Game 10

"I had the chance to visit the mining museum at Radstock recently, very informative on the local coal mining industry. "

Just so you know I actually went to school just up the road from that Museeum, how small the world is, & yes my Grandfather worked down the mines of the Somerset coalfields,in a small village not far from Radstock. There are still millions of tons of coal there but the seams are small & not economically viable to dig out with maschinary, The best steam coal in the country came from the area, if your interested there is are the remains of Fussels Iron works near Mells as well to look at, Iron, wool coal were the main commodities in the area 200 years ago.

Miners certainly had it hard, looking at pictures my Grnadfather had collected was interesting, young boys with the guss & crook etc.

Also appears the number of pubs in mining areas is disproportionally higer than in other parts of the country, albeit I confess there maybe a need for more research in this theory , maybe willing volenteers can be found to do pub crawls around former mining districts ?

Basileus wrote:Just to help give you the overall picture, the official French governments honour score has plummeted because of the activities of the men from St Malo. I can think of no other reason why Richard has hit the French honour score every time the corsairs do something.

Just had a thought about this one, whilst thinking about the Popes request for information on the claimants, re-read the Partition treaty that was written by Comte de Forbin  & has been signed by France & UDP, it may be that the treaty is causing honour problems for France :-

"Preamble - Being an agreement to secure the peace of Europe with due respect for the will of the late King Carlos II & Catholic laws of succession.
a) All signatories promise to support and uphold the draft will of the late King Carlos II of Spain and the legitimate heirs to the Kingdom of Spain, Kingdom of Naples, Duchy of Milan & Duchy of Flanders. Under no circumstances are the illegal claims of Rodrigo de Abello to be accepted.
b) As an allowed exception to clause a) above - Charles von Hapsburg King of Spain & Philip de Bourbon King of Naples agree to exchange the Duchies of Milan & Flanders. Making Charles von Hapsburg Duke of Flanders and Philip de Bourbon Duke of Milan"

Currently France, or at least the French faction hold both Flanders & Milan, admittedly not France itself, but self proclaimed supporters, I wonder if that could have an impact on French main position honour?

Could loyal supporters doing things in the King of Frances name, mean it can also effect his honour via their actions although he may have  little say or control of the overall situation? Would the same be true for the Kaiser with regard the HRR? or in the current Saxony- Poland semi shared posiiton in G10, not to mention little old Blighty & their Dutch King!

Lot of moving parts for a big nation like France to try to pin down an honour drop. Making promises you don't keep would certainly be one of them.

But if you're really concerned about honour drops, I think you can legitimately ask an advisor you trust what the chattering classes are upset about these days. I think if you roleplay it, you can get a general sense of what your nobles think you're doing wrong.

Richard has said he'd ding people for complaining about honour, but I think it's perfectly reasonable to try to figure out what your court is expecting of you. Then you can decide if you want to give them what they want, or let them sod off and do what you were doing anyway.

I suspect if you over-used it, you'd end up getting dinged for that too, since you shouldn't be seen as too concerned about what the chattering classes think about you.

But as a one-off trying to figure out what you're doing 'wrong', I think it could be a good help.

J Flower wrote:"I had the chance to visit the mining museum at Radstock recently, very informative on the local coal mining industry. "

Just so you know I actually went to school just up the road from that Museeum, how small the world is, & yes my Grandfather worked down the mines of the Somerset coalfields,in a small village not far from Radstock. There are still millions of tons of coal there but the seams are small & not economically viable to dig out with maschinary, The best steam coal in the country came from the area, if your interested there is are the remains of Fussels Iron works near Mells as well to look at, Iron, wool coal were the main commodities in the area 200 years ago.

Miners certainly had it hard, looking at pictures my Grnadfather had collected was interesting, young boys with the guss & crook etc.

Also appears the number of pubs in mining areas is disproportionally higer than in other parts of the country, albeit I confess there maybe a need for more research in this theory , maybe willing volenteers can be found to do pub crawls around former mining districts ?

The other Jason may also be interested in the "Big Pit" close to Newport (place on other side of Bristol Channel which true Bristolians try and ignore as a general rule).  Couple of interesting tours of the mines as they were 1960's and 1840's.

Close to 50 years ago used to live at Parkfield Rank Pucklechurch - think a rank of houses like you would get in a town but with a large outbuilding and a allotment style garden attached picked up and put down in the middle of the country.  These were originally miners cottages for the Pucklechurch pit and some old miners still lived their 50 years ago.

Still recall one old chap who must have been 80 at the time speaking with pride amount the quality of the coal and diving under a chair to show the narrow nature of the seams from which the coal was cut out with a pick in 12 hour shifts.  With added problem that Pucklechurch was a very wet pit (why it closed in the end) and it was normal to work a narrow seam half filled with water.

That is what you call real graft!

Interestingly in the Glori du Roi period such men were in major demand to provide the miners and sappers who due the approach trenchs and mines which played such a important part in the siege warfare of the period.  Oh great all of the fun of civilian mining plus chance of getting shot, blown up or gassed!  On the plus side you got paid by the metre, but we then get period accounts of men getting big payments going on their next shift still drunk and getting killed due to making mistakes.

Personally, I would blame the small beer drunk for breakfast which the rest of us thought was basically a flavoured (safer) water until Jason pointed out it could be up to 5% strength.  Allowing the GM a perfect reason for really idiotic NPC's.........bad batch of beer and they were still drunk.

Tried to claim that my tea total Rumelian Cavalry should get an advantage over hung over Cossacks, Poles, Russians etc but I dont think Richard was willing to go along with this view.

Deacon wrote:
Lot of moving parts for a big nation like France to try to pin down an honour drop. Making promises you don't keep would certainly be one of them.

But if you're really concerned about honour drops, I think you can legitimately ask an advisor you trust what the chattering classes are upset about these days. I think if you roleplay it, you can get a general sense of what your nobles think you're doing wrong.

Richard has said he'd ding people for complaining about honour, but I think it's perfectly reasonable to try to figure out what your court is expecting of you. Then you can decide if you want to give them what they want, or let them sod off and do what you were doing anyway.

I suspect if you over-used it, you'd end up getting dinged for that too, since you shouldn't be seen as too concerned about what the chattering classes think about you.

But as a one-off trying to figure out what you're doing 'wrong', I think it could be a good help.

My character(s) are fine upstanding members and chatty members of the French Court who say lots of nice things about his most Christain Majesty but clearly Louis XIV honour would be a lot higher if he had:

- Pinned the Bavarian Army in Flanders against the Dutch border and smashed it to a pulp for backing a Cabal of arch traitors in Madrid trying to make a South American questionable birth Duke of Flanders.

- Trashed Tuscany for insulting the Bourbon Flag

- Marched into Rome and cut off Cardinal Portocarrero's head for Teason/Witchcraft etc

Of course other members of the Court may be saying other things! Like do not listen to that nasty rough man!! Just wish they would say something near the Sieur du Gue so he can really get into the spirit of Louis XIV court and call the cads out!

Guess poor Louis in G10 is just going to have to do his best impression of Lord Derby in SFE when the Tory backwoods men of the HEIC drop his prestige below that of Triads and Opium dealers on a fairly regular basis.

Like most things in games moderated by Richard I suspect having other players hanging round your court or sitting behind you in the Lords comes with pro's and cons. Clearly bit of a liability in peace but perhaps at other times I may not be a total liability to France and Britannia.

tkolter wrote:Well this is a classic Abyssinian weapon ... so yes the Ethiopians have metallurgy to a decent level and well use it well.

Demonstation Video

Very crude and primitive.

An interesting weapon, one to observe from afar

J Flower wrote:"I had the chance to visit the mining museum at Radstock recently, very informative on the local coal mining industry. "

Just so you know I actually went to school just up the road from that Museeum, how small the world is, & yes my Grandfather worked down the mines of the Somerset coalfields,in a small village not far from Radstock. There are still millions of tons of coal there but the seams are small & not economically viable to dig out with maschinary, The best steam coal in the country came from the area, if your interested there is are the remains of Fussels Iron works near Mells as well to look at, Iron, wool coal were the main commodities in the area 200 years ago.

Miners certainly had it hard, looking at pictures my Grnadfather had collected was interesting, young boys with the guss & crook etc.

Also appears the number of pubs in mining areas is disproportionally higer than in other parts of the country, albeit I confess there maybe a need for more research in this theory , maybe willing volenteers can be found to do pub crawls around former mining districts ?

What a co-incidence, like you say a small world

tkolter wrote:I have some ideas on how to fast track getting technology which would be of use to the Abyssinian Empire. It's at lest something no one tried before or it would be in the rules or in the back posts for these games so it might be innovative. If it doesn't work oh well it would be worth the try.

It's a;ways worth a try I think Richard is very open to well-thought out new ideas, have tried a few and not only have they been successful they have been added to the rule books, etc

Ditto. Some of the stuff I've done has ended up in some of the newer supplements.

Two thoughts from me:

1) Your get-rich-quick scheme isn't going to work no matter how well thought out it is. Game balance is a thing, so have realistic expectations.

2) It is far easier to catch up to the rest of the world, than to surpass them. So ideas to dig yourself out of a hole will work far better than your attempts to create the "weapon of winning".

My plan isn't complex but will not be fast did I say fast, just well efficient at getting tech at the starting levels you begin with in tech lines I feel would be good for my position. For defense and other areas of concern. I won't begin for about a year on my - plans - to implementation. But I have a academy for weapons research and have some domestically made weapons in mind to start a new bow for my forces using compound methods to have a more powerful native weapon for ranged combat easy to get ammunition for.

So, as we are (hopefully) a couple of days we'll get the next G10 turn, I think this could be a significant. Not that I am expecting big break throughs in the talks on the Spanish throne or declarations of war, but I think we will see some public reactions to the Pope's intervention.

Maybe it will be clearer to see if we actually have a new player or if Rome is still NPC. After all the false alarms with Spain getting a new player & it not being the case, still not 100% convinced Richard isn't pulling a fast one to get the logjam of the Spanish succession out of the way.

Still wonder who will be most put out by any decision given, guess everyone won't get what they want in the longrun.

I know what you mean about Schrödinger's Pope, will be nice if we can get some clarification this turn on what he is.

I'm thinking that the turn will be released at some point between the 8th and 10th. But I'm happy to be wrong.

Is something happening in Spain in the game? Happily, I get to ignore all those types of non-African problems

I've noticed G10 comes out about a week after G7. As we had G7 towards the end of last week, was hoping G10 would be here this week.

Ahh, so you missed the sudden appearance of the Pope and his "offer" to sort out the whole Spanish problem

France really isn't going to take much notice of a new Pope. Historically the game power block of England, Holland, Scotland shouldn't really care what a Pope says anyway. France is willing to see a reasonable and fair settlement. Most importantly that its allies, The Duke of Savoy and French corsairs (cough did someone say pirates) are not disadvantaged. That means that Savoy gets to keep the governorship of Milan and Rene Trougain and friends govern Flanders. I would have done the same for the Doge of Genoa but he jumped ship to the Hapsburgs. So I really don't mind if he gets to govern Naples because that is the outcome I would have wanted anyway.
The Portuguese push for the crown of Spain is just blatant adventurism with no legal, moral or historic basis, but I don't mind Portugal having an odd colony just to be seen to being fair, but the crown might as well go to Denmark as Portugal. Some seem to be stirring the pot trying to get new belligerents involved - why is a Swedish army marching to Italy? Really no historic sense in that at all. However, I am aware that the game is to write new history.

Well, Scotland doesn't care what the Poe says...but reserves the right to mock anything he does Afterall in Scotland burning Catholics just meant saving on firewood (only after we had run out of witches to burn of course).

The benefit of Portugal is everyone is unhappy but we might avoid a war. Neither France or Austria get what they want but they might get enough colonial titbits (inc Flanders) to keep them happy. End of the day, who wants Spain? It's Flanders, Italy, the West Indies Islands...those are the real prize...Give Portugal Spain and South America and divide the rest up between the other colonial powers.

Alternatively we create a Grand Alliance, invade Rome and punish the Pope for interfering...I mean, the ultimate irony of all this would be a Scottish army landing off French privateers to sack Rome...

Already have given orders to UDP ambassador to Rome to start offering low price fire insurance poilcies.


As pointed out, Portugal may get the poisoned chalice of SPain & maybe a few Inca cities to explore for lost gold, however at the moment trying to second guess how the succession will go is probably impossible.

Probably be a case of being annoyed at not getting what you actually want but being happy that the other side is suffering from the same problem, possibly a loose- loose everyone happy everyone else has lost situation.

Have already being looking up articles on Wiki as to the "Greater Netherlands" maybe the Pope will offer UDP the Easten half of Brabant- Flanders, because we are nice people who really are just a bit misunderstood in the relegion department.

Yes, UDP will listen to the Pope as long as it dosen't cost anything, it will be a case of listen & ignore & try not ot laugh when the Catholic Church implodes into infighting & civil war

Well the Ethiopian Church pre-dates the Vatican by centuries and is in Communion with the Lutherans since Martin Luther said so a big deal and is friendly with the Coptic Pope. Abyssinia also has old Jewish communities and a minority but decent Sunni Muslim community so we should he on fair turns with other nations who are Islamic within reason. My only in game issues are the slavery question within the Empire and without (possible raidsinto the Empire to get them and migration to the Empire from persecuted groups) and trade. My prospecting hopefully will turn up useful things to base trading on.

I hadn't realised there was such a link between the Lutherans and the Ethiopian church, a useful piece of period information

I suspect Mr Flower is right, a lose-lose solution is the best outcome...shame...I was really coming round to an anti-Papal alliance between Scotland and the French privateers...

I don't believe the Papal States has a new player, but I may be surprised!

My prediction has come true, France will ignore an adverse ruling  We all agree that we want a fair and reasonable solution, but differ on what that actually means..... Should Savoy retain Milan when it has just landed in Sardinia, and who else could be the King of Spain if the Portuguese solution is unacceptable? Sweden can defend the HRE if it wishes; after all it was Savoy and France that invaded its neighbours first. And yes, the U.D.P. would benefit from a buffer zone, or a few Caribbean islands.

Spain. The Spanish Question. A lot of people have wrote on the forum that they don't think other players want to take the prize of Spain in the Succession, or have hinted at such in the newspaper. Why?

Why do most players not want Spain as a whole, but would be happy to accept smaller pieces of it's Empire?

Is it a symptom of the slower game turns? Of turn costs and the increased amounts it would take to govern Spain in addition to their starter position? A combination of both? Or is Spain, it's money and recruits and power, not worth anything now in the game? Or is it some other reason?

Fair enough, such a position as Spain (on its own, never mind in addition to a starter position) would be too much workload for me, so I can't criticise. But I am curious as to why no one wants it. And if it is because of game speed and cost, is that an indication of a problem that will plague future wars or events in the game?

Out of interest, do Games 7 or 8 or 9 suffer such problems as Game 10's Spanish Succession?

Just wondered

Having taken Spain as Portugal in Game 8, I have to disagree with the 'no historical basis' comment.

According to my research, King Pedro was floated as a compromise candidate historically, but wasn't interested for whatever reason. As a consequence, the proposal died. But it did happen historically in period so I don't find the in-game proposal unhistorical.

I personally still rate war as more likely than not.

The English Government is interested in what the has to say... We need new information for our papers to talk about evidently being the primary reason. As to French Corsairs... We love them, they are tasty.

With a bit of luck turn may be ou tby end of the week,

Guess we will have to wait a turn or two before anything is actually decided by the Pope/ Agema, Then the shouting will probably start.

If there is a new Pope I wonder how he will react to lots of soldiers being deployed into Italy , Papal Duchies been swapped , invaded & coverted by all. I suppose as a military power Rome has little clout, just wonder what the Political & Relegious repercussins could be.

France could have the uncomfortable situation of having to choose between Milan & Flanders, Or maybe Austria has to choose between Sicilly & Naples.

Lucky for Poland that in all the confusion the annexation of the Ukraine is going on almost unnoticed.

If the Corsairs become the Governor Generals of Flanders will they sell their Corsair fleet to Scotland or Rome? Either way doubling the naval strength of either position.