101–106 AD · Dacia (Carpathian highlands)
Trajan's two campaigns conquered Dacia through engineering, fortified camps and control of the mountain terrain, commemorated on Trajan's Column.
Domitian's war of the 80s AD had ended in a settlement Rome found humiliating: subsidies and Roman engineers sent north to a king, Decebalus, who used both to strengthen his hill forts.
Trajan came to power intending to undo it. Dacia had gold, it had a capable king, and it sat across the Danube frontier — reasons of prestige, security and money all pointing the same way.
The first campaign, 101 to 102, forced the mountain passes and ended with terms Decebalus accepted and then broke. The second, 105 to 106, was a war of conquest with no settlement on offer.
Both were decided less by pitched battle than by engineering: the great bridge over the Danube built by Apollodorus of Damascus, roads cut along the gorges, and marching camps pushed methodically into the highlands until the fortress system had nowhere left to fall back to.
Dacia became a province, and its gold funded a building programme in Rome that included Trajan's Column — which is also our best surviving visual source for the campaigns, and a piece of official commemoration that should be read as such.
The scenario is about method against terrain: Rome advances by building and consolidating, Dacia by making every step through the mountains cost more than it is worth.
The sides, the commanders and the character of the war are historical. The cards, the energy economy and the turn structure are the game's own, and compress two campaigns into one short match.