I really love the boutique publishers in our hobby space. They are able to be much more agile than larger publishers and seem to turn out games that are unique, both in their covered subjects, and in their mechanics and game play. Hollandspiele is one of the best of the smaller boutique publishers and we have played dozens of their great games. Because of their print on demand model, they are able to put other more eclectic games that may or not be more commercially successful and because of this tend to take more chances on their releases. Earlier this spring, I became aware of one of their new games set in the time of Caesar and the Roman Republic called Beware the Ideas of March: The Liberator’s Civil War. The game was promoted as an operational sandbox game that allows players the freedom to explore possible different outcomes than the historical result. Historically, the Liberator’s Civil War pitted the Second Triumvirate, consisting of Octavian and Mark Antony, against Caesar’s assassins Brutus and Cassius and only required a few battles to decide the outcome. In this First Impressions post, I want to talk about my thoughts on the game and its systems as well as my challenge to the thesis of the design as an operational sandbox.

Operational Sandbox?

Well, when you take a look at the game board it becomes readily apparent that the game sets out to attack the conflict as larger than it actually was as the board focuses on an area covering from Hispania in the west, the coasts of North Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, the Italian peninsula, Greece and as far east as Asian Minor and Egypt. The game evens abstracts the frontiers of the Roman Republic of the time with Gaul being reduced to a box on the top of the board. The map definitely leads the players to believe the game will be massive and take a look at the war across fronts other than historical.

But the reality of the situation is that most of the fighting will be done in Greece as both sides can ferry their troops across those bodies of water without risking too much with concerns over stormy seas and the loss of their boats. As you look at the board, you will see two different colors of sea hexes; one being light blue (the shallow coastal seas) and the other being a darker shade of blue (open sea). These areas are differentiated in the player’s likelihood of encountering stormy weather that can do damage to their fleets and transports, damaging or even outright sinking them or whether their movement will be for naught and they will make no progress as they will have to retrace their steps and return to their starting point. This choice to include these types of dangers really challenge the thesis of an operational sandbox. If I cannot get to and from parts of the sandbox realistically, that makes it less possible to get to explore the sandbox.

The other thing that you will notice about the game board is that there are control cylinders placed out in several of the controlled areas of each side consisting of different colors. These control cylinders are difficult to place because you have to control an area but for it to remain once your army moves through you will have to leave a unit there as a garrison or it will be removed. This is problematic as you just don’t have enough units realistically to leave in these areas as you need them to beat up on your opponents. We found that this really limited the operational sandbox options and feasibility. To expand you need to reduce your force but in doing that you simply become weaker and combat is where this one is ultimately decided.

Thirdly, the control doesn’t really gain you any significant advantage. You don’t earn victory points. You don’t really gain access to any significant additional troops. You also cannot win a victory from controlling most of the areas. The only benefit is that as you control more of these areas, your chances of recruiting your units increase but only very marginally. If you look at the picture below, you will notice if you have 4 control cylinders out you will be having to roll a 5. So this means that when you do attempt to recruit you will theoretically be successful on rolling a 5 or 6 on a six sided die or 33% of the time. To get to the next number up you have to control an additional 3 areas with your control cylinders. This increases your chances from 33% to 50%. Sure that is better and you will now be able to be more successful in your recruiting efforts but it takes a lot of effort and a real dilution of your forces strength to accomplish. It just isn’t realistically feasible to focus on this aspect. It just isn’t!

I really found myself thinking that early in the design process the game was more wide open and you could actually do more and placing control cylinders out was important but then it feels like it got changed. Changed and the description wasn’t changed. Not intentionally. Not to deceive but just changed. And I just think that it left something that was probably good about the design off. I have no proof of that. No insider information. But that is what my gut tells me. And I really wish that it hadn’t changed (if it did!)

Combat System is Very Bloody

One of the things that I did really like about the design was the nature of the combat system. The system is an odds ratio style of system where attacking units strengths are totaled on both sides and then the ratio is expressed by comparing the attacker strength to the defender’s strength. If the attacker has 8 strength and defender has 4 strength this is a 2:1 ratio. Pretty simple. These factor comparisons will be rounded mathematically so 8 strength attacking 5 will be 2:1 still but 8 to 6 is considered 1:1. Very familiar. But the good part is the Combat Results Table.

On the left side of the appropriate column will be the attacker’s results and on the right side is the defender’s result. All really pretty standard stuff. But the results are expressed in a number which correlates to a percentage of units lost. For example, on the 2:1 column, if a 3 is rolled, the attacker will take 10% losses while the defender will take 20% losses. This is specifically the number of units and not their relative strengths as some units like Legions provide 2 strength.

If you attack at a 2:1 odds with 5 units to the defenders 3 units this means the attacker will lose 10% or 1 unit (0.5 rounded up) and the defender will lose 1 unit (0.6 rounded up) but you don’t have to actually do any math to calculate it. Just refer to the handy dandy Loss Converter Table located on the back of the rule book. Easy. I don’t know what about that is so good but it just seems well done.

You will also take note that on the CRT there are letters in addition to the numerical results. These are things like R (Retreat), DE (Defender Eliminated) and the dreaded AE (Attacker Eliminated). There also are colors and how this is handled is the colors are reference to potential Leader losses in that combat. If there is white text in the result this means you roll on the Leader Loss Table which means you might lose that leader.

There also is the question mark (?) which means a combat can continue at the attacker’s decision. This really made these combats bloody as you could theoretically wipe out an entire enemy stack if your rolls are good and you get several follow-up attacks. Just really well done and simple but bloody and pretty decisive. This game is made for those who enjoy fighting and is done really well. I loved the combat!

Political Elements Seemed to Not Make an Impact

One of the things that seemed to be highlighted in the rules was the impact of the political realm on the game. In fact, the rules said the following:

“As much as this is a game about victory and defeat on the battlefield, it is a political struggle.”

When reading this in the rules I thought to myself that I needed to hold onto my hat as we are going to be wheeling and dealing, making and breaking alliances, dying to turn the other side to each other’s cause, etc. With the focus of the topic of the assassination of Caesar and then the devolution of Rome into factions for their ongoing civil war you would think that this made total sense! But that never really materialized in the game.

The only real political conceit that made an appearance was that of Prestige and how your cause was seen by the Ancient world of this time. Back to the Recruit table we go where players will receive a +1 DRM for High Prestige, -1 DRM for Very Low Prestige and then an unrelated -1 DRM for it being Winter. That is really the sum total of your political effects on the game. It can cause your opponent to lose hold on their Provinces. These are where they have placed out their control cylinders as well as a garrison unit. And remember this just gives you a marginal benefit on recruiting units. No VP’s. No real benefit that makes a difference in the context of the game.

Even the invasions by barbarians weren’t really impactful for the same reasons. This Political aspect just seemed to fall flat and really didn’t make that big of a difference.

Production

My final point with the game is that it is absolutely gorgeous! The board is very well done and you know how much I love board art! The artist is Ilya Kudriashov who has done quite a few games for Hollandspiele and with this effort he really outdid himself. I think that this one is worthy of being framed and hung on my wall as well as having a Beautiful Boards of Wargaming post done about it! It is just exquisite.

You really get your money’s worth on the board and the components are also really nice yet simple counters, control cylinders and markers. A really well made game.

I really wanted to like Beware the Ides of March. For the topic. For the designer. For the great looking production and the setting. But, in the end, for me the game just fell flat. I think that it feels like to me that the game was grander in scope and design at one point and then a change was made to downsize the game without reducing the size of the board. It just didn’t do enough well for me to regularly return to this one. And that is a shame.

If you are interested, you can watch our review video at the following link:

-Grant