Grogs of Crisis - 4 player "Time of Crisis"

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

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Barthheart

Well turn 8 was expensive for little gain.  ::)

Crisis roll saw more Sassanids get restless but no invasion happened.

First I spent a lot of Senate points to recruit a Governor... when I already had a Governor in the wings....  :P. At least of those cards let me Federate the lone barb in Syria into my army there.

Then I attempted a Praetorian Guard coup against the Emperor. I had 5 dice and needed 6 votes so I needed to roll at least one 6 to generate a extra roll... rolled 1,4,4,5,5....  #:-)

Will have to try some other way to depose the Tyrant of Africa.  :knuppel2:


JasonPratt

Not gonna lie: I'm only still Emperor at the end of Turn 8 thanks to some straight-up RNG providence.



Larry kicked the remaining Franks out of Pannonia (but didn't realize he had scored more hits than he received, so I increased his score by another three points for winning the battle), and added some much-needed Limes there (paying for them properly this time ;) ) -- just in time for me to roll a wad of Alums into Pannonia! Plus one more reaching all the way to Italia. His Limes have protected us for now, though!

Dave teamed up his super-stack with the Asia militia to kick out his Goth problem, and helped Barth by bribing the wad of Nomads in Egypt to stay quiet this turn. Even more importantly, he dared to take on the governorship of Galatia, and made sure his support (originally up to 3) would survive a while. This might have been where my British mob came from, now that I think of it: he had 5 populace points to spend to move his support in Galatia from 1 to 2 (2 points) to 3 (another 3 points), and there's only one 3-point yellow/populace card: the mob.

Barth played as noted, plus also adding his lone barbarian in Syria to his army there. He didn't really screw himself over by recruiting the 5 point governor, since he would have needed a pretty far roll to take Italia from me that way (under current circumstances) -- although he could have tried both ways I guess, by Senate and then when/if that failed by Praetorian coup. Now he can try for a weakly governed territory somewhere and still have a spare governor to try for Emperor in Italia. (Someone, him or Larry, launched more Sassys into Galatia and Asia, too.)

No one rolled an event, including me, so the Good Auguries continued the whole turn, but I didn't fight anyone to make use of them.

With my Alam barbarian chip in Italia currently inactive, I took advantage of one 1-point red/military card to refresh my damaged legion there (I have two in that army). Then I played three Questors and a 1-yellow, for a total of 7 yellow points. The Questors went onto my three governors. Two points removed the mob in Britain (which is why you don't see it there); two points added a militia in Britain (in my capital, under my army stack there); three points bumped my support in Britain from 2 to 3. That ended my actions.

With 3 Italian support + 3 provinces + 3 improvements under my control, my score went up 9 points to 48. (And my Emperor chip tracked up one more turn.) With 9 support in three provinces, I bought another 3 points red (Flanking Maneuver), and another 3 point yellow (Mob). As my second bought card this turn, the mob cost an extra point, leaving me 2 poli-points I couldn't spend anywhere (since trashing a card out of the game from my discard pile would cost 3 points and buying a 2 point card would cost me 4 points as my second card.) I could have bought three 2 point cards (at 2 + 3 + 4 cost) but decided not to.

Flipping the Alam in Italia to active, and selecting 5 cards from my available stack, ended my turn.

I entirely expect to be gang rushed on Turn 9, since I'm going to trigger the auto-win, in my favor, and without any chance of riposte since I'm going last, on Turn 10 at this rate!  :hide:
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Barth: you forgot to flip your Egyptian nomads over to active at the end of your turn. Dave's assistance doesn't obviate that; it only bought them off until the end of your turn.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Barthheart

Quote from: JasonPratt on August 13, 2017, 02:11:34 PM
Barth: you forgot to flip your Egyptian nomads over to active at the end of your turn. Dave's assistance doesn't obviate that; it only bought them off until the end of your turn.

DOH!  #:-) Yep yer right.

JasonPratt

AzTank fixed it pronto, don't worry.  O0

Okay, assuming it's too early for a post-mortem on how I won, let's talk about how I might still lose.

STEP 1: this is the hardest step admittedly, by now. I have to be deposed out of Italia as governor. By now the only way to do that, is to senate me out. Hopefully Az was able to select a high-powered blue hand for next time; hopefully Barth is able to try that this time or set it up next time. (I already know Dave couldn't do anything this turn, and has no blue ability next time.)

If Barth can throw a mob into Italia this turn, that MIGHT help. Whoever threw that mob last turn (Barth? -- I don't recall clearly), should have thrown it at Italia not Britain. I still would have pop'd it away immediately, but it's the principle of the thing. At this point, taking one of my satellite provinces away won't stop me winning the game, and mobs are a slow way to do that. Throwing two mobs at me would be better in the sense that I'd have to spend 4 yellows (if I have them) to get rid of them, but even one might work to knock my support down a notch before next turn. And THAT would exponentially help any attempts to senate me out next turn.

Kicking my army out of the capitol building would help a little, swinging two votes back against me in effect, but it's too late for this to be decisive. So they should only do that if they have no senate ability at hand to try, hoping that someone else will Senate me out.

Theoretically, a Praetorian coup would have an even better chance, but I think only one of those has been bought, and it was tried last turn, so I doubt it will be back in time to use before the end of next turn.

If I'm not out of power by the end of next turn (Turn 10), then I'll automatically win -- I'll have triggered the two auto-win conditions (60+ Legacy, and ending my turn as the Emperor), and no one will remain after me in the turn to try to get me out of office. Even if someone took away Britain or Africa (or both), that might not be enough to keep me from crossing the line (although in principle that would help weaken me as governor in Italia to try for a Senate oust).

The best chance for success could be: Barth throws two mobs at me, using the 6 points to put two basilicas in his territories somewhere, and draws as much blue as he can muster for next turn. Turn 9, I can't get rid of all the mobs (perhaps) and I lose a point of support in Italia, down to 2.

Turn 10, Larry marches one or two of his superstacks in, with enough red power to attack with them. Failing that, Dave marches his superstack in and succeeds (he's got one on the way). Maybe Larry has drawn enough blue to take a stab at it (Dave hasn't), which at that point would be 2 support doubled = 4 votes - 1 vote for Larry's army in my capitol building. He'd only need 3 votes to win.

Assuming they can get my army out of the city but can't try to senate me (or fail somehow), then comes Barth's turn. He would need 2x2=4 (from my support), -1 vote (enemy army in the capital city, although I'm not sure that would count if it isn't his army), - 2 votes for his basilicas. So only two votes, or maybe only one vote needed! But if my army is still there, he'd need 4 + 1 -2 so three votes. Still very doable.

If Barth can't hit me with a support malus this turn, or he does but I deflect it, then they're all looking at a base of 6 votes needed next turn, plus or minus this or that army in my capital city, minus any basilicas Barth can throw down this turn (or theoretically next turn). Not quite so doable, but not impossible.

If they don't get me out, the end, I win. Assuming they evict me as governor...


STEP TWO: they must prevent me from ever, ever, ever managing to get back Italia governorship at all for the rest of the game. Because I'll have (almost) certainly gained enough legacy one way or another to auto-win if I ever get it back even once, and with no defense possible.

In practice this means they have to gang up and curbstomp me off the map. Ideally while putting someone with strong support into the governorship. I'll still have all my bought cards, but their abilities will be heavily restricted until I can get back on the map somewhere (and if that's Italia, I simply win if something else in Italia, or elsewhere on the map, doesn't boot me immediately back out).

This will be easier than ejecting my rule in the next couple of turns, but they'll have to be ruthless about it. Otherwise I'll linger around waiting for a chance to pop back in for one turn and the win.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Barthheart

Well... not much I could do except invade Italia and destroy Jason's army there.. completely!  >:D

Unfortunately, that's all I could do except raise some of my support.

And my new hand of cards are complete shite, so if my fellow pretender wannabes can't do  amazing things we're screwed and will be eternal subjects of the Long-Winded Emperor.

JasonPratt

Larry starts Turn 9 with an anemic hand, thanks to low-power cards clogging up his available pile. He bought another Legion in Pannonia and increased his support there, but that doesn't directly act toward stopping my coming win in Turn 10 (at this rate).

Dave couldn't strike politically for Italia due to a lack of having a governor. (The rules stipulate you have to have a governor available to attempt to replace a governor. Can't just replace him with a neutral gov. Too bad because he had a low but real shot at uprooting me.) He accidentally tapped out all his blue cards before he realized this, so he isn't likely to have anything left to try to out-gov me on Turn 10.

With not much left to play, he moved his largest stack into Pannonia (currently AzLarry's province) in order to be within striking distance of Italia next time, should the help be needed.

Barth rolled up a Nomad into Africa (at last!) this time. It got deactivated, for now, thanks to those Limes I bought waaaaaay back at the start of the game.

Barth sailed his Syrian army out from its capital to Italia, successfully destroying my army from _that_ capital (as he noted). This left his capital open for invasion, but there wasn't anything I could feasibly do about that. (This turn.)

He played a Pretender card, which would have scotched my bid for the win handily! -- but he didn't have two adjacent provinces with 3 or more support each, so he couldn't play the event. He did use it to increase support in Syria and Egypt, but the Nomads in Egypt dropped his support again.

For the Crisis, I roll Sassanids, and surge two of them into Syria toward Egypt. The Limes deactivate them for now.

I play a 2-red Castra, to raise a new army in Italia (occupation of which prevents me raising militia but not legions); and then to power up my African superstack (of two legions and a militia) to attack my African Nomads!


If I win this, I have a real chance of winning the game on _this_ turn!

Unfortunately, while I struck twice, they rolled a six and then a 5, also striking twice.

Fortunately, the rules say that if one side is eliminated, then the other side wins regardless of hits!

New score is 51.

Unfortunately the Ferrets failed to hit their Alams in Italia at all, even with the auguries. They also get hit back in return, reducing them. That makes my auto-win this turn impossible.

In my support phase, Italia reduces from 3 to 2, thanks to occupation. But I don't have any remaining support problems.

My score goes up 8 points for Italia support + governed provinces + provincial improvements, landing at 59: one point short of an unanswerable autowin.



With 8 support and three provinces, I buy a 4x2=8 point praetorian guard red card. Which could be handy later.  :knuppel2:

SHALL THE REBEL ALLIANCE DETHRONE ME IN TURN TEN?!

In order to do so, they must either politically eject me, which they'll need no more than 3 senate votes for; or they must set up a situation I can't answer where I lose two support in Italia. (Or some combination.) One mob would do that, if I can't get rid of it, and if I can't get rid of the two occupying forces. Alternately, someone could play a praetorian card which, by itself, would stand a decent chance of evicting me, and moreso with any red cards played along with it. I'm doubtful anyone has picked up another Pretender card yet, but if that could be played even on turn 10, I'd probably fall out of office, locking me out of the win.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

No spoilers, but the plot has twisted in the latest turn so far.

I love this game like cake.  :notworthy: I desperately wish I had a board-game group nearby to play this and other things with.  :dreamer:
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Barthheart

So... interesting turn.... and now I AM EMPEROR! All bow before me!  :knuppel2:

Let's see how long I can hold on.  :P

Oh, and there's also a Rival Emperor who's setup shop in Gallia.... splitter!  >:(


JasonPratt

AzTank: check the google chat for the game when you get a chance. Some of your moves at the start of Turn 10 need explaining in a major way. The tl;dr version: it looks like you thought an army could attack more than once per turn (and/or that an army could move more than once per turn).
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

So. AzTank had indeed moved everything correctly -- even though I couldn't figure out how, but once I could see his logfile everything became clear. Indeed, he didn't actually score himself enough by two points, maybe three!

AzLarry started the turn tied for last place with Barthheart at 36. With some brilliant play, Az not only replaced me as Emperor (!) but also cleaned out the Alams from both Italia and Pannonia (!!) and defeated my (highly damaged) army in Italia (!!!) AND invaded Britain, to defeat my army there!!!!

He may have done a couple other things that I've forgotten. Dang, that was beautiful playing. He jumped 17 well-deserved points to 53, and notched his first turn as Emperor.


Dave rolled the Pax Deorum event during his Crisis, which gives everyone starting with him permission to add a sixth card once to their hand (through to Larry on the next turn). Even with that sixth card, he wasn't in much position to do anything -- but he creamed Larry's army out of Pannonia, taking its capital (though not governor yet), and managed to hold onto his three Black Sea provinces another turn despite a truly godawful number of barbarians in Asia and Galatia. He added 7 points to round the corner of the scoreboard at 47.


Barth, as he noted, managed to eject AzTank as Emperor, taking the throne himself! His turn was otherwise spent upkeeping his territories and improving support in Macedonia. Unfortunately for the rest of the game, he rolled the next Event card (stopping the augury bonuses), and it turned out to be bugged in the mod: it should have been Zenobia, and kind of was, but it read like it was Postmus again. Eventually I got this straightened out (I think) and she landed in Egypt, to haunt any current Emperor -- including Barth -- and to drain off support for Egypt's governor -- i.e. Barth. Still, he ended his turn with a very solid hold in Italia, with three support there and a strong army in the capital city. He scored 9 points, rounding the scoreboard corner from 36 to 45.


...annnnd then I won.  >:D



So, last turn for my cards I loaded up on lots of red including a newly bought Praetorian Guard. This thing allows me to use red points, which I have a lot of, instead of blue points, which I have almost none of, to try to place a governor in Italia (though only there, nowhere else). It also allows me to ignore Barth's army. (And Barth's Quaestor if he had one, which he didn't.) On the other hand, I could still use my basilica effect, bought a long time ago in Africa, to reduce the number of votes I need by one per (my only) bas.

So with Barth's 3 support x 2 (as usual) I needed 6 votes, minus 1 for my basilica = 5 votes, and Barth's army couldn't help with that (he might have added two more votes back for requirement).

And I sent in 10 red. Thus rolling ten dice. Ones would fail, anything else would succeed, and any six would give me an extra roll. I ended up with 8 votes, although the initial voting was terrifyingly close -- albeit still a win at 4 against to 6 in favor.

Had I failed that roll, I would have been in big military trouble, even though I had also drawn enough yellow cards to keep my support in Britain up (despite Az's army in its capital) and to throw my first mob at Barth in Egypt.  >:D

Anyway. At the end of my turn, despite Barth's army in Italia's capital, and despite Zenobia in Egypt, I was still the Emperor with only 1 support -- and passing 60 points, that triggered this being the final round. And no one else had a turn left, so that was the end of the game.


I was wrong earlier (and through the whole game really) about the auto-win. There is no auto-win, and I didn't auto-win this way. Someone else could have theoretically won the game right then, with more legacy points. But i had the most, even (especially) after adjusting for bonus points: +10 for whoever had been unrivaled Emperor longest (me at 5 turns, this one not counting thanks to Zenobia -- but she doesn't stop the end-game trigger); + 6 for whoever had been second longest (both Barth and Az, at one turn, so in these rules they both got the full bonus).

So, final scores:

Dave, 47. He was absolutely robbed by that hideous dice roll a few turns ago -- he should have been Emperor at least one maybe more turns! The game would look a lot different now.

Barth, 51. He had had a hard row to hoe with those Nomads running east instead of north all the time (not counting the surprisingly few things that got to Syria, but they didn't help either.)

Larry came back from some awful first turns to retake a very solid second place, at 59 points. No doubt he would have instantly kicked me out again next turn, and the struggle between him and Barth with Dave as the spoiler (and me scrambling to survive at all) would have been epic.

76 for me.


Many thanks to my fellow Grogs (and Dave who should join the forum pronto), for this fascinating game! Some post-game thoughts to come.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Barthheart

Well done Jason.  O0

I never saw Postmus on the board the first time... he must have appeared and got killed before my turn showed up.... ???  That's why I put him on... Not sure what the bug in there is I'll see if I can fix it....

ArizonaTank

Johannes "Honus" Wagner
"The Flying Dutchman"
Shortstop: Pittsburgh Pirates 1900-1917
Rated as the 2nd most valuable player of all time by Bill James.

JasonPratt

Some post-mortem thoughts on how I managed to win.

0.) Pure luck.

00.) No random event card, until Zenobia at the very end, affected my rule badly, helping me stay Emperor a significantly long time.

000.) I suffered almost no random barbarian incursions as distractions. While this was partly a factor of my deliberate strategy (see below), we also rolled a lot of Nomads and half of them could have been expected to come my way. Only one of them did.

0000.) The dice randomly ran my way significantly more than against me; most significantly when I won a gamble on becoming Emperor the first time, and extra especially when Dave was robbed by the dice from a virtually certain attempt to replace my Emperor with his.

Granted, as with any RNGame, protecting against bad rolls and exploiting good ones will always be a strategic and tactical goal. But luck played a reaaaalllly big role this time.


1.) In choosing my first province, I spent half an hour (...or more...  :nerd: ) calculating the relative probabilities of barbarian invasion, including weighing in how often any barbarian was likely to be rolled. Even so, I think I got it a little wrong: I should have chosen Hispania, which while it has two invasion routes is at the end of both of them. Britain and Africa each had only one route into them, but they were first on their routes. Still, either of them was safer than just about anywhere else (except, in hindsight, Hispania), and Africa was one step closer to Italia than Britain (by sea), so I chose Africa. And then was happy to have been able to take Britain, too, later.

This did mess me up a little, in a way that Hispania wouldn't have if I could have started there and moved to Africa: I didn't have two provinces next to each other so I couldn't have formed a Pretender empire. I think I could have done that with Hispania and Africa (and still easily gotten to Britain if possible), thanks to Gibraltar. As it happens I didn't need it, but it might have saved me in the late game under other circumstances.


2.) A good argument for the most effective strategy is to do your best to get competent at everything (military, popularity, and senate). But I chose to focus on buying military and populace cards, pop first.

Why pop first? -- because I have found that it's usually a good idea in strategy games to invest in economy as soon and as often as possible, and pop allowed me to do that in this game. It made my score run faster earlier, too.

Why only two talents? -- so that I would minimize the military and especially pop ability for other players as far as possible, by buying them up a little faster. Also, playing more yellow cards allowed me (by increasing my support faster) to buy more yellow cards more quickly, so that's a positive acceleration loop. And red cards give more capabilities than blue cards, the latter being useful for literally only one thing: hiring and placing governors. That's admittedly important, but my theory was that I would only ever really need to hire three governors, and with strong pop and military I could wear down support over time so that my few senate votes would get through. Also, a strong military in the late game allows the praetorian coup to seriously punch in Rome; and lots of yellow would allow me to build basilicas to help with that, too! Which, notably, is how I won on the final turn (even though I hadn't had a good opportunity to build more basilicas.)


Those were the two main strategic factors, along with:

3.) Seeing and seizing an opportunity to be the first emperor, early in the game. Being emperor turbocharges your scoring and your ability to play good cards for the rest of the game, so I figured even if I only lasted a few turns it would be worth it.


Much to my surprise, the fourth factor also happened, which I can't claim credit for, but which also wasn't pure luck:

4.) The other players did try with some regularity to oust me, which luck protected me from, but they didn't focus on it, much less cooperatively. They just took opportunity shots at me. Due to good luck, this left me in power a LOT longer than I was expecting, and gave me a bonus VP boost at the end -- which as it happened I didn't need, but still.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!