Greenland PBEM/Vassal

[Habbaku]

http://www.vassalengine.org/wiki/Module:Greenland

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/156501/greenland

The three players in Greenland represent the Norse (red), Tunit (green), and Thule (yellow) tribes inhabiting Greenland from the 11th to the 15th centuries.

As a tribe, you attempt to secure food, resources, and technology to increase the size of your tribe and support children, elders, and livestock while also wiping out competing species or gathering resources to collect victory points. You must work around the weather and the extinction of natural resources as well as negotiate deals to protect your wives while you decide between monotheism or polytheism. In this tableau-building game, you'll send your population out to hunt native species of Greenland — but some might not come back. (Historically, the climate turned frigid and all but the Thule (Inuit) died out.)

In the game, play takes place over six phases; all players complete each phase in turn order, then the next phase starts. Each turn is one generation. In order:

Resolve events: Examples include elder deaths, animal migrations, feuds, or global cooling. If a trade ship arrives, an auction is held for its wares.
Assign hunters: Hunters are assigned to hunting grounds, resource gathering, colonizing the New World, raiding other tribes for wives or animals, or promotion to an elder.
Negotiate: Players can bribe others to peacefully withdraw hunters, including marrying them to their daughters. Players with a War Chief Elder can use hunters to attack others on the same card. The New World turns hostile if there are too many colonists.
Resolve hunting: Roll a die for each hunter and modify it for technologies and marriages. Success can result in gaining new hunters, resources, hand cards, wives, and/or technologies. Beware, as some animals can be confused by the prey-predator relationship and your hunters might not return. Some successes let your take cards from the central play area into your hand if within hand limit.
Maintain livestock: Pay to keep the animals you've already domesticated.
Take elder actions: Examples include invention, domestication, proselytization, and witch-burning. If you have no elders, you can convert to monotheism.
Depending on each player's ending theistic worldview, he has a variable scoring based on successful hunts (polytheism) or resource gathering (monotheism).

Who's in?  Game accepts up to 3.  No Berkuts allowed.

[Tamas]

Just played this a couple of times with friends (I own it), had fun, I am in.

[Berkut]

[Habbaku]

I'll start us up on Friday, Tamas.  Give Berkut enough time to come up with excuses as to why he can't make Vassal work or explain how his e-mail is filled with snow or something.

[Tamas]

I'll start us up on Friday, Tamas.  Give Berkut enough time to come up with excuses as to why he can't make Vassal work or explain how his e-mail is filled with snow or something.

Ok We do need 3 players, things are a bit too easy with just two.

[Solmyr]

I wouldn't mind joining as a spectator in Vassal, to see what the game is about. Unless you guys are going to write an AAR.

[Berkut]

I've had vassal working for some time now, although my email filling with snow might be a real problem. Shit is everywhere.

[Habbaku]

Friday has been pushed back to Saturday.  Bit too busy today.  My hovercraft is full of eels.

[Habbaku]

Alrighty, let's get started.  Player order (since the game requires things go in clockwise order from the starting player) will be alphabetical based on power.  So, Norse (Habbaku), Thule (Berkut) , Tunit (Tamas).

Rulebook is here for those looking at various actions : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GvpQej7ttnN5N23x9T1gZGJH_dd535wl6ZjtxUMdT6A/edit

The game opens with the mighty, hardy Norse (led by moi) establishing a settlement and making contact with the natives (Thulerkut and Tamunit) of northern Greenland. 



Unfortunately, the opening spread of cards is very energy-poor.  At the beginning of the game, the Norse get to bring along a specific breed of domestic animal (horse, sheep, cattle, goat).  With the dearth of energy-producing cards (represented by fire symbols on the cards), goats are probably my best bet.  They are the worst animal, but they don't require any upkeep--it's simply a free population addition every turn.

Also of note is the opening tableau I've shown off.  Each group starts with unique daughters and specific advantages listed on their elder cards, provided they have the appropriate elder (shown by the red cubes in each elder slot).  So long as an elder is alive, he provides his bonus to the group, but there are a number of die-off triggering cards, to say the least.

Speaking of which--you'll note on the far right of the pic the "West Greenland Current" event.  Every turn will see the players drawing a card and resolving the symbols listed on it, in order.  Specifically, the Current card prevents entry into Markland (one of the New World, non-Greenland cards), triggers a random elder die-off for all players, decimates (splits the cube count in half) for all players at 11+ unassigned hunters (IE, non-elders/New World) and, lastly, triggers global cooling.  Cooling means one of the juicy (though energy poor) cards on the tableau will become permanently "cool" instead of "warm" making hunting twice as difficult.

The first elder die-off leads to me losing my Blacksmith (making it harder for me to get mineral wealth), Berkut his Whaling Chief (arbiter--he'll be more at-risk for event cards that trigger feuds) and Tamas his War Chief (meaning he may not raid other players/their daughters).

My initial hunters are placed on the Norwegian Elkhound (in an attempt to domesticate them and attain their permanent benefit) as well as the Barren-Ground Caribou (more babies).

Over to Berkut.

[Sophie Scholl]

This looks pretty interesting.  I'll enjoy following along.

[Tamas]

EXCITING!

[Solmyr]

So, is it Berkut's turn yet?

[Tamas]

So, is it Berkut's turn yet?

What do you think?

[Berkut]

Hey, I am not done reading the rules! The game is super complex.

The Thules will drop their guys on the Cable Backed Bow and the Musk Ox.

Why are there a bunch of my cubes on the Markland card, btw - are those colonists?

[Tamas]

Hey, I am not done reading the rules! The game is super complex.

The Thules will drop their guys on the Cable Backed Bow and the Musk Ox.

Why are there a bunch of my cubes on the Markland card, btw - are those colonists?

yes you start the game with a colony there. Which I think gives you a pretty good bartering position, as it will probably give you more energy disks then you can figure out what to do with.