Age of Druids - Historical Authenticity
September 19, 2025
Historical authenticity is one of the key tenets of Age of Druids. So, what does this mean when we’re dealing with a period of history that is two millennia ago and for which the historical record is incredibly thin?
As a starting point, it is useful to look at where our knowledge of the Roman World and the Roman attempts to conquer Britain (or Britannia as it was known to the Romans) originates. Most information we have for this period comes from the works of Roman writers such as Julius Caesar, Tacitus and Cassius Dio. Very rarely are these written at the point when the events they are covering occurred (Julius Caesar himself being a notable exception), and we always must try to account for the intention of the writers. As an example, it was in the best interest of Caesar to portray events surrounding his campaigns in Gaul and Britannia in the best possible way to increase his own reputation.
The information that has come down to us from the Roman writers can now be compared with recently discovered archaeological evidence. This indicates that late Iron Age culture in Briton was relatively peaceful and settled, which contradicts many of the Roman sources, but archaeology has corroborated the widespread burning and destruction of Colchester, London and St Albans which is recorded as having taken place during the Boudiccan rebellion. In other areas there is continuing debate, such as the exact usage of hill forts during the period (whether for settlement, defensive, religious, or other purposes).
There is no evidence of Iron Age Britons leaving any written records, other than what can be interpreted from the small amount of coinage discovered.
For Age of Druids, I have made use of our historical knowledge of the period as much as possible, and I shall take you through some of these areas and the decisions I have made, to demonstrate how Age of Druids can claim to be historically authentic (and why I have not used the term historically accurate).
One of the first steps in recreating the world of Britannia was to map the coast. The coastline of Iron Age Briton was different to the coastline we see today. This is a result of a combination of changing sea levels, the gradual silting up of channels (such as the Wantsum Channel in Kent), and human land reclamation projects. I have been unable to locate a single resource which maps the coast of Britain as it was 2,000 years ago, so for the campaign maps I have spent many hours researching and used a wide range of resources to recreate the historic coastline. By way of example, here are some of the resources I have used to do this for Kent:
https://romneymarshhistory.co.uk/beginning
https://www.wilcuma.org.uk/kent/a-history-of-kent-2/a-history-of-kent-romano-british-kent/
https://www.caitlingreen.org/2015/04/thanet-tanit-and-the-phoenicians.html
https://aslanhub.com/2018/02/wantsum-archaeology-isle-thanet-1/
Mapping the ancient pathways of Britannia also presents a challenge. There has been a lot of fantastic work produced on the Roman road network, in particular the research carried out in the 1950’s by a historian named Ivan Margary. There is an excellent online resource at saxonhistory.co.uk (https://saxonhistory.co.uk/Ivan_D_Margary_Roman_Roads.php) providing details of the Margary routes, and the Roman Roads Research Organisation (https://www.romanroads.org/) continues to push forward our knowledge in this area. However, for Age of Druids some of the campaigns occur in the period before any of the Roman roads had been built. We know that there was a network of ancient pathways in Britannia before the Romans arrived, such as The Ridgeway and the Icknield Way, and even that surfaced roads were already in existence¹. These trackways usually followed the higher, firmer ground, and would have linked the existing settlements. Many of the Roman roads would have replaced those original tracks (in usage, if not in physical location), so for Age of Druids, my starting point for the pathway network of Iron Age Briton has been the Roman roads which were mapped by Margary. I have then used my own judgement to identify those routes which would not have been in use prior to the Roman invasions, and so for example the road between Canterbury and Richborough (Margary reference RR10) does not appear in the earliest campaigns because prior to the Roman invasions there was no known settlement at Richborough.
The Roman forces which feature in the game is the last area I will look at. Some of the campaigns represented have contemporary sources which cover the Roman forces involved. During the Roman invasion of 55BC we have written evidence from Julius Caesar detailing which legions accompanied him to Britain, and that the auxiliary cavalry was unable to complete the crossing and returned to Gaul. We even have the names of some individuals who served in the second invasion force in 54BC, including Quintus Laberius Durus and Gaius Trebonius. At other times the best evidence is archaeological, such as inscriptions which detail where certain legions were stationed at different times. Beyond that there are educated guesses made by historians, these look at the picture of known military deployment across the Roman empire to deduce which legions were serving where at a given time. The difficulties inherent in this become clear if you try and follow the research into the disappearance of Legio IX Hispana (the famous Ninth Legion), where challenges include the difficulty in dating inscriptions and in the presence of smaller legionary detachments being easily confused with the presence of the legion itself. Where none of these resources are available for a campaign, I have occasionally had to make my own best guesses.
Whilst there are many other areas of Age of Druids which have required historical research and interpretation, this blog post has provided an insight into the approach I have used to ensure that the game is authentic to the history of the time, place and events of Britain during the Roman invasion. With the state of our knowledge of the period, which is constantly evolving, and with the gaps and contradictions in the written and archaeological evidence, it is in my view not possible to use the term ‘historically accurate’, but I think that it is right to instead use the term ‘historically authentic’.
Age of Druids is an upcoming historical turn-based strategy game, please visit the Steam page here to find out more.
As a final note, if anyone has feedback on the issues discussed here or knows of any useful resources that I might have missed, then I would love to hear from you. My email address is graham@dejimastudios.com.