Ottoman Sunset 2

Apr 29 2017

Tags

Ottoman Sunset is on my Nickels list for 2017. This will be my second play. My first play I drew 19 cards. Let's see if I can beat that today.

01 Intelligence Bureau of the East. Marker placed, Meso advances, offensive fails.
04 Enver to the Front. Meso and Caucasus pushed back.
03 Jihad Declared. Shuffle Mid-day cards into draw deck. Placed a minefield, all fronts on their end location.
32 Arab Revolt. Place Feisal Hussein on track. 4 cards in and looking ok. I need to place those remaining two markers and build up some resources.
31 The Somme. Defeat. National Will -1.
29 Brusilov Offensive. Defeat. National Will -2. Uh oh. This would be incredibly ironic if I lost this game on battles alone.
21 Central Powers Meddling in Afghanistan.
16 Suvla Landing.
35 Provisional Government Takes Charge. Causasus now flipped to 1. Acquire resource marker. I need to get some victories. Other than that, not looking bad at all.
07 Turkish Minelaying. This is a cool card, haven't seen it before. This means I need to consider holding 1 mine back to spend that action elsewhere.
18 Bulgaria Joins the Central Powers.
11 Gallipolli Landings.
27 Mesopotamian Siege. Getting a bit tougher now. Really starting to worry about those battles. I just figured out why I'm doing so well: I have not been moving the Sinai Front. Had I been moving the Sinai Front, I probably would have lost the game by now. Bummer. I'll start moving it from here on out.
25 Erzurum Offensive.
26 Verdun. Victory. Things are looking up.
22 Fortification of Gaza Beersheba. No luck on fronts.
12 Gorlice Tarnow. Defeat. It's not looking good here. If I don't make the offensives, this is the game! Pushed Caucasus back, National Will -2.
13 Italy Joins the War. Defeat. National Will -3.
05 Ghadar Conspiracy. National Will -3, but I've beat my first game, except for not moving Sinai.
33 Yudenich Named Commander in Chief. Bummer, this is going to make Caucasus really hard to beat. National Will -5 game over. Crushing Defeat!

What to play next?

Deciding what to play next is always a tough call when faced with a closet full of games, all of which were purchased with intent to play. Here's one I'm dealing with the decision.

Something New: this means both something new to me and a game which has been published recently, within the last two or three years.
Something Classic: I've acquired a number of games properly considered "classic" which haven't yet been played. The current example would be PanzerGruppe Guderian.
Something Again: mastery requires constant practice, which means playing games many, many times to allow nuance to appear.
Something Vietnam: as I'm on a Vietnam binge. I don't have all the Vietnam games ever published, but I can say that I have a lot of them, and probably more than most people.
Something Obscure: as it's fun to poke around in the dustier corners of game design.
Something Different: break away from the same old publishers and try a game from one of the new kids on the block. Or, conversely, dip into legacy with a classic tried and true.
Something Light: once in a while it's nice to actually finish a game all the way through in one sitting, in an hour or two.
Something Heavy: if possible, it's nice to set up something big and complicated which can be left out for days or weeks or even months, for a leisurely stroll through a very large or long game.

There are surely many more ways to choose, but the above method keeps me busy enough, helps me get both breadth and depth into my play, and provides me with a sense of progress.

The odd man out

When there is an odd man out:

Have a solo game ready to play.
Keep score or advise on a game in progress.
Referee a game in progress.