Octopus Overlords

Thanks SpaceLord for your patience in helping me learn the game.

I will make a go at the East Indies and leave the West Indies for another time/nation. It's not so much the +2 penalty itself, but I didn't realize I would incur the penalty and then release it for everyone else. It didn't sink in, obviously, in my original reading of the rules.

England will send its exploration party to the East Indies.

Qantaga wrote:
England will send its exploration party to the East Indies.

Difficulty of 4 - Sailing Progress of 1 gives a target number of 3:


Success! England gains 1 Prestige.

Blue now has a Monopoly on red Resources.

Qantaga, you also have two options:
1. Place a Merchant fleet in one of the two resource spaces(Black or Gold). This will drop you to one Fleet, meaning you will ship one less good to Market with the Merchant action.
2. Place a Treasury token in one of the two resource spaces. Also place an unrest token in the territory.

Vorret, it's your turn to play Viceroy/Rebel. Viceroy would be obvious, but not certain.

Lots of things have changed:
France now has a Monopoly on orange
Yellow has a Monopoly on black
Blue has a Monopoly on red Resources

You could still Viceroy the black Resource in West Africa, taking the 1 Diplomacy hit. This would clear you to Colonize the territory very soon. There is, however, a problem with that. I'll post more about that in a bit...

SpaceLord wrote: Qantaga, you also have two options:
1. Place a Merchant fleet in one of the two resource spaces(Black or Gold). This will drop you to one Fleet, meaning you will ship one less good to Market with the Merchant action.
2. Place a Treasury token in one of the two resource spaces. Also place an unrest token in the territory.

I'll place a Merchant Fleet on the (Red) Spices resource.

Is it wrong that I keep involuntarily clicking on these buttons?

Colony Reminders

To found a colony, a player needs control of all Resources in the territory. Colonies are very good to have, for several reasons:

A Colony cannot have tokens placed on it by other players
A Colony grants the owner 1 Prestige
A Colony can host a Booming City

Advanced Colonizing rules:

When founding a Colony, a player may choose option A or B below, or any of the list below, from 1 to 5. Note that a player may waive his options.

Exclusive Options:
A: Company - Move one of the markers from the Colonized territory to the player's Merchant Fleet box. Gain 1 Prestige.
or
B. Protectorate - Discard a Naval Forces marker. Gain Treasuries equal to the Colonized territories' Native Power. Gain 1 Prestige

Or:
Choose any of the below five options, in the listed order:
1. Purge: Discard 1 Unrest token from the territory. Move back 1 space on the Diplomacy track. Gain 1 Prestige
2. Pillage: Place 1 Unrest token on the territory to gain Treasury tokens equal to the Native Power of the territory. Gain twice the Native Power if the territory has a Gold resource.
3. Pariah Colonists: Move up to 2 Unrest tokens from the player's Nation board to the territory
4. Pro-Pirate Governor: Move back 1 space on the Diplomacy track. Any other player who has a Merchant face-up loses 1 Merchant Fleet
5. Plantation: If the territory has a beige(tan) resource, gain 3 Treasury tokens for each Black resource you control.


In this case, Vorret has a Logistics of 1. If he chooses, he can place 1 token on the black Resource in West Africa, although that costs him one spot on Diplomacy. The two tokens there would allow him to later found a colony via the Conqueror action from card F.

Often, the best option for founding a colony is A, a Company, which will increase a player's Merchant Fleets. However, after the main Endeavor phase this turn, Vorret will have only one token on both Resources in West Africa. If he chooses to found a Company, then he will lose control of one of those Resources when he moves the token to make it a Merchant Fleet. This would mean he gets to ship one less good with Merchant. Later, with Viceroy, he could reclaim that spot, but could potentially lose yet another spot if no one else has already broken Portugal's Monopoly.

Additionally, the AI player has a face-up Viceroy to play this action. If Vorret doesn't place a token on the West Africa, then the AI player would sneak in, because black is quite a bit less common that orange. If Vorret places a token there, then the AI player will go to Egypt and place 2 Treasury on that orange.

Holy crap that's alot of options.

Give me a couple minutes to let all that info sink in

The great nation of Spain will play the Viceroy on the black ressource in West Africa.

Where do we start on the Diplomacy track, and is it possible to go negative? Or is it the case that once you are at "0" on the diplomacy track, you can be a general dick because your diplomatic status can't get any worse?

Good question, though being at 0 means any nation can attack you so being a dick might not be the best option either.

El Guapo wrote:Where do we start on the Diplomacy track, and is it possible to go negative? Or is it the case that once you are at "0" on the diplomacy track, you can be a general dick because your diplomatic status can't get any worse?

Everyone starts at position 4 of 5, 1 spot from the top. You cannot move left more than once from one action, and you can't go lower than 1.

oh, and here I thought we started at the lowest possible spot.

Vorret wrote:The great nation of Spain will play the Viceroy on the black ressource in West Africa.

Spain has broken Portugal's Monopoly on the black Resource. Spain moves from Diplomacy position 4 to 3.

Next up, El Guapo needs to pick a spot to Explore.

Vorret wrote:oh, and here I thought we started at the lowest possible spot.

That was my initial assumption too, but SpaceLord's comments about the wisdom of various possible moves that would impact the diplomacy track wouldn't make sense if we started at 0 (otherwise now would be the turn for everyone to be dicks).

After that, Italy will play Viceroy/Rebel, and we'll be done with the 3rd action of the Turn 1 Endeavor phase.

El Guapo:

You could break France's Monopoly on orange in Barbary(you need a 2), or go into Mozambique, needing a 3, since the Monopoly on black is already broken.

It's time we discussed the turn order. Currently, Vorret and Qantaga have Monopolies that are reasonably safe. If there continues to be a tie, then the first player passes to myself.

SpaceLord wrote: It's time we discussed the turn order. Currently, Vorret and Qantaga have Monopolies that are reasonably safe. If there continues to be a tie, then the first player passes to myself.

Uh?
The order change?

I can't see the map at work, and I'm going to think about it as well, so I'll get my move in this evening.

Vorret wrote:

SpaceLord wrote: It's time we discussed the turn order. Currently, Vorret and Qantaga have Monopolies that are reasonably safe. If there continues to be a tie, then the first player passes to myself.

Uh?
The order change?

Phase 3: The first player passes to the left, unless a player controls more Monopolies than any other, then that player becomes the first player. You cannot be first player in consecutive turns.

Interesting indeed

I think the spreadsheet shows the names in the wrong order, btw.

Have you considered using a google docs spreadsheet, so it won't be necessary to download the file over and over?

Grundbegriff wrote:I think the spreadsheet shows the names in the wrong order, btw.

Have you considered using a google docs spreadsheet, so it won't be necessary to download the file over and over?

I'll fix the names issue. And good idea, I'll put a Google docs spreadsheet together after this round.

SpaceLord wrote:El Guapo:

You could break France's Monopoly on orange in Barbary(you need a 2), or go into Mozambique, needing a 3, since the Monopoly on black is already broken.

It's time we discussed the turn order. Currently, Vorret and Qantaga have Monopolies that are reasonably safe. If there continues to be a tie, then the first player passes to myself.

Wouldn't I need a 4 in Mozambique? I do not yet have any seafaring technology. Or is it that because there is no monopoly on black that makes exploring it easier?

And if Mozambique is 3 difficulty, then would Angola also be 3? What about South Africa?

Also - if we later find a sixth person player, they could take over for the AI, right?

El Guapo wrote:

SpaceLord wrote:El Guapo:

You could break France's Monopoly on orange in Barbary(you need a 2), or go into Mozambique, needing a 3, since the Monopoly on black is already broken.

It's time we discussed the turn order. Currently, Vorret and Qantaga have Monopolies that are reasonably safe. If there continues to be a tie, then the first player passes to myself.

Wouldn't I need a 4 in Mozambique? I do not yet have any seafaring technology. Or is it that because there is no monopoly on black that makes exploring it easier?

And if Mozambique is 3 difficulty, then would Angola also be 3? What about South Africa?

Sorry, yes, you'd need a 4 for Mozambique. As mentioned earlier, I've already explored Angola. Africa would be fine, but Moz is better for two reasons: black is a rarer resource than orange, and orange is in a Monopoly, held by France. In addition, Moz. is adjacent to more territories than S. Africa, giving a +1 bonus to more territories.

Alright then. Let's go for an ill-advised adventure - the Netherlands will explore Mozambique.

El Guapo wrote:Alright then. Let's go for an ill-advised adventure - the Netherlands will explore Mozambique.

Netherlands choose to Explore Mozambique:

Difficulty = 4, +0 for Sailing, +0 for Adjacencny, target number = 4



Success! The Netherlands gains 1 Prestige.

El Guapo, you have two choices:

1. Place a Merchant fleet in one of the two resource spaces(Black or Gold). This will drop you to one Fleet, meaning you will ship one less good to Market with the Merchant action.
2. Place a Treasury token in one of the two resource spaces. Also place an unrest token in the territory.

(I've not been fudging the die rolls, I swear!)

El Guapo wrote:Also - if we later find a sixth person player, they could take over for the AI, right?

Yes. That was the reason SpaceLord gave for including an AI nation.

It would be great to get a real player in to take over for Italy.

If I went with the option that put unrest in Mozambique, how risky is that? The AI player has a Viceroy / Rebel option next, I notice. If Rebel is played on a location with an unrest token, what are the odds of a successful rebellion?

SpaceLord wrote:(I've not been fudging the die rolls, I swear!)

Your high rolls are the natural occurence of the board finally calibrating to offset Remus' rolls.

El Guapo wrote:If I went with the option that put unrest in Mozambique, how risky is that? The AI player has a Viceroy / Rebel option next, I notice. If Rebel is played on a location with an unrest token, what are the odds of a successful rebellion?

It's risky, but probably not likely this turn. Italy needs Resources.

But let's take a look at what would happen in Mozambique if a Uprising happens there, with 1 token.

The rules state you multiply the Unrest tokens in place by the Native Power. In Mozambique, this result would be two. Italy would roll two dice, and for each success, a token would be removed. The special dice that come with the game have two laurel faces, and four blank.

Thanks! Other question - how hard is it to replace a merchant fleet?

El Guapo wrote:Thanks! Other question - how hard is it to replace a merchant fleet?

Merchant Fleets come about in two ways:

During Phase 2 of each turn(after Endeavor), each player can transfer 1 token from their Treasury for each Monopoly they control.
During the Conqueror action, a player may choose to found a Company. The player removes 1 token from the territory to their Merchant Fleet area. This is a very useful play, since Merchant Fleets are fairly hard to get through the first method.

Having less tokens, however, on a Colony means that it's more difficult to hold during a Uprising, and during a war in that Territory.

Remember, if you lose all tokens on a Colony, you lose 1 Prestige, and a 2nd if the Booming City is located there. The Colony becomes an Independent State. An Independent State has its Native Power doubled for all purposes, so it takes twice as many tokens to re-Colonize.

Gotcha. Lasty, my understanding from the 'initial moves' suggestions is that after we play all four of our face up endeavors, we get a "last chance" move where we can play one of our two remaining cards, right?

Assuming that's right, I am going to move a merchant token onto the black resource.

edit for clarity:
We only played 3 cards there's still one turn left before we play our face down card... or am I crazy ?

Vorret wrote:I thought we played only 3 cards?

There are regular 4 actions, then a 5th, special action, using any of the 4 roles from your two remaining servers.

SpaceLord wrote:

Vorret wrote:I thought we played only 3 cards?

There are regular 4 actions, then a 5th, special action, using any of the 4 roles from your two remaining servers.

Yeah I realized after I wrote it that my sentence didn't make much sense (stupid french in me).

I just opened up the rulebook. It starts with this:

See them big plantations burning
Hear the cracking of the whips
Smell that sweet magnolia blooming
See the ghosts of slavery ships
…
Well, God is in his Heaven
And we all want what’s his
But power and greed and corruptible seed
Seem to be all that there is.

– Bob Dylan, “Blind Willie McTell”

Now I feel awful about settling that black resource in Mozambique.

Vorret wrote:

SpaceLord wrote:

Vorret wrote:I thought we played only 3 cards?

There are regular 4 actions, then a 5th, special action, using any of the 4 roles from your two remaining cards.

Yeah I realized after I wrote it that my sentence didn't make much sense (stupid french in me).

I wrote "servers" when I meant "cards." Stupid work getting in the way of fun!