Caesar: Rome vs. Gaul

After the changes published in the 2nd edition, decided to downgrade the rating of the overall product from 9 to 5.

The new version (edition?) brings Not minor changes, tweeks or clarifications but substantial changes in the number of Ops in the cards, changes in operational costs to sieges...

Very good mechanics in the simulation of this particular and asymmetrical campaign; rules and components are overall good. Unfortunately This was an untested product sent to market without sufficient testing and development process. A fatal mistake to purchase a GMT game in the 1st edition.

The 1st edition comes with a lack of control markers and also comes with sleeves for the cards but no bags to store the various components.

The "Update Kit" should reach the customer with an apology and at zero cost.

Based on initial play. I have far from mastered the game, but I can understand the criticisms leveled against the 1st Generation game that I used to have. It does seem unbalanced against the Romans. It IS asymmetrical, but I don't think the victory conditions are finely tuned. The dice-based combat system is solid. The rules are well-written. It all makes sense and the game play is fun, but It seems a bit underdeveloped. It seems like the Gauls do a lot of turtling and Caesar runs around performing sieges. That's not the Gallic Wars.

I played a partial game to determine if the 2nd generation upgrade was worth getting or not. After going through 2 upgrades on [thing=162009][/thing], it’s starting to feel like a collectible game: how much do I have to spend to get a great game? Not doing that again, especially when it seems like it is so far from feeling like the Gallic Wars. And even with the upgrades, I have doubts it will supplant [thing=391818][/thing] as my favorite game on the subject.

I’m amazed how confidently the designers handled this elusive topic. If you've read [i]Commentarii de bello Gallico[/i] and you like 1v1 games that give you a run for your money, then it's hard not to appraciate Caesar: Rome vs. Gaul.

Of course, it must be understood that you're dealing with Caesar's insatiable ambition and the vastness of divided Gaul here, and this is how its dynamics should be interpreted. Which isn't too difficult by the way, so it's strange to watch the fuss about fixing "balance issues".

Although I don't consider it a perfect game due to the rules bloat by historical wargamer traditions, it became apparent with the second edition that there was absolutely no need for any substantial changes.

my first GMT game.

Beautiful game that changes seamlessly from the early stage of the Fuseki(influence race), via the middle stage of the guerrilla warfare, and toward the final stage of the decisive battle between mainstays. Game balance is also perfect. See my articles in Sessions and Strategy Forum!

Colin's

[b]2/21[/b]: [bgcolor=#66ff99][b]&nbsp8&nbsp[/b][/bgcolor]

[b]UPDATE 5/21[/b]:

GOTDAMN this game is GOOD. it's quickly become popular with my gaming partners.

[b]UPDATE 4/21[/b]:

moving this to a 9. it really is tough for Caesar but at this point, i'm convinced you just have to play really tight as him. i'd like to test more against a Gaul player using the very effective conservative strategy but i'm really liking the feel of this one.

[b]FIRST IMPRESSION 2/21[/b]:

even though it has no bearing on my assessment of the game, i've won twice now as Caesar and the last victory was COMMANDING. i prosecuted an aggressive strategy to get early good governance and pursue the Germania sidequest on turn 3. this meant there was less time for sieging and eliminating/submitting tribes and the trade off is that if your quests don't go well or you are unable to get good governance, there will probably be too many tribes to deal with in the later turns and you might not recover. i do want to qualify this strategy by mentioning i had mostly pretty good hands and the opening hand was STELLAR with five 3 AP cards, including [i]Aid from Crassus[/i].

i also would just like to say that [i]Druidic Influence[/i] can really eat me. i actually hate that card. i dislike that there's no counterplay with the exception of [i]You May Believe What You Wish[/i]. i guess it's maybe supposed to allow Major Uprisings for the Gallic but i wish they had to work [i]at all[/i] to pull that card off instead of just trivially undoing the work of the Romans who already operate at an action economy deficit. that card basically deletes twoish big Roman card plays.

maybe i'm wrong here but in the face of the rest of the game seeming so great, that one card sticks out to me as really irksome.

[i]Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres...[/i]

starting this at an 8 but i really like the design so i could see it moving up. interesting choices and tense play. absolutely beautiful production. board and card art is top notch. cardboard components are well made and have a good feel.

it has cards and dice so there is a bit of randomness which do not go your way sometimes but the thing i have an issue with is one which has been said elsewhere: i think the Romans might be slightly undertuned.

i've played one game as them and managed to win but it felt as though i really played an amazing game (in my opinion) and my opponent made a few errors. it was their first time playing Gaul so that's understandable but with more experience, i suspect i couldn't win. i managed to win on literally the final card play of the game. i've managed to defeat them playing as Gaul pretty handily on Governance checks.

i think i need more plays before i really assert this but i think there's some good ideas on the forum as to how to change the Romans. i think it's just a small tweak, mind you, because the game is super interesting throughout.

i like the suggestion that an S result during a siege is instead a 3 if there is already a siege point on that Fortified Town i.e., Caesar has already given them a chance to surrender and they turned him down which historically was a bad move.

i also like the suggestion that siege results which "oversiege" allow some amount of IM placement e.g., a Fortified Town has a siege point on it and your next attempt results in 3 siege points so this would result in an "overflow" of 1 point and allow the Roman player to place an IM as part of that siege action.

the Romans suffer from a throttled action economy but only time will tell if it's truly a serious problem or i just need to get better at the game.

don't let this dissuade you from trying or buying it because honestly, it's still a blast.

p: [b]2[/b]