Frederik the Overworked

by on December 22, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Well, had the gang over for gaming again yesterday. For the first time, we got a 5-crew over, and we decided to try Soldier Kings once more, but with five players for the first time. As Zjonni was the new one, we gave him England, and drew randomly for the rest. I ended up as Prussia, with Patch as Austria, Mark as Russia, and Jason as France. Progress was slow, with a good amount of head-scratching over the rules (the basics are easy, it’s all the little interactions).

The war in central Europe got off to a slow start as everyone looked across the borders, didn’t like what they saw and stayed defensive. Russia managed to get an alliance with Poland, and I countered with one with Turkey. I attempted, late in the first year, to start knocking Poland out of the war, but couldn’t get the dice I needed.

On the alliance end end, Russia and Austria teamed up, and I allied with France while Britain practiced a form of “Splendid Isolation“.

Meanwhile, France got off to a very good, and very aggressive start, taking the Austrian Netherlands and Hannover in Europe and shipping troops off to the New World. England initially attempted an invasion in Brittany, but was driven off. The year ended with France with 10 point, Austria negative, and everyone else at 0.

The second year got more exciting. Poland was forced to go neutral (Royal Heir Dies), and Britain and France started getting into a real fight for control of the New World. And everyone in my neck of the world got more aggressive, including me. I managed to beat off the first couple attempts into Prussia, but Austria managed to go around me and took Mecklinburg, and I lost East Prussia while I was taking out Saxony.

This is my usual experience with Prussia, there’s too much to do to keep from getting nibbled to death, and because of the small size of Prussia, losing any territory is a pretty big deal. I think I need to concentrate more on making the offensives as fast as possible. Save the resources for unlimited combat and siege, concentrate (using Frederick) on the target swiftly with the big, hard to hurt units, and spend the resources to make sure it gets done now. I keep trying to skimp on the number of rounds so that I can do more things, and getting burned by the dice.

Speaking of bad die luck, I’ve had the luck to have both of the Prussian 4-3s and one of the 3-2s, but all three got damaged during the Fall turn, and I had already had to overspend for a previous repair. Thankfully, there was no time to take advantage of the weakened Prussian army, but maintenance forced me to flip to more units. The bulk of the third year’s budget is going to repairing all of that.

This all actually went quite long, and we had to call the day at the end of the second winter turn. For once, we’re seeing a really interesting situation, and we definitely want to see where it goes. France is in the lead with 12 points, and everyone else is still hovering around 0. However, it’s probably only a matter of time before the heavier English navy gets the victory it’s been seeking for the last year. The end of the session also saw a small flurry of card plays and Poland is now allied with Prussia and Bavaria is allied with France, both of which should help take the pressure off me a little.

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Triumph of the 4-3s

by on August 17, 2008 at 10:32 am
Posted In: Boardgaming

Had Patch, Mark, and Jason over for wargaming again yesterday. I was a little surprised when Soldier Kings came up as an idea last time. We’re a bit uncertain on the balance, as it seems too easy for Britain to win the 4-player game.

But, that is what we decided on, and today I was Britain, Mark was France, Patch was Prussia, and Jason had Austria (again). Considering that everyone knew that Britain was the favorite, I wanted to play a bit cautiously; I’ve had trouble with over-extending myself in this game before.

I got lucky on initial draws, I started with two 4-3 navies and a 4-3 army. We’ve found that the 4-3s (the best units in the game) are impressively hard to hurt. If you can get them into an area where there isn’t a lot going on, they’re practically unstoppable as it is very hard to get the three hits needed to damage them on (say) 3-4 dice.

Oh, one thing can stop them: running out of resources to fund attacks, and keep sieges from taking forever. All of us had problems keeping our units properly maintained in the later stages of the game.

The first year of the war was pretty calm, I was more concerned with trying to bait the French fleet into a naval battle and see if I could bottle him up in France than starting overseas adventures. France sailed out, I intercepted, we had one round of combat, he went home. Even better, the French admiral died during that one round of combat, making things much easier for me.

Meanwhile, both Austria and Prussia had been talking of seizing territories from France instead of pursuing a destructive war with each other. This made France unhappy, and I certainly wasn’t going to interfere. However, that didn’t last long, and as Prussia and Austria started fighting each other, and during the first winter turn, I and France started supporting each one respectively. Prussia lost Frederik and Schwerin in quick order, putting him at a decided disadvantage (a pair of good leaders and higher quality armies are the equalizer against Austria’s greater manpower and resources). I could supply him with extra money, but I was short of men myself.

During the second year, my adventures in the New World began in earnest, as I used the power of a 4-3 army and 4-3 navy to sweep up French possessions in the Caribbean. France managed to take Hannover (the only British continental possession) in return, but I then blockaded the French fleet (which I’d been unable to intercept) in the port.

By this time everyone else (and especially France) was spending themselves into ruin, while I was merely a little short on manpower to pay my maintenance. Initial attempts to get Spain (on the French side) and Turkey (on the Prussian side) into the war drained money in bribes from everyone and ultimately got knocked out with “Royal Heir Dies” cards.

By the end of the third year of the war, I was just short of an automatic victory (18 VPs out of 20). The Caribbean was in my hands, the French attempt on Virgina had stalled, and I had just taken Louisiana. I had a growing presence in India to try and take care of the problems there, but it was getting under control.

Then the deck was reshuffled. Five ‘Minor Country Alliance’ cards came up. Thankfully, four of them went to me and Prussia. When it was all over, Russia was in the war with Prussia, I had convinced Turkey to help out, and Portugal was allied to me.

The problem was, Spain was now allied to France. Spain’s forces aren’t all that good, but there’s a lot them, and they quickly pointed up my most severe problem: infantry. Spain was busily taking over everything they could reach, and I couldn’t respond because I only had two armies in the New World with which to bring a land battle and besiege a place. I would have happily redeployed armies to the New World… but I didn’t have any to spare.

We had to call the game at the end of the fourth year, due to time constraints. However, this means we made better time than before, so the game is getting quicker for us. It was agreed that I would have won eventually anyway, but I did manage to have a healthy lead in the end standings anyway: England 10, Prussia 0, Austria -1, France -30.

The hope is that by the next meeting we’ll be playing Successors. If that doesn’t make it in in time, we’ll be playing Conquest of Paradise again.

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Rule Britannia!

by on March 22, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

(It’s a pity that I wasn’t playing Britain.)

Me, Patch, Mark, and Jason (a friend of Mark’s, that I’ve seen in a while). Got together today for a game of Soldier Kings. It was planned as a five-player day, but continuing car-trouble means that can’t attend at the moment.

It’s been a while, so, despite everyone having the rules to look at ahead of time, there was some fumbling around at first, though it went far better than last time.

Mark got Britain, Patch got France (I was just as happy to leave the naval war to them), I got Prussia and Jason had Austria. The big discovery is that it’s just very hard to keep Britain from doing whatever it wants, navally speaking, without Spain in the game. Patch tried to get them as a minor ally at one point, but couldn’t quite do it. After the first year, Britain was almost half way to winning, and Patch had his hands full slowing him down, never mind stopping him.

I think the underdog in a fight can do more than Patch did in that situation. You have to stay flexible and keep the other guy off-balance. Not that I’m a good one to talk. I’m in the same boat as Prussia, have better means of doing it (a pair of good leaders), and didn’t do all that well.

Things started well enough with a couple of good rolls helping me win battles. Sadly, at the end of the first year, I had a couple of big reverses, which reduced my army, lost me a leader, and lost me Silesia. Even though I was able to immediately get a new (lesser-quality) leader, this definitely put me on more of a defensive footing. I did grab the Netherlands from Austria, but the French got it from me right afterwards.

The second year was slightly better. I managed to take Saxony that fall, which left that minor ally army with a single wounded army, and no way for it to repair. The third year again started out well, and I lost it all at the end, including the death of Fredric the Great, which really cut down my options.

Meanwhile, Mark slowly built up his dominion in the New World. He shipped his best army over early, and since France was in no position to send anything meaningful over, it just slowly battered everything else into submission.

So, we’re definitely wondering how to keep Britain in check without Spain in the war, and a little concerned that they have the fifth player be Russia instead of Spain. Still, it’d be good to try again, especially with 5-6 players.

Next time is up in flux. If we have three, we’re probably playing the SFB scenario Flashpoint Mantor again. Things could definitely have gone better, and Mark and Patch have been eager to give it a go. But, we’re checking to see when Jason is available again, and if it works out, Mark and Jason may bring their Command & Colors: Ancients sets over, and we’ll all try that.

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The Seven Years War, in two years

by on December 10, 2006 at 3:22 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Patch and Mark and I got together yesterday for some boardgaming fun. Instead of the normal SFB, we played Soldier Kings. It’s a simple multiplayer game of the Seven Years War that I’d gotten for cheap some time ago. As a multiplayer game, it would solve some of the problems with having a three-person group.

As with many multiplayer games, its obvious that it gets better with more people (it can take as many as eight), but it was still fun, and we hope to play it again. The three player version we played uses Spain, France and England; that is concentrating on the part of the war that involved the colonial powers. We did a couple turns to get used to the system, then started over with me getting England; Mark, France; and Patch getting Spain.

Unit density is a bit low. None of us felt we had enough to get on with doing what we should be doing, much less react to what the other powers were doing (which is probably historical enough…). The first year went well for Spain, and we had to work at making sure Patch didn’t have the points needed for an automatic win that winter.

For the second year, I had a decent plan, and things started off well for me. However, there were two critical flaws: one, we had only kept Patch from winning, we hadn’t really nailed him down far enough to keep him from easily qualifying for it again; second, my plan (which I’d seen more as consolidation in some of the not-so-great areas) put me on a direct collision with Mark/France.

Worse, I succumbed to temptation and diverted a force on its way to India to taking French West Africa. Further collision with Mark, and the aftermath was part of a really bad summer turn for me. So, Patch grabbed up more valuable territories in the Fall, and Mark and I were out of position to do anything effective about it. For me, a large part of the problem was the fact that I was still in the midst of reorganizing my naval deployments, so the RN was unavailable for transport duty.

So, Patch won because England and France were unable to refrain from going after each other….

We’re looking at our next meeting being on Jan 6th, and if we can find a fourth (or fifth, or sixth…) we’ll play this again. Otherwise there’s a historical SFB battle that I’ve been looking at doing.

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