February 8, 2025

The Life & Times of I, Napoleon – Part 2

Michael Eckenfels, 12 January 2025

It is now 1794. We begin Turn 2 with the Year Setup Phase, which was skipped in the first turn of 1793. I’ve advanced the Year marker to that space, and also reset the Card Draw counter to the 1 space on that track.

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Next, we gather Resources. Since Napoleon is now a General, we get +2 A.

 

I have no other Resource Income sources – some can be found via other cards, such as Chiefs of Staff and/or Ministers, but we’re bereft of such things at the moment. I can also exchange Resource Points here, if I want to – I can exchange Admin points for Political on a 1:1 basis, and with 9 P right now, it might seem a wise investment to give up some P for some A (that sounds kind of kinky; apologies, but you know what I mean). I do not know what this turn will hold, so it might be a good idea to exchange 1 P for 1 A. I subtract one Political Point and gain one Admin Point. Napoleon has called in some minor favors to help bolster his staff and planning.

 

I’m doing that just in case we get some better Commanders this turn – or perhaps some juicy Campaigns to deploy them to. Now that I’m remembering (ha) that all A points go buh-bye at the end of the turn, I’ll be sure to use ‘em if I got ‘em. Or try to, anyway.

In this Segment, we can also exchange 1 Glory to gain 3 Admin, but I won’t do that. At least, not right now.

Next, we have the Card Deck Phase – another Phase that was skipped in the first turn. Here, we need to adjust the Draw Deck to remove cards that don’t apply now, and add cards that do. We go through our Draw Deck and remove anything marked with ‘1794’ in the lower left corner; this includes three cards, so these go away.

Some cards are also permanently removed if they are played. For example, that Whiff of Grapeshot card we played in the last turn, that one is permanently removed as it was played. Had it not been, it would go back into the Draw Deck.

Next is the Add Cards Segment, where we bolster our deck with more content. However, we don’t actually have any cards to add until 1796, so there won’t be anything added to the deck. Except…for Desiree. Her card is specifically not removed except under certain card play circumstances, which we have not encountered yet. So, there’s a chance she’ll come around again in our playthrough.

This can happen with several cards, actually; if they’re simply discarded and not removed, they can be shuffled back into the deck. I’ve removed all the cards, though, that are marked with the current year and were played, so we’re good to go. The Draw Deck is now reshuffled and we are ready to move on to the Card Action Phase for this turn.

 

Oh, lovely. What a nice way to start off the year, and the turn – Scabies! We lose -3 G, which drops our Glory to 4. The card is then removed from the game. Good. According to the Playbook:

Napoleon contracted scabies at Toulon and suffered from it until a doctor cured him of it in 1802.

I won’t go into what scabies is. You can feel free to go look it up if you want. Suffice it to say it’s a product of 18th century hygiene, or lack thereof. Or not, who knows. Regardless…ouch. And gross.

Next card! Hopefully it just gets better from here…

 

An Expedition! General Bonaparte is leading the French artillery into Italy. The Playbook says:

Napoleon briefly held an artillery command in the Army of Italy.

Hopefully, we’ll make the most of this. According to the card, we have to resolve it right now, so I’m rolling a d10. I cannot utilize Junot as the card forbids it, so it’s just a straight up d10 roll.

Fortunately, Napoleon’s skill holds up and the result is a 6; a 6-10 is a Success, so Napoleon gains +5 G. His Glory goes up to 9! That makes up for the damned mites.

Next is our third card draw of the turn, and we get…

 

Napoleon took sick leave rather than take part in the Campaign in the Vendee.

Welp. Funny this turns up now. We already did the Vendee campaign in the last turn, but this card goes into our I, Napoleon box, and can be used to ignore a Campaign or Expedition – one per year. So, it has an ongoing effect until either 1796, or it gets played. That might be useful if another potentially poor Campaign or Expedition that won’t be an advantage to us, comes up.

Now we’re on draw number 3.

Desaix was an able General and friend of Napoleon who saved the day at Marengo, where he was killed in battle.

Desaix has a +1 DRM for the cost of 1 A, but interestingly, can instead be used in the second Combat Round for a +3 DRM instead, for the same 1 A cost, though this means he is removed from play. So, he can be a powerful DRM for a battle, but apparently will get unalived if he’s used thusly. We shall see. He goes into the Commanders box along with Junot.

Next is our fourth card draw.

 

At various points in his early career Napoleon’s ambition was stalled by political intrigue.

This card draw is essentially a waste; we lose -1 P, dropping our Political total to 7. Not too big a shift but if it’s not moving up, it’s not a good thing in general. Napoleon’s machinations and moves have made some jealous types in the French leadership, apparently. His rising star is beginning to ruffle feathers!

And now we draw our fifth card.

 

A Jacobin pamphlet written by Napoleon and published by Augustin Robespierre led to Napoleon’s arrest after Robespierre’s fall.

I’m not certain how this will play out, though I suppose we’ll find out if we draw the indicated card. For now, this one goes into the Politics space.

That fifth draw was the last ‘free’ one; now, we roll a d10 and compare it to the DR value on the track. I get a 6, and the DR for the 6th space is a 1, so we’re drawing another card.

This is Card 27, Treaty of Basel, which I did not get a photo of, apparently. Apologies for that.

This treaty ended the participation of Prussia in the wars against France until her disastrous entry in 1806.

Prussia is already Neutral towards France, so this doesn’t affect anything at the moment. It will stay in place, though, until Napoleon gets to the EMD (Emperor) phase of the game – if he manages to, of course. And at that point, this Treaty will go away. For now, it goes off to the side, by the Potential Treaties space of the board.

For the next draw attempt, my d10 roll is an 8, so we’re drawing a seventh card.

 

At Toulon, Napoleon personally captured an enemy General in combat.

Napoleon apparently gets something out of Toulon other than an annoying case of mites; he captures an enemy General! This card goes into the Campaign Modifiers space on the board and, no matter the outcome of the next Campaign, we’ll roll a d10 and see if that grants us a Glory bonus. Not too bad, potentially.

For the eighth card draw DR, I roll a 4, which is just outside the DR of 1-3; we are drawing an eighth card now.

Napoleon avoided arrest under the Jacobins, but his connections with Augustin Robespierre led to a brief arrest under the Directory. But the need for talented officers soon led to his release.

Oh, awesome. Napoleon gets arrested for his ties to Robespierre, by the Directory. There is no end to their chicanery nor desire to hold us back!

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

Since the Escape card is not in play, we can’t remove this card immediately. I have to roll a d10 and compare it to the results on this card.

Note, though, that we have the Supper at Beaucaire in play, in our Politics box. When this Under Arrest card was revealed, we get a +2 DRM to this roll if Robespierre’s Fall has not been played – and since it hasn’t come up yet, we’re going to get a +2 to our roll, here. Let’s see how this turns out. The +2 DRM will, at least, have us avoid outright execution (note the result for ‘1 or less’ on the card, but also, a 2-3 will mean death as well as Robespierre’s Fall has not entered play yet). I can win this with any result but a 1 thanks to that +2 DRM.

And I roll a 2. Well, thank goodness for that DRM, otherwise we’d be executed by the Jacobins right now, bringing our tale to a quick end. However, the Supper helped cement our survival and just barely manages to get us out of prison, and immediate danger.

Napoleon’s life can be called many things, but ‘boring’ certainly is not one of them at this point.

The ninth card draw roll is a 3, and the DR is a 1-4, so we are done drawing cards for this turn. So, we’re moving on to the Campaign Resolution Phase.

 

This damnable Infantry Vendee card is still in our Campaigns space. I might have accidentally placed it in the Potential Campaigns space, but that actually doesn’t apply until later in the game. I’m not entirely clear but I think this should have been put back in the Campaign box, so it is still a potential Campaign. However, I think I further messed up – it was actually played in the last year, and it has a discard icon (lower right corner) that indicates it should be removed from play if it is played. So, it should not have even appeared.

I think I’m right here in removing this and ignoring this Phase, since there are no other Campaigns to go on. I hope that’s correct. I did some checking on BGG to be sure and I think it’s the right call. If it is not, apologies, but we’re going to go with this for now. That concludes this Phase.

The Diplomatic and Domestic Politics Phases are ignored since we’re still not at First Consul nor Emperor level…yet. This puts us right into the Clean Up Phase at the end of the turn.

What stinks here is our Admin counter goes back down to zero. I used a Political point for no reason, though I couldn’t have known that, and admittedly I’m still somewhat new to this game. Regardless, it’s a bummer to lose three A points but that’s the way the game rolls.

Our Diplomacy is already at zero, so it stays there.

And that’s it for 1794. We’ll be moving on to 1795 in the next article.

 

End of Turn Thoughts

Not much happened here, making me want to include the next Turn, but that might be incredibly long for an article. Napoleon gained a bit more Glory, though, so that’s a good thing, and has potential with that Captured General card to gain more should a Campaign actually pop up. I’m worried a bit that I’m not playing this correctly and missing a few things, but for the sake of the narration, I think it’s going well and Napoleon is on the right track so far. Thank you for following along; let’s see how Nappy does next year!

 


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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