Fortes fortuna iuvat: Plinius adversus Vesuvium (2022)

Overview

Fortes fortuna iuvat: Plinius adversus Vesuvium (Fortune favors the brave: Pliny against the Vesuvius) is a small and simple postcard game published as a freebie by SNAFU Design, first as a gift for the attendees to the Collonera Russa 2022 wargaming convention (Vilafranca del Penedès, Catalonia) and later released for free as a PDF. It's the third of the Snafu Postcard Games.

It's a solitaire game in which the player, as Pliny the Elder, tries to rescue as many people as possible from the Vesuvius eruption of 79 AD, guiding the quadriremes of the Misenum fleet. The game uses a standard deck of cards. After shuffling them, the player reveals cards, one at a time. Black cards affect the progression of the smoke and of the pyroclastic flow, while red cards allow the player to act (move the inhabitants of the zone, move the quadriremes, move Pliny's liburna).

The name of the game comes from a line in a letter from Pliny's nephew, Pliny the Younger, to the historian Tacitus in which he retells the last moments of his uncle: "'Fortes' inquit 'fortuna iuvat: Pomponianum pete.' (Fortune favours the brave, he said, head for Pomponianus!)

—description from the designer