February 8, 2025

The Life & Times of I, Napoleon – Part 3

Michael Eckenfels, 19 January 2025

Here we go with Turn Three, the year 1795, and Napoleon is on the rise. There have been a few bumps in the cobblestone road, but what’s glory without challenge? To Napoleon, at least as far as this game is concerned, Glory is everything. We will be continuing to play as if this is all that matters. 

In the Year Setup Phase, the Year marker is moved to 1795 and the Card Draw marker is placed back in its 1 space on the track.

most images can click to enlarge

In the Resource Income Segment of this Phase, we get 2 whole Admin points from Napoleon being a General, so that is marked on the track. I’m not going to exchange Political points for Admin points, nor Glory, either. I figure there will be more opportunity for that kind of exchanging later in the game.

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

Now, it’s the Card Deck phase, where we remove all cards with ‘1795’ in the lower right corner, and put any discarded cards that are still pertinent back into the deck. There are no 1795 cards, so none are removed, and all the cards we’ve played previously are permanently gone, too. I also realized that the Desiree card should NOT have gone back into the deck, but should have been removed also – which makes a lot more sense. If she breaks off the engagement, would Napoleon have been quite so eager to take her back? From some of his biography I’ve read, the man was a romantic at heart and something of a randy boy, so who knows. Still, as far as this game is concerned, Desiree is gone, out of the game.

With that, there are 11 cards in our Draw Deck now. Which means, technically, there won’t be enough cards for the full turn, should we get to Card Draw space 12. I doubt we will but I think the discards just get reshuffled. Next year, in 1796, more cards will be added to the deck. For now, we’ll work with what we have, and move on to the Card Action Phase.

Lannes died in the 1809 Campaign, after having helped avert the destruction of a large part of the French Army. Napoleon wept.

Lannes is placed in the Commanders space on the board, joining Desaix and Junot as potential Commanders for future Campaigns. We have no Campaigns at present, but we might draw something this turn.

 

 

And now for the second card draw.

 

Napoleon took part in a brief campaign against Piedmont.

Looks like my talking about having no Campaigns has resulted…in a Campaign. This card requires immediate resolving, with no Commanders. I will not be able to use any of the three currently on hand, so no Admin point spending. This is another straight up d10 die roll.

I rolled a 3, which is a failure. Success only comes on a 6-10. Failure has no penalty, but Success means +3 Glory. I’ve not yet used Napoleon’s Luck, which can be done for a die re-roll. I may as well do so here, so let’s give it a try.

 

I flipped the marker over to indicate it is used, and re-roll, getting a 7 this time, and a Success! Napoleon has turned possible defeat into yet another success (his Luck ability, though only usable once per turn, can have an effect on the game…an interesting mechanic now that I’ve utilized it). I now get to move his Glory marker from 9 to 12.

 

We are now moving on to our third card draw.

 

The fall of the radical Jacobin faction in 1794 marked the end of the Terror, and briefly placed Napoleon’s future in doubt. But his continued rise would no doubt have been more difficult under the likes of Robespierre.

Now that this is revealed, I have to go through the deck and remove the Robespierre card…which I find as the next card in the deck. It is now removed permanently from the game. He’d have gone into the Politics space and could have provided us the ability to choose to ignore one Campaign or Expedition per turn/year, which would discard his card. I still have the Sick Leave card, which allows us to do the same thing, so it’s not all that much of a loss in that regard.

However, this card also instructs us to immediately add cards 54-63 to the Draw Deck and shuffle everything, as well as all Campaign Modifier cards. We have Capturing a General on there, which I forgot about and could have used in the Piedmont tiff. Oh well. I feel I’ve made a few mistakes in playing this game already so, that’s par for the course in balancing things out a bit. I hate to miss out on that +5 G but it is what it is for the time being. That Capturing a General card gets shuffled back in, but it gets permanently removed next turn, so unless it’s drawn quickly and another Campaign pops up, we’re going to be out of luck in utilizing it. Who knows, though.

This is the deck that gets shuffled in. That’s 10 more cards, plus the Capturing a General card, that are added, so my fear of running out of cards earlier was unfounded.

That was an eventful draw number 3. Let’s now move on to number 4 and see what is in store for Napoleon.

This entirely political prelate thought to use Napoleon to overthrow the Directory so that as one of the new French Consuls he could dominate the government. After Brumaire, the new First Consul quickly pushed him aside.

That bit of history aside, this chap gets added to the Politics space on the board. If I draw the Brumaire card, I get a +1 DRM to the roll on that one. This is what we call in the business, ‘foreshadowing.’

 

And now for something completely…err…the same. Draw number five.

 

Barras emerged as the most important member of the government that overthrew the Jacobins and Robespierre, also providing Napoleon with his cast-off mistress Josephine de Beauharnais. But he proved no match for Napoleon in 1799.

An interesting development. This card lets us spend -1 A to ignore a Campaign or Expedition, once per year, then discard the card. It also would allow me to spend -5 G to find and play the Josephine de Beauharnais card.

I decided it was proper to search out her card to see exactly what the advantage would be in spending a whopping 5 Glory to gain Josephine. Historically, she wasn’t really into Napoleon (at least, not from what I’ve read), but she does become his Wife immediately if played. If that’s done, she provides an income of +1 P per turn, which is decent. And, if played before 1798, which this is, there’s a chance she can provide an heir, which would give us a huge +15 G. Fifteen Glory. That’s a lot, but it’s also a gamble as that die roll only succeeds on a 9 or 10, so there’s only a 20% chance of that happening.

I do have 12 Glory right now, so this is highly tempting.

First things first, I put Paul Barras into the Politics space on the board.

 

Next, I’ll go ahead and spend that 5 Glory to play Josephine into the Wife space on the board. Napoleon now has 7 Glory, which isn’t too bad.

Let’s all congratulate Napoleon on his marriage!

And now that she’s revealed, here’s the moment of truth: rolling a d10 to see if she bears an heir. This doesn’t look like something you can try to do each turn, but rather, just once when this card is revealed. So we’ll give it a try because, come on, that’s a huge Glory gain.

And…the roll is a 9!

Holy…well then. Napoleon has lived the dream. He married Josephine, and wouldn’t you know it, the randy boy already has her with child, and she gives birth…to a son! A legitimate son, too. Apparently Napoleon can have bastard kids too in the game…there’s tokens for those, too…but for the moment, he’s legit. I immediately bump our Glory up to 22!

 

I’ve also added the Legitimate Son marker to the I, Napoleon box!

 

That was a great Turn 5. I took a big chance on spending 5 Glory, nearly half his total, to reveal Josephine and make her his wife…and then the roll being a success is a big Glory jump too, obviously. 1795 is a great year so far!

Let’s hope that’s not famous last words, hmmm?

Now we need to check if we have a sixth card draw. My d10 roll is a 9 again, so we indeed do this once more.

 

There is no note in the Playbook on this card, but given that it provides a -1 DRM on our next Campaign, that’s not a good thing, and is representing Napoleon’s luck perhaps getting a bit short. And, there’s no removal indicator in the lower right of the card, so I’m guessing that will stick with us for the rest of the game. Perhaps it means Napoleon’s rise is starting to become knowledge in other armies and, therefore, they’d want to key on ending him should they see him on the battlefield?

For the seventh draw, the d10 roll is a 4, so we move on to the next card.

 

The Tsar initially waged war against France before adopting an anti-British/pro-French neutrality which was deeply unpopular at Court. As a result, plotters overthrew and murdered him, replacing him with his son Tsar Alexander I.

Our first country placement card here is Tsar Paul of Russia; he is placed in the Russia space on the board.

You can read the card’s effects. Essentially, this doesn’t impact anything right now, but will later on in the game.

For the eighth roll, I get a 2; that’s in the DR range of 1-3, so that’s the end of this Card Action Phase.

For the Campaign Resolution Phase, there’s no Campaigns currently on the board (Piedmont was the last one, which was an immediate resolution, so it was removed once we completed that).

And once again, we skip the Diplomacy and Domestic Politics phases as we’re not quite big enough for those. Which brings us to the Clean Up Phase.

Here, Napoleon’s Luck marker gets flipped back over to its Unused side, so we might use it again in the next turn/year, 1796.

The Admin marker, which was on 2, is moved down to zero. Diplomacy was already there, so that doesn’t go anywhere.

I also realized there are markers for helping keep track of Resource income. With General Napoleon, that gives us +2 A per turn, and then with Josephine, that gives us +1 P per turn. So I now have those markers by the tracks as a reminder.

 

Thoughts on Turn 3/1795

Gaining Josephine as a wife and being lucky enough to get a Legitimate Heir is something of a milestone. That Heir can be important if Napoleon is lucky enough to establish a dynasty…but we’re going to be well ahead of ourselves, considering such things. We’re still a ways away from becoming a First Consul, too. And next year, we’ll be getting new 1796 cards added to the deck, too. More fun! More French stuff! More court shenanigans! And more Napoleon! What more could we possibly need in life?

 


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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