Hannibal maneuvered for 15 years, can you?

[Treefrog]

The AAR focuses on an intro level game that lasted 7 turns.

Turn 1 Hannibal took everybody from Spain again (I suspect at higher levels of play the Romans punish the Carthaginians for this), crossed through Gaul (dropping a commander to recruit) and captured 3 cities in Cispaline Gaul while playing the Gaulic Aid card. All forces recruited.

Turn 2 the Senate ordered reinforcements from Carthage to Spain. All forces recruited.

Turn 3 all forces recruited. The Romans continued to wander around.

Turn 4 the Spaniards forced marched (loss 4) to Italy along with the 3 Gauls from Gaul. Hannibal now has about 35 factors.

Turn 5 Hannibal starts to maneuver. He captures Arinimum and moves into Umbria-Samnium (he can't use the secret mountain pass card because the beseiging force of 5 left behind must have free passage through mountain pass) with all but 5 infantry, plays the "reduce 2 Roman stacks by one unit" to eliminate a legion in both the major cities, leaving them with a garrison of 4 plus a commander. Hannibal now stands with 30 units in a "strong" Roman recruiting area. Hannibal left a "no recruit" area to enter a "strong" recruit area, reducing Roman recruiting to the unbeseiged city. The 5 infantry army moves in and beseiged the 4 unit garrison in the inland major city of Umbria-Samnium. Carthage only recruits in Spain, which force is now up to 6.

Rome reacts by capturing all the Cispaline Gaul cities. CaG has no recruits left, so this has no practical effect. Hannibal has 2 Punic Tricks cards, but the Roman don't try to lift the seige in Umbria-Samnium.
Rome finishes with 12 units in Genoa and 20 mobile units in Rome.

Turn 6 campaign phase starts with reduction of garrison in the inland major city which is beseiged by the 5 factor army. The attack is done by Hannibal and his stack (less 2 elephants lost to Roman cards). Hannibal returns to his intercept position and plays a "raise an Italian card" while the 5 factor army lays seige to the major port city in Umbria-Samnium. It is hoped that by reducing these recruiting cities the Roman will be drawn into a pitched battle in Umbria-Samnium. If Hannibal doesn't like what he faces, he'll try to play the "retreat card" of Hannibal on the March (frankly, I don't think you can do this in the Introductory level, but I was will).

The Romans refuse the bait and consolidate both their field armies at Pisa with 37 factors. Hannibal has unsuccessfully tried to maneuver the Romans into a pitched battle by beseiging one of their two best recruiting areas. However, the Romans have left Rome periously weak with only its initial garrison of 6 plus 2 Urban Cohorts and two commanders!![:-]

Turn 7 Hannibal takes command initiative in Umbria-Samnium, lifts the seige and consolidates the two new Italian infantry into a 36 factor force. He avoids attrition losses by slipping across the mountains with a "secret pass" card, arriving south of Rome without interception because the only Roman field army is in Pisa. [X(]

Hannibal launches the attack. To demonstrate the power of the Roman fortifications and two cohorts rolling 2 dice with a bonus, the defenders inflict 1 hit and 8 routs in the first round of combat!! Kudos to them. [&o] In the end, numbers tell and within 5 rounds Rome falls.

[nalivayko]

Nice, my attempts to sneak an assault on Rome usually end with disaster, even if only a garrison is present and the commanding officer is merely a step above idiot.