Joshua Dyal - The Texan Wyvern
joshua_dyal@yahoo.com


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H A N N I B A L ' S      W A R


     This is the somewhat pretentious notion I had of creating a HoMM2 map based on an
actual historical campaign.  The campaign in question is the Second Punic War, also known as
Hannibal's War in which the Roman Republic (not yet Empire) fought against the power of
Carthage.  Rome was superiour in manpower potential, money, and resources of every kind. 
However, they didn't have the superb generalship of Hannibal, the Carthaginian general who's
very name became a curse among Roman's.  His famous march across the Alps is probably the
only thing most people remember about him, but hopefully, by playing this campaign, the
inspiration to find out more about this fascinating war will spread among HoMM2 players, and
maybe we can even see a new trend of other maps based on real wars.

     The basic premise of the map is this: Hannibal, accompanied by his two brothers
Hasdrubal and Mago have moved on the Roman ally of Saguntum.  While this town was south of
the river that formed the boundary between spheres of interest between Rome and Carthage,
Rome took that as an opportunity to engage yet again in a Punic War against the smaller power. 
Hannibal and his armies recruited among the Hispanic Iberian tribes, went north and recruited
among the Cisalpine Gaulic tribes, specifically the Boii and the Isubres.  Then he was faced with
the choice of which way to go from here: by sea, which is what the Roman's expected, or by the
dangerous passes through the Alps.  The Roman's didn't believe the passes were negotiable, but
the information Hannibal got from the tribes that lived near the Alps told him that they were.  He
lost nearly half his army in the crossing, but managed to make it through right before winter.  He
then went on an incredible campaign, defeating every Roman army sent against him, including one
truly gigantic one at Cannae.  The Romans were never able to defeat Hannibal, yet they won
the war.  Carthage simply couldn't compete against the manpower potential of Rome.  Hannibal
himself never had the forces necessary to sack Rome itself.

     That, of course, is where HoMM2 differs from real life.  If you sack a Roman town in this
game, it becomes your town, and you get all the resources and manpower that it provided. 
Therefore, you should be able to sack Rome; in fact, you have to to win this game.  You have
fewer towns and fewer armies than Rome at the beginning of the game, but not by much.  Rome
didn't start with huge armies, but they had the potential to recruit huge armies which was their
key to eventual success.  In order to prevent Rome from developing into an unstoppable
juggernaut in this game, you must move quickly against them.  If you cross the Alps to get to
Italy, be aware that the crossing is difficult and you will lose time and men in the crossing. 
Likewise, if you try to attack my boat, the Roman's will be expecting you and their largest armies
will be poised to stop you at every point in which you may be able to land.  I think that both are
certainly viable options for the careful and crafty general, but extreme care should be taken in
either scenario.

     Hannibal was really the glue that held his remarkable multi-ethnic army together.  In the
long run, the soldiers didn't fight for booty, glory or even for Carthage, but for Hannibal himself. 
If Hannibal is defeated, your campaign will unravel and your army disintigrate (and in this case,
literally instantly because that is the special loss condition!)  To sack Rome, you will have to make
your way through the various battles that Hannibal fought; at Trebbia, Trasimene and especially
Cannae, and you may have to make a few other battles along the way to coerce your potential
allies to support you.  This, of course, says nothing for the enemy's wandering heroes who you
may have to face at any place on the map.

     Anyway, that's the basic idea behind the map.  I hope it plays well, as it was designed
more to recreate the story of Hannibal than anything else, and I don't know how well it translated
into a fun, playable game.  Hopefully some of the drama of the original epic struggle was captured
in this little scenario.  Once again the proud Roman words heard before the Carthaginian senate
will ring out : "Here we bring you peace and war.  Take which you will!" and the equally proud
Carthaginian reply, "Whichever you please - we do not care!"  With the final words by Fabius,
"Then we give you war!" you can launch yourself into this facsinating epic from Western history
recreated in the fantasy HoMM2 format.

DESIGNER'S NOTES AND TIPS:  WARNING!!!!!  CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS.  As I said earlier, this map was designed more to tell a story than anything else.  This may make it so that if you don't follow the story right, the map won't play as well.  However, I think a careful general could very well attack Italy from the sea successfully.  Rome and her allies will start with many more potential resources than Hannibal; she will have more cities, more resources sitting around, and more resources coming in daily.  However, to reflect the historical reality, she won't have that many armies yet, so the quick general can get in and win the game before Rome can actually raise much more force than him.  The only standing armies that Rome does start with are the ones that the beach guard heroes will have.  These heroes are stationary, so if you decide to attack by boat, you will have to land on one of the guarded beachs, and you will have to defeat one of these heroes to advance into the mainland.  Their forces are strong, but if you have gotten very far into the game, you may have armies just as strong.  Of course, then you will need your armies to continue into the mainland, so if you lose too many of your troops defeating the beach guards, then you're in trouble too.  The game really is designed to have a crossing of the Alps, but even that is going to be costly.  Perhaps the best plan is to do both; have a hero cross the Alps and another take out the beach guards.  They can meet up later in Italy and exchange armies so one of them at least is strong enough to sack Rome.
	Once again, I really like to design my maps to look a little different than most that I've seen.  All of my castles and towns will have little details (trees, rocks, flowers, etc.) right infront of the walls so the castles don't look so much alike.  I don't like to make "crowded" maps where there are so many resources sitting around to be picked up that you can't even see the ground, but I do like to crowd little details like flowers and weeds on open areas.  Of course, some of these make marching difficult as you have to go around them, but hey, that's what terrain is all about!
	Also, I don't really feel I have a handle on what difficulty rating this map should have (or any map I make for that matter!) so I'll wait until I hear some comments about it before I assign a definitive rating.  In the meantime, I go with the fairly noncommittal Normal.