Henry VIII, By the Grace of God King of England, France and Ireland and sovereign ruler of the British Isles declares war on on his rightly and divinely appointed subjects in Scotland.
Play the Six Wives home card to do so, also granting 5 CP
Also sorry for the delay, was away from my computer most of the day and hadn’t realized my turn came up. And it took me a hot minute to figure out how to mark things in Vassal.
Now on a mechanical level I actually have a few uncertain things, hence 2 reserve CP.
And @CF_Kane you might be able to enlighten me as well.
Currently if I were to engage in a field battle in Scotland, it would be 5 dice (4 units, 1 leader) versus 3 dice. Battle stuff happens, results go. I could plausibly recruit 1 merc unit and then make it 6 to 3. I believe I have that correct. As this is a key space, this would simply be a field battle.
Is there an end war condition? Or does Scotland exist, even if all units were eliminated, as some kind of phantom war entity? Would capturing all spaces end the war? Is there any point to that? Or would simply winning some form of field battle in Edinburgh and capturing the key space be the main point and beyond that there is no reason to engage further?
Scotland still exists as an activated power that is allied to the French, until someone plays one of the few cards that can deactivate Scotland. The French can build Scottish units in Scotland, so long as there is an open home space there for them to build. Controlling the spaces prevents any builds, which is an advantage. Otherwise, the key is the only thing that effects VPs though.
I will try to avoid battle if you do that(this is probably better for you as you won’t take casualties). For all intents and purposes, Active Scotland is part of France, and everything theirs is mine now, including their spaces. If we make peace, I will keep control of the Scottish pieces, even if you control their only key. There are some restrictions on specifically Scottish regulars as they must winter in Stirling or Edinburgh(this is because in the old game it was worth it for the French to give up Scotland for nothing since they’d get the three regulars for free). So, “scotland” never actually goes away, even if all of their units are destroyed and they control nothing. There are some cards that can affect even a totally English-controlled Scotland.
Once we make peace, the Scottish units are not removed or anything. Minor powers are either ‘active’ or ‘deactivated’. But that’s very specific, and the only way to deactivate a minor is certain card effects and Hungary’s weird rules. This is also why they added in the ‘phony war’ penalty to disincentivize France giving the Papacy Venice just by declaring war on them.
Keys are fortified spaces, so technically the Scots could retreat into the fortress and force you to do a siege, followed by an assault. Up to their French puppet masters as to what actually happens though.
Attempt to avoid battle, go ahead and roll for me in the log(need a 9), if i succeed, head to Stirling. If not, fight a field battle and retreat to Stirling if I lose.
For the record, not that this will matter, but prior to the explanation I had rolled for battle (because I thought it would be a field battle. I used the undo roll, but if you see a curious entry in the log, that’s why. I left it there for transparency, and also because holy cow.
I undid and applied the retreat roll for Scotland instead…
That’s the kind of thing that can happen in bucket of dice combat. I’ve had some huge naval battles in Virgin Queen go that way.
Anyway. France plays Patron of the Arts for the event, rolling 6,1 +2 for control of Milan. A 9 is a draw 2, discard 1, +1 VP. Discarded card is Siege Artillery.
@CraigM, explorers are selected at random from your pool during the New World Phase, so you may be stuck with the inferior Willoughby instead of Chancellor or Rut. The only exception to this is Sebastian Cabot, because he gets brought in by event specifically (so I have both Cabot and a random explorer from the Spanish pool).
@Panzeh, the French only roll one die on the Chateaux table, not two. You rolled a 6 on the first die (and have +2 from Milan), and so the result would be the same (8+), but wanted to point that out for future reference (Section 21.4 in the rules).
Generally, if people do not mind, I think it is a lot easier to follow if people say what they are doing in the chat on the move files–sometime it can be hard to figure out where the CPs are going, and it helps make it easier to make sure everyone is playing right.
