Colonial Campaigns Club (CCC)

For those interested: my wargame group I play with here in Sunny California just finished a game of Soldier Kings. The Prussians got an instant victory when after that 15th turn (and a quick VP count) we all calculated that he had grabbed 15 VPs worth of conquered areas over and above what he started with.

I highly recommend this game. It can be had for a small price (got a second copy for a friend on Ebay for only 12 bucks - fresh in shrink wrap!). It is a great fast MP game well suited for a group of guys that like military/diplomacy games. The diplomacy part is only allowed on one of the four turns (winter). Units are maintained BEFORE you get your annual salary thus you have to save something over from the year or you start flipping units over to their reduced side (or eliminate them if reduced).

There is no deficit spending (much like Monopoly only you cant mortgage East Prussia!). Thus if you run out of money and units it really starts to hurt!

Each country tracks their resources and manpower on a general track which also includes the initiative chits for each country laid out in phase order that they will play in the turn.

The turn phase for campaign turns (Spring, Summer, Fall) is:

Buy new units (Fleets and Armies)
Pay to repair units that have lost a step
All players roll 2 six sided dice (1-6) for Initiative. The Prussian decides before he rolls whether he wants to add or subtract 2 from his dice roll. High roll goes first, next goes second, etc. Allies can move in each of their turns (though units can only move ONCE in either).

Players phases:
Naval Movement
Naval Combat
Land Movement
Land Combat
Siege

Winter turn order is:
Attrition - you must be in an area that can support your land units - sea units dont attrit.
Maintenance - you pay 1 manpower and 1 resource for each combat unit.
Victory Phase - check to see if anyone got an instant victory.
Resource and Manpower Phase - you get resources and manpower points for all of the areas you control. Non-Europe areas must trace a line of communications to a coastal area whose adjacent sea area has a friendly fleet.
Event Card Phase - you **** all cards in your hand and get 5 new cards.
Diplomacy Phase

Maps: One for Europe and one for the rest of the world.
Each area has three values: fort strength (which gets reduced during sieges), resource value (coin icons), manpower (soldier icons).
The New World (that is Burbank, CA, USA) is loaded with resources. The Old World is loaded with some resources but mainly manpower. The idea is to take more resources than you lose. The VPs needed for each country are:

Holland/Russia/Turkey: 10
Prussia/Austria/Spain: 15
France/Britain: 20

A sample area is Scotland: 5 forts, 3 manpower and 3 resources - owned by Britan (no port at this time period). A sample New World area is New England (owned by Britian): Port, 3 forts, 1 manpower, 2 resources. And another area is the Windward Islands (owned by France) - Port, 2 forts, no manpower, 7 resources.

Thus if Britian lost New England (worth 2 resources) but gained Windward Islands (7 resources) they would be +5 for victory points.

Naval units move from coastal (marked by an anchor on one of the shores) for free and can load army units if they started the phase in the same coastal province. They move 4 sea areas per turn (but in the case of an alliance can move only in ONE of the player phases).

Naval interception is on a base die roll of 10. It can happen whenever naval units try to enter the same sea area that enemy fleets currently occupy. It also can happen if a player has naval units in Gibralter or Istanbul or So.England. Each of these areas controls the access to 2 to 3 sea areas.

Blockades - if your enemy has naval forces in a port you can blockade them. The enemy can roll for interception (which if successful the naval combat is fought at sea). If he fails he is bottled up. If his land forces flee the area due to invasion then the fleets are captured.

Naval combat - each side has an attack and defense rating. This is the number of dice that you will roll for your attack/defense. Thus a unit with an attack rating of 3 has 3 dice. Roll a 6 and get a hit. Leaders add in their rating and on defense forts add in a die for each tower still standing (as siege reduces these per hit). See below on how to allocate hits. As a unit takes hits it must retreat to an adjacent area. If it cant retreat it is lost. Defense rating tells you how many hits you must take before he flips over to his reduced side or is elminated (see below)

Leaders - naval or land - naval leaders help for interception - land leaders help you to move further in your turn. They also help with combat in their area (land leaders - land, etc).

Movement for land units - each army can move 1 MP (1/2 for friendly/allied areas - 1 MP for neutral/enemy areas thus 2 areas when in your home/allied country). Leaders help you move further.

Land Combat - similar to naval combat. Decide on how many rounds of combat you want to fight and pay the requisite amount (1 resource for 1 round, 2 for 2 rounds, 4 for infinite rounds). Once you pay the enemy can retreat (if elgible to do so) to an adjacent area. Units that take hits in combat must retreat prior to the next round.

Combat example:

Britan has 4 units:
4-3 (4 is attack and 3 is defense)
3-2
2-1
1-1

He also has a leader (value of 2)

He rolls 12 dice.

His opponent (France) has 4 units:
2-2
2-1
1-1
0-1 (reduced 1-1)

He has no leader thus no leader addition. He is defending in a home province (or captured or allied would also benefit) and gets the fort rating of 3. Thus he has 8 dice.

The British player paid 2 resources for 2 rounds of combat (two tosses of the dice with a leader check for loss for each round). We now roll the dice and the Brit gets 4 "6"s. This mean 4 hits.

The French rolls his dice and gets 1 hit (1 "6").

Allocating hits. This gets a bit complicated in the rules but simply put:

You check the defense ratings for each unit (see above). Next see how many hits you receive from your opponent's dice roll.

The smaller numbered defense ratings will be the first to satisfy losses if possible then the larger units.

On a loss of 2 hits (2 "6"s on the dice) you would reduce two "1" defense rated units before you would reduce a "2" rated defense unit.

Thus in our example above the Brit took 1 hit. He can:
1. Flip the 1-1 unit to its reduced side.
OR
2. Flip the 2-1 unit to its reduced side.

Ok, so he picks #1. He then checks for leader loss - a 12 on two d6 means he takes a loss - add the amount of STEP losses (not hits!) he suffered - 1 in this case - to the die roll - thus on an 11 or more he loses his leader and cant use him for the next round. He rolls a 10. Phew! That was close!

On to the French:

He has 5 hits to satisfy:
As it turns out he has 3 "1"s and 1 "2" thus he will have to lose a step on each unit. All of the units are flipped to the reduced side and the one unit that was already reduced is elminated. The units that took a loss have to retreat one area (land units can retreat on board a fleet which goes to another sea area carrying the land unit to safety).

Since the French no longer has any units in the area the British player may now lay siege to the area. The fort is rated as a 3. The British now has 11 dice to roll (one of his units retreated the 1-1). He pays 2 resources for unlimited rounds.

The fort has 3 dice. The French player rolls the dice and gets 2 hits!

The British player rolls and gets 2 hits.

The fort takes 2 hits (you place a "2" marker in the area to show how many hits it took).

The British player must reduce the one 2-2 unit as the 2-1 unit cannot take the loss and of course the 4-3 is more valuable and he cant take a loss from that unit anyway - thus his 2-2 must retreat reducing his die roll by 2 dice. Now he has 9 dice.

In the next round the French rolls and gets 1 hit on the British forces.

The British rolls and gets 5 hits (he could have used this roll last round!). Thus the fort falls but it causes the 2-1 to be reduced by one hit and retreated. If all land units had retreated as a result of combat then all of the hits on the fort would have been removed - no British forces would have taken the fort!

I wont go into details on the Diplomatice part of the game and there are also cards that each player can play at ANY time during the game!

There are alot of Minor countries you can allure to your side or take by force. If you ally with them you can use their units but you dont get their Victory Point count. If you take them by force you dont get their units but you do get the VP count.

Its a really fun game.

Note: Avalanche Games is having a GREAT sale right now. You can get Soldier Kings and a couple of others for a modest price.

Also: I got two New World Maps in my copy of the game. I sent them an email and in a few days the Europe map came in the mail. They did this also with their Great War at Sea: Med game (series rules) and in a few days the rules came (along with a battle map I hadnt noticed that I was lacking). Thus they have good customer relations and are speedy on the turnaround of lost parts.

I rate the game 8 out of 10 only due to some of the wording in the rules. They do have a FAQ section and access to the game designers on their forums.

Well supported game(s) and great graphics.