Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"

Started by ArizonaTank, July 30, 2017, 08:44:43 PM

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JasonPratt

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.  :-[
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
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JasonPratt

Okay, Az played his turn, then I ended out Turn 2. Here's the Mapus Quo, or... look, my Latin is nonexistus, okay?



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.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

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:-)
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Barthheart

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.


JasonPratt

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?
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Barthheart


JasonPratt

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
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Barthheart

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:

JasonPratt

#23
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.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Barthheart

You stay away from my barbs.... for now.... :P

JasonPratt

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:-)
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

#26
At the end of Turn 3!



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.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Barthheart

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:



JasonPratt

Status Mappus end of Turn 4!



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!
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Barthheart

#29
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.