Co-designer of Battalion: War of the Ancients, the award-winning Paolo Mori digs into the creative process behind our ancient history board wargame in this design diary...
This time, as with my previous Designer Diary on these pages, I'm talking about another game that has its roots in an earlier one. Battalion: War of the Ancients, which will be released at the end of November by Osprey Games, rises from the ashes of Pocket Battles, the pocket wargame series co-designed with Francesco Sirocchi, originally published by Z-Man Games in 2008. However, and more so than ever, this cannot be considered just a 'new edition.'
After our publishing contract for Pocket Battles expired, Francesco and I knew the game's life still wasn't over. We enjoyed playing it too much (despite its many 'flaws') to not imagine it returning in some form. And so we decided to start working on it again, aiming to find a new publisher or even try the crowdfunding route. Meanwhile, Osprey Games had released David Thompson and Trevor Benjamin’s Undaunted, a game we immediately fell in love with for its blend of wargame and eurogame mechanics, production standard, and aesthetic quality. In our minds, it was clear we wanted to publish this game with Osprey, to the point that the working title for the new project became “Men at Arms,” after Osprey Publishing's successful military history book series.
We were well aware that the game had flaws. Flaws we had learned to love, but flaws nonetheless. The first was undoubtedly the setup time (army building and deployment), which often risked exceeding the actual gameplay time! So we started thinking of ways to simplify army building as much as possible whilst keeping it an integral part of the game (i.e. not relying solely on 'scenarios'). We eventually found a convincing solution: armies would be made up of units, and players simply agree on the number of units they will play with. Additionally, each unit can only be composed of 'ranks' of the same type: light infantry, heavy infantry, cavalry, elephants, chariots. This also resolved a quirk of the predecessor, where different types could be mixed within the same unit, creating unrealistic combinations. The game would still not be a simulation — we repeat, it is not a simulation! — but at least the formations on the table would be a touch more plausible.
The search for a compromise between variety in army creation and simplicity of process led us to another tough call abandoning Pocket Battles' original but extremely restrictive damage resolution system in favor of a more streamlined but versatile system, with thresholds to overcome using eight-sided dice.
We also wanted to make Battalion feel modern in another way, with further replayability coming not just from the construction of armies but also a second aspect of variability: the possibility of surprises and unexpected elements. What better than a deck of tactic cards to use when needed?
This entirely new asset also opened up other possibilities (it's always a great moment in game design when you realize one feature is improving multiple aspects of the game): first, we could better customize individual armies with a specific deck for each faction. Secondly, the cards could serve as an excellent tracker for victory conditions in the game. How? Each time a player loses a unit, they draw a tactic card (reinforcing themselves). The same happens each time a player decides to rally their troops (renewing their precious pool of order markers). However, if a player has to draw a card and can’t then the player immediately loses the battle. Thrilling!
After nearly two years of development, we were ready to propose the game to Osprey. Not to Osprey and others. Just Osprey. As we hoped, the game was right for their catalog, and soon we received a contract proposal. End of story? Of course not! Osprey's publication pipeline is notoriously long (we knew we would have to wait three years for the release), and along with the contract draft came some requests: could we think of two more armies to add to the Romans and Carthaginians? Could we think of a mode for four players? Sure, why not? So development continued and until the very last moment we debated: should we add a die here or remove one there, how to better define a slinger's special ability, if that war chariot was overpowered or too weak. But what happened in one battle was completely different from the next. Each game was unique and full of choices but also had the violence and unpredictability of an ancient battlefield.
(Roland MacDonald at Spiel 2024)
Meanwhile, Osprey chose the best illustrator we could have hoped for, Roland MacDonald (who seemed to have seen into our minds how we envisioned the game) and renewed their editorial ranks. After Anthony and Filip, we worked with Jordan Wheeler and Rhys ap Gwyn, and finally with Luke Evison. We want to thank all these people for making Battalion: War of the Ancients the game it is today: certainly no longer "pocket" like its ancestor, but undoubtedly beautiful to look at and — we hope — also to play!
(Paolo Mori gets photobombed during the first public games of Battalion: War of the Ancients at Spiel 2024)
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Battalion: War of the Ancients is out 19th November in the US & 21st November in the UK.
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