Alesia

Alesia is an adaptation of Avalon Hill's game titled Caesar Epic Battle of Alesia published in 1976. Generally considered a classic by wargamers that can remember that far back! The game simulates Caesar's famous siege of Alesia in 51 BC when a reputed quarter of a million Gauls attacked the Romans' outer defences in order to free Vercingetorix and the 80,000 who were trapped in the city of Alesia.

Playing Alesia using the VASSAL server.

The first thing to note is that it can take a full minute or two for anything to happen when one player attempts to synchronize with another. This is because there are almost four hundred counters in the game and it takes a while to send and receive the information about each of them. Once the players have sychronized things will move along at normal speed again.

Features in Alesia.

UNITS: Roman and offboard Gallic units are selected from private windows by clicking the Caesar or Vercingetorix toolbar buttons.

The windows are only accessible by the relevant playing side which allows the Gallic unit window to serve as an "Offboard Movement Chart" or OBMC as Avalon Hill called it :) Note: It is important to select only one counter stack at a time when moving units onto the main map. If two or more stacks are selected as a group all but one of the stacks will appear as a single counter on the main map. This is not fatal but can be annoying and requires the player to reselect the counters one at a time from the "collapsed" stacks.

FORTS: The hexagonal fort counters are different from all the other counters in this module. They do not stack and therefore sit below any unit counters in the same hex. Unfortunately this can make it difficult to locate the forts during the game.

The "Highlight Forts" button on the toolbar will draw a blue cirlcle around each hex that contains a fort. This makes them easy to find even when the board is covered in counters.

MISSILE FIRE: Missile fire for forts as well as slingers and archers can be rolled on the die and checked against the appropriate combat results tables. However to make things quicker and simpler there are three toolbar buttons to handle forts firing at tertiary (3 hex), secondary (2 hex) and primary (1 hex) ranges and two buttons to cater for slingers and archers (2 hex maximum range). When one of these buttons is clicked a text message will be displayed with the result of the missile attack eg. *** Fort Primary Fire - disrupts unit *** or *** Archer/Slinger Secondary Fire - misses ***.

All units that are capable of missile fire also have a "Mark Fired" menu reachable by right-clicking on the unit. On selecting the desired range from the menu the counter will be marked accordingly with patterns of red dots - one for primary, two for secondary etc. This helps both sides to remember which units have fired and at what ranges. The units can also be marked as "fired" by typing CTRL 1, CTRL 2 or CTRL 3.

Fort has fired at range 3 only. Fort has fired at all ranges.

After all missile fire is completed for the turn there is a toolbar buttons to clear all fire markers.

MULTIPLAYER: In a 3 or 4 player game the Gallic units in the town of Alesia may not leave the town until the turn after ten or more relieving Gallic units move onto the Outer Works and at least one hand-to-hand combat has been resolved. When there are just 2 players the player controlling the Gauls must wait for a additional 1-3 turns (determined randomly and kept secret from the Roman player). This mechanism is handled in the module by the "Relief Delay" box at the top of the map. The Gallic player draws one chit from the left side of the box and places it in the it on the space at the right of the box. The number on the counter will be visible to the Gallic player only - the Roman player will still see only the "?" until the Gallic player reveals the chit by right clicking and selecting "Reveal to Roman Player".

Gallic view (note inset "?" to remind the Gallic player the chit is masked).

Roman view

The OBMC is defined as a private window and is only available to the "Gaul" side - not to the "Rome" side or even the side called "Gaul (Alesia Force)". This is as it should be except that the game rules allow the Roman player to inspect the OBMC in the break between the two assault periods. This is best handled by the Gallic player taking a snapshot of the OBMC using the Image Capture tool and emailing to the Roman player.

That's about it I guess....have fun.

You can send any questions, comments or suggestions for improvement to glocko@netspeed.com.au