Counters represent armies that move over a map of the ancient world and engage with other units. Each player is given resources and a specific objective. Choose where to travel and use conflict or diplomacy as you wish.

A game consists of 15 rounds where each player takes a turn that has 3 stages;
- movement, conflict and final movement, representing 5 years.

The game is intrinsically imbalanced as players have different objectives and resources. Much depends on their character, ability to act their role and skill assessing other players’ intentions. You will learn how to move, master conflicts and appreciate possibilities from the map. Then you can learn diplomacy and dealing (double dealing?). As a general rule, it does not pay the Barbarians to fight amongst themselves. Even if one player emerges as Barbarian victor, the opposing Romans will have been busy meanwhile. With enough time they can collect extra points to recruit fresh armies or save towards their final score.

Decline and Fall was originally published by The Wargames Research Group at Goring on Sea, Sussex who make an excellent range of war games, rules and books about ancient and dark age armies.

The Roman Empire, its defences and enemies.
In the year 375 AD the Roman Empire was, territorially at least, still at its peak, controlling the whole of southern Europe, England, North Africa, Asia Minor and the Middle East as far as Persia. But within this vast area the last three centuries had seen change and decay. The Roman vision was no longer even ‘Roman’, for the bulk of administration was now carried out from Byzantium (Constantinople), while the once supreme senate of Rome had become little more than a city council. The state was no longer the instrument of ambitious free born men but a cumbrous bureaucratic machine which sought to regulate the lives of men virtually tied to their lands or to their professions in what was rapidly becoming a feudal system. Within the borders, all was peaceful, but the Empire did not have the singleness of purpose and the moral resources necessary to prevent the coming debacle.
The Roman army was not the supreme force it had been in the time of Augustus. The classic infantry tactics were inadequate against the barbarian heavy cavalry and although service in the military was hereditary it was becoming increasingly difficult to enlist citizens. Hence the Empire found itself relying more and more on barbarian ‘federates’. These so called federates were in fact of three distinct types: the true federates ( frontier tribes who were given a subsidy in return for their assistance in defending the frontier), the tribes who were bribed not to attack the border themselves and finally the barbarians who actually served in the Roman army. These last could not be relied upon to serve the Empire's interests before their own and their admission to the army in large numbers, together with their frequent promotion to influential positions, did much to weaken the fabric of the Empire.
The total strength of the army at this time is reckoned at about 600 to 700,000, of which a third were stationed in Egypt and the East. Two thirds or three quarters of the troops were limitanei, frontier garrison troops who as time went on became a settled militia, farming the land around their outposts. The balance of the army was formed into ten field armies of perhaps 20,000 men each. These comitatenses were mobile troops, kept ready to be despatched to any threatened part of the frontier.
The city was of great cultural, administrative, and economic importance in the Empire. In the game the cities represent the wealth of the various regions. In fact most of the wealth and most of the great cities were in the eastern part of the Empire, and when in 395 AD the two parts of the Empire were almost completely separated administratively, the western part found itself without the resources to defend adequately its long northern frontier.
Along the Rhine Danube frontier in 375 AD the Romans faced many German peoples; Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Asdings, Alans, Rugians etc. which were confederacies of smaller tribes. For the purposes of the game these have been consolidated into two large groups, Goths and Vandals. These peoples were anxious to cross the frontier, partly because of the Huns, partly out of a need for more land and partly out of a genuine desire to be part of the Imperial system. Some, to be sure, sought to pillage and destroy but their aim was not the destruction of the Empire itself, which many fought to preserve and some even to rule.
The Huns were detested by Roman and German alike. They appeared on the scene about 350 AD and about 372 AD began their westward sweep, which by the time of their Empire's collapse in 454 AD had given them control over most of the former German lands. Meanwhile, they continually menaced the Roman Empire itself, winning subsidies from the east and in the west marching to within striking distance of Rome. But a series of setbacks, including the death of their leader Attila, sent them back to the steppes of Asia.