"Commands & Colors: Ancients" Topic

Well after seeing that Command & Colors: Ancients was ranked 15 overall and number 3 among Wargames.

I aquired not one but two copies off of Ebay. Both brand new. The first copy I knew full well why I put my bid in.

The 2nd price was just two good to past up and I put a bid in thinking that I would get bounced at the last moment.

But that did not happen. So I saved around $50 USD since GMT is selling them at $65, which does not include shipping.

Still waiting for delivery of the 2nd copy but just what am I going to do with two copies?

Larger battles!

Was thinking just that very same thing.

Buy this: link
That way you won't have to mix and match blocks to play most Punic War Scenarios.

It's a great game and GMT are great to work with. I was missing rules in my copy (got it from another on-line seller). Contacted GMT and asked about buying a set of the rules to replace but they sent hard copy FedEx.

C&C:A is a favorite at the local boardgame club and for good reason. I could actually see not playing nearly all of my minis games to focus on this game. It's really that much of a blast.

Just the opposite at the club here. Tried & forgotten. Most found the concept of only being able to move a random part of your force, or a given unit type, both unhistorical and fustrating. Even DBA allowed more planning. Still, different jokes to different folks. Hope you enjoy it.

Do you have any interested in WW2? If so, Memoir 44 by Days of Wonder is based on the same system as C&C: Ancients. In my opinion, Memoir is a better game (because you are using ranged weapons, it plays much faster).

I'm not sure I understand why only being able to move a part of your force in C&C(A) is much different to only being able to move a part of your force in DBA or DBx in general… Rolling a d6 to move a portion of your force in DBx, that you can personally select is, itself, pretty unhistorical considering the lack of control that many generals had over a battlefield. C&C is just a different unhistorical mechanism.

And there is a huge element of planning in the game; balancing your hand of cards, the sequence in which you play cards to achieve best effect, deploying your troops to work effectively with the cards you have and judging where/when the opponent has a weak hand in order to exploit it…

I think it's a great game, and as others have said two copies would be useful for doing the big epic battles which I personally think are the best expression of the system. Buy the box with the epic expansion! I think you may be able to download the epic rules for free, to look before you buy.

There is much more planning required in a game with a restrictive C&C system (like C&C ancients or DBA) than there is in a game where you can move all of your troops every turn without restriction.
It may be frustating to only have part of your army move at a time, but it is more realistic and historical (IMO) than every unit moving at once.
In most historical accounts of battles, we read of things happening in phases – light infantry skirmishing, then cavalry on the wings, then battles lines clashing. That's why battles took hours. If they happened as they do in some wargames, with everything moving at once, and combat happening within one or two ten minute turns, a typical battle would be over in less than an hour.

GMT have the rulebook online (recently updated to the 3rd edition) so if there are updates you can grab the download, plus they have a set of scenarios for the Truceless War online.

THere is a fansite ccancients.net where you can pick up a lot of scenarios, including the Epic scale ones. THey have all the rules (with permission so far as I can see). Lots of resources.

If you have two boxes then you can put together an epic scale game so long as you can organise the boards.

I don't think I'll go with this game in itself yet, because I'm already committed to something else, but thanks for posting the links. Anything that is well supported with scenario suggestions has to be worth a look.

Paul

Excellent game one of my all-time favorites. I would keep both copies. I'm sure there are on-line scenario suggestions using two games. There is also the Epic version which allows multiple players.

CC

It's a pity you are so far away Paul, I'd love to show you a game!

We sometimes play the scenarios, but more often than not design a scenario of our own. There are pics of some of the games we played using miniatures (and our own scenarios) at:

link

and

link

Cheers, Simon

Just the opposite at the club here. Tried & forgotten. Most found the concept of only being able to move a random part of your force, or a given unit type, both unhistorical and fustrating.

Supposition. This being unhistorical is unprovable.

Hi Simon, thanks for the offer. Now if I can get my work to pay for a visit to London for a few days…

Step one -- start stickering!

It's worth it in the end, keep reminding yourself how much faster it is than painting the little boogers.

Well, the fustration with C&C by the gamers here certainly wasn't unhistorical and I can't see Hannibal just standing there with a few cards for light troops while he's trying to move his main army. We've certainly had games where one guy just had to stand there and take it while his opponent got the cards to do everything. Usually both armies fight. So yes, unhistorical too. At least with DBA you could keep the army moving as a whole, even with poor dice. I call 'em as I see 'em. If you like this sort of game, I wish you well. For me, it was just too luck prone to be enjoyable.

Any system has a set of conditions which may make the system un-historical.
Sometimes such hurdles are another way to test a player's command ability.

Gamer's with no actual lives on the line, tend to be a lot more aggressive than the actual generals who knew that winning a battle with too many losses could still cause his army to melt away through desertion.

I like the command system in C&C but the combat system and heavy troops vapourising at what seems to me to be far to high a rate has put me off the game. I think I actually sold my copy to someone else who wanted it at one of the points when it was out of print for a time.

Of the series I like Battle Cry the most but then my friends who are more knowledgable about the ACW are anything but impressed by it so it may just be a case of a game about a period I know little about.

James, The napoleonics version of CnC due out soon by GMT is very similar in mechanics to ACW battleCry. i played in some demo games about a decade ago, Talevara. Additional rules did give it a more napoleonic feel.

As most know the Battlelore system was based on the Hundred years war era.

Any system has a set of conditions which may make the system un-historical.
Sometimes such hurdles are another way to test a player's command ability.

Gamer's with no actual lives on the line, tend to be a lot more aggressive than the actual generals who knew that winning a battle with too many losses could still cause his army to melt away through desertion.

Well said!

An interesting thread, and although I am a fanatic supporter of this system I can see where Calico Bill and his group are coming from. Where I have always gained enjoyment is playing the scenarios like duplicate bridge, and reversing sides a number of times. In doing so we find the luck gradually evens out, and you get to realise the amount of thought that has gone into scenario construction. This is particularly true of the Epic scenarios, and the new Epic box, with new Epic specific card pack, which we find addresses many of the problems Calico outlines. We also play it as 1 to 1, rather than multi-player, and although longer than the traditional game, it is much, much more challenging. It also generally involves much more of your army than the standard can (if the cards are against you) because of the ability to play upto three cards at once, the greater number of cards in a hand, and the need to capture many more flags to win. I wasn't sure the Epic Box would be worth the money, but after a mega session over the new year, I would recommend it.

Mollinary

I used to think it was a throw and giggle kind of game – and it can be – but that's not all it is. It's also a game that repays familiarity, and even study, if you are prepared to do it. In the hands of skilled players Commands & Colors becomes a marvellous interplay of tactical and positional subtlety. It is also the kind of game that allows players' style, temperament and individuality to come through on the board, and I think that is perhaps the most attractive thing about it. Between players who know what they are doing and are serious in their pursuit of the win, there's no game better.

The best I've seen it played is in online tournaments through the yahoo vassal group (ccavassal is the name, I think), but the most fun I've had with it is in casual games with the old man, who's a chess player, and who, as it turns out, also loves C&C.

It can be a tight, highly-skilled tournament game, or it can be a fun beer-and-pretzels way to spend an evening. Much depends on who you are playing it with and how serious you are treating it.

That's my experience with it (along with Lost Battles the best gaming buy I ever made), but each to his own, of course!

Cheers,
Aaron

The truely unhistorical games are those where your troops do exactly what you want, when you want; when all units move with perfect coordination, when you can calculate the combat results and plan accordingly.

Well the 2nd game arrive last week finally (the seller might be a top Ebay seller but boy slow on the delivery).

Now I do not know if it was the Super Bowl game or what but I had completed nearly all of the infantry for the Carthaginians when my oldest daughter stated that did I want her to do the Carthaginians again (She help me with the first box).

I said no that nearly had then done. Then I noticed that they were on the gray blocks and not the red blocks. So there went two+ hours of work.

Well we got them off the Gray blocks and onth the Red blocks and then worked on getting the Romans done.

Commanders and officers since antiquity frequently estimated relative maneouvre rates to estimate who could achieve a desirable tactical position first. That can be reflected in the everybody moves system. They also find that the friction of war leads some units to slow down, get distracted, or stall, and PIP or other randomized movement systems reflect that. I think it's a matter of when and how much each seems most "realistic" in terms of command decision-making and unit behaviour.

There is much more planning required in a game with a restrictive C&C system (like C&C ancients or DBA) than there is in a game where you can move all of your troops every turn without restriction.

More complex probability trees to analyze, yes, but that does not translate to more of a useful planning experience. Everybody-moves games allow planning of troop movements and how the enemy may be engaged for more turns ahead – it's often clear to both sides who will lose a race. A lot of randomization in movement causes the probability trees to proliferate to a degree that planning is simplified to a general plan with a few specific branches based on an intuitive grasp of the probabilities of the "alternative futures" available, and on the tactical level taking what chance provides and optimizing tactics to serve the plan.

I think the most realism must be somewhere in between. Simple marches and calm long range fire are less chancy, or – simple marches are fairly reliable in speed, complex evolutions and risky moves near the enemy should be subject to more chance, and the fierce activity of combat to the most.