TURN FIFTEEN -- COMBAT PHASE
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Normally the combat resolves in the order of Deployment; but normally Province defense also resolves after normal combats! (And in the order of the earliest to latest wars, I think.)
In this case it doesn’t matter, so we’ll stick with deployment order:
The first Province defense of the game! It must be noted that despite some misleading descriptions in the Living Rules (even as of April 2018), and despite my misremembering of the situation (!!), Governors
do not attack Wars! They do not use a Province as a springboard to attack a War, and while they can reduce a War's gains with a successful Victory (depending on whether the War has a leader and/or at least one Matching War on the board to help), they cannot discard a War off the board (unless only 5 scenarios or less remain in the whole game).
This is sort-of clearly stated in my flowchart rules, but I forgot to check.
So this won't get rid of the Lusitania War, but a Victory in Province defense
would count against an auto-defeat, or count
for one Player winning alone by sponsoring a successful Emperor overthrowing the Republic.
The Lusitania Revolt attacks the Province of Hispania Citerior (the first target on its list), defended by the Militarist Faction Leader and former Consul Manlius, along with the Veteran 1st Legion, supported by the 7th through 9th Legions, and one Spanish Provincial unit; plus Spanish partisans equal to one more Legion.
The Lusitania War doesn’t have naval power, and Citerior Hispania is landlocked (for purposes of this game), so no naval fight is needed.
Hispania Citerior Land Strength: 1
Garrison Legions: +4
Garrison Vets again: +1
Provincial Armies: +1 (no division)
Manlius Mil skill: +9 (the rules are unclear how to apply Mil to a province defense, even as of April 2018, so I’ve house ruled in favor of the defense in my flowchart sheet: the Mil skill is always fully applied, representing capital defense, even with only 1 inherent Land Strength to work with.)
Lusitanian War Land Strength: -6
No other factors.
DRM = 1+4+1+1+9-6 = +10. A roll of 3 will be a no-casualty Stalemate; a roll of 6 will be Disaster; rolls of 11 or 16 will be Standoffs. Anything else will be a Victory, probably without casualties.
3d6 rolls... 6+4+4 = 14! Not a D/S result! Plus 10 DRM = 24, a no loss victory for Manlius!
Wars cannot usually be Discarded by a successful Province defense (until the final 5 cards of the game). A Provincial defensive victory also does not help unrest (although a defeat will worsen it as usual!) Lastly, Province Defense victories will not collect spoils: the War must be prosecuted directly for that! In this case, the Lusitania War is treated as a Province in Revolt (even though it has no Provincial territory yet), so it has no Spoils. The War basically bounces off the defense, technically going Inactive for the rest of the Combat Phase (for purposes of gauging auto-defeat or Emperor victory conditions), but goes back active at the Revolutionary Phase. (Otherwise it might come back Immanent in the Mortality Phase, which the rules are avoiding by this method.)
Manlius still gains half the War’s printed land strength, so 6/2= +3 to Inf and Pop. He’s already at maximum popularity, but his Influence goes up from 37 to 40 (total from 97 to 100!) He suffers no popularity loss or risk of combat death, due to no casualties. The 7th Legion, being the longest serving non-Vet, levels up to Vet. Manlius gains their loyalty chip.
Because this was a Governor defending his Province with a Garrison army, he and the Legions do not return to Rome. (The Governor might travel between multiple Provinces if he’s a multi-Gov, but Garrisons stay with their Province.)
Annnd now I need to snack on something for the evening!
More combat later, but I probably won't finish tonight. Might get the second fight done tho.
