Crusades Campaign

Here is a set of campaign rules I have drawn up for our upcoming DBA campaign, based on GW Mighty Empires and to be played on a Mighty Empires map. They are intended to represent the "generic" crusade, perhaps the third one, since there will be several Crusader armies that will likely start as established kingdoms in the Levant. Comments welcome.

Crusades Campaign

Victory Conditions: The game ends at the end of a turn when at least one power has reached a total of 10 territories + cities. At this point the winner is the power with the highest total of territories + cities.

At Start: Players dice for order of starting placement. Low roller chooses their start territory first and places a control marker on the map accordingly. Players should choose their starting territory somewhere consistent with their historical origin (e.g. A Fatimid player should choose a location in Egypt, a Crusader player in Palestine, etc...). The starting territory may contain a city.

Turn sequence: At the start of each turn the powers are ranked according to their territory size, where territory size is measured by the number of territories + cities under control. Tied ranks are settled by a die roll.

The player with the lowest rank has the first choice of opponent to challenge in a battle. The next highest ranked power not yet challenged can then challenge any higher ranked power to battle, and so on until all of the powers are paired up. When there are an odd number of powers, the remaining power has to sit out the turn.

Each battle is fought as per the normal DBA rules including dicing for attacker and terrain placement. The attacker has the choice of playing on a 30” or 24” board size.

After the battles have been fought, the winner of each battle gains conquest points equal to the margin of victory that can be used to expand their territory holdings. All expansion must be contiguous with currently held territory (i.e. adjacent to a territory held or just taken control of). A player player not challenged and sitting out a turn automatically gets one conquest point, representing consolidation activity during a peaceful break. Conquest points can be converted to territorial gains as follows, starting with the lowest ranked power:

1pt- the player may take control of an adjacent uncontrolled territory that does not contain a city.

1pt- the player may fortify any controlled territory that does not control a city.

2pts- the player may take control of an adjacent uncontrolled territory that contains a city

2pts- the power may conquer an adjacent territory controlled by the power just defeated that is not fortified nor contains a city.

3 pts- the power may conquer of an adjacent territory controlled by the power just defeated that is fortified or contains a city.

All conquest points should be spent on the turn they are earned and cannot be saved or held over. Multiple territories can be taken control of or conquered. A player is knocked out of the campaign if their last territory is conquered.

Here is the map:

Cities: Constantinople, Nicaea, Konya, Edessa, Antioch,Tripoli, Acre, Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, Alexandria, Damietta

Players/Powers

Chen-song- Byzantium
Me- Sultanate of Rum (Seljuks)
Bruce- Crusaders
Jonathan- Crusaders
Mark- Crusaders
Dennis- Syrians
Barry- Fatimids
Terry- Ayyubids