Virgin Queen

 In a miracle of organisation, Richard was able to get six players together to tackle this game.

Stefan played the Ottomans, I was the Spanish, Simon, the English, Russell the French, Jeff the Holy Roman Empire and Richard was the Protestants.

We completed three turns which saw the Holy Roman Empire in the lead thanks to some excellent matrimonial matches, very impressive scientific discoveries and the throne of Poland.

Richard has provided this AAR (and I've added a few extra details on Spain).

Turn 1

The Ottomans attack the Holy Roman Empire, besieging and then successfully assaulting the fortress of Szigetvar. The HRE leader Zrinyi was captured during the assault and spent the rest of the game a captive in an Ottoman dungeon.

Spain bolsters the defences of her valuable New World treasure fleets with fortresses and extra patrols to deter piracy, which certainly worked as there was no world map piracy for the three turns played. Drake was in the area, and who knows there might have been a strike in future turns if he'd been shamed into it.

Additional Spanish naval vessels are constructed on the European map.

Spain announced an alliance with France, directed at the common Protestant threat.

England attacks Edinburgh and captures the key. France looks on meekly as her ally goes under. An expedition is launched and a colony established in North America.

France is busy with arrangements for the nuptials of Phillip II of Spain and Elisabeth de Valois and bolsters her army with extra ground units.

The HRE starts a build up ground forces as they stare down the onrushing Ottomans.

The Protestants launch their religious conversion programme in the Netherlands and France. Several areas in the Netherlands are converted and then reclaimed by the Spanish in a tussle for control. France follows a similar pattern, but by the end of the turn, the Protestants have good number of spaces in the Netherlands and although fewer in France, they gain several VPs having jumped several rows on the control table.

The Phillip II and Elisabeth Valois nearly turns to complete disaster with both players rolling a 1. With Phillip narrowly avoiding being murdered, it was the unfortunate Elisabeth who died in childbirth. The Earl of Arran's wedding to Anna of Saxony was rather more successful and resulted in a Preach Sermon action in Scotland converting another two spaces to protestant.

Turn 2

The Ottomans sail their Corsairs with Dragut at the helm and strike at the Knights of St John base in Malta. They are very successful and gain both a piracy VP and a random card from the Spanish hand. They do however lose Dragut who is killed after Spain plays a response card.

With a reasonable base of religious conversions, the Protestants instigate a rebellion in the Netherlands, and a key is captured in Amsterdam, bringing on protestant regulars for the first time. Surrounding spaces are also brought under protestant political control, including significantly the fortress of Utrecht which provides a convenient buffer to adjacent Amsterdam. The fledgling Dutch nation emerges.

The Scottish Lords rebel and England narrowly wins the diplomatic roll to ally Scotland. France and England end their war.

France makes several very successful suppress heresy actions and the protestants are reduced to a single space in France. The rest of the French turn is concerned with launching an expedition to the New World, bolstering her army and arranging marriages, including Mary Queen of Scots to Charles IX.

Spain marches the Duke de Alva to the Netherlands and recaptures the fortress of Utrecht thus threatening the newly established Dutch capital in Amsterdam. It is a short-lived adventure however, as the protestants unleash further rebellions targeting Utrecht whose forces are wiped out. The Duke de Alva is displaced to Brussels.

The HRE, unconcerned by the Ottomans at their doorstep, add to their VP total by winning the Polish Royal Election.

Turn 3

With espionage now available as a possible action, it seemed that all the powers were keen to try it.

The Ottomans in particular were determined to assassinate Schwendl. In an almost comical pursuit through the streets of Vienna, they finally got their man on the third attempt. (They don't have much luck with assassins these Hapsburgs, do they?) With Schwendl dead and Zrinyi rotting in an Ottoman dungeon, this put a big dent in the HRE's ability to move large formations. However, with a sitzkrieg having developed outside Vienna with neither the Ottomans nor the HRE willing to risk a field battle this did not prove any impediment to the HRE who took the opportunity to sponsor the arts and sciences to amazing effect with a massive bolstering of VPs after top the table results on those tables.

Spain places a Jesuit in England and launches Catholic conversion attempts in England with some success. These are quickly reined in by the English who with their Cipher key quickly dispatched the Jesuit.

Spain (which had made peace with the Ottomans in the previous turn) launch an amphibious invasion of the independent key at Tunis and besiege it.  Their general dies (card play by the Ottomans). With a bonus card they launch an assault but are repelled (five dice needing only one hit gets nothing, the Tunisians with just two dice score two hits). In the meantime, the Ottomans also launch an amphibious assault on Tunis and successfully assault it snatching it from the Spanish. (We subsequently found this movement by the Ottomans is not allowed by the rules as it doesn't meet the criteria for entering a space). So the Ottomans would not have been able to capture the space this turn. This would have meant a 2 VP adjustment to the Ottoman total.  Regardless Tunis was a complete disaster for the Spanish, particularly after a second assault saw them lose again with not enough remaining manpower to maintain the siege forcing a retreat which, across seas, results in elimination).

With a total of three scientific research attempts, the Spanish scientist and even their hired Italian could only discover astrology.

Spain targets the Protestant player with Witchcraft (so maybe astrology did have a benefit?) and scores the best possible card in the Protestant hand as a reward. Nevertheless, the Dutch were able to capture Antwerp for their second key in the Netherlands, and they also now possessed a significant ground force and leader in the Duke of Orange.

England meanwhile launches a fresh expedition with colony to the New World which is successfully established and contents themselves by establishing a card library. A mercenary is donated to the grateful Protestants.

There was further flurry of nuptials organised by France and the HRE.

An extremely successful French roll assured 2 VPs to France and Spain with the successful remarriage of Phillip II of Spain and Marguerite de Valois.

Also successful were Henry IV and Anna of Austria who generated a +1 card bonus for both the HRE and Protestant. The HRE next marriage between Elizabeth of Austria and Henry IV was less successful and ended up costing both powers a -1 card for next turn.

But the real news of the turn was top of the table results for arts and sciences sponsored by the HRE. This catapulted them into the lead with an extra 5 VPs.

And unfortunately, that's where we had to leave the game.

The scores at the end of round 3, which included the HRE's secret bet on the number of protestant spaces, were as follows:

Ottoman: 14

Spain: 15

England: 14

France: 19

HRE: 23

Protestant: 10

Although we didn't finish, with the HRE only 2 points away from an outright victory it would have taken quite a bit of catching up with 25 needed for an outright victory. The only power which could have prevented an HRE victory would have been the Ottomans. The Ottomans would have to have ended their sitzkrieg and taken Vienna, which would have put them in striking distance. That would have been an iffy affair however with a risky 50/50 field battle.

It would have been nice to actually get a game officially finished, hopefully next game.