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After Action Reports => Digital Gaming AARs => Topic started by: ArizonaTank on July 30, 2017, 08:44:43 PM

Title: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: ArizonaTank on July 30, 2017, 08:44:43 PM
Just started, a 4 player game of GMT's recently released Time of Crisis, based on the turmoil in Roman Empire during the 3rd century AD.  Each player has a faction vying for their place in history. 

Red - ArizonaTank
Blue - DM
Yellow - Barthheart
Green - JasonPratt

The game is using that wonderful, and no cost uber gaming tool..."Vassal"  This is a PBEM game...actually we are using Google Drive and Google Chat to help manage the game and pass files back and forth.

The pic below is the opening setup.  Ready for the first turn.  Well, neutral governors have to be placed...but almost ready.

(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4322/36109201132_2e641c6cb7_h.jpg)
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on July 30, 2017, 09:47:31 PM
So, if you're an absolute newbie at the game -- and I know I am -- here's what that map means. Sort of.

The Empire at this time has twelve regions (as far as this map/game is concerned). You can identify them on the map because each one has a set of numbered squares (usually 0 to 4) under a little square with what looks like a forum. Here at the start, we've each chosen a region to have our influence in: each of us is a family with political ties, and we all start with a governor of a region under our control. If we can install a governor in the Italia region, he'll be the Emperor, but there are also ways to set up regions as alternate Roman Empires. Governors (and Emperors) come and go, but we the players remain the power(s) behind the scenes.

So each of us starts with one governor ruling a region; those are the circle tokens in our colors, placed on the "1" of those regions. The numbers 0 to 4 (or 0 to 8 for Italia) represent the influence of our governors in their regions.

Each of us also starts with one Legion and one Militia in the capitol city of our starting regions. You can't see much of the militia squares right now, because the Legion squares are on top. Militias guard cities and cannot be moved. Legions can be moved, but we have to bring generals into our families' control, and then put them on the board, and then assign Legions to them -- then the Legions can move. (I think Legions can move in and out of capitols without generals, though.)

Those are the basic military chips of the game, and for game purposes each chip is equivalent to each other, which means each militia chip is as strong as each Legion chip, which makes all my nostrils flare but I understand the point for game balance. ;) I chose the only Cyraenica Legion for my starting region of Africa, for historical color, but strictly speaking it doesn't matter.

Rome has twelve regions on the map. Roughly counter-clockwise from the top left those are: Britannia, Gallia (AzTank is there), Hispania, Africa (me), Aegyptus (Barth), Syria, Galatia, Asia (DM), Thracia, Macedonia, Pannonia, and last but never least (until the rise of Byzantium anyway  >:D ) Italia.

Each of us can freely choose any region to start, except Italia. I rather wanted to be "Philip the Arab", first Christian Emperor, who ruled toward the end of this period for a few years -- but I didn't want that enough to choose a start in Syria, where I'd be swarmed by more barbarians than any other region! (Also I had two other players nearby, hemming me in a bit.)

From that standpoint, the best choice is either Britannia or Africa, and Africa gave me a little more legroom. Thus my rationale. But players can send legions around the map by sea, so Barth (in Egypt) could move an army into Britannia if he wanted to pay enough to get it there. By sea that would only be a four space move for him, and in this game there's no way to block sea travel! -- also there's no risk of sea attrition. (Armies can't end a turn in the ocean, though.)


How am I going to win the -- ---- uh, I mean, how does any player not just me win the game?  :arr:

The game ends in one of two ways. (1) one player, currently the Emperor, reaches 60 legacy points (i.e. victory points). On any turn that happens, that's the final turn, but everyone who hasn't played the turn yet can still play out and try to outscore. (2) Diocletian is shuffled into the deck as one of the final four or five cards (I think one of the 5, but I don't recall for sure), and if he's drawn as an event that instantly ends the game. Whoever has the most legacy points wins.

You may be asking yourself, "Self, I see only 40 points on the track at the top of the map. So how can 60 points be tracked?" Well, each of us has two scores, each with a chip that has our color. One score is "legacy", and that has a maximum of 40. (I don't think points can be taken away, btw.) The other score is "Emperor", and it tracks the number of turns that each of us controls an (undisputed!) Emperor. This also has a maximum of 40. Each of our total scores adds up from those two -- sort of. The player in first place for Emperor Turns gets a bonus of 10 legacy points, and down from there, with ties each scoring the same points. So I could have control of an Emperor at the end of 40 turns, and I'll only score 10 points from it. How does this convert into the 60 legacy points needed to trigger the auto win? Danged if I know!  :D :hide:

(I'm presuming for now that this is either a mis-print in the rules, or that the Emperor Turn score counts like legacy points for this purpose, until the game ends and the Emperor points are converted down as noted.)


Wait, did I mention barbarians? ... ..... {checking} Yes. Yes I did. There are five barbarian factions scattered around the borders of the Empire. You can see piles of their huts on the board for each faction homeland. Those huts turn into active hordes in various ways, and the hordes surge out into Imperial lands under various conditions. I'm sure we'll be getting to this later because it's highly important to the game. Hordes, if I understand correctly, do not attack per se, just mess with the influence of governors in a region, eventually leading them to be removed. There are three barbarian chiefs which can and probably will be spawned by event cards, and they give hordes some defensive bonuses. Also, each player has the power to bring hordes permanently under our command in certain circumstances. This is helpful for several reasons, but partly because there's a hard limit to the number of legions and militias which the Empire can support: once those chips are on the board somewhere, that's all. (I'm not sure yet if they go back into stock when they get destroyed, or if they're put out of the game. I haven't read the combat system yet.)

The last thing each of us did in our Turn 0, was choose five cards from our stock of available cards. Each of us has his own stock of cards, and we all start off with the same kinds and numbers: 3 cards each of military, senate, and populace, each worth one point of its type. We'll play those cards during our turns to do various actions corresponding to our colors, including buying stronger cards of those colors with special event types on them. As we play our cards (sort of like mana to power up our abilities), we discard them into our discard piles. Any new cards we buy go into that discard pile, too. Once all our available cards have been drawn, the discard pile becomes the new available stock of cards. Note: these cards aren't dealt out randomly -- we can choose any five available cards we wish. We don't have to play them all on a turn, either, but we must select up to our maximum of five cards at the end of each of our turns. This will be clearer in operation later, I hope. (Our opponents can't see our cards until we play them, so I'm not telling now which starting five cards I chose: but they'll be some mixture from among those three starting types.)


That's it. From here we start the first turn. Since Barth and I are learning, and AzTank has a little more experience than DM, he's taking the first turn and we're going "clockwise" in the initial order that he gave. After my first turn, DM will get the "First player" token and I'll become 3rd player and Az will become last player -- and so on for the rest of the game. (This game doesn't have ways to alter the progression of player order, so far as I know yet.)
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: Barthheart on July 31, 2017, 07:53:46 PM
Just getting started and already my home province of Aegyptus is overrun with barbarians!  #:-)
Not a great start. But I have managed to install a governor in Syria who is sympathetic to my cause.

I'll still have to deal with barbs... maybe next turn...  :knuppel2:
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on July 31, 2017, 10:11:11 PM
Syria == Barbie Mansion. Have fun with constant barbarians!  :D

Moar Nomads rolled on my turn, but they didn't feel numerous enough to go anywhere yet.

I spent 3 pop on Limes (just to be different and thus stupid, for not increasing my support early like everyone else), then 1 red and 1 blue on recruiting a general and a governor respectively.

For those who are following along at home: they aren't on the map yet, but are now "available" on my game mat. I'll have to pay again to place them somewhere on the map (or for the governor, to have a chance at placing him.)

The Limes is (are?) on the map, as a regional improvement chip. They force all incoming barbarians to flip back over to inactive, even if they surge past me into Hispania. (You're welcome, Az!) I suspect however that they go to active anyway at the end of my turn, instead of staying inactive. (The rules do not seem clear about this?)

The Limes will permanently give me an extra point of score, per turn, for holding this area, as long as I hold it! It is entirely possible that someone investing in a lot of early senator power will oust me early, and then I'm very much screwed if not yet quite out of the game.
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: Barthheart on August 01, 2017, 08:58:37 AM
Quote from: JasonPratt on July 31, 2017, 10:11:11 PM
Syria == Barbie Mansion. Have fun with constant barbarians!  :D

Moar Nomads rolled on my turn, but they didn't feel numerous enough to go anywhere yet.

...

Well if all the rest of you would stop rolling up Nomads, it would be so bad....   :timeout: :pullhair:
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 01, 2017, 09:34:27 AM
Someone did roll a Frank on Turn 1. So there's that.

If barbarian hordes get pounded militarily, do they just go back home inactive (to their inactive stack I mean) to randomly respawn later? Or do they permanently depopulate?

Come to think of it, same question for our militia and legions: do they go back to their general inactive pool stacks, or are they removed from the game? In the limited timeframe of the game, seems like depop would be the rule.
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: Barthheart on August 01, 2017, 09:45:03 AM
I rolled the Frank up... all of you others rolled Nomads....  :knuppel2:

Section 8.1
Killed barbs go back into their respective inactive homelands piles.
Killed barb leaders are removed from the game.  <:-)
Killed legions and militia get returned to the supply stacks to be used again.
If all legions of an army are eliminate, the General goes back to the Available Leaders box.  O0

Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 01, 2017, 09:48:40 AM
 <:-)

Could be worse. You could have rolled the Goths. How the heck they get to Syria I don't know, but there's a 50/50 chance you'd be seeing them eventually.
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 01, 2017, 09:49:53 AM
Speaking of Goths, I promise I'm getting back to DC:Blitz soon, now that I've shuffled down some other things from the past two weeks.
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: Barthheart on August 01, 2017, 09:51:21 AM
Quote from: JasonPratt on August 01, 2017, 09:48:40 AM
<:-)

Could be worse. You could have rolled the Goths. How the heck they get to Syria I don't know, but there's a 50/50 chance you'd be seeing them eventually.

Goths have to get through Galatia first... so there's that....

Not sure where you get 50/50 chance though.... 33% chance they got to Galatia and then to Syria only if they have more than 3 units invading....
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: Barthheart on August 01, 2017, 09:51:55 AM
Quote from: JasonPratt on August 01, 2017, 09:49:53 AM
Speaking of Goths, I promise I'm getting back to DC:Blitz soon, now that I've shuffled down some other things from the past two weeks.

No worries, I haven't been exactly speedy on my returns...  :buck2:
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 01, 2017, 10:00:05 AM
Quote from: Barthheart on August 01, 2017, 09:51:21 AM
Not sure where you get 50/50 chance though.... 33% chance they got to Galatia and then to Syria only if they have more than 3 units invading....

Nah, don't have the map here at work, and was too lazy laconic to check upthread if I had forgotten a third path for them.  :cowboy:
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 01, 2017, 06:11:18 PM
For those following along at home, here's what the end of Turn 1 looked like:

(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimagizer.imageshack.us%2Fv2%2F1024x768q90%2F922%2Fm2RdWL.png&hash=1640bf0962ba118cfea81f9e077868fd28fb9b86)

Barth and I are currently tied for the lead at 2 legacy points, but since I'm the only person who chose not to increase my support and/or my regional holdings this turn, I'm likely to fall behind for a while. (The legacy points are tracked on the top with counter marked with the wolf of Romulus/Remus fame. Az' marker is stacked under Dave's.)

Az, playing red, has not only increased his support governing Gallia to 2 (we all start at 1), but has also got together an army (a general plus at least one legion, exactly one in this case) and marched into the regional capitol of Hispania. This might make it easier for him to replace the Hispanic governor later, although this early in the game I'm unsure about whether the chances aren't already at maximum (due to the governor being at 1 support.)

A Frankish horde is gathering to his north.

Dave, playing blue in Asia, hasn't taken an army anywhere yet (I think he may have two stacked in his capitol, I don't clearly recall), but he's getting ready to, and has upped his first governor's support to 2.

Barth, playing yellow down in Egypt, has had to deal with an early annoyance of 2 surging Nomad tribes -- possibly with a 3rd or more on the way as well (though those might go my direction next); so although he did raise support the nomads knocked it down again. Barth is the first of us to install an allied governor, though, in Syria. (Az is likely to be next, I imagine, in Hispania.)

You can see me down in Africa doing nothing yet but forting up against the Nomads. But I have plans. ...plans.  >:D
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 01, 2017, 08:37:01 PM
In case I said so earlier, which I probably did (because I was saying it elsewhere in various places): I was mistaken about the player order cycling clockwise each turn. While that might be an interesting game variant, the rules don't mention it. So Az goes first each turn, then Dave, then Barth, then me.
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: Barthheart on August 01, 2017, 08:54:38 PM
My turn is complete.... still have barbs up my ass.... yes that is as fun as it sounds....  :buck2:
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 01, 2017, 09:42:00 PM
Did Az get his 2nd turn off before he left? If not, it's only fair that I should wait for him to return, since in my mix-up with some other game I scotched the turn order.  :-[
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 02, 2017, 07:23:13 PM
Okay, Az played his turn, then I ended out Turn 2. Here's the Mapus Quo, or... look, my Latin is nonexistus, okay?

(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimagizer.imageshack.us%2Fv2%2F1024x768q90%2F923%2FlGq1yZ.png&hash=06ba3e9b819f4454df8e6a41326d64eb2a2a3e7a)

If you are wondering how Larry (AzTank) took the lead, that's because I am super-dumb and moved his counter up two spaces. He should be at 3 I think. (He ended turn 1 with one province, adding 1 to his score; and turn 2 with two provinces, adding another 2 for a 3 total.)

In my defense, he will probably throttle me soon, and his color is red, so part of my brain must have decided to capitulate early.  :buck2:


So! Dave and Az (blue and red) have played a parallel game to this point so far, except reaching here in a bit of a reverse order. After their turns, they're each in governance of two provinces, with a short army in each capital city, and they've each buffed their governors to 2 support. This allowed them to earn 4 political points each at the end of Turn 2, which neither one spent on trashing any cards from their deck yet. Both bought a 2 point card -- I forget which one(s) offhand, although their choice isn't secret. The way the rules work, if you want to buy more than one card per turn with your poli-points (which aside from trashing cards at 3 points each flat rate, is all you can do with them), you pay their cost (which is doubled if you don't control enough governors to match their cost) plus 1 poli-point for every card you've already bought this turn. That's why neither could afford a second card: they each only had 2 points left and needed 3 points minimum for a second card.

Dave (iirc) rolled our first event of the game, but it only affects the current player Emperor, which none of us are. The clock toward the end of the game still thus randomly ticks off once.

Another Goth and Nomad tribe each activated, but neither people felt numerous enough yet to surge.

That's just as well for poor Barth, who has been hobbled by barbs since turn 1. He tried sending out a legion to evict one tribe, but the legion whiffed on a bad roll and both tribes hit back. (We'll have a rule dispute about whether his legion should be dead, because he also marched out his militia which took the fatal hit instead -- I think the rules stipulate that militia cannot move at all, and so cannot move outside the city to fight. Until this is resolved, he moved his depleted legion back into the capitol.) He did get a new legion and general into the Syrian capitol, though.


That leaves me. I bought a governor and general last turn, and I had drawn/chosen three red (military) cards for this turn. So I created a 2nd Army (choosing the Minerva legion for flavor), for my new 1-point general; then used my other two red points to sail them off my African coast into the western ocean, and thence into Britain. (I'm pretty sure this is a legal move; you can check my access point from any snapshot so far, and the same ocean segment surrounds southern British access.) Once there, with no other army in the area, I marched them into the provincial capitol building; and so only had to spend one blue senate card to power up a no-lose dice roll to evict the 1-support neutral governor and place the guy I bought last time.

Note that henceforth, any new governor or general I buy will cost 2 points or more (up to 5 points). That doesn't make them any more effective (I think?), just reflects increasing political support costs.

All I had left was a final 1-point blue card that is totally useless by itself, and if I kept it I could only draw four cards from my available deck, none of which would be blue -- thus leaving that card still worthless. So I discarded it for later.

The current provisional governor of Italia now has his support reduced to 4 (due to only 4 neutral governors remaining currently on the board).

With two governors and a regional improvement, I earned 3 legacy points, meaning I should have moved my green wolfy chip from 2 to 5. Instead, being dumb, I moved Az's there.  #:-) This will get fixed by next time, one way or another.

With two 1-point governors I had 2 poli-points to spend this turn, with which I bought a Questor card. Whenever I play it, I'll generate 2 yellow points instead of 1, and I can put down a questor if I want (no reason not to) to temporarily help protect one of my governors from being replaced via senate manipulation. But that'll be later.

I then drew all 4 of my remaining Available cards, allowing me to send all my discards back to available, where I could and did choose one more. We'll see what I drew/chose and how I play them next time.
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 02, 2017, 07:27:48 PM
I'm also okay, btw, with Barth's legion surviving, even if he couldn't have moved out his militia to take the hit: he's had to fight against some awfully bad early rolls, and it's a learning game for both of us (being absolute newbies at this game).  O:-)
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: Barthheart on August 03, 2017, 05:22:21 AM
My combat is legal because the militia can fight from the city... they really weren't "moved". I just unshackled the city unit so all could see what was happening.

So the barbs hit back with 2 hits. The militia took one which destroyed them, and the legion took one which flipped them to their reduced side.

Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 03, 2017, 11:02:59 AM
The game rules seem pretty clear that fighting in the city and fighting outside the city are distinct areas, just like moving into and out of the city are actions distinct from simply being in the region. The key point is that the movement doesn't cost red (or any) points, but it's still technically a move, and therefore can be bound by a few restrictions: mainly preventing units from entering a neutral or enemy capital if enemy forces are in the region, even if the capital itself is empty.

If that's true, then to fight the barbarians you would either have to sit in the city on defense against their attack -- which in this game would never happen since barbs have no inherent attack capabilities, only defense -- or else move out of the city to attack them, per the free-movement rule. Moving out of the city is no problem for a legion, but illegal for militia whose whole purpose in the game is city defense. (That's why there are exactly as many militias as capitals, and no more than one militia can be bought per capital.)


As noted, I don't mind if you keep the legion, but this point could be important later when we start sieging each other: can militias march out of a city to counter-attack a siege? Do units counter-attack a siege without really moving outside the city?
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: Barthheart on August 03, 2017, 11:28:35 AM
See the last post, by the designer, in this thread.  ;)

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1792701/militia

Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 03, 2017, 12:30:57 PM
That sure sounds like it goes quite against the spirit and the letter of distinguishing positions within a province (namely inside and outside a city) being moved between (albeit freely).

But the designer (a month or two ago) specified that a stack in a city does not have to move to attack enemies in the same province. So yep, militia can attack units outside the city. Without moving.

The result stands: one militia destroyed, one legion reduced.  O0
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: Barthheart on August 03, 2017, 08:59:13 PM
Turn done.

Bought off the barbs in Aegyptus this turn and then recruited another province to my cause.

Really need to get rid of the barbs. They are cramping my style....  :knuppel2:
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 03, 2017, 09:11:20 PM
PERHAPS I CAN BE OF HELP FELLOW CITIZEN!  :cowboy:

...uh, but probably not this turn. Which I'd play tonight if I had time, but I'm about to pass out. First thing tomorrow afternoon tho.
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: Barthheart on August 03, 2017, 09:12:08 PM
You stay away from my barbs.... for now.... :P
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 03, 2017, 09:15:42 PM
Well, fortunately for you, your odds are very good your style will be permanently cramped down there, giving you lots of opportunities to muster up as many legions as you can (which not incidentally reduces the legions available to the rest of us by direct proportion) and hunt barbies for score. You get more points for them than for fighting the rest of us!  O:-)
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 04, 2017, 07:14:43 PM
At the end of Turn 3!

(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimagizer.imageshack.us%2Fv2%2F1024x768q90%2F923%2F9y1Vxu.png&hash=dac95b6b930982777e65f302725fc9bc7add6c86)

I'm not entirely sure what happened with AzTank (red) since his logfile didn't get saved. Obviously he put out a new army in Gallia, though, with one legion in it (I checked).

DM (blue) added some anti-barbarian Limes in Thracia, and I don't recall what else -- hired a governor and/or a general maybe.

Barth (yellow) paid tribute to the barbarians camped in Egypt, to keep them off his back for a turn, and then became the first player to get into three provinces by putting a governor in Macedonia. This pushed him up solidly into the lead briefly.

A few more barbies were added to the borderlands, but none of them launched this turn. What did get launched this turn came from our second rolled event (out of.... 12 potentially? 14? I forget. Diocletian is shuffled somewhere into the final three or four; so at least some of those probably won't trigger if we get that far.)

That would be our first Rebel Emperor for the game, Pr.... Protoss. Protest. Prostrate. Prostate? I can never remember his name, but it's something that does have an unexpected meaning in English. Plotinus! ...no (although that's a legitimate name). Dangit. {squinting}

Anyway, he rises in Gallia with what amounts to three legions (packed with him 'on the card', not drawn from our stock), so AzTank will be busy there for the foreseeable future rather than, for example, invading Britain of marching into Italia. Fortunately for Az, the Rival Emps are glass cannons, so if he can land one good hit that'll take out Plothole. Plussize. DANGIT!! One or more of my neurons is trolling me.

I had selected a bunch of yellow ('populace') cards at the end of last turn, one of which was my newly bought Quaestor (as my discards cycled over to my available stack). So I could throw out 5 points of pop, giving me a rather hard choice of good options. I seriously thought about putting a mob somewhere, but decided in the early game I need to be building myself up. I could have increased my governor's support in both regions, to 2 each, leaving over 1 point wasted. That still needs to be done eventually, but I decided to wait on one of the provinces.

In the end, I built another set of Limes, this time in Britain, and then spent my last 2 points on raising Africa's governor to 2 support. I got a Quaestor this turn from playing that card, too, so I put him into Britain to help insulate that gov from any opportunity senate strikes until my next turn. (Questors only last one turn.)

2 governors + 2 improvements = 4 new legacy points, on top of my previous total of 5, and that pushes me to a score of 9.

I only have 3 support in 2 provinces, so I could only trash a card from my deck out of the game (which I don't want to do yet) or buy a 2-power card. I chose another Quaestor, who hopped into my discard pile. I won't be able to put him to use until I cycle through my remaining available cards.

This left me with 1 card in my hand, so I could only choose four from my available deck. After doing that I had 1 remaining there, so I'll be able to recycle again next time.

Note, in closing, that while a Rival Emperor won't affect a neutral Italia governor (i.e. a neutral non-player Emperor), Procrustus will mess with anyone who succeeds in haggling their way into governorship there. Relatedly, I thought someone else (specifically Barth) had already reduced the current neutral Emp's support to 3, and I didn't notice before the end of my turn myself. So that snapshot is a little wrong, it should be 3 support in Italia. That's within reach of an ambitious early player with a little luck: but until someone (probably Az) gets rid of Platypus, no one will want to take up the throne yet.


...


..... {finally gong to the rulebook to see if he's mentioned}

POSTHUMOUS! Eh, close enough, Greek spelling variant so it still counts.
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: Barthheart on August 06, 2017, 07:51:44 AM
Turn 4 and I've still barbs in Aegyptus keeping me from raising my support anyway.  >:(

The Crisis roll on my turn was an event that added Shapus I to the Sassanids. Invasions coming out of there will be less fun now...  :o

I fixed my damaged legion there and added a second. Also bought a Limes improvement for Syria as it seems to be a cross roads for Barb invasions.  :P
Then raised my support in Aegyptus only to have it reduced again by the barbs.. :(

But I now have 3 provinces and 1 improvement so that gets me 4 legacy points to jump into the lead again.

Next turn - barb bashing.  :knuppel2:


Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 06, 2017, 02:59:07 PM
Status Mappus end of Turn 4!

(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimagizer.imageshack.us%2Fv2%2F1024x768q90%2F924%2FpxKZ8E.png&hash=e83e9ba0257d6006da86538efa1262a59ea9c005)

AzLarry kicked his rival Emperor posthumously out of Gallia, but due to a quirk in how the combat rules work he didn't actually 'win' the fight (as far as I can tell?) and so didn't get to score a couple of extra legacy points. He did get a free upgrade of support in Gallia, though, and spent enough red cards to recover his military might back to full strength. This does not bode well for any of the rest of us -- but my province of Britainnia looks awwwfully exposed up there. Larry did put a Limes in Gallia, which should help him shrug off barbarians better.

Dave kicked one of his Gothic interlopers out of Asia, but again due to a rule quirk the battle wasn't considered a "win" exactly -- otherwise he would have also forced the surviving "active" Goth chip to retreat home, too. Still, yay for him! He bought a Limes for Thracia, and a militia for its capital city, too.

Let me add some emphasis to Barth's achievement in putting a governor into Macedonia: despite being crippled by barbarians (and near the last in turn order) from the start of the game, he was still the first person to get three provinces under his control!  :clap: Good luck kicking those Nomads out of Egypt next time!

My Questor had to go home, leaving Britannia a little vulnerable politically -- we'll see whether anyone takes advantage of that next turn. This turn I bought my 2-point governor (but couldn't put him anywhere yet) and my 2-point general; for whom I bought the Ferratus VI Legion and deployed him in Africa. With still only 3 points of governor support, I could only afford a 2-point new card, so I bought one of the final remaining Quaestors. (There are a limited number of higher-point cards, and between us we've about exhausted the stack of 2-power yellow cards, the Questors.)

The only provinces still neutral are Pannonia, Galatia, and Italia -- so the neutral Emperor there only has 3 points of support now. Pannonia is clean of barbarians and player influence at the moment, and is a touch less likely to be invaded than average for provinces on the map, so I expect to see some struggle for it this coming turn.

Niffle has decreed that Galatia will be the first rat's nest for barbarians this game, and I'll be curious to see how/if we players deal with that.

Oh, I forgot to mention: I rolled snake-eyes on my event, the Ira Deorum, so all five barbarian tribes each activated a chip, although the event keeps anyone from invading on that roll.

I still have 2 govs and 2 imps, so my prior total of 9 goes up to 13. Barth is currently also adding 4 points a turn now.

Most of us are still only earning 3 poli-points  a turn, one way or another, but Larry has buffed up to 5 points a turn, allowing him (with his 2 provinces) to buy two 2-power cards a turn. So his ability to spend points on the board is about to jump scarily! -- and if he takes Pannonia soon, that's going to turbo up again. Nothing wins like winning! ;)

Barth, with 3 1-support provinces, can buy one 3-power card a turn, which will be super handy as an advantage, too. When-if-ever he can stomp out his barbarian problems, he's going to get reaaallly strong a lot faster.

With Barth's event-draw this turn, we're somewhere between a quarter and a third of the way through the game!
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: Barthheart on August 07, 2017, 08:33:35 AM
Turn 5. Things getting tense now. The Emperor's Seat is up for grabs.

My Crisis roll saw more Sassanids active then go on the rampage, with Shapus I,  through Galatia and into Asia.... sorry Dave.

Fix up my legion and go to battle in Aegyptus again. I manage to kill a barb but they also damage a legion so no win for me. Still one less barb to worry about.
I bribe the last barb to maintain my support and recruit a new Governor and a new General.

Instead of buying a new action card this round I choose to trash one of my low point Senate cards. This reduce the number of cards in my potential deck thus bringing the high point cards into use faster. Tough call but I think I need to do this earlier rather than later. We'll see if it works.

We're moving along at a good clip. It's an interesting game with very simple rules but very deep game play.

Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 07, 2017, 10:53:45 AM
Wow; without even seeing what Dave did this turn (I already know what AzTank did), I'm all a-twitch for my options this afternoon!  :o
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 07, 2017, 06:27:02 PM
I had one insane plan that would have messed with Barth, but I needed two governors to do so. Which I didn't have.

I had a slightly less insane plan that would have harvested some quick legacy and political points from ratpit Galatia (currently home to Shapur I, thanks to that surge roll by Barth), before my governor got auto-kicked out. But the rules are set up in such a way that I would have gotten kicked out first.

I had an evil and trollish but pretty safe plan, messing with Barth; but I didn't feel like being the first person to kick someone else in the game.  O:-)

So I went with the only-slightly-insane, somewhat-less-than-one-third-chance plan.

(...oh, and I rolled a new Sassy activation, but they didn't feel like surging by themselves.)

Step one: play two red-1 cards to move my new Small Ferret Army across the sea to Italia. And move into the capitol building since no one else is there (yet).

Step two: play two blue-1 cards to try installing my available spare governor (bought last turn) into Italia. With only one province (Galatia) plus himself still neutral, the governor only had a support of 2. The way the rules work, I would need double those votes (2x2=4), minus one vote for parking an army (of any size) in the capitol bldg.

Since this is a neutral governor, any number I rolled on my two dice would count in my favor (even for the Italia seat) -- ones wouldn't count against me. But I would need at least one 6 in order to automatically gain the 3rd senate vote I need to win.

Step three: pray if that new unknown God Whose cross I painted on my shields before marching into Rome will be kind for me showing mercy to Barth rather than doing the safe thing and messing him over in Macedonia.

Step four: roll two sixes.

<:-) :bd:  :D

Step five: waste all my divine good will on some hubris at being the FIRST EMPEROR IN THE GAME!

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(Well, the first Emperor player.)

Step six: set my new governor to 3 support, matching my three governed regions (including Italia). That number can go down in various ways, but can only go up if I put more governors elsewhere.

Step seven: profit.  >:D Started with 13 Legacy total + 3 for support in Italia + 3 for provinces governed (including Italia; but remember the support can be reduced quickly and independently of whether I'm still governing elsewhere) + 2 for improvements in my territories = new total of 21.

I should have also moved my green Emperor Mark one step forward on the track, but if someone else doesn't do that I'll get around to it next time. Too excited at that long-shot roll, nearly 70 percent against me.

Step eight: profit again. With three provinces and 6 support, I bought a 3-red card (the Flanking Maneuver, which will probably come in handy later ;) ), and the last Questor (a 2-yellow card) in the pool. The way the rules work, each extra card you buy per turn costs 1 point more for each card you've already bought. So it cost me 3 points, too. All new cards go into the discard pile as always.

Discarded my last card in my hand (a red-1) to make room for five fresh cards, selected from my available stack. Two availables remaining before I can refresh the stack with the discards.


Note to self: now that I think of it, my super-insane plan would not have worked; not without an extra blue card instead of an extra red one. But this one's fine.

NOW SHALL THE DOGPILE CURBSTOMPING BEGINNN! (...uh, against me. I'm not strong enough to hold on for more than maybe two turns.)
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 07, 2017, 06:29:56 PM
Note that Emperor support isn't affected by barbie kings on the board (unless they eject one of my governors, of course, which any barbarian can do).

It will be affected if I'm still around when someone activates the next Rival Emperor event and/or earns enough political points to buy and play a Pretender card. I'm more likely to see mobs of Mobs thrown at me first tho.
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: Barthheart on August 07, 2017, 07:09:42 PM
Nicely done.

:knuppel2:
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 07, 2017, 07:43:30 PM
When my inevitable defeat arrives, I shall point to this move as its Origen.








(...Diocletian Era pun!  O:-) )
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: ArizonaTank on August 07, 2017, 10:46:07 PM
The nail that sticks up....
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 08, 2017, 08:30:25 AM
Quote from: ArizonaTank on August 07, 2017, 10:46:07 PM
The nail that sticks up....

...still scores some extra points and bling before it gets hammered down.  ^-^ I regret nothing! (...yet.)

Also, that phrase in regard to my strategies sounds familiar...  >:D
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: Barthheart on August 09, 2017, 06:11:37 AM
My crisis roll saw a horde of Franks come pouring out of the north and rampage through Pannonia and into Italia. Too bad.... no not really.  :-"

Managed to steal Britannia from Jason to lower his support as Emperor. And place a Quaestor marker there to make it harder to steal back.  ;)

Also built a new 2 legion army in Macedonia.

Gotta love these new high point value cards, you can really get a lot done in one turn.

So now I control 4 provinces with 2 improvements so I caught up to our Emperor in score.. at least for now.
With 4 support I was able to buy a 4 point Military card.  >:D

Barbarians everywhere a becoming a real problem though.... you'd think we would roll a few more events to even it out a bit......  :timeout:
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 09, 2017, 10:42:21 AM
yeaaaahh, i don't see how I'll be coming back from this imbroglio anytime soon. Or any time.  L:-)

Yep, should have just packed up for Macedonia instead.  :buck2: Well, like I said, when I lose the game I shall point back to seizing the throne early as my excuse.  :peace: Do the safe if trollish thing, not the long shot that will only bring me game-ending trouble!   :uglystupid2:

(My actual turn will be later this afternoon; still at work for another several hours.)
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 09, 2017, 05:53:55 PM
Somewhat unsurprisingly I'm still Emperor at the end of Turn 6. That might continue another turn, since I'm doubtful AzTank has got the Senate clout to make a real stab at it, and he has a FREAKING SWARM of Franks (a Franking swarm?) to attend to militarily before he can settle my hash.

And since the other two guys already threw their full Senatorial weight at yanking Britain out from under me, so I'm not too worried about them trying again in Italia next turn.

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I might however need to worry about Barth's new Praetorian card, now that he has settled his own barbie problem. ...and also worry about his drastically increasing army. Nothing I can do about that now. But it may be of some comfort to Az, to see how quickly someone can go from crippled in last place to jockeying for first place and in position to do some curbstomping!

Dave made a (temporary) alliance with Barth, asking for no military action against him if Dave tried the slightly harder task of deposing my governor in Britain instead of Barth's in Macedonia. Barth agreed. What should have been a virtually certain roll from Dave's 5 senate points, though, failed with three natural 1s against him.

As Barth noted, he was the one who yanked the governorship away eventually. What he didn't mention, was that my Minerva Army parked in the capitol building reduces his support there every turn, so his Questor would have been useless had he not spend those two yellow points buffing support there first! However, he has some buffy stacks ready to wallop vulnerable areas like, well, obvs.  ::)

As for my turn, I rolled our next random event, triggering Good Augeries which will give Roman armies a +1 total to each battle die. I don't have much doubt how Barth will be using that soon! -- but hopefully it'll help Az get rid of his barbarian problem, too.

For my card play, I put down two Questors (one on each governor); increased my Africa support from 2 to 3 (which might help me survive a little longer there after Barth violates me); and bought a basilica (which in theory will help me retake Italia governorship a little easier next time, but which in practice is yet another reason for Barth to invade Africa pronto.  :P ) I'm still ahead on points, but I'm pretty sure Barth can fix that soon.

I did forget to flip over my Italian Franks to active at the end of my turn, but I'll do that at the start of my Turn 7 if no one else beats me to it...  :2funny:
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: Barthheart on August 11, 2017, 07:54:30 AM
Turn 7 and no barbarians!  <:-)

My Crisis rolls caused another small Goth invasion in to Asia. This is good in that it keeps Dave busy, but bad because it can generate easy legacy points for him by killing them.

My cards for this turn suck though so not much accomplished. Added a legion to the Syrian Army because more Sassanids activated. Also raise my support in Britannia only to have it reduce again because of Jason's Army.  :P

Bought a high powered Populace card.

Next turn could be.... interesting....  ^-^

Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 11, 2017, 12:50:32 PM
Yeah, I expect mobs to start arriving soon.  :-*

A little surprisingly, I'm still Emperor going into my Round this turn. I suppose I'll still be Emperor one way or another going out of it. Can I get some other things done meanwhile? We'll see in a few hours, once I'm home from work.
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 11, 2017, 06:48:45 PM
So, am I still Emperor leaving Turn 7?

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Yes indeedy do.  :o

I do not expect this state of affairs to continue past next turn, to be honest, but I did improve my position quite a bit.

Like almost everyone (except Barth who didn't have any such targets), I kicked a barbarian tribe out of one of my lands -- out of Italia, in my case -- and scored some of that hot, sweet, barbarian legacy for doing so. {insert Frazettaish barbarian babe img here}

AzTank (Larry) might have actually done a bit better than he thought, since I can't tell whether he included +1 on his combat rolls thanks to the ongoing Good Auguries event. And the combat-dice tool, unfortunately, doesn't alert log readers about this (although it can be set to include the bonus as I experimentally verified). I removed an extra Frank from Pannonia just in case, but he may have to add an active one back.

Unfortunately, this won't affect (either way) a mistake he made in not accounting for his red-expenses properly: he spent 2 red on buying a new legion for Pannonia, but forgot he had already spent one of them attacking there. However, I figured he would have spent that one point refreshing his damaged legion there, so did that for him (while sending the new legion off the board).

Dave, also unfortunately, ran fowl of a rule stating that once an army has attacked it can't move (or attack) -- although as far as I can tell a moving army can attack after it arrives (if the cost is paid ofc). So, after discussing things with him, I moved it back and didn't move a smaller but new army he had made instead. He's going gutsy for Galatia, though! Which considering it has only gotten more full of Goths this turn is even gutsier.

The Goths sent him a new chip into Asia, too, after his turn; bad luck. He'll want to deal with that, too, next time. But he should easily stomp it for points, especially if the Auguries are still going by then.

Much worse luck: four Nomads lined up and surged toward Syria, one of them making it in, the other three parking in Egypt. It's a good thing Barth has buffed up his armies recently!

My turn, however, was pretty great: I took back the governorship of Britain in the Senate (which also increased my Emperor support in Italia back to 3); bumped up its support to 2; added a second legion to my Ferret Army in Italia; barely won my battle there against the Franks (thanks _entirely_ to those auguries, since I rolled a minimum 3:3 result instead of 2:2!); added another second legion to my original army in Africa; and put a castra and a questor both into Italia to help protect it a little more next turn. As you can see, I'm about to pass 40 points!

That being said, even though AzLarry still has one or more franks to deal with in Pannonia, I am SUPER scared of his mega stacks wiith nothing to distract them right now. Also, he and Barth (and Dave, though he's focused on Galatia right now) have been buying some scary cards recently, and just guess who the most likely target of that will be?  :hide:
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: Barthheart on August 11, 2017, 10:04:36 PM
F#*^ing Nomads!  :pullhair:
Hey wait! The one that made it to Syria should be inactive due to my Limes there.  \m/
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 12, 2017, 09:48:47 AM
Oh, yeah, that's true! I should have noticed that. Too bad you didn't have Limes in Egypt yet, but Syria was the reasonable guess since it's a target of more numerous and frequent invasions than anywhere else on the board.

To be fair, you've had far more than your share of nomads in this game. I was seriously expecting to see a launch in my direction (and into Hispania), but nope.
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: Barthheart on August 13, 2017, 06:32:04 AM
Well turn 8 was expensive for little gain.  ::)

Crisis roll saw more Sassanids get restless but no invasion happened.

First I spent a lot of Senate points to recruit a Governor... when I already had a Governor in the wings....  :P. At least of those cards let me Federate the lone barb in Syria into my army there.

Then I attempted a Praetorian Guard coup against the Emperor. I had 5 dice and needed 6 votes so I needed to roll at least one 6 to generate a extra roll... rolled 1,4,4,5,5....  #:-)

Will have to try some other way to depose the Tyrant of Africa.  :knuppel2:

Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 13, 2017, 02:08:35 PM
Not gonna lie: I'm only still Emperor at the end of Turn 8 thanks to some straight-up RNG providence.

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Larry kicked the remaining Franks out of Pannonia (but didn't realize he had scored more hits than he received, so I increased his score by another three points for winning the battle), and added some much-needed Limes there (paying for them properly this time ;) ) -- just in time for me to roll a wad of Alums into Pannonia! Plus one more reaching all the way to Italia. His Limes have protected us for now, though!

Dave teamed up his super-stack with the Asia militia to kick out his Goth problem, and helped Barth by bribing the wad of Nomads in Egypt to stay quiet this turn. Even more importantly, he dared to take on the governorship of Galatia, and made sure his support (originally up to 3) would survive a while. This might have been where my British mob came from, now that I think of it: he had 5 populace points to spend to move his support in Galatia from 1 to 2 (2 points) to 3 (another 3 points), and there's only one 3-point yellow/populace card: the mob.

Barth played as noted, plus also adding his lone barbarian in Syria to his army there. He didn't really screw himself over by recruiting the 5 point governor, since he would have needed a pretty far roll to take Italia from me that way (under current circumstances) -- although he could have tried both ways I guess, by Senate and then when/if that failed by Praetorian coup. Now he can try for a weakly governed territory somewhere and still have a spare governor to try for Emperor in Italia. (Someone, him or Larry, launched more Sassys into Galatia and Asia, too.)

No one rolled an event, including me, so the Good Auguries continued the whole turn, but I didn't fight anyone to make use of them.

With my Alam barbarian chip in Italia currently inactive, I took advantage of one 1-point red/military card to refresh my damaged legion there (I have two in that army). Then I played three Questors and a 1-yellow, for a total of 7 yellow points. The Questors went onto my three governors. Two points removed the mob in Britain (which is why you don't see it there); two points added a militia in Britain (in my capital, under my army stack there); three points bumped my support in Britain from 2 to 3. That ended my actions.

With 3 Italian support + 3 provinces + 3 improvements under my control, my score went up 9 points to 48. (And my Emperor chip tracked up one more turn.) With 9 support in three provinces, I bought another 3 points red (Flanking Maneuver), and another 3 point yellow (Mob). As my second bought card this turn, the mob cost an extra point, leaving me 2 poli-points I couldn't spend anywhere (since trashing a card out of the game from my discard pile would cost 3 points and buying a 2 point card would cost me 4 points as my second card.) I could have bought three 2 point cards (at 2 + 3 + 4 cost) but decided not to.

Flipping the Alam in Italia to active, and selecting 5 cards from my available stack, ended my turn.

I entirely expect to be gang rushed on Turn 9, since I'm going to trigger the auto-win, in my favor, and without any chance of riposte since I'm going last, on Turn 10 at this rate!  :hide:
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 13, 2017, 02:11:34 PM
Barth: you forgot to flip your Egyptian nomads over to active at the end of your turn. Dave's assistance doesn't obviate that; it only bought them off until the end of your turn.
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: Barthheart on August 13, 2017, 04:48:29 PM
Quote from: JasonPratt on August 13, 2017, 02:11:34 PM
Barth: you forgot to flip your Egyptian nomads over to active at the end of your turn. Dave's assistance doesn't obviate that; it only bought them off until the end of your turn.

DOH!  #:-) Yep yer right.
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 14, 2017, 05:01:03 PM
AzTank fixed it pronto, don't worry.  O0

Okay, assuming it's too early for a post-mortem on how I won, let's talk about how I might still lose.

STEP 1: this is the hardest step admittedly, by now. I have to be deposed out of Italia as governor. By now the only way to do that, is to senate me out. Hopefully Az was able to select a high-powered blue hand for next time; hopefully Barth is able to try that this time or set it up next time. (I already know Dave couldn't do anything this turn, and has no blue ability next time.)

If Barth can throw a mob into Italia this turn, that MIGHT help. Whoever threw that mob last turn (Barth? -- I don't recall clearly), should have thrown it at Italia not Britain. I still would have pop'd it away immediately, but it's the principle of the thing. At this point, taking one of my satellite provinces away won't stop me winning the game, and mobs are a slow way to do that. Throwing two mobs at me would be better in the sense that I'd have to spend 4 yellows (if I have them) to get rid of them, but even one might work to knock my support down a notch before next turn. And THAT would exponentially help any attempts to senate me out next turn.

Kicking my army out of the capitol building would help a little, swinging two votes back against me in effect, but it's too late for this to be decisive. So they should only do that if they have no senate ability at hand to try, hoping that someone else will Senate me out.

Theoretically, a Praetorian coup would have an even better chance, but I think only one of those has been bought, and it was tried last turn, so I doubt it will be back in time to use before the end of next turn.

If I'm not out of power by the end of next turn (Turn 10), then I'll automatically win -- I'll have triggered the two auto-win conditions (60+ Legacy, and ending my turn as the Emperor), and no one will remain after me in the turn to try to get me out of office. Even if someone took away Britain or Africa (or both), that might not be enough to keep me from crossing the line (although in principle that would help weaken me as governor in Italia to try for a Senate oust).

The best chance for success could be: Barth throws two mobs at me, using the 6 points to put two basilicas in his territories somewhere, and draws as much blue as he can muster for next turn. Turn 9, I can't get rid of all the mobs (perhaps) and I lose a point of support in Italia, down to 2.

Turn 10, Larry marches one or two of his superstacks in, with enough red power to attack with them. Failing that, Dave marches his superstack in and succeeds (he's got one on the way). Maybe Larry has drawn enough blue to take a stab at it (Dave hasn't), which at that point would be 2 support doubled = 4 votes - 1 vote for Larry's army in my capitol building. He'd only need 3 votes to win.

Assuming they can get my army out of the city but can't try to senate me (or fail somehow), then comes Barth's turn. He would need 2x2=4 (from my support), -1 vote (enemy army in the capital city, although I'm not sure that would count if it isn't his army), - 2 votes for his basilicas. So only two votes, or maybe only one vote needed! But if my army is still there, he'd need 4 + 1 -2 so three votes. Still very doable.

If Barth can't hit me with a support malus this turn, or he does but I deflect it, then they're all looking at a base of 6 votes needed next turn, plus or minus this or that army in my capital city, minus any basilicas Barth can throw down this turn (or theoretically next turn). Not quite so doable, but not impossible.

If they don't get me out, the end, I win. Assuming they evict me as governor...


STEP TWO: they must prevent me from ever, ever, ever managing to get back Italia governorship at all for the rest of the game. Because I'll have (almost) certainly gained enough legacy one way or another to auto-win if I ever get it back even once, and with no defense possible.

In practice this means they have to gang up and curbstomp me off the map. Ideally while putting someone with strong support into the governorship. I'll still have all my bought cards, but their abilities will be heavily restricted until I can get back on the map somewhere (and if that's Italia, I simply win if something else in Italia, or elsewhere on the map, doesn't boot me immediately back out).

This will be easier than ejecting my rule in the next couple of turns, but they'll have to be ruthless about it. Otherwise I'll linger around waiting for a chance to pop back in for one turn and the win.
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: Barthheart on August 22, 2017, 07:55:35 PM
Well... not much I could do except invade Italia and destroy Jason's army there.. completely!  >:D

Unfortunately, that's all I could do except raise some of my support.

And my new hand of cards are complete shite, so if my fellow pretender wannabes can't do  amazing things we're screwed and will be eternal subjects of the Long-Winded Emperor.
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 23, 2017, 06:51:23 PM
Larry starts Turn 9 with an anemic hand, thanks to low-power cards clogging up his available pile. He bought another Legion in Pannonia and increased his support there, but that doesn't directly act toward stopping my coming win in Turn 10 (at this rate).

Dave couldn't strike politically for Italia due to a lack of having a governor. (The rules stipulate you have to have a governor available to attempt to replace a governor. Can't just replace him with a neutral gov. Too bad because he had a low but real shot at uprooting me.) He accidentally tapped out all his blue cards before he realized this, so he isn't likely to have anything left to try to out-gov me on Turn 10.

With not much left to play, he moved his largest stack into Pannonia (currently AzLarry's province) in order to be within striking distance of Italia next time, should the help be needed.

Barth rolled up a Nomad into Africa (at last!) this time. It got deactivated, for now, thanks to those Limes I bought waaaaaay back at the start of the game.

Barth sailed his Syrian army out from its capital to Italia, successfully destroying my army from _that_ capital (as he noted). This left his capital open for invasion, but there wasn't anything I could feasibly do about that. (This turn.)

He played a Pretender card, which would have scotched my bid for the win handily! -- but he didn't have two adjacent provinces with 3 or more support each, so he couldn't play the event. He did use it to increase support in Syria and Egypt, but the Nomads in Egypt dropped his support again.

For the Crisis, I roll Sassanids, and surge two of them into Syria toward Egypt. The Limes deactivate them for now.

I play a 2-red Castra, to raise a new army in Italia (occupation of which prevents me raising militia but not legions); and then to power up my African superstack (of two legions and a militia) to attack my African Nomads!


If I win this, I have a real chance of winning the game on _this_ turn!

Unfortunately, while I struck twice, they rolled a six and then a 5, also striking twice.

Fortunately, the rules say that if one side is eliminated, then the other side wins regardless of hits!

New score is 51.

Unfortunately the Ferrets failed to hit their Alams in Italia at all, even with the auguries. They also get hit back in return, reducing them. That makes my auto-win this turn impossible.

In my support phase, Italia reduces from 3 to 2, thanks to occupation. But I don't have any remaining support problems.

My score goes up 8 points for Italia support + governed provinces + provincial improvements, landing at 59: one point short of an unanswerable autowin.

(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimagizer.imageshack.us%2Fv2%2F1024x768q90%2F922%2Ftn8bMV.png&hash=c3095df2b3816a3f5ff02889688ab94fea16ba70)

With 8 support and three provinces, I buy a 4x2=8 point praetorian guard red card. Which could be handy later.  :knuppel2:

SHALL THE REBEL ALLIANCE DETHRONE ME IN TURN TEN?!

In order to do so, they must either politically eject me, which they'll need no more than 3 senate votes for; or they must set up a situation I can't answer where I lose two support in Italia. (Or some combination.) One mob would do that, if I can't get rid of it, and if I can't get rid of the two occupying forces. Alternately, someone could play a praetorian card which, by itself, would stand a decent chance of evicting me, and moreso with any red cards played along with it. I'm doubtful anyone has picked up another Pretender card yet, but if that could be played even on turn 10, I'd probably fall out of office, locking me out of the win.
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 24, 2017, 02:23:55 PM
No spoilers, but the plot has twisted in the latest turn so far.

I love this game like cake.  :notworthy: I desperately wish I had a board-game group nearby to play this and other things with.  :dreamer:
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: Barthheart on August 26, 2017, 07:07:15 AM
So... interesting turn.... and now I AM EMPEROR! All bow before me!  :knuppel2:

Let's see how long I can hold on.  :P

Oh, and there's also a Rival Emperor who's setup shop in Gallia.... splitter!  >:(

Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 26, 2017, 10:01:07 AM
AzTank: check the google chat for the game when you get a chance. Some of your moves at the start of Turn 10 need explaining in a major way. The tl;dr version: it looks like you thought an army could attack more than once per turn (and/or that an army could move more than once per turn).
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 26, 2017, 07:15:13 PM
So. AzTank had indeed moved everything correctly -- even though I couldn't figure out how, but once I could see his logfile everything became clear. Indeed, he didn't actually score himself enough by two points, maybe three!

AzLarry started the turn tied for last place with Barthheart at 36. With some brilliant play, Az not only replaced me as Emperor (!) but also cleaned out the Alams from both Italia and Pannonia (!!) and defeated my (highly damaged) army in Italia (!!!) AND invaded Britain, to defeat my army there!!!!

He may have done a couple other things that I've forgotten. Dang, that was beautiful playing. He jumped 17 well-deserved points to 53, and notched his first turn as Emperor.


Dave rolled the Pax Deorum event during his Crisis, which gives everyone starting with him permission to add a sixth card once to their hand (through to Larry on the next turn). Even with that sixth card, he wasn't in much position to do anything -- but he creamed Larry's army out of Pannonia, taking its capital (though not governor yet), and managed to hold onto his three Black Sea provinces another turn despite a truly godawful number of barbarians in Asia and Galatia. He added 7 points to round the corner of the scoreboard at 47.


Barth, as he noted, managed to eject AzTank as Emperor, taking the throne himself! His turn was otherwise spent upkeeping his territories and improving support in Macedonia. Unfortunately for the rest of the game, he rolled the next Event card (stopping the augury bonuses), and it turned out to be bugged in the mod: it should have been Zenobia, and kind of was, but it read like it was Postmus again. Eventually I got this straightened out (I think) and she landed in Egypt, to haunt any current Emperor -- including Barth -- and to drain off support for Egypt's governor -- i.e. Barth. Still, he ended his turn with a very solid hold in Italia, with three support there and a strong army in the capital city. He scored 9 points, rounding the scoreboard corner from 36 to 45.


...annnnd then I won.  >:D

(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimagizer.imageshack.us%2Fv2%2F1024x768q90%2F923%2Flbc6Bf.png&hash=c0a2dd114940a7d3ab8e9877dcc8d969faae2ef7)

So, last turn for my cards I loaded up on lots of red including a newly bought Praetorian Guard. This thing allows me to use red points, which I have a lot of, instead of blue points, which I have almost none of, to try to place a governor in Italia (though only there, nowhere else). It also allows me to ignore Barth's army. (And Barth's Quaestor if he had one, which he didn't.) On the other hand, I could still use my basilica effect, bought a long time ago in Africa, to reduce the number of votes I need by one per (my only) bas.

So with Barth's 3 support x 2 (as usual) I needed 6 votes, minus 1 for my basilica = 5 votes, and Barth's army couldn't help with that (he might have added two more votes back for requirement).

And I sent in 10 red. Thus rolling ten dice. Ones would fail, anything else would succeed, and any six would give me an extra roll. I ended up with 8 votes, although the initial voting was terrifyingly close -- albeit still a win at 4 against to 6 in favor.

Had I failed that roll, I would have been in big military trouble, even though I had also drawn enough yellow cards to keep my support in Britain up (despite Az's army in its capital) and to throw my first mob at Barth in Egypt.  >:D

Anyway. At the end of my turn, despite Barth's army in Italia's capital, and despite Zenobia in Egypt, I was still the Emperor with only 1 support -- and passing 60 points, that triggered this being the final round. And no one else had a turn left, so that was the end of the game.


I was wrong earlier (and through the whole game really) about the auto-win. There is no auto-win, and I didn't auto-win this way. Someone else could have theoretically won the game right then, with more legacy points. But i had the most, even (especially) after adjusting for bonus points: +10 for whoever had been unrivaled Emperor longest (me at 5 turns, this one not counting thanks to Zenobia -- but she doesn't stop the end-game trigger); + 6 for whoever had been second longest (both Barth and Az, at one turn, so in these rules they both got the full bonus).

So, final scores:

Dave, 47. He was absolutely robbed by that hideous dice roll a few turns ago -- he should have been Emperor at least one maybe more turns! The game would look a lot different now.

Barth, 51. He had had a hard row to hoe with those Nomads running east instead of north all the time (not counting the surprisingly few things that got to Syria, but they didn't help either.)

Larry came back from some awful first turns to retake a very solid second place, at 59 points. No doubt he would have instantly kicked me out again next turn, and the struggle between him and Barth with Dave as the spoiler (and me scrambling to survive at all) would have been epic.

76 for me.


Many thanks to my fellow Grogs (and Dave who should join the forum pronto), for this fascinating game! Some post-game thoughts to come.
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: Barthheart on August 27, 2017, 06:00:09 AM
Well done Jason.  O0

I never saw Postmus on the board the first time... he must have appeared and got killed before my turn showed up.... ???  That's why I put him on... Not sure what the bug in there is I'll see if I can fix it....
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: ArizonaTank on August 27, 2017, 07:54:51 AM
The AAR is well-done Jason. 
Title: Re: Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"
Post by: JasonPratt on August 27, 2017, 01:53:48 PM
Some post-mortem thoughts on how I managed to win.

0.) Pure luck.

00.) No random event card, until Zenobia at the very end, affected my rule badly, helping me stay Emperor a significantly long time.

000.) I suffered almost no random barbarian incursions as distractions. While this was partly a factor of my deliberate strategy (see below), we also rolled a lot of Nomads and half of them could have been expected to come my way. Only one of them did.

0000.) The dice randomly ran my way significantly more than against me; most significantly when I won a gamble on becoming Emperor the first time, and extra especially when Dave was robbed by the dice from a virtually certain attempt to replace my Emperor with his.

Granted, as with any RNGame, protecting against bad rolls and exploiting good ones will always be a strategic and tactical goal. But luck played a reaaaalllly big role this time.


1.) In choosing my first province, I spent half an hour (...or more...  :nerd: ) calculating the relative probabilities of barbarian invasion, including weighing in how often any barbarian was likely to be rolled. Even so, I think I got it a little wrong: I should have chosen Hispania, which while it has two invasion routes is at the end of both of them. Britain and Africa each had only one route into them, but they were first on their routes. Still, either of them was safer than just about anywhere else (except, in hindsight, Hispania), and Africa was one step closer to Italia than Britain (by sea), so I chose Africa. And then was happy to have been able to take Britain, too, later.

This did mess me up a little, in a way that Hispania wouldn't have if I could have started there and moved to Africa: I didn't have two provinces next to each other so I couldn't have formed a Pretender empire. I think I could have done that with Hispania and Africa (and still easily gotten to Britain if possible), thanks to Gibraltar. As it happens I didn't need it, but it might have saved me in the late game under other circumstances.


2.) A good argument for the most effective strategy is to do your best to get competent at everything (military, popularity, and senate). But I chose to focus on buying military and populace cards, pop first.

Why pop first? -- because I have found that it's usually a good idea in strategy games to invest in economy as soon and as often as possible, and pop allowed me to do that in this game. It made my score run faster earlier, too.

Why only two talents? -- so that I would minimize the military and especially pop ability for other players as far as possible, by buying them up a little faster. Also, playing more yellow cards allowed me (by increasing my support faster) to buy more yellow cards more quickly, so that's a positive acceleration loop. And red cards give more capabilities than blue cards, the latter being useful for literally only one thing: hiring and placing governors. That's admittedly important, but my theory was that I would only ever really need to hire three governors, and with strong pop and military I could wear down support over time so that my few senate votes would get through. Also, a strong military in the late game allows the praetorian coup to seriously punch in Rome; and lots of yellow would allow me to build basilicas to help with that, too! Which, notably, is how I won on the final turn (even though I hadn't had a good opportunity to build more basilicas.)


Those were the two main strategic factors, along with:

3.) Seeing and seizing an opportunity to be the first emperor, early in the game. Being emperor turbocharges your scoring and your ability to play good cards for the rest of the game, so I figured even if I only lasted a few turns it would be worth it.


Much to my surprise, the fourth factor also happened, which I can't claim credit for, but which also wasn't pure luck:

4.) The other players did try with some regularity to oust me, which luck protected me from, but they didn't focus on it, much less cooperatively. They just took opportunity shots at me. Due to good luck, this left me in power a LOT longer than I was expecting, and gave me a bonus VP boost at the end -- which as it happened I didn't need, but still.