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Oct09

Uncommon Changes

by Rindis on October 9, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Computer games

This is the sixth in a series of reviews looking at the evolution of Europa Universalis IV. See the previous reviews here:
Europa Universalis IV: A Fantastic Point of View
Wealth of Nations: National Trade
Res Publica: A Tradition of the People
Art of War: Reform-Minded Patch
El Dorado: Expansion of Gold

The sixth expansion for EU IV concentrated on government forms, and administering a country, while the patch introduced major changes to the basic stats of provinces, buildings, and sieges. Common Sense was released on June 9th 2015 alongside patch 1.12. Some general tweaks to the new systems came in patch 1.13 (which is the version I’m reviewing) in late August.

New Developments

In the original two games, each province tracked population, which fed into tax and manpower numbers. By EU IV, this had been abstracted into each province having a base tax, a production amount (which generated money, and value for the trade system), and an amount of manpower. Now all three of these were unified into one system where the total of everything added up to its development.

With the new system, each base tax generates one ducat (yearly) and 1% local spy defense (this was changed to taking over the recruitment bonus of manpower later). Each point of production generates 0.2 trade goods per month, and reduces shipbuilding time. And each point of manpower adds 250 to the nation’s manpower pool, reduces recruitment time, and promotes the growth of fortification garrisons.

The total development in a province has a number of effects: Each point generates provincial trade power, raises the supply limit, adds to the national land and naval force limits, and reduces missionary strength (making prosperous provinces harder to convert). Also, development determines a province’s cost in a peace, the amount of overextension it generates, and other similar things.

As with the old system, you can get events that will add to, or otherwise change around development points, with the expansion, you can also buy development with the appropriate monarch points. The base cost is 50/development, but that is increased by some terrain types, and it gets more expensive as development goes over 10. However, a major part of the idea is for small countries to be able to ‘grow tall’, pumping spare monarch power into the provinces they do have, and making them rich.

Building Forts

With development as a new thing to manage, the building system that had carried over from Divine Wind was done away with for one with fewer buildings, and more choices to be made. Instead of the six categories with six levels each, plus manufactories, plus various unique buildings, there are now 10 separate buildings, most of which have two levels (forts have four levels, trade buildings have three, and universities have a single level), plus five types of manufactory.

More importantly, each province can now have a limited number of buildings at all, and forts count against this. The base is one slot (for having a city; i.e., not being a colony), with bonuses for good terrain (farmlands add two slots), and an extra slot for every 10 development in the province, so only the very richest provinces can even have all the possible buildings.

Forts got a very important change, that reworks how wars work overall. It had always been the case that each province would have a fort, with the level going up as technology unlocked more types, and money was available to upgrade them. Now, the limited building slots mean there just isn’t room, and forts are now expensive.

Maintaining a fort now costs 1 ducat per month per level. Putting a basic fort in every province would wreck the economy of the wealthiest nations. However, forts now protect all friendly provinces adjacent to them, as well as their own province. Moreover, they have a zone of control, which keeps enemy troops from marching through any province adjacent to it.

So instead of wandering around the countryside, seeking out an enemy army to defeat, and sending out lots of small detachments to individually siege every province, movement is constrained by uncaptured forts. Once adjacent to an enemy fort, your only movement choices are to move out of range (or the country as a whole), or to the fortress province itself. Once in a province with an enemy fort, you can only exit out of the country (if it’s on a border), or back to where the army entered the province from.

You still besiege non-fort provinces, and they will fall to you after one month (/siege cycle), but if you have not taken or besieged any adjacent enemy fortresses, it will revert back to the enemy one month after you leave.

Since there’s fewer of them, sieges are now much bigger operations, needing three times as many troops as before. Also, each ‘building level’ generates two ‘fort levels’ in terms of the bonuses against siege rolls. Every capital gets one free fort level, even if there’s no building there (so even the tiniest, poorest, country has a +1 fort in its capital), which gives capitals all the in-between ‘odd’ levels.

The siege rolls changed slightly in that rolling a ‘1’ never generates progress, and instead kills 5% of the besieging army from disease. Also, ‘obsolete’ fortresses have a penalty, making them quicker to siege, as do fortresses that have less than half of their garrison. Overall, sieges tend to take a bit less time than they used to when a military is well-equipped for them; but the higher fort levels (especially in a capital) also lead to some very long and expensive campaigns.

An existing fort can also be mothballed, giving it half maintenance cost and no garrison. This is a great way to have defenses, and a good peacetime budget. However, if war breaks out the fort may need to be reactivated, and it will take time for the garrison to grow back to full, allowing a swift-moving enemy to get the bonus for it being under half strength.

A smaller change also had a big effect on wars: Armies and navies are now locked into going to a province once they are halfway there. That prevents a lot of fiddling around, and ‘faking’ going to a province, and makes actual interception of forces possible, as you might not get there ahead of an army, but you can get there before he can leave again.

Rate My Government

A smaller change to the overall game was that all nations now have a rank, as a duchy, kingdom, or empire. This has nothing to do with governmental forms, but purely with how large and powerful it is. This system exists without the expansion, but is seriously downplayed as changing ranks is generally disabled.

Generally, being a higher rank makes it less likely to be made a vassal (for the AI), and adds to the number of diplomats and military leaders available. Some forms of governments also get scaling bonuses, where it gets better with a higher rank, and the tribal governments generally ease their penalties at higher rank.

Only a handful of countries start as empires (including Byzantium, which is appropriate, as you generally don’t go down in rank). Small duchies can become kingdoms once they have 300 total development, and kingdoms can become empires at 1000 development. There’s a few extra wrinkles thrown in, such as member states of the HRE are always duchies, with electors capable of becoming kingdoms.

It’s a fairly small change to things, but there’s enough wrinkles to it all to make it a fairly neat passive subsystem. Large countries get a little more diplomatic weight, an extra leader to go with all those armies (and fronts), and the AI is protected from predatory vassaling players.

Free Cities

The patch introduced a new unique government type for the HRE, the free city. They get bonuses to trade and development, and in return increase imperial authority and revenue. The city also gets extra protection from the Emperor (attacking one isn’t advised). And, being a free city, once one gets a second province, it stops being a free city, and reverts to an oligarchic republic.

Mostly, this is an attempt to re-work the internal forces of the HRE. Since they get extra protection from the emperor, and they provide money and authority to him, there’s a lot more motivation to keep the member states small, instead of slowly growing to a small number of larger states.

Along with this, the main workings of imperial authority was also redone, to have more monthly changes instead of big events. Having more member states in the HRE, and having more free cities and electors was rewarded. However, as having ‘heretic’ princes lowers authority, it means that reform of the empire is much harder once the Reformation gets going (…which seems like a good side effect).

So You Say You Want a Constitution

The expansion included a new feature for some government types. The late game Constitutional Republic and Constitutional Monarchy, now have parliaments, along with the unique English Monarchy government (only available with the expansion).

Any government with a parliament will regularly have debates (well, you don’t have to, but it costs legitimacy to ignore it). There’s a large number of different possible subjects for debate, most of which will generate a bonus for the next decade, and a few can generate stability, or extra base tax.

When one is proposed, it is debated with a 0% chance of passing. To get it to pass, one must bribe a number of seats in the parliament, which are each attached to a particular province. Each seat gets a bonus to taxes, production, and manpower, but the more seats there are, the more of them need to be bribed for a decent chance of winning a debate. The bribes are varied, and what each seat asks for will depend on the province, but it can run from gold, monarch power, army tradition, to more specialized things like fervor (the Reformed religion special mechanic), to imperial authority (for the Emperor of the HRE).

Since it grants extra bonuses, it is rather like the ‘extra powers’ that some religions get through various expansions. At the same time, its a nice touch for England, as it does give it an extra dose of early flavor, like the other unique governments earlier expansions had added. And it does come with a cost, as a failed debate costs prestige, and winning a debate not only costs the bribes mentioned above, but as the debate goes on, there will be a number of events popping up for further bribes to the seat (almost always money), or lose support.

In the Name of God

When EU III came up with the governmental type system, theocracies were an off-branch for a few governments, with the papacy being a special form. Now that monarchies and republics each had their own mechanic (legitimacy and tradition), theocracies got devotion as an equivalent in the expansion.

This doesn’t generally slowly move up and down a little every month as with other two (it will with positive or negative stability, but other effects are more rare), but there are events that will shift things. Unlike the others, devotion has no effect on unrest or stability, but it does affect taxes and prestige, as well as papal influence (if Catholic) or church power (if Protestant).

Also with the expansion, most theocracies get an event to choose an heir (it’s normally just a random new ruler at the former’s death without it). This can be a fairly long list, and it’s really just a choice between different immediate bonus and penalties (money, prestige, devotion, ect), with the heir’s abilities being decided after the decision.

More Religion

Paradox continued to add nuance to religions, adding Tengri to central Asia (replacing some of the shamanist area), and adding Zoroastrian for one province (and possible CK II conversions). Buddhism was split up into Vajrayana, Mahayana and Theravada branches. All three versions get increased tolerance of heretics, but differ on giving bonuses to morale, advisors, or ideas.

The expansion also gives all three versions of Buddhism a new mechanic, karma. This is a 0 to 100 slider, like several other scales in the game, but the general goal is to balance it in the middle instead of just running it up to max. At low karma, you gain discipline and lose diplomatic reputation, while high karma is the opposite, and balanced karma gives a stronger bonus to both. The reason for splitting Buddhism up was that each version gets its own events, or its own choices for the same event, so that each one interacts with karma and the world differently.

At the same time, the Protestant religion got a new mechanic with the expansion. Church power accumulates, a bit like fervor does for Reformed, and allows purchase of church aspects. Power grows at rate equal to one tenth the total monarch power generation of the country, multiplied by the nation’s religious unity percentage, so a large country split between competing religions will have a hard time getting anywhere until things get under better control, while a one- or two-province minor can generate power quite fast.

Instead of the Reformed mechanic of using power to keep a bonus active, it’s technically a one-time purchase. But there are twelve possible aspects, each with its own bonus, and only three can be active at a time, so once there are three, they can be slowly changed out for other bonuses as more church power accumulates.

Conclusion

Originally, you needed this expansion to be able to manually increase development in a province, which made this very much a ‘must get’ for anyone. The game was just as playable as before, but there were too many references to increasing development to not feel some aggravation over not being able to do it. However, patch 1.28 moved this ability to the main game, so this expansion is no longer needed for that.

That leaves the major reasons for purchase as the new government and religion mechanics. As such, it makes a great companion expansion to Wealth of Nations, as they both enhance India and surrounds and the Reformation religions. Parliaments are a little limited in scope as they belong to later mid-game governments, though they’re a great addition if you wish to play England (which is a good country to play as).

Government ranks (and changing them) are a tiny feature, but if you’re playing to expand from a small start, being told you’ve ‘ranked up’ is at least as good as the actual reward. And finally, there’s the theocracy mechanic, which I feel should be in the main game (though it comes up rarely enough), alongside legitimacy and tradition. Overall, there’s a bunch of smaller things here, and I don’t see this as a meaningful expansion for a new or occasional player. But if a couple of the features strike your fancy, there are some good ones here still (and keep in mind that the ‘national focus’ feature from Res Publica comes with this expansion as well, if you don’t have that).

On the patch side of things, this was another major shakeup of how the game is played. The new siege and committed movement systems make a big difference in war. In some ways, it’s quite easy to miss the more free-wheeling movement and countermarches of any of Paradox’s games until this point, but there are compensations. You really need to think about how your forts ensure the protection of your realm, and how to take apart an enemy’s defense line.

Wars on land are a little more sedate now, though there’s still scope for more mobile warfare away from congested Europe. Coupled with some minor interface changes that made a lot of on-map things more visible, it was a great update to the game.

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Oct01

Two Rounds of Asculum

by Rindis on October 1, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: CC:Ancients

So after our deep-space excursion, Patch and I were back for the second Pyrrhic battle, Asculum, from Expansion #1 of Commands & Colors: Ancients at the beginning of September It’s about the same mix as last time, but this time, both sides are pretty much back against their base lines, and the Romans only get four cards to Pyrrhus’ six (but they do go first). A unique twist is that while both sides get to leaders, they do not have a fixed set up; instead, you draw your initial hand, and then place them with whatever units you want.

I had Pyrrhus the first time, and put my commanders at the right end of my Heavies, and with my left MC, while Patch put his at either end of his center. Patch started with a Line Command to move up, and I Ordered Two Left to move into skirmish range. Patch moved the flanks up with Out Flanked, and I used Move-Fire-Move, with hot dice to do three blocks to a Light, and forced another one to retreat. Patch mostly stayed in place while Ordering Lights, and caused a LB to retreat after losing a block. I used Move-Fire-Move again to move them back, and did two blocks to a Medium while forcing the wounded Light to retreat. Patch drove a LC with Order Three Left, and then Darken the Sky did a block and a banner to a Light and forced his wounded Medium to retreat. Order Two Left allowed him to engage my LB, who evaded back to the baseline.

I moved up with a Line Command, and Patch used Leadership Any Section to bring his left flank forward. Inspired Left Leadership brought my left up, and my Warriors (first time we’ve seen those in ages) charged in with a MC, knocking out an Aux while taking two blocks on the Warriors. Order Four Center brought most of his Mediums into contact, but only did three blocks across two Heavies while taking seven blocks across three Mediums. Inspired Center Leadership reorganized things a bit, and I finished off all three Mediums for no losses. A Coordinated Attack let him finish off a weak Heavy, and force a LB to evade, while assembling a better line in the center, but momentum advance with his Heavy did a block to me in return for taking two and retreating back to his line.

Order Mediums put our centers into contact, while on my right a pair of MC traded a block each. The center went horrible, doing two blocks to an Aux, who wiped out a MC and did another block to my Warriors. Order Two Center let him wipe out a Medium and finish off the Warriors at no cost. Order Heavies brought up my Elephants, who finished off a MC, while I did three blocks and a banner to an unsupported Heavy. Patch Ordered Three Center to finish off my Heavy and do two blocks and a banner to a Medium. He then used Momentum to chase it down and finish it off. 5-6

For the second go, I had the Romans, with only four cards. But led with one of three Line Commands after putting one leader on the right Heavy and the other near the left end of the main line. Patch put a leader with the Warriors, and the other at the right end of the Heavies, which moved up with an Order Two Center. Out Flanked (my fourth beginning card) got me to skirmish range while the MC moved up. Patch Ordered Three Left for our MC to trade blocks (and his took a banner to retreat to the baseline), and I Ordered Two Right to do a block to a LC while it evaded to the baseline. Patch Ordered Four Left to cut off my MC who died on a banner, while a Light evaded back to my line. A second Line Command got me closer, and ranged fire did a block to his Warriors. Patch Ordered Two Left to reorganize a little, and Inspired Right Leadership moved me up a little and let me do a block to a MC with ranged combat.

Patch Double Timed his heavies into my line, knocking out a Medium (five hits on his third try… a bit late) and doing two blocks to another, but lost a Medium block and three Heavy blocks, and had to retreat three units. My third Line Command let me wrap around his intact Heavy, and I knocked it out with two attacks, taking no damage myself. Patch Rallied, rebuilding two Heavies to full strength, who then came in and knocked out a weak Medium, reduced another to a block, and took no damage himself. I Ordered Three Center, and came up to the end of his line, and moved a leader who had just lost his unit to a new Heavy, and wiped out Patch’s second Heavy.

Patch Out Flanked, but his MC muffed a roll against a 1-block Medium who did two blocks and forced them to retreat back to the baseline. His Warriors did two blocks to an Aux, who did two blocks back, wiping them out, and then Patch lost the leader with them. Leadership Any Section moved my right up, and I forced his LB to evade, and finished off his 1-block MC. Patch Ordered Heavies, finishing off my weak Medium, and doing a block to an evading Light. I Ordered Three Center to move a solid core up and take out a Medium. 6-4

Afterword

The first game started with some punishing hot dice from me, especially on archery, and I dominated the initial exchange of blows. But one bad turn cost me three good units and put Patch into reach of a win, which he got two turns later. However, both sides were completely smashed with no semblance of a line left.

In the second, an amazing initial draw continued with more good cards which kept me in motion, and concentrated on the center. I despaired a bit when Patch pulled out that Rally, as I didn’t want to fight fresh Heavies all over again, but I got lucky with one of them, and advanced past the other.

Both Heraclea and Asculum live up to the promise of ‘Pyrrhic Battles’, as generally speaking even the victor will be fairly smashed up. My win here as the Romans is probably the best shape I was in at the end of any of the four matches. The Romans won both times for Asculum, but they were accompanied by a heavy dose of good luck.

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Sep23

SG33 Treasure Ship

by Rindis on September 23, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: SFB

Looking things over, I had noticed there were a few ‘general’ SFB scenarios that are geared to around the current play date of our group (instead of ~Y175) shortly before Patch suggested a Star Fleet Battles game. I put together a package of possibilities, and we went with “Treasure Ship”, where a freighter on robot controls emerges from the WYN cluster, and two of their neighbors fight over who gets to take the prize home. (One of them paid for the valuable resources on board, but the WYN are not above promoting fights by sending the freighter out in range of two ships.)

Of the options, we kept the scenario as small as possible, with Patch taking a Lyran FF and me taking a Kzinti FF, with a small freighter (F-S) up for grabs. (Patch called it ‘two kids fighting over a candy bar.’) Effectively, it’s a frigate-duel, but the freighter is worth two points per intact cargo box to whoever ends up with control of it. The two ships set up on opposite sides of the board, with the freighter in between, running in a straight line at speed 4.

I decided to make a fast grab for the F-S, and try to steer the fight away from it, and possibly disengage (which it can only do by distance), and went speed 28, while Patch went a more sedate 18. Most of the turn was spent running up, and on Impulse 23 I came adjacent and tractored the freighter, then launched a drone, fired the disruptor at Patch, and fired a phaser-1 at the F-S for five points of damage. Which would be perfect for knocking down the shield, except the robot controls put up one point of general reinforcement, and the battery as a second reinforcement, leaving two boxes of shields up. Patch fired both disruptors back on the next impulse, and hit with both for six points on my #6 before turning off. I turned the opposite direction, and Patch turned back a few impulses later. I then fired a Ph-3 into the freighter for three points to knock down the shield, and do one cargo (doh!) internal, and then transported a boarding party and crew unit (prize crew) aboard the next impulse.

Patch stayed at 18, while I boosted to 30 (halved, since I kept the F-S in tractor). This meant skipping the disruptor, and skimping on battery and phaser charging. I ran for half the turn, while trying to figure out how I wanted to get more boarding parties on to the freighter. On impulse 15 I dropped the tractor, and launched a second drone, and then turned the F-S and sideslipped the FF so that it could drop a shield and beam three more BPs onto the freighter through its down shield, with nothing pointing Patch’s way. (Some of this was delayed because I allocated a box of General Reinforcement on the F-S, which blocked the transport, and/or a shuttle, and landing a shuttle aboard was the original plan. Half a turn gave me some time to look things up and realize I could drop the reinforcement for a bit without having to announce it.) Once that was done, I realized I  only had one boarding party left on the FF. Hopefully, I wouldn’t give Patch any chances to board me….

On impulse 18, I launched another drone, this time going speed 12. Patch continued towards the freighter/me, with range to the drones dropping fast, and on 22 he fired both disruptors and a phaser-2 at range three to the F-S to do 8 points (one disruptor missed), for two internals (the general reinforcement had recently come back up), one of which was a cargo box. Patch turned off to avoid drone #2, and I turned the opposite way (now that the shield was back up). On 32, he turned back towards me, and fired on drone #3, which had closed to one hex… rolling a 6 with a phaser-3 to let it live.

Patch stayed at 18 again, while I dropped to speed 19, which allowed me to charge the disruptor, get the phasers fully charged, and start shield repairs, but only trickle a little power into the batteries. The F-S picked up to speed 5, while it finished charging its battery. Both frigates ran with one point of ECM. Patch finished off drone #3 on impulse 1, and I spent the first few impulses finishing a turn back towards Patch, hoping to keep him distracted from the F-S, and get the ESG to deploy so I wouldn’t be facing it and all the phasers in what I hoped would be a main battle pass later. On 8, he turned in, somewhat to my surprise, given how cautious he’d been earlier.

Sadly, I once again forgot to save a log, so I don’t have a direct record of what happened for the rest of turn 3. However, as ranges came down, and I carefully sideslipped for a slightly off-center run, the ESG was announced on impulse 9, and I had a very tense time of trying to get close while being able to maneuver around it… at whatever range Patch set it at. On 13 it came up at range 2, while I was at 3. I fired my disruptor and turned off, while Patch fired the following impulse. On 17, I dropped a (fake) transporter bomb out the shuttle hatch to discourage him from pursuing me while I got a little distance and turned myself back around. Patch sideslipped the opposite way to keep away from it while the two drones shortcutted near it. Patch turned wide around it (thanks to the ESG), and headed for the F-S, ending the turn with the ESG one hex from it.

The F-S, seeing it coming, dropped to speed 3, and put up three reinforcement on shield #4. After that, and blowing the battery, it lost two hull, the phaser (never charged), two cargo, and three out of four warp (ironically, after losing all but two power, it still doesn’t count as crippled, as that requires only having 10% warp power left, not 25%), on impulse 2, when the ESG hit. Oh, and combined with our earlier shots, it had no rear shields left.

Meanwhile, I’d kept at speed 19, overloading the disruptor and putting a point each into ECM and ECCM (the batteries were still getting a trickle of power, and were finally over 2 energy again). Patch stayed at 18 and also had a point each in ECM and ECCM. He turned away on impulse 6, while I was still turning around (Patch mentioned that he had nearly turned in, which would have been a better decision at this point, though I’m not sure how it would have gone). Patch wondered about the mine, as I went by it while turning after him. I pointed out that I could just set it to explode on size classes that weren’t present (say SC 2 dreadnoughts), so that an ESG collision would be the only thing to set it off (“Evil!”), or it could just be a fake (“Also evil!”).

On impulse 12, I got to range 8 and fired the disruptor, hitting to do five damage to his #4. On impulse 21 I fired the forward phaser to do another 4 points (rolled a 1!), getting through the shield, and doing a single forward hull. Patch started fighting to get me off his #4, which left me with the problem of possibly getting too close to him this turn, as I started cutting inside. Drone #1 quietly ran out of endurance on impulse 23… the first time I’ve seen that happen in quite a while.


Turn 4, Impulse 12, showing movement for the full turn.

For turn five, I kept to speed 19, with much the same setup as last turn, but dropping ECM to recharge the one phaser I fired. The F-S continued to crawl off at speed three while starting repairs on a warp engine. Patch went speed 12 with 1/1 electronic warfare, indicating preparations for a close-range pass with two overloaded disruptors, and possibly pumping all he could back into the ESG….

I launched another speed 12 drone (#4) on impulse 1, and Patch turned on 3, with me just outside the forward arc. I turned in, and on impulse 7 got back onto shield 4, doing three points (lousy roll) with the 360 phaser-1 to get a ph-3, a disruptor and a warp. On 8 the new drone got to range one and Patch fired the remaining RS phaser, and a poor roll let it live with three points of damage again. On 9 he finished it off with a downfired ph-2, but I turned to get my FA arc to bear and fired the forward ph-1 and overloaded disruptor to do thirteen internals, at which point Patch conceded.

Afterword

The addition of the freighter does certainly add interest to an otherwise standard small duel. Also, the small ships are always interesting to work with, as they can maneuver, but just don’t have a lot of guts.

I rattled Patch by going fast and grabbing the prize early, but it could have easily backfired. I burned 1.2 battery power on those transporters, and was only putting 1/6 point back into batteries each turn. Also, I inadvertently left myself open to a boarding action if Patch had ever gotten a good pass to knock down a shield. And I largely broke up his best chance with a fake T-bomb.

If things had gotten serious from there, I would have dropped the real one (I only bought one). They’re an extra thing for Lyrans to be wary of, since an ESG will set them off on contact, and apply its damage to the field… or straight to the facing shield (even from three hexes away) if there’s not enough in the ESG to take it. But, it is only 10 points, and it often won’t get past the ESG at that point, though it does compromise its drone defense.

It turned out that Patch had missed the ESG power storage from the WS-III start, so he’d been blowing power on it it he didn’t need to. I was mostly worried we’d have a close range pass, where he had twice as many disruptors (…and similar power, so maybe he couldn’t overload them, but I can miss with one overloaded disruptor a lot easier than he can miss with two standards), just as many main phasers (2s instead of 1s, admittedly), twice as many ph-3s, and could use his ESG to knock down my drones with strength left over (or use the ph-3s for that and hit me with a full ESG ram).

I took half of my drones as type-IIs, and the mix served me well. The two speed-8 drones made good terrain, and the speed-12s got in close and forced him to kill them.

As for what did happen, thirteen internals would have gutted many of his systems, and the next impulse I’d probably follow up with the RS ph-3 for 1-4 more damage. Then I’d go sailing off past him, before lining up for a shot at the near-cripple next turn. Patch gets 6 points for the drones and T-bomb I took, while I get 42 for intact cargo and 15 for forcing a disengage (if not 32 for crippling him, but I don’t think I would have quite gotten there). 57:6 is deep into Astounding Victory territory. If things had lasted longer with the same end result, that could have been chipped away at as the F-S got shot up further.

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Sep19

Operation Dauntless T6-T8

by Rindis on September 19, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

The second ‘getting started’ card for Operation Dauntless has three scenarios meant to get you up and going on the new armor rules (the card is recommended even for those who have played Red Winter). Mark and I tackled them all in our efforts to get a good handle on the game, and played the variants of T6 and T8, with me in my usual role as the British each time.

T6 is meant to showcase Anti-Tank fire and the Armor Reaction Cycle. Five squadrons of Shermans face off with three companies of Pz IVs, trying to get control of a hex in the middle of an open field. Most of the map is closed off thanks to special rules forbidding entry of non-field hexes, nor crossing slopes.

The matchup is interesting, as the Pz IVs have +6 penetration (vs the Shermans), and a range of 6, while the Shermans have +4 vs the Pz IV and a range of 4. Since there’s a -1 per hex of range, it means both sides are rolling at +0 at their maximum range, though the Shermans are always +2 below the Pz IVs. The only British advantage here is the 5:3 odds, especially as the victory hex begins in German hands.

Well, that and going first. I started out with three squadrons running through open terrain to 1209 (hidden behind light hedgerows), taking fire in three hexes, and the first shot hit and reduced one unit. The last two moved forward one hex to just outside the Pz IV’s range. Mark responded by moving up to just out of the second group’s range, with two companies entering LOS of the first group, who reaction fired, but missed. That led to several rounds of Return Fire until a Pz IV connected and reduced another Sherman squadron. The Combat Phase saw one of the reduced squadrons eliminated, but Return Fire reduced a Pz IV company.

I moved the second group up to the victory hex, taking fire from 1511 and 1611, which reduced one squadron, but 1511 was eliminated by Return Fire from my first group. I skipped the Combat Phase entirely, so as not to let Mark get extra shots off. Mark sent the Pz IV in 1611 to join the one in 1411 (staying out of range as he could), while the other fired on 1509 and knocked out the reduced squadron there. In the Combat Phase, they both fired on 1509, and reduced the remaining squadron, which reduced a Pz IV on Return Fire.

I moved the first group from 1209 to 1509, but lost two steps on the way in, leaving me two reduced squadrons in the victory hex. This left Mark four shots (assuming I didn’t start an ARC) to eliminate two steps (since full elimination of one side is also a win…), and indeed got one in the Action Phase, and the other in the Combat Phase.

We tried the “Fire on Their Flanks!” variant, but either we missed something basic, or it just doesn’t work. The main idea is that the Germans get three Panther platoons instead of Pz IVs, but they must drive into a crossfire, as the victory hex moves to 0807, and starts under British control.

The Shermans also start near the new victory location, and the advice is to move them to 1007 and 0609 to force rear shots from one group as the Panthers move/fire on the other. Mark obligingly didn’t drive into the trap, instead stopping in 1009 on the first turn, eliminating a Sherman squadron in 0609 during the Combat Phase. With no cover near 0609 (all of Fontenay is a level down, so LOS is clear to all those fields) the remaining Sherman unit there didn’t dare do anything that’d provoke a Reaction, and the group in 1007 couldn’t do anything either, and reacting to anything they did wouldn’t turn the Panthers away from 0609 either.

So I basically passed my second turn, and Mark killed the second Sherman on his second turn. I could either occupy the victory hex, receiving two short-range shots on the way in, and then watch the Panthers either shoot up what’s left (at a rough average of two kills per three shots, and 8 shots for 6 steps not bad odds), or more likely, charge in for an Assault that the Shermans would have to be pretty lucky to survive (needing lots of 9s and 10s for the flank shots). Or, stay in the corner, and at least try to get a flank shot as the Panthers go for the victory hex on the last turn.

That last is what I did, and I did reduce a Panther with a flank shot on the way in. But it’s the only positive result I got in the scenario.

Neither Mark nor I see just how this should force any real number of flank shots, and without that, the scenario just can’t work.
↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Sep11

T3 The Lone Gray Wolf Y160 S1-S2

by Rindis on September 11, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: SFB

“The Lone Gray Wolf” is an interesting mini campaign for SFB that I’ve had some desire to play ever since the days of Commander’s Edition. Back in Captain’s Log #41, there was an ‘update’ to it, positing that this situation could have happened before, maybe an early version was even the reason why it was tried at the height of the General War. This provided for alternate versions of the campaign in each Klingo-Kzinti conflict, which works out to a W-era, Y-era, two ‘middle years’, and late-GW variants of it. The fourth one happens to be set in Y160, our group’s current scenario date, so with our expanded Vassal playing time, I talked Mark into playing through it with me.

A Klingon dreadnought goes alone to the Kzinti capital to negotiate a peace. The talks break down, and the dreadnought is forced to make its lonely way back to Klingon lines, with Kzinti forces hunting for it. There are six Kzinti groups hunting for it, and the dreadnought must survive six scenarios to win through. But, this is not ‘face each force in turn’. Instead, each scenario starts with a die roll to determine which force finds the dreadnought this time. Repeated rolls of the same number will bring up the same ships (worse for wear from the previous scenarios, just like the dreadnought, and if the Kzinti ship(s) were destroyed before, this becomes a ‘free pass’ for the Klingons). The Klingons must conserve fuel, and must stay to speed 20 or below most of the time, and can only disengage by acceleration once in the entire campaign.

Mark volunteered to take the Kzinti, and after some pondering over drone choices (especially for me, as they have to last for six battles), and deciding to try MRS shuttles (which added more drones to the mix), we started in mid-August. The first roll was a ‘6’… the weakest Kzinti group, a single FA-L (drone-armed freighter; also about the only ship unchanged from the original version). Against a C6 early dreadnought (this is the second time I’ve piloted one), Mark’s main hope was to force me to at least expend consumables, either launching drones, or using T-bombs.

Setup is always with the Kzinti a half-map behind the C6, and Mark set up about six hexes off to one side. Initial speeds were 17 for me and 18 for the FA-L. I spent on 4 ECM and 1 ECCM while Mark didn’t spend anything on EW. I spent half the turn getting turned around, while the FA-L first turned to parallel my initial turn, and then turned in. As I started setting up for an oblique attack, Mark fired his two bearing ph-2s at range 7 with a +2 shift to do one point of shield damage, and then turned off. Three impulses later, just short of the oblique, I fired all bearing weapons (4xph-1, 2xph-2, 4xdisruptors overloaded off of batteries) to do 11 internals through shield #5 with below average rolls (phasers never rolled under a 3, and two disruptors hit on a 2/3s chance). Internals were all over, taking out two of three control spaces, and reducing the sensor rating to ‘3’ (making drones a really chancy weapon, as he had a 50-50 chance of losing lockons and all drone tracking next turn), but not taking out any weapons.


Turn 1, Impulse 23, showing movement from Impulse 17 through 32.

Two impulses later, the left waist phasers were in arc, and better rolls did three points through the down shield, for two hull, and one sensor hit, reducing it to ‘0’. By the end of the turn I was six hexes away in a stern chase, and it was obvious that Mark would be trying to disengage by acceleration. I went down to speed 12, overloading the disruptors and recharging the phasers and batteries, while the FA-L went its maximum of 23 (…okay, 31, we forgot about the freighter’s acceleration limits).

I immediately volleyed everything I had, trying to get it down to less than half its original warp power, and unable to disengage by acceleration. The phasers were a bit more mixed (with a 2 in the mix, but also two 6s), but all the disruptors hit, to do 17 internals through the #3 shield. This took out the last control space, two phasers, both impulse, and left just enough warp to disengage with. On impulse 4, I turned to get the right boom phasers into arc, and did two more points to take out the shuttle and a third phaser. After that, the distance opened up, and Mark got me off the down shields, so that I couldn’t do any internals, even if I got the waist phasers to bear, and he disengaged.

We checked what the next group would be after that. And it was… 6! again!

We set up and did a half turn in a short session, just to see if I could get internals before it fled. Between scenarios, all shields are regenerated, and limited repairs can be made (he repaired the sensors, a couple warp, and I don’t recall what else). However, he set up smartly in a far corner, and I couldn’t manage more than about two greater speed than him, and couldn’t do more than dent a shield.

We’ve started scenario 3, which should be much more of a challenge. (Spoiler: he got his second-best group.)

Mark was just too aggressive given the disparity in power between the ships. Of course, group #6 is probably best to see towards the end of the campaign, hopefully after something has done some real damage, and the Klingons have to be a lot more cautious. Catching me with a scatterpack could have been bad, but even that is unlikely to scare an intact C6 much (partially because of drone speeds, and partially because it doesn’t have to give much credence to the FA-L’s pop-guns).

The real goal would be to drag things out. It’s unlikely to go anywhere near twenty turns (at which point he rolls again for another group to show up), but if he can get me thinking about it, I might make a mistake. And of course, short of hoping for that, the goal should be to get me to use T-bombs or drones, but with a fresh C6, the FA-L just couldn’t force that either.

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Sep03

3 Chateau Fury

by Rindis on September 3, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

One of the games Mark and I were enjoying right before FtF games got cut off was Great War Commander. So, as part of our regular weekend rotation, we recently played scenario three “Chateau Fury”, with me reprising my role as the French. The French are counterattacking near the end of the Battle of the Marne, and have a mixed force of regulars and zouaves to attack a four-hex chateau in the middle of the map.

The Germans have less than half as many men, but have the only machine gun on the board, while the French get a 75mm gun as reinforcements. Both sides have the usual hidden VP chit, while the known common one is 3 VPs for the chateau. Mark set up spread in a loose line through the village on his side of the map, with one platoon in the chateau (he would have had a second in there, but he’d be out of command range, and we hadn’t yet picked up the fact that being in an objective would keep him in cohesion). I set up one big group with three leaders to go through the walled grove and rush the chateau, with a second group ready to try for a flanking action later. (I had got lucky, and my secret objective was another VP for the chateau.) Artillery support was extremely confused in the actual fight, and here there’s a a SSR that has any artillery request just draw a random hex, move to the nearest occupied hex to that, and automatically break everyone there.

For once, I started with a move cards, and advanced directly on the main objective. Mark had an artillery request… which came down next to Lt Hertzler (his commanding officer) to break him and the MG squad! (The odds were that I’d be closer to any random location on the map, but it hit his most important units….) I then moved up into the chateau, breaking off two platoons to take cover behind a wall and put pressure on his flank. Mark discarded, and I had ineffective fire, while moving up to the edge of the woods on the left. The Germans finally opened fire, getting some high command meddling, and doing reconnaissance to find out my objective, but failed to affect me, other than a sniper breaking a platoon.

I fired again to no effect, and my platoon recovered. (I worried that I should wait a while before doing that, and was proven right.) The Germans fired again, and I counterattacked to supress the platoon in the chateau (illegally; he hadn’t been activated). The Germans moved a platoon closer to the center, and I fired (on my turn) still getting no result, but Cne Fleury (my commanding officer) was broken by a sniper. The Germans advanced into his position, ambushing and breaking my platoon there, though elan and a charge gave me some hope (along with a strong roll), while the Germans were feeling unternehmungslustig, and just missed tying the melee, losing their platoon and control of the chateau.

I tried causing Hertzler to rout, but instead he and his platoon recovered, and a new German platoon moved into the chateau. Fleury recovered (along with all the men left out of cohesion by his break), but the platoon with him merely became suppressed. My right flank went on the offensive, with one platoon breaking to enemy fire (we hadn’t caught that an fire action gives a lot of potential opportunities to fire), but my ending fire broke one of his platoons, and a sniper broke Hertzler. Further fire did nothing, but activated German air support, which suppressed a platoon.

Further German fire still did nothing, but another artillery request broke Ltn Lehas (a ‘1’ leader still back in the grove) and the platoon with him. I recovered all my broken units, and advanced into K3, eliminating the broken platoon there, and more fire finally broke the German platoon in H4. German fire suppressed G5, my fire did nothing, but German sappers placed wire in J2. Mark tried recovering, but while Hertzler did, the platoon in H4 merely became suppressed. Hertzler tried moving across the road, to back up the chateau, but my fire broke the platoon he was with, and Hertzler opted to stay with him, and a sniper broke Ltn Antoine (my second leader, in charge of the left flank). I advanced into H4, and finally took out the second German platoon in the chateau.


Situation just as the first time trigger goes off. (VPs are slightly off, we didn’t catch the actual VPs for unit elimination until very late.)

During the melee, both our decks finally depleted, setting off two time triggers, and reconnaissance revealed Mark’s objective chit as +1 VP for objective 1 (A3). Mark discarded again, and I recovered, getting Antoine back, who then moved his force out into the field. Defensive fire was mostly ineffective, but Antoine was suppressed (with a really bad roll; I used my strategy card to boost it to the suppress). Some fire from the center suppressed Hertzler. Mark went on the offensive to get Hertzler out of the road, and broke a platoon of zouaves with fire from E3, and then used advance to get the broken MG platoon out of the road. I moved up on the left, but some hidden wire kept me from getting quite as far as I wanted. Mark recovered, and fired to eliminate my broken platoon, while a sniper broke Tignous (my right-flank officer).

We both discarded for a turn, and Mark advanced into K3. I used bayonets and two charges, while Mark was unternehmungslustig again, and beat me out by one point to win the melee. I had almost no hand, and therefore no turn, while Mark fired, breaking G4, and setting off a time trigger. Hptm Waldau moved back to face the chateau, and I fired with no effect only because Mark used concealment. I used artillery denied while Mark discarded, and then I used a second one to remove his phone permanently. I tried to recover, but my broken platoon in G4 only became suppressed. I then moved, getting my left into the village.

Mark fired a couple times, eliminating the broken platoon in G4. I advanced in to E3 and killed the platoon there in melee. Mark fired and broke the victorious Antoine and platoon. He then placed a runner, and I called an air assault, which suppressed Waldau in J3. That allowed an offensive to surround the building, and broke the leader and platoon despite concealment. Mark advanced Hertzler into Antoine’s hex (and the runner towards the board edge), for a melee that was closer than it should have been on a good roll for me, and we passed the initiative back and forth a bit until it settled with Mark as he got a second good roll. I then fired, and wiped out Waldau and platoon on a double-break.

Hertzler fired on G4, with no effect, but a sniper broke my platoon in C2. I tried moving up to get a big combined shot against Hertzler, but fire from him and the MG broke three platoons and Lehas, and one platoon was eliminated as it was forced to stop (by breaking) on top of another broken unit. Mark discarded for his turn, which was just enough respite, as I’d drawn a recover at the end of my turn, which rallied all my remaining units, and a sniper broke the fusiliers with Hertzler. I then fired, and double-broke the fusiliers to put the Germans to their surrender limit. (The attack was not quite legal, I forgot the ‘chained together’ bit of a firegroup—which should be second-nature to me—and the lowered amount wouldn’t have done it. On the other hand, I had an Advance to follow up with, for a 9:6 melee, so I’d probably have won that way.)

Afterword

So far, we’ve seen a turn around in fortune in the middle of each game. In this case, I had a strong start, getting into the chateau without trouble. The problem was, despite a strong start, sitting out the clock was at best, iffy from a VP standpoint. And once Hertzler got back into action the MG he commanded started causing all sorts of problems, as an 11-point attack (MG=8, +2 command rating, +1 for the platoon firing with it) was too hard to survive.

I managed to keep pressure up, and got really lucky with the air support suppressing Waldau, giving me the opportunity to get rid of him. But after that, I was afraid my struggles to get further would just wear me away until I couldn’t win. Certainly, my last move had me despairing, but thankfully Mark was out of useful cards, and thankfully, I drew a Recover just when I needed it. In fact, that entire last draw was stellar, with the Fire and Advance cards coming with it.

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Aug26

Two Rounds of Heraclea

by Rindis on August 26, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: CC:Ancients

After finishing off “Happy Valley“, Patch and I went for our usual round of Commands & Colors: Ancients on July 22 and 29. Up this time was the Battle of Heraclea from Expansion #1, the first of two battles that made Pyrrhus of Epirus exclaim ‘one more victory such as this and I am undone!’

The Roman army (the first time it’s come up since we started going through them in order) is a bit tougher, but is back on the baseline. Epirus’ army isn’t poor though, and has plenty of light bows on one flank, and elephants on the other. An interesting special rule is that Roman infantry can’t ignore banners from elephants. If there’s a banner result, they will be retreating.

I had Pyrrhus first, and led off with Order Lights to move up the LB, and picked off one medium block. Patch engaged them with Order Two Right, and I evaded, and hit back with Order Four Left, and drove them off again with one block loss. Inspired Right Leadership brought his MC into contact, while the rest of the flank moved forward, but he just lost another block. Order Three Center reestablished my line, and got Patch’s Light down to one block.

Patch used Order Mediums to get both flanks in motion, though all the action was on his right, where he drove a LB back to hills on the baseline, and did two blocks to an Aux… who then got three triangles to wipe out the damaged Medium. I moved up my center, and Patch used Order Three Right to reduce a LB to one block, do a block to an Aux, which forced a Light back on a banner. Darken the Sky reduced a MC to one block, and did a block to a Heavy. Line Command only put one unit in contact, but he finished off an Aux, and then did three blocks to another before retreating.

I Ordered Two Right to bring up the elephants, and Patch used Inspired Center Leadership to smash in to the forward part of my line, finishing off the Aux, and wiping out a Med. Mounted Charge sent my Elephants towards his center, and my cavalry against his, knocking out a MC, reducing another to one block, and forcing the third to evade while I lost one block. Order Mediums activated a MC on each flank, while his center pushed forward. He finally drove off my LB, and and knocked out a heavy (taking two blocks in the process), eliminated an Elephant, and drove off a MC, but failed a momentum attack, causing him to take two hits and retreat.

Order Heavies allowed my smashed center to engage his strung out forces, knocking out two Mediums and Cassius, forcing another to retreat with two losses, while the remaining Elephant caused a block and two retreats to an Aux. Patch Ordered Three Left, trying to pick off my Elephants with smashed units, and did a block to them with archery, but his one-block MCs couldn’t get a hit, and the Elephants did on battle back. 7-6

Patch led off the second game by moving some of his Heavies up, and we went a couple turns after that trying to get our armies in shape, ending with me using a Line Command to get forward. Patch Out Flanked me to reduce two MC for no losses, and did a hit on a Heavy with archery. I Ordered Mounted, but only drove off one MC in return for taking a block. Patch Ordered Four Right, and knocked out two MC, and forced the last one back to the baseline with one block.

I Ordered Mediums, and moved the remnant MC out of the way, while forcing two LB to evade. Patch Ordered Two Center, doing a block to a Med, while I did a block back to an Aux (on a double banner into his line). Leadership any Section moved up my right, and I knocked out an Aux, taking a hit in the process. Patch Ordered Four Center to do six blocks across three units, taking five blocks in return. I Counterattacked, knocking out two Heavies, but losing one in return. Patch Ordered Three Center, knocking out three Mediums, and taking two blocks in return. I Counterattacked again, and did three blocks to a Heavy, who retreated out of range of my second attack. Patch Ordered Three Center again, and knocked out another Heavy. 3-7

Afterword

The first play was very… Pyrrhic, with both armies thoroughly smashed. Patch had done fairly well, but just couldn’t bring it to a close. The second game, my hand was very uncooperative. I started with cards that would all be good a couple turns in, but I needed to deploy a bit first or lose about half of it.

The Romans have what it takes to win this battle, but they are in a hard position, and managing to fight while working out of it is rough. Even with Patch’s fairly convincing win as Pyrrhus, he’d nearly run out of heavier units, and more action on the flanks instead of the center may have caused a very different result.

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Aug18

Expansion of Gold

by Rindis on August 18, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Computer games

This is the fifth in a series of reviews looking at the evolution of Europa Universalis IV. See the previous reviews here:
Europa Universalis IV: A Fantastic Point of View
Wealth of Nations: National Trade
Res Publica: A Tradition of the People
Art of War: Reform-Minded Patch

Paradox went back to the New World for the fifth expansion to EU IV. Instead of the North American focus of Conquest of Paradise, the new one, El Dorado, would focus on Mesoamerica and South America, and it would re-work exploration instead of settlement.

It was released on February 26th, 2015, alongside patch 1.10, and patch 1.11 followed on March 8, along with the free “Women in History” DLC.

Exploration

With a focus on the New World, exploration mechanics were re-worked for the expansion. Without El Dorado, it still works the same; get Quest for the New World, hire explorers and conquistadors (instead of admirals and generals), and have them command forces that can slowly uncover new areas.

With the expansion, you never ‘explore’ just by walking into terra incognita (outside of ways that everyone can always do it; notably marching around the interior of a country you’re at war with). Instead, you assign explorers and conquistadors to exploration missions.

An explorer will get options to explore the ‘waters of x’, which will send out his fleet to uncover all the sea zones of a region. Once at least some of these are known, he can ‘chart the coast’ of that region, which will uncover all the coastal provinces there.

These require a fleet of at least three light or heavy warships to do, and once one of these missions is started, it cannot be recalled (you do get a notice when it comes back home). So a lot of control is taken away, and as these only work within your colonial range, it might be difficult to target the area you want. But it takes a lot of micromanagement out, and the ships do not suffer attrition while on these missions (unless the explorer dies, at which point there might be very high attrition on a fleet a long way from home).

Conquistadors can go exploring on their own, which works pretty much like the usual auto-explore command in any game, though the army will halt to rest and replenish troops if too many are lost to combat against native populations.

And finally, explorers can attempt to circumnavigate the world. This takes a slightly higher tech level, and the fleet will take normal attrition. However, the first nation to complete the mission gets 100 prestige, with other nations getting 10 if they do it later.

All of these missions have extra events attached to them, especially the conquistadors. Their auto-explore is actually hunting for the seven cities of gold, and in addition to to the normal dealing with the natives, getting lost, and other exploration events, they may find clues and actually try to find one of the legends of the New World, with a (small) chance of succeeding.

A final note is that a country that builds up a colonial nation first gets a ‘claim’ on all the provinces of that region. Well, assuming you’re Catholic, and only other Catholic nations will care. It’s meant to represent the effects of the Treaty of Tordesillas. Generally, the AI will abide by these claims, and violating them causes relations penalties; though conquering territory from native nations is still fair game.

Religion

With more attention on the New World, three new religions were added: Nahuatl, Mayan, and Inti, displacing some of the generic Animist religion that had been used. They have bonuses roughly similar to Animism, and that’s it.

Unless you have El Dorado, in which case they all have similar enhanced mechanics. Notably, they all have five reforms they can pass for fairly good bonuses. Passing one is difficult, and resets everything that was needed to pass it. For instance, a Nahuatl country needs five vassals, and positive stability to pass a reform, but doing so lowers stability and releases all the vassals. Once all five are passed, the religion as a whole can be reformed (if there’s a Western nation on its border), which will basically ‘Westernize’ the country, bringing its tech level up as is done for other methods. Each one also has a unique extra mechanic:

Nahuatl has Doom, representing the Aztec belief in a series of sacrifices to empower the gods to keep the world from ending. Doom is a counter that slowly goes up, technologies and ideas become more expensive, and at 100, the royal family is sacrificed, eliminating the current ruler and heir in favor of a new 0/0/0 monarch. Large battles and sacrificing monarchs can reduce Doom.

Mayans don’t have an overt mechanic, but have to (directly) control 20 provinces to pass a reform. Doing so splits up the country, releasing nations, or transferring provinces to other bordering nations.

Inti has Authority, representing the current power of the Sapa Inca worshiped as a god. Authority is gained from having a large, prosperous nation, and decreases stability cost and unrest. Once it hits 100, a reform can be passed… which lowers Authority to 0, and starts a civil war with pretender rebels.

All three are neat ideas, and are guaranteed to cause instability in the region, especially in Mesoamerica, where the competing states won’t just conquer each other as they specifically need vassals. And naturally, someone has to lose, and since each Nahuatl nation has its own Doom counter (a universal one might be a little more reasonable), sacrifices of reigning monarchs are common.

Liberty Desire

The colonial nations introduced with Conquest of Paradise had a new stat, liberty desire. As of patch 1.10, all vassal nations now use this. Originally, it was just to allow for colonial revolutions, but now any sufficiently unhappy vassal state can rebel. Since one of of the modifiers for this score is just how powerful all the subjects of a nation are (taken together), it’s also a serious brake on just establishing a handful of powerful vassals, who will then act as a buffer against all the other powers, while you concentrate on one or two things.

Below 50% liberty desire, a vassal is loyal, and will act as vassal states always have in the series; always joining wars with the leading nation, and being a good little servant. Over 50%, and they are disloyal, which causes them to stop paying taxes, and only defend themselves in wars. Also, other countries can promise to support their independence. At 100%, the nation is rebellious, and will actively seek opportunities to successfully rebel.

Trade & Treasure Fleets

Trade came in for another round of tweaks, with some general rework of inland trade power. Also, colonial nations now generate an extra merchant for their parent country if they’re large enough (10 provinces). These can be used anywhere, but the obvious intent is to put them into New World trade centers to steer the trade to your own European trade centers for collection.

With the expansion, treasure fleets were added to the game. Sort of. Colonial nations with gold-producing provinces now store up gold and send it home as one big lump sum. It technically travels down the trade routes to the overlord’s trade capital, and it can be intercepted by privateers, who will whittle away at the amount of gold depending on their trade power in the nodes it goes through.

Once it arrives, the receiving nation gets the money, and inflation, as if they’d gotten it in a peace deal. With them coming in regularly, it can really start causing real inflation problems, instead of the more usual modest problems from gold provinces. Overall, it’s a neat idea, and the use of privateers is good, but it’s not obvious to anyone but the receiving nation that anything’s happening. And of course, since it’s not really on the map, they can’t be directly captured or disrupted by an enemy nation in a war.

Nation Designer

Another addition of the expansion is a custom nation designer. You choose a capital province, and then build out a nation from there, including the territory, culture, religion, traditions, etc. This all uses up a budget of points, which can be set to nearly any level. There’s achievements connected with it that all have a set budget to use, but more usefully, everyone in a multiplayer game can be set to get the same number of points, and then create ‘equivalent’ nations to play with.

I haven’t really used it, but the interface for it is pretty good.

Women in History

This was a free DLC that automatically gets downloaded as part of the Steam copy of EU IV, though it could be disabled in the launcher. Mostly, it adds events for countries to get historically prominent women as possible advisors. This also means that female portraits for all advisor types were also added, and they can, very occasionally, show up without the specific events.

It’s a nice bit of adding a bit of awareness of how much women have added to history, and not even so much in the background. I’m not quite sure why Paradox did it as a DLC instead of adding it straight to the game files; presumably so it would be easier to talk about the fact that they did do it. At any rate, I will say it feels a little odd, because its mostly fixed people at a fixed time, which gets back to the acting out history style of the first two games of the series.

Conclusion

For some, the Nation Designer is the headline feature, and reason enough to get the expansion. I don’t care for things like that (if I had a particular alternate-history to explore, maybe, but then I’d need to adjust more than one nation), so I pretty much ignore it.

As far as filling out the New World, I like it a lot better than CoP. The new religion mechanics are interesting (well, Maya not so much), and make the dynamics of the Aztecs in particular much more in line with history. Exploration is a mixed bag, seemingly taking some of the wonder out as explorers do things on their own, but taking micromanagement out with it, with all the attrition-watching that was needed, is overall worth it. If you get lots of colonial nations the number of extra merchants gets out of hand, but a few extras are a great boon for steering trade from your colonies to your home port.

The main patch is mostly notable for the rework of vassal relations, which gives that system a lot more character, and I think it was really needed. On the other hand, it saw the second rework of inland trade nodes, and this one was way too heavy handed with a flat extra 50 trade power or not.

Overall, the game improved again, and the free Women in History DLC is a nice addition. Assuming you’re not interested in the Nation Designer, I give El Dorado a limited recommendation: it won’t do much if you’re not exploring, and it’s a good, but not essential, addition if you are.

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Aug10

Vows of a Fallen Star

by Rindis on August 10, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: MMO

I’ve been meaning to say a few things about Final Fantasy XIV for a while now. Since my last post, patch 5.2 has come out, and patch 5.3… hasn’t come out.

By the normal schedule, 5.3 should have been out in early July, but with 2020 being… the mess that it is, SquareEnix had to delay things, and it’ll finally be out about a day after this post.

While frustrating for a lot of people, this has actually been very good news for me, as it means I’ve had a lot of extra time to get caught up on more side-projects in game. First off, I’d kind of given up on crafting after getting crushed by difficulty of high-quality crafting in the Heavensward level range. A bit ago, SE really went in and re-did crafting, and took a lot of randomness out of it. There’s still the good-excellent-poor conditions to deal with, but the bulk of the abilities lost their 90-70% success rates, so you’re not gambling on something working at all.

At any rate, I’ve now gotten my four primary crafting classes up to max, and have gone through the associated stories. In addition, both mining and botany (which was a secondary for me) are maxed out. I’ve got more I’m working on, and I’m a bit behind on getting the Skysteel Tools (the relic ‘weapons’ for crafting and gathering), but this is the best shape that’s been for ages.

In addition to that, Thayrin and I have gone through the two available beast tribes for Shadowbringers. These are the FF XIV version of dailies, where you grind reputation… and get to learn more about the non-(demi)humans in the world. We did the latest first, the Qitari, who are a small, peaceful race returning to Rak’Tika now that the lightwarden is gone, and they explore some of what the Ronkan Empire was like. The other are the pixies, notably those who deal with the dreams of children, and you get go to the dream realm, which starts out plain, but ends up as a fairly heavily decorated mini-zone:

(The slides actually work. Sadly the roller-coaster/tram—the red platform running across that shot—does not.)
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Aug02

AP73 Happy Valley

by Rindis on August 2, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

Patch and I’s latest ASL fight revisited Action Pack 8, with “Happy Valley”, an early armor clash between the Americans and Germans (with a couple Italians thrown in) during the race to Tunis in November 1942. It’s not DTO, but there’s plenty of arid terrain, with brush turned into cactus patches, woods turned into olive groves (regular orchards are still that, and out of season), and all walls and hedges are cactus hedges (that’s a lot of spines on that board).

The Americans are defending the board 6a village with four squads, two MMG, two 81mm MTR, a 37LL ATG, two M3 GMC, and a T30 HMC. In addition, there are three HIP Stuarts who can set up nearly anywhere, and three more that come in on turn 1. The at-start Stuarts are meant for an ambush, as they are revealed in the same way as emplaced guns, and their TCA can be whatever is desired when first revealed. The Germans enter on turns 1 and 2 (BS is NA for the Americans, something I forgot during setup, and wasted a fair amount of time on…) with twelve squads (mostly 1st Line, but there’s three 5-4-8s), as passengers in trucks and halftracks, a couple of ATRs, DCs, six Pz IVs, three Pz IIIs, and two Italian AB 41 armored cars. They need to cross most of boards 2 and 40 to get at the victory area and take all the buildings there in 6.5 turns, and get random air support every other turn.

There’s three or so general approaches, the most obvious is right down the center along the board 2 road. There’s a fair amount of hindrance, but it’s a straight shot in more ways than one. One thought that worried me is swinging around the east side of the hill. It would be slow going for the trucks, but it would allow getting fairly close without worrying about defensive fire. To the west, the board 40 hill overlooks the victory area, and has a good amount of cover, and there’s a gully in front of the hill. Two of the Stuarts set up HD on level 1 hills, with the bow pointed along the hill for a quick getaway, and the third was in 2D7, where it could cover the D4 farm area, and possibly ambush that east route. One MTR was hidden inside the village with 6aP12 to act as spotters (with the MMG—I seem to have missed the second one when pulling counters), the ATG was in P10 to look down the center

Patch mostly went for the center route, entering just his armor on the first turn, and keeping the mounted infantry back. The first couple tanks started climbing the board 2 hill, while the first AC started down the center road before climbing up the shoulder, and ending next to one of my hidden Stuarts who promptly rolled a 10 and 11 to miss and reveal himself, and then malfunction the MA on IF. He also set up a park near the main road, and around of the base of the smaller hill, with one Pz IV a hex away from my hidden Stuart, with a Pz III with it’s turret pointed that way, and an AC behind the position.


Situation, German Turn 1, showing the full board. North is to the left. The river is fordable, but neither of us bothered, especially with the north end having three places with no dry land. EC is “Dry”.
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