La Belle Époque Encore!

We gathered again to play this game.  Simon was Great Britain, Jeff the Central Powers, Richard Russia and I was France.  Took us around six hours to complete, the game ending when Archie Duke shot an ostrich.

The scores were France 141, Central Powers 113, Russia 107 and Britain 72.

The previous game AAR can be found here:

 https://onesidedminiaturewargamingdiscourse.blogspot.com/2023/10/la-belle-epoque.html

Postscript

From the pen of Imperial Russia suitably redacted to protect the innocent.

Another great game. I felt it would play faster and it did, we raced through 6 turns in 4 hours and then the last two turns took an hour or so as everyone tried stretching their turns to secure the optimum play order in the next turn.

I felt the penny dropped for us in terms of some of the game tricks with this second game, although I feel there is much more to explore.

1) Make sure you really want to target a player with a particular card as this shields them for the rest of the turn.

2) Stretching out your turn can work to your advantage, unless there is a pressing reason to perform 2 actions.

3) The turn 6 scoring phase is the most critical in the game. Possibly the last chance to use powerful national cards, and going last in this turn can be crucial. If you want to make a move, then this is the turn to do it. France locked in a game winning lead in that scoring phase with approximately 60 VPs to the next nearest of 30 VPs that turn. That was the final VP differential.

4) If you have a cunning plan, make sure you read your cards correctly, before implementing the first half and then realising you can't implement the second half. (i.e Russia selling arms to Japan). 

We've probably had too few games to tell if any power has it easier than the others.

Russia seems quite resilient, finishing a close third despite neglecting to secure Rumania and the easy cash cache, which would have been handy. In both games Russia has been the dominant power in China. Each power can get a maximum of 12 VPs and Britain 15 VPs for China. The Central Empires probably have a trickier time accessing Asia, but Britain and France do not. It's interesting that a lot of effort was expended by Britain and France on Melanesia and Micronesia for perhaps a maximum of

half the potential gain (or one third in the case of Britain) for going after China.

Great Britain has finished last in both games, however, in neither game was any effort put into securing the Cape Colony which locks Britain into a negative VP at game end as well as not achieving national

objectives for Colonies in Asia and Africa in the scoring phase. Too Eurocentric perhaps? Going after too many Euro alliances might be a nice short term sugar hit, but hurts Britain long term. I feel Britain cannot win without at least 3 colonies in Africa. Something the next British player can explore...

France seems to have a big advantage with 4 DM cubes after the Eiffel tower is built. It's effectively a free extra turn or free army if you sell and purchase. Not sure what the foil to that is just yet.

Central Empires and Britain have powerful resources in diplomatic attack, but you have to be prepared to use them and have the financial clout to back it up. Not having money sucks as I found out!

Ironically, for a game about diplomacy, in neither game was this pursued overtly (well at least not while I was at the table). Perhaps something to consider in the future. Making limited deals on certain areas.