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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Princess of Glass

by on June 1, 2015 at 3:25 pm
Posted In: Books

Jessica Day George’s sequel to Princess of the Midnight Ball is every bit as good as the original, and in some ways more interesting.

The book successfully juggles two main point-of-view characters, Poppy (the ‘roughest’ of the twelve princesses), and Prince Christian of Danelaw (the setting is a vague Europe-inspired world, seemingly around the Napoleonic era; history seems to have gone differently here…). Both are visiting Breton as eligible princes and princesses are being fostered abroad after the (off-camera) deaths of nine princes in the previous book in the name of international politics.

This feeds into a Cinderella-retelling that is unexpected in direction. The name “Cinderella” never comes up, and there’s no evil step-sisters or step-mother. There are glass slippers, and a magical godmother (or so she claims), and a maid who has a propensity for leaving ashes behind her. Akin to the previous book, the plot revolves around a number of likable characters, who fight against a dangerous enchantment as it ensnares Prince Christian, and a number of bystanders.

There are some problems. The big reveal about the villain is just that: a big expository lump near the end of the book. It makes sense of certain things, but isn’t really foreshadowed, nor does it seem to flow out of the rest of the book. (Also: it really seems like the cost of using lots of magic in this universe is to get turned into a force-of-nature style villain.)

In all, it’s an enjoyable book, another ‘Disney princess’ style tale, and a very enjoyable one, despite the structural problem.

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Cretan Blitz

by on May 31, 2015 at 11:50 am
Posted In: Boardgaming

Well, for the first time in quite a while, we had a full house yesterday (six people)! With the final arrangements being a bit last-minute, we went with Advanced Civilization as being familiar and relatively straight forward. Early picks went to Babylon (Jason) and Egypt (Mark), and then Zjonni picked Italy (a bit rare in our games), I contemplated taking Africa (and possibly should have) but ended up going with the AST-friendly Thrace, while Patch took Crete and Dave took Assyria.

Zjonni went fairly aggressive, and started pushing into the north, and my starting areas, taking a while to develop southern Italy and Sicily. Mark stayed in fairly local in Egypt for quite a while, heavily developing the Nile valley, which meant that west Africa stayed empty for quite a while. Babylon also had a fairly compact start, while Dave raced southwards to the headwaters of Mesopotamia and into Asia Minor, before occasionally sending shiploads of extra population west into the Thracian starting area.

Meanwhile, Crete, once they’d overpopulated their island, built two ships and sent colonists to Greece and Asia Minor, and then repeated the process a couple turns later when the population built back up. I’m not sure if Patch ever built more than one city on Crete itself. Meanwhile, he colonized Cyprus, half of Asia Minor, southern Greece, passed through southern Italy and built Carthage.

All of this left me with very little room, and after what had started with a standard high-population opening, I struggled for half the game, with pressure coming from three sides, and a number of early disasters keeping me from getting much done. I got up to about five cities normally, and then had everything I could do to maintain three or four for a long stretch (with one turn at two). I didn’t necessarily help matters by spending 12 population to build a city in Crimea, but I did retain that city for the rest of the game, and I had no idea I was going to have long-term population problems at that point.

Towards the end of the day, I finally started making some headway (aided by a couple turns with no real interference from disasters, and receiving four population in North Africa from a Civil War), and was probably going to be stable at around six cities from that point. Some good trading helped my position out a lot, with a seven-card Salt turn in, and good Grain (I think?) and Bronze turn ins. The last powered a last-turn purchase to get me into the Early Iron Age.

Dave had done well in much of the early game, and became stable at around seven cities, with a fairly dominant position before slowing down. During the second half, Crete’s early high-maintenance expansion paid off, and Patch spent the last few turns at nine cities, bouncing back from anything calamities could throw at him. I had been unable to do anything about his presence in southern Greece for most of the day, but at the end of the day established a city in the north half of Euboea, which was a desperately needed city site for me.

The end of day rankings were a surprise for us:

Side Player AST Cities Civ Cards Trade Cards Treasury Total Place
Italy Zjonni 1000 250 265 5 0 1520 6
Thrace Rindis 1100 100 640 24 0 1864 2
Crete Patch 1200 450 1220 28 1 2899 1
Assyria Dave 900 250 530 33 4 1717 3
Babylon Jason 900 250 510 0 9 1669 4
Egypt Mark 900 200 550 9 4 1663 5

I’m pretty sure we’ve had a 1000-point gap between 1st and last before, but not between 1st and 2nd. Of course, things would have been a little better if I hadn’t received Iconoclasm & Heresy on the last turn, which is what knocked me down to two cities.

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