Introduction

Soldier Raj is a strategic-level area-based board game that portrays the major wars on the Indian subcontinent between 1767 and 1848. The major European powers are the British and the French, while the major Indian powers include Maratha, Hyderabad, Mysore and Punjab. Multitudes of minor powers are also involved, ranging from the Nepalese in Katmandu to the Spanish possessions in the Philippines. Designed for multi-player, the game is as much about diplomacy and negotiation as it is about the battles between fleets and armies for control of areas on the map. Soldier Raj is a stand-alone game, but it is also an expansion to Soldier Emperor, allowing players to add South Asia as another battleground during the Napoleonic Wars.

Background

By 1767, modern Europeans had been involved with the Indian subcontinent for over 250 years. Taking advantage of superior technology and the often divided Indian empires and city states, the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French and British had carved out territory on the mainland or on land as far east as the Philippines. Soldier Raj opens shortly after the end of the Seven Years War, with Great Britain ascendant. The stand-alone scenarios in the game cover eight of the ensuing wars whereby the British, not without some setbacks, eventually established hegemony over most of South Asia.

The first five campaigns focus on three major Indian powers. The Maratha were the largest and controlled much of central India. Just to the south was the smallest, Hyderabad. Furthest south was Mysore. The First Anglo-Mysore War (1767-1770) was a good example of the importance of diplomacy, bribery and shifting alliances. Invited to join an alliance with Hyberdad and Maratha against Hyder Ali of Mysore, the British were flummoxed when Hyder Ali, not only paid Maratha to stay out of the war, but also convinced Hyberdad to change sides. The result was a resounding British defeat.

In 1775, the British became embroiled in the First Maratha War when they supported an usurper to the succession of the Maratha Confederacy. The British were initially defeated and sued for peace, but then attacked in violation of the treaty and had more success. The war ended in 1782 with a twenty-year treaty that freed Britain to focus on the larger war with France and the Second Anglo-Mysore War, which had begun in 1780. Mysore, still under Hyder Ali, began the conflict allied with France, Hyberdad and the Marathas. Skillful British diplomacy soon moved the other Indian powers to neutrality and the Mysoreans were defeated at Porto Novo in 1781. Hyder Ali and his successor, Tippoo, proceeded to win most of the rest of the following battles, but could not come up with a decisive victory. A peace treaty ended the war in 1784 with neither side gaining any territory.

The Third Anglo-Mysore War began in 1789 when a conflict between Tippoo and the minor country of Travancore gave the British an excuse to attack. This time the British alliance with Maratha and Hyderabad held, and after a brilliant but ultimately futile defense by Tippoo, Lord Charles Cornwallis forced the Mysoreans to sue for peace in 1792.

The death knell for Mysore came in 1799 when the Fourth Mysore War pitted Tippoo and his French allies against the British, led by Governor-General Richard Wellesley and General Arthur Wellesley, and their Hyderabad partners. The Marathas were distracted by an aborted invasion from Afghanistan and did not join either side. Seringapatam, the capital of Mysore, was captured and Tippoo killed in battle. The winners carved up Mysore and British control of Southern India was assured.

With Mysore gone and Hyderabad firmly in the British camp, the only major power left in India proper was the Maratha Confederacy. A civil war in the early 1800’s resulted in the deposed ruler requesting British assistance. Most of the Maratha chieftains mobilized in response to the British interference. In 1803 at the Battle of Assaye, General Arthur Wellesley’s army of 7,000 defeated a Maratha force of around 50,000. Despite another defeat about a month later, the Marathas continued to fight and a peace treaty was finally signed in late 1804 with no decisive victor.

The next major war presented in Soldier Raj is the Third (and last) Anglo-Maratha War, which started in 1817. Though it featured armies with over 100,000 men on each side, it was over rather quickly, with  Maratha decisively defeated by the end of 1818.

We now skip to 1845 and the last campaign presented in the game, the Anglo-Sikh Wars. Once again the British tried to take advantage of a succession crisis and take over the Punjab. The Sikhs attacked first, but in a pattern that was to be repeated time and again, traitorous leaders negated the superb fighting displayed by the soldiers. Two wars were fought and won by the British over the next four years, resulting in the annexation of the Punjab in 1848.