My Favorite Wargame Cards – A Look at Individual Cards from My Favorite Games – Card #25: Maximus Decimus Meridius from The Wars of Marcus Aurelius: Rome 170-180CE from Hollandspiele

With this new My Favorite Wargame Cards Series, I hope to take a look at a specific card from the various wargames that I have played and share how it is used in the game. I am not a strategist and frankly I am not that good at games but I do understand how things should work and be used in games. With that being said, here is the next entry in this series.

Card #25: Maximus Decimus Meridius from The Wars of Marcus Aurelius: Rome 170-180CE from Hollandspiele

The Wars of Marcus Aurelius: Rome 170-180CE is a solitaire only game that uses cards similarly to a CDG to simulate the strategic level struggle of the Romans led by Marcus Aurelius to stave off the invasions of Germanic tribes and Sarmatian raiders as they encroach on Roman territory across the Danube River. That’s the history. And it is really well integrated. The game play is very fun, strategic, with lots of decision points about what to do and what cards to use, and it is really challenging.

One of my favorite parts of the game is the combat. You have a standing army that you assign a leader and also place on a specific track that is attacking barbarian hordes in that region and have to go about trying to destroy them and quell their resistance to Roman rule. This combat is brutal and sometimes is very challenging if you don’t have the right leader, enough soldiers and the right cards in hand. One of my favorite cards in the game is Maximus Decimus Meridius because it provides an answer to your leadership problem if Marcus Aurelius is currently not at his best. I also like it because it gives us an ahistorical look at the character of Maximus Decimus Meridius that we all know from the Ridley Scott film Gladiator played so well by Russell Crowe.

This card has a very interesting ability in that the event actually acts as the required discard to initiate a battle and provides an additional benefit. In the game, when the player wishes to initiative a combat, they must first discard a card from their hand and the printed event is wasted. This is the cost of battle as you have to support your troops with supply and fresh men and can’t get something for nothing. You will use this card to attack a Barbarian tribe with an army that is being headed by Marcus Aurelius but instead of using Marcus’s Combat Value, which is either a +1 (if he is demoralized or +3 at full strength) you will use Maximums Decimus Meridius’s combat value of +4 instead. This is a fantastic combat oriented event that can turn your fortunes and give you the ability to win a battle that you might not have had any business fighting in the first place.

Maximus Decimus Meridius is a wholly fictional character who didn’t exist historically but was created for the film. But, although he did not exist, it seems as if he could have been a composite of several actual historical figures. In the film, Maximus was Marcus Aurelius’ general in charge of the campaign in Germania. There was in fact a general by the name of Avidius Cassius, who was involved in the military campaign shown in the film, and, upon hearing a rumor of Marcus Aurelius’ death, declared himself Emperor. He however, was assassinated by his own soldiers and never got to live out the grand life shown in the film. It is true that there was, in the later Empire, a General by the name of Maximus who appears to have had revolutionary intentions. He is most likely an inspiration as well but not the character depicted.

Maximus can also possibly remind us of the Emperor Diocletian. Remember that in the film, Marcus Aurelius names Maximus as his heir after he had a long discussion with his son Commodus and felt that he was unworthy to rule in his stead after his death. Diocletian, who ruled Rome from 284 to 305 CE, was born in the lower classes, like the character Maximus. He eventually became his emperor’s trusted favorite and bodyguard gaining favor and proving himself fit for leadership, and later became a general. Finally he was named heir, and thus became Emperor. A nice tie back to some actual historical people but Maximus was a non-historical addition to the game which can be somewhat supported from history.

I shot a playthrough video for the game and you can watch that at the following link: