101 AD · Tapae, Dacia
A renewed battle at Tapae during Trajan's first Dacian war as Rome forced the pass toward the Dacian heartland.
Trajan crossed the Danube in 101 AD to undo Domitian's settlement. The route into Dacia ran through the same pass Tettius Iulianus had forced thirteen years earlier, and Decebalus had spent the intervening peace preparing exactly for this.
The Romans forced the pass again after hard fighting. Cassius Dio preserves the detail that has kept the battle memorable: with bandages running short, Trajan tore up his own clothing for the wounded, and afterwards ordered an altar raised where the dead were to be honoured each year.
It was a Roman victory, and an expensive one that decided nothing on its own. The first war ended the following year with terms Decebalus accepted and did not keep.
Second Tapae opened the way into the Dacian interior and set the pattern of Trajan's method: force the ground, hold it, build, and come back. The second war, in 105, finished what this one had started.
The scenario is the same pass fought a second time, with both sides knowing what happened before: Dacia is prepared, Rome is committed and better resourced.
The sides, the commanders and the setting are historical. The cards and the turn economy are the game's own; the match is a short readable version of a long, costly engagement.