Antike Duellum

Two mighty, ancient empires sail the seas, found new cities, erect glorious temples, and develop new technologies. However territories and resources are limited, and soon peaceful coexistence threatens to change to military conflict. Who can best manage their state affairs? Who can benefit their people most when engaging the vagaries of fate? And who has the strategic genius to lead their legions and fleets to victory? The answer lies in your hands.

By Mac Gerdts

Game Material

• Game board (double-sided: Carthaginians vs. Romans / Greeks vs. Persians)
• 1 game rules
• 1 quick intro
• 1 almanac
• 74 Wooden Pieces:
  • 24 galleys (12 per player color: brown and beige)
  • 24 legions (12 per player color: brown and beige)
  • 2 game markers (brown and beige)
  • 12 wooden disks (6 per player color: brown and beige)
  • 12 temples (white)
• 34 City Tokens:
  • 10 gold
  • 12 marble
  • 12 iron

  (The city tokens and town walls have the color of the other player on their backside respectively.)

• 12 Town Walls
• Coins
• Resources: denominations of 1, 2 and 5 (Gold chips are gold colored, Marble chips are white, and Iron chips are blue)
• 54 Cards:
  • 21 personages
  • 25 event cards
  • 2 empty event cards (may be filled with text as desired)
  • 6 cards short rules
• 2 Special Units

The game material comes in limited quantity. If a player has no more legions or galleys, or if the bank has no more city tokens or temples, the supply is empty. Only resource chips are unlimited. In the rare case the resource supply is not sufficient, you may use other counters such as pennies to indicate chips are now worth double their denomination.

The set up of the game is described in detail inside the quick intro. Here is a short description of how to prepare for a game:

1. Player Set Up: Each player receives the wooden parts of his color: 12 galleys, 12 legions, 1 octagonal game stone, and 6 wooden disks. In addition each player receives 1 town wall. Each player places 1 round wooden disk of their color at zero on the VP-track. Both recruitment boxes receive 1 legion and 1 galley each. Each player’s 3 starting cities are marked with a city token (the starting city with a gold symbol receives a gold city token, etc.). Each player receives a starting supply of 3 Marble, 3 Iron, and 3 Gold chips.
2. Start Player: The start player is chosen randomly and the other player receives 1 coin as compensation.
3. Set up the bank: Place the marble, iron and gold chips, the coins, the temples, town walls and city tokens next to the game board for use as needed. Sort the 21 personage cards into five stacks.
4. Event Cards: The 25 event cards are shuffled and placed as a draw deck beside the game board. 3 event cards are drawn from top and used to form the open card display.

Overview of the Game Flow

Both players lead an ancient civilization. On the front game board, the Carthaginians play against the Romans, and on the reverse side the Greeks play against the Persians. Each nation starts with 3 cities which produce marble, iron, and gold respectively. These resources are used to develop the civilization:

• A nation can erect temples and build town walls with marble.
• It can develop technologies and recruit military units with gold.
• Iron is used to arm and equip the legions and galleys.

The nations expand their territories by moving their legions and galleys and founding new cities, which each cost 1 of each resource: marble, iron, and gold. Legions and galleys may also be used to conquer the opponent’s cities. Temples triple a city’s capacity to produce, defend, and build new military units. The town wall provides additional defensive strength to its city.

Knowledge of new technologies may double the moving distances of military units, boost the defensive strength of owned cities by 1, or strengthen the economy.

If a nation achieves certain goals it wins the favor of ancient personages. The first nation to own 9 personages wins the game.

Goal of the Game

In order to win, players try to be the first to own 9 personages. There are five different types of personages, which are received for reaching special goals:

• 6 Kings: For every 5 cities a nation owns it receives a king, gained at the completion of city 5, 10, 15 etc.
• 4 Citizen: For every 3 temples a nation owns it receives a citizen, gained at the completion of temples 3, 6, 9 and 12.
• 5 Scholars: For every new advance (new technology) a nation receives a scholar.
• 4 Generals: For every temple a nation destroys it receives a general. A temple is destroyed with its city being conquered.
• 2 Navigator: Sea regions without a city are indicated by a galley symbol. These regions count double for the purpose of gaining Navigators. Gaining a Navigator requires control of 7 sea areas. A clever distribution of only 4 galleys could be enough to gain a Navigator. Sea regions are counted at the end of the turn after all possible fights are over when calculating Navigators.

Any deserved personages are awarded at the end of a turn. Once won, an ancient personage cannot be lost. This applies also when possessions that led to any awards are no longer held.

Example: A nation with 10 cities and two ancient kings loses one city (to conquest), so it no longer has the 10th city it needed to gain the second king. Nevertheless, it keeps the second king. However when the nation has 10 cities again, it does not get another king. The third king is awarded only when the nation possesses a total of 15 cities.

Players take alternating turns. Each turn consists of 3 steps taken in order:

1. Action Selection

A turn begins by placing the octagonal game stone on the circular rondel, and performing the indicated action.

• On a player’s very first turn the position on the rondel may be freely chosen.
• On each following turn, the game stone moves forward on the rondel in clockwise order.
• When moving forward, any of the next three fields ahead can be chosen free of charge.
• If the game stone moves further than three fields, each additional field costs 1 resource of the nation’s choice (a marble, iron or gold chip, or a coin).
• You may not stay in the same field twice in a row; executing the same action on two consecutive turns would require moving forward 8 fields, and paying 5 chips/coins.
• Game stones in the same position on the rondel do not affect one another.

Example: A nation’s game stone is on FERRUM. It can advance to TEMPLUM, GOLD, or DUELLUM free of charge. However, to advance to MILITIA, the player must pay the bank one resource chip, to MARMOR two resource chips etc.

2. Founding Cities

A nation may found one or more new cities. Requirements and costs:

• The nation must have at least one military unit (legion or galley) in the region where the city is to be built. Foreign military units in the region do not prevent the city’s founding.
• For each newly founded city, the nation must pay the bank one marble, one iron and one gold chip. Coins can substitute for marble, iron or gold chips.
• The player takes a city token out of the bank’s supply (marble, iron, or gold), and puts it at the place of the newly founded city on the board. The nation’s color must be visible.
• Moreover, the player must pay one additional coin for each adjacent city which produces the same resource. Each adjacency counts, whether it is a (blue) sea border or a (red) land border, and whether it is an owned or an opposing city.
• Cities are founded one after another, so that the amount of coins needed may increase as new adjacencies are created.

Example: Carthage wants to found 2 cities, such as Baecula and Saguntum. Numantia cannot be founded because it does not contain a Carthaginian unit. For the foundation of both cities Carthage pays 2 gold, 2 marble, 1 iron, and 1 coin (instead of the missing iron) to the bank. Baecula is founded as a gold city, and because there is already a gold city adjacent, 1 additional coin has to be paid. Carthage cannot afford to found another gold city at Saguntum, because he would have to pay 3 more coins (3 adjacencies for Saguntum). Instead Carthage founds an iron city at Saguntum and puts both city tokens on their respective position on the board.

3. Winning Personages

At the end of a turn, a nation collects one or more ancient personages if it meets the requirements for each and if the bank still has them available. Whenever a player receives a personage, his opponent takes 1 event card per personage from the open card supply as compensation.

On the VP-track, where the numbers of personages are recorded, are symbols for a town wall (at 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7):

• Whenever a marker on the track reaches or passes a town wall’s symbol, its owner receives an additional town wall into his personal supply. (If, for instance, the marker increases from “1” to “3”, he receives 2 town walls).
• The town wall’s symbol at “0” indicates that each player already starts with 1 town wall in his personal supply.

There are three kinds of actions on the rondel:

• Actions to produce resources: MARMOR, FERRUM and AURUM (marble, iron and gold).
• Actions to utilize produced resources: TEMPLUM, MILITIA, and SCIENTIA (Temple, Arming, and Know-How). These utilization actions are located exactly opposite of the corresponding resource production actions on the rondel.
• DUELLUM (Maneuver): for military action — which appears twice on the rondel.

Production Actions: Marmor, Ferrum, Aurum (Marble, Iron, Gold)

Each of these 3 actions produces the respective resource. On MARMOR (Marble) the nation produces:

• 1 marble (per city without a temple)
• 3 marble (per city with a temple)

The player receives the produced amount of resource chips out of the bank’s supply. In addition, he receives 1 coin, no matter which resource or how many he produces.

Coins may be used as marble, iron or gold whenever necessary. If the bank has no more coins, the player may choose whatever other type of resource he wishes instead.

FERRUM (Iron) and AURUM (Gold) are done in similar fashion.

Utilization Actions

Templum (Temple)

This action enables the nation to build temples and/or town walls.

Building Temples:

• A nation may build one or more new temples.
• For each new temple, it pays the bank 6 marble chips and places the temple on the board beside the city.
• In addition, 1 coin must be paid for each temple that already exists in an adjacent region (both your own and opponent’s temples).
• If several temples are built within one turn, they are paid one after another, so that the amount of coins needed may increase as new adjacencies are created.
• The temple triples the city’s ability to produce, arm and defend itself.
• Only one temple can be built per city. If all 12 temples are already on the board, no further temples can be built until temples are destroyed and returned to the supply.

Building Town Walls:

• Town walls may also be built at the player’s cities with this action, or as an alternative to building temples.
• They raise the defense strength of a city by 1.
• Town walls cost 1 marble chip each and are placed under the city token.
• Each city can have no more than 1 town wall.
• Players can only build town walls they have in their personal supply (where they return if they are destroyed).

Militia (Arming)

When arming, military units are taken from the recruitment box and placed at player owned cities on the map.

• This costs 2 iron chips per new military unit (legion or galley) paid to the bank.
• Only units that are inside the recruitment box at the beginning of the turn may be armed.
• The number of new military units added to a city is limited to:
  • 1 at each own city without a temple
  • 3 at each own city with a temple
• Legions and galleys can be added to cities even when they already contain military units (friendly and enemy). The limit of 1 (or 3) applies only to units added to a city. There is no numerical limit for units in a region.
• Hostile units of the same type cannot peacefully exist in the same region. If a new military unit is added to a city where there is already a hostile unit of the same type, both units immediately fight, cancel out each other 1 for 1, and return to their recruitment boxes. Such a unit cannot be rearmed that same turn.
• Cities with only red (land) borders can only accommodate legions, and cities with only blue (sea) borders can only accommodate galleys.

Tip: In order to prevent unclear situations when new units enter the board, it is recommended to turn them to the side. After the turn is finished, they are set upright.

Scientia (Know-How)

This action allows a nation to use its gold to develop a new Know-How and/or to recruit additional military units from its supply.

Know-How:

• The prices of each Know-How are depicted above the science chart on the board. The higher price has to be paid by the first nation to develop it.
• Each Know-How that a nation owns is marked with a round wooden disk in the nation’s color.
• Being the first nation to develop a certain Know-How is a significant cultural achievement and therefore is rewarded with the acquisition of an ancient scholar.
• There is no specific order in which Know-Hows have to be taken, the choice is always free. If it can be afforded, it is possible to develop several Know-Hows in the same turn.

Recruitment:

In addition or as an alternative to developing Know-How, a nation may also recruit new legions and/or galleys. Newly recruited units are taken from the personal supply and placed in the nation’s recruitment box on the board. A nation must pay the bank:

• 1 gold chip for each legion recruited
• 2 gold chips for each galley recruited

Effects of Know-Hows:

• STRATA (Streets): Legions may move up to 2 land regions (cross 2 red borders in a turn).
• NAVIGATIO (Navigation): Galleys may move up to 2 sea regions (cross 2 blue borders in a turn).
• MONETA (Currency): One extra unit when producing (+ 1 unit of the produced type per turn).
• RES PUBLICA (Republic): The defense strength of all owned cities is boosted by 1.
• COMMERCIUM (Trade): The nation is allowed to trade resources with the bank at a rate of 3 to 2. If a player pays 3 resource chips (whatever type and composition), he receives 2 resource chips of his choice in return (but not coins). Example: He pays 4 Gold and 2 Marble in order to take 4 Iron. Trading is possible at any time during a player’s turn, but not during the turn in which the player develops Trade since Know-Hows are not owned until the end of the turn.

Duellum (Maneuver)

This action is conducted in two steps in order:

1. Movement

• All of a nation’s military units (legions or galleys) may move to another region on the board. The order in which units move may be freely chosen.
• Red borders can be crossed only by legions, and blue borders only by galleys. Combined borders with both red and blue lines may be crossed by both types of units.
• If a nation owns the Know-How STRATA (Streets), its legions may cross up to two red borders per turn. If it owns the Know-How NAVIGATIO (Navigation), its galleys may cross up to two blue borders per turn.
• If military units enter or want to cross a region where there are already hostile units of the same type, a battle automatically occurs. In this case both opponents lose the same number of units of the same type. They cancel each other out 1 by 1 and are placed back inside their respective recruitment boxes. All battles are resolved in whatever order the player wants.
• A city is not affected in any way by hostile units inside its region. It may produce resources and add military units to its region as usual.

2. Conquest

After all movements and battles are done a nation may decide to conquer hostile cities. A conquest is only possible if the number of military units inside the region at least meets the defense strength of that city.

The defense strength is calculated as follows:

• 1 for a city without a temple
• 3 for a city with a temple

This basic strength is increased by:

• + 1 for each defender legion and galley in the region
• + 1 if the city has a town wall
• + 1 if the defender owns the Know-How Res Publica (Republic)

Conquest Resolution:

• The conqueror removes as many military units from the city’s region as the defense strength of the city, and puts them back into his recruitment box. He may choose freely which type of units to remove (legion or galley) if he has more units than necessary in the region.
• All defender legions and galleys are also returned to their recruitment box.
• If the city had a temple, the temple is destroyed and goes back to the bank’s supply (the conqueror receives the personage of a general at the end of his turn).
• A town wall is destroyed as well and returned to its player’s personal supply.
• The city token is turned over and now shows the color of its new owner.
• If the loss of at least of one city occurred, the losing player chooses 1 event card from the open card display (not 1 per city!).

Example for Moving and Conquering

The Greeks (brown) own Navigation and the Persians (beige) do not own any Know-How. The Greeks want to conquer Ainos and destroy its temple.

Movement: Both legions from Abdera and the galley from Lesbos can enter the region of Ainos directly. The 2 galleys from Mare Aegaeum can only reach Ainos if they cross Lemnos where there is an automatic battle. As 1 galley cancels out 1 galley, both opponents take 1 galley from Lemnos and return them to their recruitment boxes. Both Greek Legions from Pergamon move to Abydos.

Conquest: The defense strength of Ainos equals 4 (city with temple for 3 and town wall for 1). Therefore all 4 Greek units (legions and galleys) are removed and returned to their recruitment box. The temple is destroyed and returned to the bank’s supply. The town wall is destroyed as well and returns to the Persian player’s personal supply. The city token is flipped to the brown side to show it is now owned by Greece. The Greeks also want to conquer Abydos which has a defense strength of 1. The 1 legion at Abydos is returned to the Greek recruitment box and the city token is flipped to the brown side as well.

Because the Greeks have destroyed a temple they receive a general from the stack of personages and advance one position on the VP track. The Persians choose 2 event cards from the open display (replenishing the display after each pick) because they lost at least 1 city and because the Greeks won 1 personage.

If the Persians had owned the Res Publica Know-How they would not have lost the city of Ainos. Its defensive strength would have been 5 and the Greeks were not able to move 5 military units into that region.

• Open Card Display: As soon as a player takes a card from the display it is replenished immediately. In every situation there is the choice of 3 different cards.
• When to choose Cards:
  • A player takes one event card if he has lost at least one of his cities to conquest (1 per turn).
  • A player also takes an event card each time his opponent gains a personage (1 per personage).
• Using Event Cards:
  • The players may use and combine their event cards whenever they wish during their own turns if the card description does not indicate otherwise.
  • “Fortress” is the only event card that is used during the opponent’s turn. If the Fortress card leads to a situation where the attacker does not have enough units to conquer the city, the city remains safe and all units remain in the region. Otherwise the attacker loses one additional military unit when conquering the city.
  • All used event cards are discarded and if the original supply runs out, the discards are shuffled and made into a new draw deck.

The game is won by the first nation to acquire 9 personages.

Variant: Special Units

The variant uses both special units. Beige receives an Admiral and brown receives a Commander which are added to their recruitment boxes at the beginning of the game.

• Arming: Costs 3 iron chips instead of the usual 2, and they can only be added to cities with a temple.
• Movement: Special units are moved in the same way as galleys (for the Admiral) or as legions (for the Commander).
• Conquest: If an Admiral or Commander takes part in the conquest of a city (he is present in the same region), his strategic genius boosts the morale of his troops:
  • A special unit helping to attack a city lowers the defense strength of the attacked city by 1.
  • A special unit helping to defend a city increases its defense strength by 1.
  • After conquest, the special unit (either attacker or defender) survives and remains in the region.
• Combat / Elimination: A special unit can only be killed if attacked by hostile units of the corresponding type during the movement phase. In this case it is exchanged 1 for 1 with the attacking unit and returns to its recruitment box. However, in order to attack an Admiral, all his accompanying galleys must be eliminated first; or, for the Commander, all of his accompanying legions must be eliminated first.

Rules Commonly Overlooked

• Game Supplies: Game Supplies are limited with the exception of the 3 resources: Marble, Iron and Gold. For example, if a player has no more legions available in his supply he cannot recruit more.
• Event cards:
  • Even if a nation loses several cities in a turn it can only take 1 event card for losing at least 1 city.
  • A player may use several event cards in a turn, their effects can be combined in any way he chooses.
• Legions and Galleys:
  • A direct battle between a legion and a galley is not possible. They can only come into conflict when a city is conquered. A city defended only by legions may be conquered with galleys and vice versa.
  • Legions cannot be convoyed over sea by galleys.
  • As long as a city is not actually conquered it cannot be attacked. There is no such thing as an “unsuccessful conquest”.
  • Legions and galleys can only be armed and added to cities on the board from the recruitment box. After a battle or conquest all lost military units return to their recruitment box.
• Rondel (hint): The utilization of resources is always in opposed position on the rondel to the production of that type.

Differences Between Antike and Antike Duellum

Players who already know Antike should recognize the following differences:

• Coins: The players no longer receive a coin every round. Instead they only receive a coin when they produce one of the three resources: marble, iron or gold.
• Founding Cities: Cities can only be founded in regions with a city symbol. The player decides which type of resource the new city will produce and places the appropriate city token. Every adjacent city that produces the same type of resource increases the cost by 1 coin payable to the bank – no matter who owns those cities. The usual price of 1 of each resource to pay for a city remains the same.
• Navigator: Sea regions without a city are marked with a galley symbol. These regions count double for the purpose of acquiring Navigators. If cleverly deployed, 4 galleys may be enough to win the first Navigator.
• Know-How: All Know-How’s now have different prices. Apart from the 4 Know-How’s already familiar from Antike, there is now a 5th one called COMMERCIUM (Trade) that allows trading with the bank on a 3 to 2 return. Any 3 resource chips can be converted into any 2 resource chips (not coins). Know-How’s may be chosen in any order.
• Temple: Building a temple now costs 6 marble chips instead of 5 as in Antike. In addition, each adjacent temple, no matter who owns it, adds an additional cost of 1 extra coin paid to the bank.
• Town Walls: The action “Templum” also allows the player to build town walls from his personal supply. A town wall costs 1 marble chip and boosts the defense strength of a city by 1.
• Arming: Each newly added legion or galley costs 2 iron chips instead of 1 as in Antike. Only military units in the recruitment box can be added to the cities on the board. In order to take them from the personal supply to the recruitment box requires taking the “Scientia” action and costs gold for each unit recruited: 1 gold for a legion and 2 gold for a galley paid to the bank.
• Conquest of Cities: In contrary to Antike, it is sufficient to have the attacking units inside the region, even if they are not able to move further, in order to conquer the city. All military units that are lost in a conquest (or in a battle) are returned to the recruitment box, not to the player’s personal supply. Town walls are automatically destroyed in a city conquest and are returned to the player’s personal supply.

When my first game ANTIKE was published in 2005 it was an immediate success. It won the Bronze Deutsche Spielepreis and was nominated for the International Gamers Award.

Developing an independent version for 2 players was a special challenge. New ideas were integrated into the game to give it more variety – such as the introduction of the event cards, the modular distribution of resources on the game board and the additional protection of cities with town walls. The conquest of cities does not require additional movements anymore (which always was a minor hurdle when explaining Antike).

A main focus for the development process was to ensure that a 2 player civilization development game would not degenerate into a pure arms race. As a result, Antike Duellum, while still based on the basic concepts of Antike, has become quite a different game. Without the encouragement of many players and the discussions in many forums, this game would not have existed. Although I cannot personally name everyone who helped, I give my heartfelt thanks to everyone who participated in creating this challenging new strategy game.

Hamburg, October 2012
Mac Gerdts