Hapsburg Eclipse (12)

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The previous game went pretty well, played 40 cards, which ups my average number of played cards per game up a little bit. I don't believe I have the stats tracked yet, but an ad hoc estimate a while back showed I was getting about 17 cards (out of 50) per game. Let's see how I do this game.

  1. 02 Drive into Galacia. Purchase resource for Western Theater. Hungarian advances.

  2. 09 Battle of Falkland Islands. Defeat. Carpathian back to 5. Polish back to 5.

  3. 35 German Aid. Hungarian right 1.

  4. 11 Putnik Reclaims Belgrade. Victory.

  5. 01 Second Army Out of Position. Czech move 1 left.

  6. 06 Russian Cipher Cracked. Radio Intercepts, purchase Resource for Eastern.

  7. 15 Treaty of London. Resource to Naval. Carpathian back to Prem.

  8. 08 Battle of Lodz. Defeat. Spent a German Aid on this and rolled a natural 1. That's tough. Doesn't bode well. Bad dice whole turn.

  9. 20 StrafExpedition. Rolling low this game.

  10. 29 Otranto Passage. Defeat. Bummer.

  11. 24 Danube Flotilla Sails. Victory. Resource on Eastern Theater.

  12. 10 German 9th Army. Resource to Western Theater.

  13. 05 Battle of Tannenburg. Victory.

  14. 21 Brusilov Offensive. Brutal.

  15. 25 Death of Franz Josef. Czech is in revolt, Croat Advances. Rolled Czech out of revolt.

  16. 27 Provisional Gov. Takes Charge. This flips Polish and Carpathian to weaker side, small victories here. Thinking about how to do The Great Retreat. Wait another turn.

  17. 04 Battle of Mons. Victory. The Great Retreat is triggered.

Well, crap, that put National Will at -7, which is a defeat. I should have waited and tried to get Prems rebuilt a step.

AAR

I think I am starting to get the hang of this game. Despite losing, I just read from the map that Carpathian rolls get a +1 DRM when Prems is under siege, which is basically any time the the Carpathian is on or in front of Prems. I have never played that! It would matter!

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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.