Virgin Queen All Over Again

In another feat of organization, Richard was able to get us all back together to play another game of Virgin Queen.  Country allocations are as our game in July: Virgin Queen

Sadly we only got to the end of Turn four before we ran out of time.  The board was as follows:

Richard has provided this AAR.

It was all for nothing...

Turn 1

In a shock diplomatic move, Spain and the Protestants announce the Treaty of Holland and Spain grants independence to the Dutch, with political control of Dutch home spaces going to the Protestants, including the key of Amsterdam. The Protestant offers a card draw to sweeten the deal. This allows Spain to concentrate on other strategies and not have to worry about a game long resource draining counter insurgency against the Dutch. It's a win/win though as the Protestant player can focus on the much more difficult task of getting the Huguenot cause up and running in France. France is aghast at the move.

France and the HRE set up various diplomatic marriages.

The Ottoman fleet sails and is smashed by the combined Papal Spanish Fleet. Despite rolling a bucket of dice, the Ottomans fail to even scratch the Spanish Fleet, although the Papal contingent failed to attend mass that evening for some reason.

The Spanish Treasure fleet arrives early and Spain has an embarrassment of riches. With 11 actions available to them this turn. With all of this bounty, the Spanish construct an enormous fleet and army and the set up points to a Mediterranean strategy. Algiers is taken by treachery.

A wave of religious conversion attempts is unleashed in France which keep France occupied with swatting them away.

The English take Edinburgh under siege and then successfully assault it on the second attempt.

The Dutch launch a colonising expedition under Laudonierre, setting up a Protestant colony on Roanoke Island.

The HRE has an extremely successful scientific sponsorship of Mercator and the Protestants suggest the HRE should take Cryptography as their science bonus. They ignore this and rue the decision later...

Spain is less successful with their sponsorship of Titian who takes the money and flees.

Turn 2

Virginia Dare is born to two Calvinists in the New World. 1 VP for the Protestants. Even better, the Protestants draw a 5 CP treasure. This has been an amazing return for 1 CP of otherwise unusable CPs for the Protestants.

The Ottomans build the Suez Canal and an expedition with Murat Reis is sent to colonise Mombasa.

With the Ottomans swept from the seas, Spain conquers Algiers, the first step on turning the Mediterranean into a Spanish lake, a task made even easier with the early arrival yet again of the Spanish Treasure Fleet and further riches burgeoning their hand.

The event Spanish conquer the Philippines is played, allowing a 5th treasure to be added each turn to the Spanish treasure.

Narrow English opportunities mean they content themselves with the capture of Edinburgh then settle down to sponsor science and strengthen their army and navy. Curiously, no colonies or expeditions set forth.

With a free hand to concentrate on France, the Protestants unleash a wave of religious conversions and rebellions across France and also start religious conversion of the Netherlands.

The Huguenots revolt is successful and La Rochelle is set up as their new capital. France sends an army to recapture it, but the assault fails and they withdraw.

It is still tough going for the Huguenots as France sweeps Protestant religious influence from the map with play of Gouvernement du France.

The Moriscos revolt occurs in Granada, but the damage is limited as all critical areas are secured by Spanish garrisons.

The Spanish continue their march across the Mediterranean and are busily subduing Tunis, however in a surprise rebound late in the turn, the Ottomans land at Taranto and move to besiege the lightly garrisoned Spanish holding of Naples.

In a major embarrassment for Spain, the Ottomans capture Naples. The Pope decamps to his summer retreat in Ravenna.

France and the HRE see another round of successful weddings as well as trove of successful scientific and artistic sponsorship for the HRE.

Turn 3

Espionage is now available, as are Jesuits. The Ottomans, HRE, Spain and England all get in on the act setting up informant networks.

The Ottomans waste no time and assassinate the HRE leader Zrinyi. 1 Assassination VP for the Ottomans.

Spain sends forces into Andalucia and crushes the Morisco revolt.

Spain plays Papal Bull, retrieving the Holy League card from the discard pile.

The HRE had resolved the diplomatic status of Venice and loaned their fleet to Spain.

With Spanish ensigns now fluttering on the Venetian galleys, Spain has overwhelming naval supremacy.

No sooner had these standards been raised, however, and with these being Venetians after all, an Eloquent Ambassador from the Sublime Porte  pointed out some protocol errors in the galley rental documents which the Venetians promptly renounce and declare neutrality.

Still, the Spanish with a vast amount of resources available, easily recapture Naples with some help from City States Rebels and they continue their military build up.

There are Huguenots revolts across France with Rouen and then Calais falling. France quickly suppresses Rouen, but Calais is a step too far and this survives the turn in Protestant hands. It's Huguenot whack-a-mole for France.

King Sebastian of Portugal dies and this brings Portugal into play as a potential ally for a number of powers including Spain, England and France.

There is a Polish Royal election and the HRE win the ballot. 2 VPs to the HRE.

Turn 4

With the Ottomans reeling under the weight of the Spanish, the HRE decide to put the boot in and declare war on the Ottomans. This backfires immediately.

The Ottomans capture Szegetivar with elite troops and then take Agram and Trieste, setting them up for a possible future attack on Venice.

The Ottoman assassins are still hard at work at they hit their mark again, this time it's Schwendl, leaving the HRE military effort severely restricted without any named leaders. Another VP for the Ottomans who have an impressive trophy cabinet of VPs, but their Mediterranean empire lies in tatters with their Ostrich strategy failing to deter the Spanish.

Spain chooses their Armada card and builds the Fleet in Cadiz. That can only be going in one direction....

After the Spanish Mediterranean fleet had destroyed what was left of the Ottoman fleet at Lepanto they are set up for a Balkan invasion. They land and quickly besiege Athens and capture an Ottoman key.

The Scottish Lords Rebel card is played and Scotland allies with the Protestants following a canny investment of odd CPs by the Protestant player. The English are indignant and declare war on the Protestants. Somewhat ironically, earlier in the turn the English resorted to a random die roll to decide whether they should attack France and seize Calais. The dice said No, but the handily deployed fleet (unnoticed by France) was ready.

The Enterprise of England card is played by Spain, who with an appearance of Jesuits in England and with several successful reconversions limits the damage and denies England any VPs. 

England lands in Calais, but fail to take it and sail back to England having had to devote resources to fend off Spanish meddling.

With an enormous hand of cards and treasures Spain bides their time, having conquered Athens and they move on to Salonika against the powerless Ottomans who are now out of cards. Spain doesn't  need an ambassador to the Sublime Porte any longer as they are knocking on the door with their army.

The Protestants unleash wave after wave of religious conversion attempts in France and the Netherlands. Protestantism spreads across western Europe to heretofore unseen levels.

France is busily trying to crush Huguenot rebellions which have sprung up in Calais and Rouen.

France tries to sweep the Huguenots from the map with play of Gouvernmente de France, but this time the Protestants are waiting with a foil and immediately cancel this with play of Jeanne de Navarre. Protestantism is well entrenched in France, but politically, the Huguenots are confined to their capital in La Rochelle and an outpost in Calais. Le Testu sets up a French colony in Montreal.

And there, unfortunately, play had to stop. Despite a very long session of 7 hours, which included a 10 minute break for lunch, the game came to a halt leaving the two front runners, Spain and the Protestants tantalisingly close to a victory.

The scores at the conclusion of play were:

• Protestants 19
• England 17
• France 17
• HRE 17
• Spain 16
• Ottomans 11

These VPs are slightly misleading as the real action was in progress to a Military Victory by Spain (one key short at the conclusion of play) and a Religious Victory by the Protestants who were sitting on 43 out of 50 needed for the auto win.

Here is a post mortem on possible what ifs.

There were two powers with a chance to end the game in turn 5. Either a Spanish Military victory or a Protestant Religious victory.

It's tempting to see the pros for a Spanish Military victory as an easy single key to capture, with the possible low hanging fruit for this being Portugal. Venice could have been an option but would probably have risked a HRE intervention and a protracted battle. Spain might also have tried for a surprise attack on France or England, but would have been logistically a lot more difficult and save a quick execution would probably have failed in the long run.

Assuming Spain went after Portugal, it would have been a minimum 2 impulse (2 card plays) exercise assuming everything went to plan.

In the meantime, you would expect an Ottoman (who go first in the turn) counter attack on Salonika, also a 2 impulse exercise.

Brussels was highly vulnerable to a Protestant rebellion roll - needing one hit out of 7 rolls, which if successful would have been a key lost to Spain in the first impulse of turn 5.

So to win, Spain would have to have successfully assaulted Portugal, the Ottomans would have to be unsuccessful in assaulting Salonika and the Protestants would have to have failed the rebellion roll in the first impulse of turn 5. That also doesn't figure any response cards that any of the other powers might be able to play.

With a preponderance of cards and treasures, it might still have been possible for Spain to grind out the victory, but I don't think it would have been as straight forward as it seems, with holding on to Brussels being extremely unlikely, thus leaving them a key short.

The path to a Protestant Religious auto victory would have been significantly more straight forward, as the only possible counter measure is Suppress Heresy actions by Spain or France.

The Protestants would have started turn 5 with 43 Protestant spaces. Just 7 more and that is an Religious auto victory. The Protestant Home card offers 14 religious conversion rolls in a single impulse, 2 of which are guaranteed 6s. It could have been won with 2 rolls in the first impulse. With a further 5 Protestant cards to play offering on average 25 additional conversion rolls it would have needed a concerted effort by France and Spain to prevent this from happening at some stage in turn 5.

Either way it would have been a race between Spain and the Protestants. This is quite an outlier scenario as military victories and religious victories are very difficult to pull off, so it was unusual to see both in play at the same time.

But unfortunately we shall never know how things could have panned out... or will we?

The players felt a little flat at not being able to conclude the game with a definitive winner. The game is excellent, but it does take a long time to play, being a combination of AP at times combined with a lot of phases and steps in each turn. Additionally there are so many minor rules and situations which might not have come up before and these need to be worked through which all takes time. It is also logistically difficult, both physically (see photo of play area - including white board for certain charts) as well as the main obstacle, co-ordinating the schedules of the players.

The game state has been preserved and it might be resurrected at some point in the future when all parties are able to reconvene.

We shall see, it might not have been for nothing after all.