Princess of the Silver Woods

by on June 20, 2015 at 12:59 pm
Posted In: Books

Jessica Day George’s final Westfalin book does not drop the idea of being a fairy tale retelling—except as a practical matter. Technically, this is a Little Red Riding Hood retelling, and there’s enough elements that you can see the relationship, but that’s it.

It is a very nice continuation of the themes of the first two books in the series, however. Specifically, it is in many ways a direct sequel to the first book, Princess of the Midnight Ball (though it’s been several years), and deals with the King Under Stone again.

Because of the ties to previous books, I wouldn’t recommend starting here, though it should make sense on its own. On the other hand, if you enjoyed the previous ones, you’ll certainly enjoy this. The cast is a bit large for the size of book in this one; some people are important early, and hardly get a mention later. And then you get entirely too many people in the action at once for it to be handled well, except by keeping some solidly in the background. I also missed Prince Christian from the second book, who was entirely off-screen this time. But other than that, the pacing flows well, and while it is obvious that something is up, and certain people should be treated with a lot more suspicion, exactly who is the cause of problems is not obvious.

At any rate, while this series isn’t my favorite by her (that’s still Dragon Slippers), it’s still an enjoyable early-YA read.

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R vs B Coalition Turn 11 in Review

by on June 16, 2015 at 9:37 pm
Posted In: BvR - The Wind

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

Naturally, Belirahc’s first action on his turn was to pull the newly homeless Klingon cripple pile back to the capital. He also sent the pile that had built up on the Kzinti border back there. There’s now an impressive 31 crippled ships there, ranging from a pair of C8s down to a pair of E4As that I assume he’s in no hurry to repair (there’s been a couple of spare healthy E4As in the capital for some time now).

Fresh fighting broke out in Hydran space as he moved to eliminate the province garrisons left behind, but there was only one place where I could react the main fleet out. However, there’s been no effort to pull spare ships out of theater yet.

Along the Federation border, the Klingons struck at five BATS, and I shifted in forces to all of them. I couldn’t do as much as I might have liked as I needed to keep forces on major targets like the 3rd Fleet SB while he still had mobile forces in the area. My real regret is that I lost track of where the neutral zone planets were, and didn’t react to moves on them.

That done, the Klingon North command sent a decent force into 1506, followed by the Lyrans shifting forces forward from 1001 to 1202. Since things were starting to wind down, I reacted from the Kzinti capital to make an off-turn offensive into 1202.


Kzinti theater.


Battles all along the Federation border…

Battles:
1509: SSC: F retreats
1507: SSC: Z: dest FF
1906: SSC: K retreats
2215: SSC: K retreats; F: dest FF
0218: H: dest CU
2416: SSC: K retreats
2113: SSC: K: crip E4 and retreat
0418: H: dest HN
0117: K: dest FV, F5E; H: crip SC
2214: K: dest E4, capture planet
1901: K: crip E4, capture planet
1304: K: crip E4; Z: crip 2xCL
1303: L: crip 2xCW; Z: crip BC, CM
1302: L: crip 2xCW; Z: crip FF, EFF
1202: L: dest DWE; Z: crip CC
1506: K: dest D7, D6, crip D7, D6, D6M, CVT, AD5, F5E; Z: dest EFF, crip CM, Z-D5, MEC; F: dest FF, crip CVS, NEC, DE, NCL, SC
2008: K: crip D7, 4xD5; F: dest BATS, FF, crip 2xCL, 3xDD
2213: K: crip E4A; F: crip FF
2012: K: dest D7, F5L, 2xF5; F: 2xSIDS, dest FF, crip DD
2006: K: dest D5, 3xE4; F: crip NCL, FF
2010: K: dest F5L, 2xF5, crip F5S
1809: K: crip 2xF5; F: crip 2xFF
1808: Unopposed withdrawal

2416 was annoying since it was an F5 squadron vs a CL and battle tug. Both sides rolled absurdly low (K: 4, F: 2), allowing the Klingons to retreat in the normal procedure. I had hoped I might manage to force him off of 1202 after I reacted on to it near the end of movement, but even with a reserve, the fight was somewhat even, and the first round saw a 6/1 split in the Lyrans favor. I stayed two rounds and retreated out with no fighters left.

1506 turned into a much harder fight than I expected. Bel has realized that it is only six hexes away from the Klingon capital, while I consider it part of my defenses in front of the Marquis area and planet-rich north-western Federation space. Two reserves seemed like enough at the time, but initial die rolls of 6/1 and then 5/1 against me made it into a really close battle where both sides crippled an entire carrier group.

In general, my plan was to engage in an aggressive attrition battle, and try to wear out the Coalition fleets with cripples and kills. I might have been a little too successful, for I’m feeling fairly bloodied myself. Certainly, luck went Bel’s way at a few important points, which is only fair, as the Kzintis have outrolled the Coalition a good number of times.

Romulan construction split between the 4th Legion in 3514 and the 2nd Legion in 4012 (both next to neutral zone planets, and the former in easy reach of Orion). The bulk of Klingon construction (17 ships) went to SB 2318, indeed keeping me from any more easy victories there (a few ships participated in the border battles, along with the 1st IWR Squadron).

Most new Lyran construction went to 1202, and it looks like he will be transferring control from the Klingons to Lyrans, giving them a base that covers most of Kzinti space. Also, he has a PDU and MB setting up in the hex. I think I have a priority target for my turn….

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The Four Vassal War Hydran Turn 1

by on June 14, 2015 at 10:02 am
Posted In: Four Vassal War

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

Erich and I have been back at playing our main F&E game for a while now, but our second game has still been on hold. Bel has been feeling uncertain of his mastery of the expansions after all this time (and, after doing some work, I realized I had forgotten a fair amount too).

Anyway, we’ve now officially put that game on hold to do a play of “The Four Powers War”, using the final draft version that was prepared for the upcoming re-release of Federation & Empire: Fighter Operations. Since this is a ‘replacement’ for Second Wind, I will be playing the Coalition, and we will be using FO, CO, and AO. Once this is done… we’ll either pick up Second Wind, or restart it. It is also serving as a major test of the 2.0 version of the Vassal module and the large map.

The scenario starts with Hydrans attacking the Lyrans in Fall Y157. The Lyrans are in the middle of a civil war as the Hydrans decide to try and ‘adjust’ the border further away from their capital. So the Lyrans start by distributing 40 points of damage in each fleet. Any crippled ships then have a 1/6 chance of being destroyed. I took a chance, and didn’t destroy any cripples to avoid the ‘free’ kills, and got lucky: only two FFs (in the Far Stars fleet) succumbed to the die rolls.

Builds:
Hydrans: TG, 2xKN, CR, 2xCU, MB, Convoy, PT, POL, 2xPDU (on Hydrax)

There’s only limited raiding in this era, and a LN successfully disrupted province 0107 after defeating a called up POL.

The Hydrans boiled over the border, hitting both border stations (at this point, one is a BATS, and the other a base station), and sent a decent force to the 0411 starbase. He also sent a DG to disrupt the 0109 province, but I was able to react a squadron out from the capital to handle that. (He also moved an SA into 0410, but for some reason I didn’t think about intercepting it with the last two uncrippled ships in the capital (2xFF).)


Lyran-Hydran border; Fall 157. Green=movement; light blue=reactions; blue-grey=reserves; red=retreat.

Combat:
0209: SSC: Lyran: retreat; Hydran: dest DG
0413: Lyran: Dest BATS; Hydran: crip CR, CU
0212: Lyran: Dest BS; Hydran: crip CU
0411: Lyran: crip 2xCA, 3xCL, DD ; Hydran: dest RN, CU, SC

I had a DD at each border station, and they helped out a lot against the smaller station-busting lines Bel brought, retreating out as damage mounted.

Belirahc didn’t bring nearly enough to take on a well-defended starbase, but I still couldn’t breathe easy because of the number of ships crippled in each fleet made my available forces a bit thin. Thanks to the fact that Lyran SCs have two EW, I was able to dial the SB up to 4 EW for a -2 shift against the Hydrans, which made it even tougher for him. He went three rounds, during the last two of which he tried assaulting with a troop tug (you know, escorting with HNs doesn’t really give up much ComPot…), but poor rolls, and a -2 VBIR on the first try made sure it didn’t do anything.

On the other hand, I really didn’t want another six cripples…

The scoring in this scenario tracks all sorts of things, like how many bases have been destroyed, planets devastated, ships destroyed, ships in need of repair, etc. As of this moment (with the vast bulk of the game to go), the Coalition has 23.5 VPs (mostly in Alliance BS that need to be upgraded to BATS), and the Alliance has 58.3 (mostly in base upgrades, but also for Lyran repairs, provinces, and 5 permanent points for those two bases he destroyed), for a a Hydran Decisive Victory (juuust shy of Astounding). If only they could get the war to end here….

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The Ottoman Age of Exploration

by on June 13, 2015 at 11:22 am
Posted In: Books

Everyone knows of the Age of Exploration, and the Portuguese efforts to find a sea-route around Africa to India. If you know a little more history, you know something of their efforts related to controlling trade in India and the Indian Ocean.

What is even less known is the efforts the Ottoman Empire expended in controlling the Indian Ocean. We mostly remember the Ottoman Empire as a land power. But it controlled the bulk of the Mediterranean for quite a while, mostly during the 16th Century, and the celebrated defeat at Lepanto was celebrated because it was in the face of heavy naval superiority, which Lepanto did not affect. What almost no one remembers is that the Ottoman Empire gained control of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf during this period and challenged Portugal for control of the Indian Ocean.

Part of this might be because both powers were operating far from home at the end of administrative and logistical support. There’s not a lot of huge conflicts here—there are some important ones, but the size of the forces involved tends to be much less than we are used to thinking in terms of. Casale’s book is a very enlightening look at this entire situation from the Ottoman point of view.

The main focus of the book is a group that he calls the “Indian Ocean Faction” in the Ottoman government. I think he presents them as a more coherent and unified group (partially through use of that name) than I guess they really were, but it looks pretty evident that they did help and promote each other as they could, and were a legitimate faction. In general, Casale covers the Ottoman “discovery” of the Indian Ocean (an area that they didn’t know much more about than Western Europe for some time) through an attempt to draw the eastern Muslim world into the Ottoman political orbit, policy changes, and the end of both Ottoman and Portuguese efforts at taking the entire pie.

As if politics, war, negotiations, and trade aren’t enough, Casale also talks about maps and mapmaking. After reading The Fourth Part of the World this was very welcome, and also well handled, though I think there a need for better analysis.

One thing I wish, is that the book tied in events elsewhere better. Lepanto is mentioned, and conquest of Cyprus, but other major events, such as the siege of Malta, are not mentioned, nor is their possible impact on other projects examined. Still, this is a very important book for gaining a better appreciation of the period from 1512 to 1589.

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The Thirty Years War

by on June 6, 2015 at 11:30 am
Posted In: Books

This is the second book I’ve read recently about the Thirty Years War, both of which have the same informative, if unimaginative, title of The Thirty Years War. Cicely Veronica Wedgwood’s history is considered a classic English-language history of the war, and with good reason. Also, my copy was published as part of the New York Review Book Classics line, and is a very solidly put together paperback.

I must note that for a history of a war, it is by no means a military history. Only the very most prominent of battles are given any description at all. There is a fair amount of armies marching around, and recruiting, and looting. Past that, the book is almost entirely given over to politics. Considering that the Thirty Years War was a conflict of multiple parties and agendas, and there were very few periods where there was not some serious attempt to find a peace settlement, this is a sensible way to proceed.

As a one-volume overview, it is very good, and a very good place to start (better than Gardiner’s The Thirty Years War, but mainly by dint of being at least twice as long), though it never gets very far past the flow of events. You get some sense of the major actors, like Ferdinand I, but no detailed understanding. At the same time, it does not leave me desperately wanting more detail on any particular subject.

The end of the book does not only cover the end of the war, but the peace that followed. There were a large number of mostly mercenary troops to discharge, and the process was as complicated as modern disarmament talks.

I can only assume that the scholarship is still fairly current, as I’ve heard no concerns that subject. But while this volume is mostly a work of synthesis instead of research, there is a reassessment of just how much damage the war did to Germany that it would be nice to get an update on.

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