**
The first turn of the full campaign always starts with the Protestant player playing Luther's 95 Theses.
The phrasing "targeting the German language zone" is a little unfortunate, and we misunderstood it the first time around. What it means is that the Protestant player can actually make those reformation attempts wherever they like, but they win ties in the target language zone. With this advantage and the extra die provided by the Theses, the Protestant player targeted Leipzig, Erfurt, Magdeburg, Brandenburg and Breslau, converting all of these except Magdeburg. Here's the result on the board:
**
Now that the Reformation is underway, next up is the card draw phase. My partner isn't participating in the game, but agreed to deal everyone's cards and tell them what they have, which we all greatly appreciate! From there we move on to the diplomacy phase. Here's the diplomatic situation at the start of the game: the Ottomans are at war with Hungary, and both the Papacy and Hapsburgs are at war with France.
The diplomacy phase on the first turn is truncated: it consists of England negotiating with France and the Hapsburgs. This time, England had no deals to announce, so we moved on to the Diet of Worms phase. This is another first turn special: the Hapsburgs, Papacy and Protestants all secretly choose a card to play, and they then roll a number of dice based on the command point values of those cards. The Papal and Imperial totals are combined, and the Protestants get 4 bonus dice. Whoever scores the most hits wins, and gets to flip a number of spaces equal to the difference of the hits to their particular denomination. Last time around, the result was a draw and everyone was disappointed.
This time, the Protestants played City State Rebels, with the Hapsburgs committing Pirate Haven and the Papacy Sale of Moluccas. Unfortunately, it was all in vain. The Protestants rolled eight dice and scored one (1) hit. The combined Papal-Imperial total was one (1) hit. So the Diet of Worms is once again a draw!
**
After all these preliminaries, it's time to get the game proper started. Phase Five of the turn is Spring Deployment: every power (except the Protestants) gets to deploy one formation from their capital to a friendly location they control and can draw a route to. This is done in what the game calls impulse order, i.e. the Ottoman (that's me) go first, followed by the Hapsburgs, England, France, the Papacy and finally the Protestants. My spring deployment saw Suleiman lead an army of five regulars and one cavalry unit to Nezh, on the border with Hungary. The Hapsburgs followed by deploying their entire army in Vienna to Brussels. England deployed Henry VIII and three regulars to Berwick, while France's sole deployment consisted of sending Francis I to Rouen.
So, after these spring maneuvers, it falls to me to kick off the first Action Phase of the game by playing Peasants' War.
Unrest is a lovely thing: units can't be built in spaces in unrest, or lines of communication traced through them. If a stack returns home through a space in unrest in the winter phase, it loses half its strength to attrition. Spaces in unrest also don't count for reformation or counter-reformation attempts, so unrest in Catholic Germany is somewhat to the Protestants' advantage. When I was dealt the card, I briefly considered trying to place some strategic unrest in Germany to speed up the Reformation and cause trouble for the Hapsburgs, but I decided it's not really worth 3 CPs. An aggressive anti-French deployment by the Hapsburgs that empties Vienna, however, changes things.
On their impulse, the Emperor played A Mighty Fortress for 4 CP; Charles V and the Duke of Alva marched from Valladolid to Zaragoza with their army of four regulars, and mobilized a regular in Antwerp. Henry VIII followed with Venetian Alliance, also for 4 CP: England built a naval squadron at London, moved the fleet to the North Sea, and hired a mercenary at Berwick. The French played their home card to hire four mercenaries in Paris and one in Bordeaux. On the religious side, the Papacy plays Papal Bull for the command points and uses them to build St. Peter's, and the Protestants play Venetian Informant and commit Melanchton to get started translating the New Testament into German.
**
On my impulse, I'm delighted to play Barbary Pirates.
Algiers now becomes a key under my control, I get Hayreddin Pasha and a fleet of corsairs - and I can use those corsairs for piracy. I also get two command points; I used them to move Suleiman's army to Belgrade, and on a naval move action: I moved the squadrons in Istanbul, Athens and Salonika to the Aegean Sea, and Barbarossa and his corsairs to the Barbary Coast.
The Emperor then gets things going with Holy Roman Emperor. Charles V travels to Antwerp, marches to Brussels with all his troops, and on to St. Dizier and Paris.
Before the field battle begins, the French play Landsknechts to reinforce their army, but they lose the battle decisively, taking four hits but only inflicting one. The two surviving French mercenaries retreat to St. Quentin, and the regulars and Montmorency withdraw into the fortifications of Paris. The siege is on!
Because everything is happening, the English play their home card and declare war on Scotland. France intervenes, and Scotland is activated as a French ally. Henry VIII reinforces his army and marches on Edinburgh.
The French are now at war with three of their five rival powers in the game.
On their impulse, the French play Defender of the Faith. They use the two command points to hire a mercenary at St. Quentin and march on Brussels, besieging the fortress there and cutting the Hapsburgs' line of communication.
Meanwhile, only one of the three counter-reformation attempts is succesful: Erfurt is converted to Catholicism. Next, the papacy plays Leipzig Debate and starts a debate, designating Eck as their debater and challenging one of the uncommitted German reformers. That turned out to be Andreas Karlstadt, chancellor of Wittenberg university. Because his debate level of 1 left him at serious risk of not only losing, but being burned at the stake, the Protestants played Here I Stand to substitute Luther.
Luther and Eck debated each other to a draw, leading to a second round between Martin Bucer and Girolamo Aleandro also ended in a draw, leaving all Protestant debaters committed but achieving no results. The Protestants retaliated with Foul Weather, using the command points to publish a treatise in German, which succesfully converted Magdeburg and Lübeck.
For my part, I played Fuggers for the three command points. Suleiman's army stormed the fortifications of Belgrade and captured the city with no casualties. I also tried a spot of piracy against the Hapsburgs on the Barbary Coast, but to no avail.
Things were about to take a very dramatic turn. Ignoring their severed lines of communications, the Hapsburgs played Treachery! and stormed Paris. They only lost one unit, meaning that they still outnumbered the defenders, and Paris fell to the Emperor!
On the English impulse, things only get worse for France. England plays Revolt of the Communeros for command points, adding a mercenary in Calais and assaulting Edinburgh. The initial rolls are one hit apiece, but England deploys Siege Artillery and finishes the job: Edinburgh falls.
The French play Colonial Governor/Native Uprising for command points, storming Brussels and adding a mercenary at Rouen. In spiritual matters, the Papacy plays Anabaptists, and flips Magdeburg and Leipzig.
The Protestants strike back with Charles Bourbon, using the command points to finish translating the New Testament into German. This nets them six reformation attempts targeting the German language area, and they succesfully flip Magdeburg, Leipzig and Stettin for a total of seven Protestant spaces.
On my last impulse, I only have my home card left in my hand, so I have no choice but to play Janissaries. I'm adding three regulars to Istanbul and one to Scutari.
The Hapsburgs play Printing Press for command points. The Duke of Alva leads his army over the Pyrenees to capture Avignon and besiege Lyon; Charles V marches to Dijon.
The French, still holding one card, skip their impulse. The Papacy play Spring Preparations for 3 CP, using one to build St. Peter's and two to burn books. The counter-reformation attempts are unsuccesful, but committing Tetzel nets the Papacy one more CP to St. Peter's. The Protestants skip their impulse. The Hapsburgs play Trace Italienne for 3 CP, taking control of Dijon, moving Charles and his army to Lyon and succesfully assaulting it with the loss of one regular.
The French play Ransom, returning Montmorency from Hapsburg captivity to Bordeaux.
When the Protestants skip again, the first Action Phase is over!
**
It's now on to the Winter Phase, where we find winter quarters for our forces, and mobilize new regulars in our capitals. For my part, Suleiman is wintering at Belgrade with four regulars and the rest of the troops are returning to Istanbul. Hayreddin Pasha and my corsairs are spending the off-season at Algiers and my fleets in the Aegean will winter at Coron. The Hapsburgs are returning one regular from Lyon to Valladolid and two to Vienna, losing one of them to attrition due to the unrest. Having lost their capital, the French do nothing, and the Papacy is content to mobilize one regular in Rome. The English leave Henry VIII, two regulars and a mercenary in Edinburgh, and return two regulars and a mercenary to London, where they also generate a third regular.
Finally, in the New World phase, we find out what happened to the Hapsburg explorer and conquistador sent out before the game started. The explorer turned out to be Pánfilo de Nárvaez, who was lost at sea. Still, that means the next Hapsburg voyage won't suffer a -1 penalty for sailing into the unknown. The conquistador turns out to be none other than Cortes himself, and he promptly subjugates the Inca, earning the Hapsburgs 2 victory points.
**
And with that, the turn is over! For what it's worth, Luther's 95 Theses was played on the 22nd of March. Paris fell to the Hapsburgs on Easter Monday, and Lyon on Sunday the 26th of April. The Inca were conquered on the Monday. So all in all getting the game running by email took a little over a month.
It's been quite a turn. The Reformation is underway, ineffectually opposed by the party pope and mostly ignored by the Hapsburgs. By my count, Magdeburg and Leipzig have been converted three times, from Catholic to Protestant and back to Catholic and to Protestant again. England captured Edinburgh, but the real main event has been the Hapsburg offensive into France. The fall of Paris with Treachery! was truly spectacular, and things look pretty dire for France - at the expense of Germany in unrest and Vienna held by one regular.
So far, this has been an absolutely excellent experience. As the English player put it to me at one point, there's a real sense of grand strategy when it can take over a week between moves. There's plenty of time to deliberate; at times, pauses long enough that you put the game out of your mind completely - and then suddenly everything is happening. I am tremendously enjoying this, and I want to play more games by email in the future.
Let's see what happens next turn!
Diplomacy:
The French are at war with England, the Hapsburgs and the Papacy
France and Scotland are allied
The Ottomans are at war with Hungary-Bohemia
Victory points:
Protestants 2
France 8
England 11
Hapsburgs 12
Ottomans 12
Papacy 18
Protestant spaces: 7
Cards removed from the game:
Luther's 95 Theses
Peasants' War
Barbary Pirates
Defender of the Faith
Explorers removed: Narváez (-1)
2 comments:
Hauska raportti! Vähän kuin itse pelaisi. Vaikkei pelistä mitään ymmärräkään.
Kiitos, kiva jos huvitti lukea! Rehellisyyden nimissä täytyy sanoa, että aika vähän tästä itsekään ymmärtää vaikka pelaa par'aikaa.
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