wanted to get at least an initial play in before the end of 2019. We need to play this some more as we had a difficult time with the strategy of what to do with the mighty Hannibal as he was frustrated by the difficulty of naval movement (because the cards didn’t help) and maintaining a consistent force to attack the Romans.
-Grant
The Players' Aid 
Alexander / Grant,
I have the original Avalon Hill version (Hannibal; Rome vs. Carthage). It doesn’t have individual scenarios; you basically play the entire 2nd Punic War (9 turns). The winner is the player with the most political points, although there are sudden death/automatic victory conditions for both players. So sounds like the new version is different in some respects.
I took this game with me to the 13-week Defense Systems Management College course and played the heck out of it. The game is definitely asymmetrical in that the two sides have different strengths and weaknesses. For the Carthaginians to win, they need to win early as Rome just gets stronger and stronger the longer the game progresses. Their sudden death victory conditions are to control Rome or all provinces in Italy except Latium. That means they will need to be super aggressive and use Hannibal’s generalship to destroy one Roman army after another. So it is possible to obtain a non-historical outcome — I’ve done it — it’s just very difficult to achieve. It really helps if the Roman play keeps getting inept Consuls. By the time Scipio Africanus enters the game, it’s just a matter of time until the Romans win.
I may get the new version to see how it stacks up with the original. Keep the great reviews coming.
Dave
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