by Michael Eckenfels, 9 March 2025
We’re now in the 10th turn of the game, with 15 more after this one waiting for us – should we of course still be able to continue down a path that favors success. As you’ve seen numerous times, there’s plenty of exits that can be taken, sometimes coming down to the whim of a single die roll. That might mean too much randomness for some of you, while others may revel in it. Be that as it may, admittedly, there’s a ton of tension with these moments, which just adds to the history we’re building in this narrative.
I’ve calculated our Resource Income and as things stand now, we’re at 1 Diplomacy, 5 Admin, 55 Glory, and 9 Political. I really hope there’s some way to get rid of Nelson and his -2 G per turn hit, but that might not come until “we” become Emperor.
Speaking of, I’m thinking of doing that now. No cards are removed from the deck and no new ones are added; I shuffled in the few that were discarded last turn, so we’re ready to hit the Card Action Phase. And I think I can invoke the Imperial Plebiscite card.
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Should I, though?
I mean, I’ve worried a bit about whether or not I’m playing correctly, but as far as I can see, it should be good to do right now. (Again, if I’m doing this wrong, please forgive me but continue reading in the spirit of the narrative.) I don’t see why Nappy shouldn’t go ahead and pursue his dreams and crown himself Emperor, even given the extra challenges of being such.
I’ve honestly not gotten this far before, so I’m not sure what to expect other than the immediate effects. If I do this, I have to spend 2 Admin, then subtract another 5 Glory and 2 Political. I can do all that; it’s not a question of budget. The new EMD / Emperor era cards would get shuffled in during the next Card Deck Phase, in 1803. A lot of stuff will kick off then. The EMD deck is huge too, by the way.
There’s a few more additions that will be made over the years, but they are miniscule compared to this. This is the big show. Only time will tell if this is the right call (either play-wise or rules-wise), but let’s go ahead and do it.
I dropped my Admin down to 3, my Political down to 7, and then my Glory down to 50.
I have to immediately remove the Treaty of Luneville card, which is covering our agreement with Austria. Apparently, they don’t like the idea of our Little Corporal ascending to a self-proclaimed throne. So, this will be interesting later in the turn as we will have to do a Diplomacy roll for Austria – I think. And, we’ll have a lot of Potential Campaigns we will have to choose from, next turn as well. I imagine some of those may involve bringing Austria into the fold. Heh-heh-heh.
I’ve put the Imperial Plebiscite card front and center on my table so I will remember to implement it next turn. And now, we’re ready to go with the rest of the Card Action Phase.
And I wasn’t sure if I could do this immediately or not, but after looking at the rule book, it’s apparent that this is part of the Existing Card Play Segment, which is AFTER the New Card Draw Segment. So, technically, I need to draw a card first. I’ll go ahead and do that now so please forgive my out-of-sequence play, here.
Despite his attempts to modernize France, food production remained its Achilles’ heel, especially in light of the British blockade.
Figures. Brits. Pfft.
This card gets placed in the France space and remains there until we draw card 92 (whatever that is, but it should be apparent that it can impact this one). All this means is one extra roll on the Domestic Politics Table, which means not one but two chances to lose Glory! All the more reason I guess to choose to crown myself Emperor, I suppose. Gotta get those gains back.
And now technically we play that Imperial Plebiscite card and…you know the rest, from my description above.
We’re now moving to the second Card Draw.
Having, to his eternal discredit, returned slavery to the French West Indies, Napoleon was faced with a slave rebellion in Haiti. Defeated by both Yellow Fever and the Slaves, the disastrous campaign caused Napoleon to give up dreams of an American empire and sell Louisiana (recently acquired from Spain) to the United States.
Oof. Well, the Merchants Demand Slavery card is indeed in effect as it is sitting in the Americas box right now. This is a bad card for our playthrough. I have to roll 1d10 and subtract 1 from it, without being able to use a Commander card. Are we going to repeat what happened in Haiti?
Fortunately, my roll is an 8; modified to 7, that is a Success. However, “success” is relative, here, of course. Morals notwithstanding, the card itself says I have to take a 5 Glory hit, so that drops down to 45. But, I do gain 3 Political, moving that up to 10.
I can now remove this card AND the Merchants Demand Slavery card from the game. Good. We’ll move on to draw number three.
During his campaigns in Italy in 1796 and 1800, Napoleon organized various Italian provinces and cities into a series of Republics, before replacing them with the Kingdom of Italy as Emperor.
An interesting development. Again, this is one of the confusing points for the game, for me; FCD is marked on the Year Track as 1803-1806, inclusive. However, we’ve long since added the FCD deck to the game, so I think we’re technically in the FCD era (First Consul). Though we’re about to leave it in the dust, ha. Still, I’ll play this like we’re in FCD currently. The one good thing about solo gaming is, you can make these kinds of calls. The one bad thing about solo gaming is making these calls, and being incorrect, but again…spirit of the game, mon ami.
I lose 1 A, which drops to 2, but I do gain 5 G, which ups my total back to 50. And this card is relegated to the removed pile for eternity. Or until I play this game again, whichever happens first. (Oh, I’ll play it again – it’s a lot of fun, actually. I got jokes, I guess. I didn’t say they were good ones.)
Next up is draw number four!
A Campaign Modifier card that gives me an automatic -1 DRM in the first Combat Round of any Campaign. There’s no Campaigns present, though, and I’ll likely not pursue one later, so this is moot at the moment. I just discard it and move on to card draw number five.
Another Campaign Modifier card, and another one that won’t matter this turn as we have no Campaigns to pursue. So this one is simply put into the discard pile (though, officially, these are not discarded until later, just to be clear – I’m just lazy I suppose).
For draw number 6, the DR is 1, and I roll a 7. So we’re drawing our sixth card.
Tsar Paul organized the nations of northern Europe against British interests in a pro-French act of “neutrality.”
No, this is not the sequel to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It’s much better. I’m going to play this now, which will shift Russia to Allied, and then remove this card from play.
I rolled a 10 for the next card draw (which has a DR of 1-2), so let’s get that seventh card!
MacDonald, descended from exiled Scots, was a capable but uninspired commander who had only one brilliant day, on the field at Wagram in 1809, where he won his Marshal’s baton.
A decent Commander to add to our growing stable; he does get a +2 DRM, but unfortunately it only applies to Combat Rounds after the first one.
The DR for the eighth draw is 1-3, and I rolled another 10 (I sure hope I’m not burning all my good rolls right now), so we’re moving to the eighth card draw of this turn.
Yet another Campaign Modifier card that won’t come into play this turn.
And for the ninth card draw, the DR is 1-4; I get a 2 on my 1d10 roll, so that’s it for the Card Action Phase.
This is the latest episode in a running playthrough of Ted Racier’s I, Napoleon from GMT Games; you can find the links to all published episodes at the end of article, with new ones each Sunday
And this is where we go into the Campaign Resolution Phase, but discard all the Campaign Modifiers, officially. They’ll get shuffled back in next turn anyway so they may make another appearance.
Now we’re into the Diplomatic Phase. Russia is Allied but is also affected by the Tsar Paul card, which skips their roll this turn. We also have treaties in place with Spain and Prussia, so those don’t require rolls, either. However, we do need to roll for Austria, as they don’t take kindly to our whoopin’ of them in Italy nor of ‘we’ wishing to be Emperor of, you know, the world and such.
I’m going to spend 3 P to earn 3 D, and spend those D plus the one I had to get a +4 DRM to my roll with Austria; I really don’t want them going hostile if I can avoid it. At least, not until it’s on our terms.
Welp. Good thing I had a +4 DRM; that result makes my total a 6, which is no effect.
And I realize I’ve been playing this wrong. I have to roll for Prussia and Spain both, even though we have treaties with them. I think I might have recognized this earlier so if I did, I must apologize as this entire series is being written up over a series of weeks and some rules I think I have down, but I might not have them as down as I’d like, and forget them here and there! Pfft. I am Napoleon – I should not apologize for anything!
I roll a 10 for Prussia and an 8 for Spain, so in both cases, our treaties stay locked in. Really sorry about this. Let’s just assume Napoleon’s diplomatic skills were better with these countries in our game, shall we?
And now we go to Domestic Politics, which is affected by the Bad Harvest card, so I’ll have to roll twice. My first roll is an 8, which is modified by +1 as I spent my last two Admin to get a +1 DRM. Just missed ‘no effect’ and now we’re needing to lose –2 Glory; my second roll is a 9, which is unburdened by what has been in that previous roll (meaning, no Admin left to impact the roll), and that’s another ‘missed it by that much’ moment, meaning we lose 4 Glory. That total drops back down to 46.
End of 1802 Thoughts
And that’s that, once again. I know if I’ve been messing up rules, at this point I’d have to redo the entire AAR to reflect a few choices that aren’t going to (perceivably) be huge impacts to the game. Then again, maybe they would be. So again, if you see me making rules screwups along the way, apologies for that. The story itself, though, is rather engaging I think, regardless of that. Otherwise, the turn wasn’t all that eventful other than my desire to crown myself Emperor, and we’ll see how that turns out here in the next turn. Until then, thank you for reading!
I, Napoleon AAR
PART 1 ~ PART 2 ~ PART 3 ~ PART 4 ~ PART 5 ~ PART 6 ~ PART 7 ~ PART 8
PART 9 ~ PART 10 ~ PART 11 ~ PART 12 ~ PART 13 ~ PART 14
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