As I mentioned in previous post, last Saturday was dedicated to Virgin Queen. And what an event it was.

In first play (yes, we played those two in a row) I was playing as Spain. Second in turn order, so whatever I did, rest had chance to interfere. Positive side was that Spain had larger-than-average starting hand allowing more possibilities. Well. Game started with England, France and Protestants (Dutch) taking their shots with pirating my colonies, reducing my amount of treasure and some VP's; Ottoman sank my fleet in Mediterranean; HRE was fortunately far enough not interfering with me. (And I also had a nice 'War in Poland' event card in hand so I was able to have a friendly blackmailing with HRE for not playing it.) Just when Sea Captains returned from plundering my colonies, Spanish Treasure Fleet arrived - and as there was noboy to encounter them, I got some leftovers from treasure chart. Luckily one of the +1VP tokens was left there :) Phew.

The situation wasn't actually very good for Spaniards - Morisco event was roaming near Madrid, Malta was lost to Ottoman and rest of the fortresses in that area were under their attack with Spanish fleet sunk. Then I noticed, when looking at available actions, that Spain had one unique winning condition - they have autowin if they're able to initiate successful Catholic Rebellion in England - and England was currently having fun in other areas. Therefore, Spain started plotting the rebellion: sent a Jesuit to Wales and planted Cryptography. During last impulse Spain was ready to initiate rebellion then - they got 10 dice, faced by 5 dice from England. The result was 4 hits from Spain, countered by 1 hit from England. As Spain needed to have 4 more hits than England, play continued to second turn. The good news was that two Spanish regulars appeared to England as a result.

During the negotiation phase of second turn I decided to go all-in and take my chance during first impulse round, so I skipped the marriages and negotiation and was waiting for the actions phase. I was second in turn order, so England was not able to do anything to stop me. And the action phase started. I re-initated the rebellion, this time there were 14/5 dice in my favour. I rolled first as attacker. 4 hits! Bloody hell! England rolled then... no hits! Woohoo! Automatic victory for Spain!

As everybody else was pretty disappointed of the short play (game ended at the beginning of second turn) we decided to play it once again. We selected sides by random and this time I got to play as England (with person playing England last time played as Spain :) ) - so I knew that I had to keep England free of Jesuits. This also meant that the Virgin Queen home card is pretty much out of use, as Walsham(?) was more efficient for that purpose. And this also meant that I was left only with Earl of Leicester for marriages - and he wasn't really a hit. At least during first turns. On the other hand I saw no point in offering Elisabeth for marriages as she guaranteed me 1 hassle-free VP at the end of every turn. So there were less options to think about.

England isn't easy to play with, I discovered. Except Elisabeth granting +1VP it has no more special bonuses - or at least I didn't see them. They just have excellent captains they should use, I presumed, so my plan was to harass the colonies of Spain a bit first and then achieve the 2VP for being first to sail around the world. Well - Spain didn't agree on this and after one successful plunder my captain was sent to turn track (via event). Additionally, through another event, Spain allied with Ireland and so I had Spanish regulars quite close to England. Me-no-likey. Spain tried also to initiate the rebellion, luckily it failed, Mary of Scots was executed and we had war with Spain. Sweet.

When my Captain Drake returned from turn track I noticed that his specialty was that when pirating I can choose what I'll get. Hmmm, I thought, we're in war with Spain, they have no ships/fortresses in Atlantic and I have Drake - let's have some fun. For several turns I had then standard opening - for 4CPs move to Bay of Biscay, plunder. Next impulse: for 3CPs move to Atlantic Ocean, plunder. And only starting from next impulse I had to start thinking about future plans :) Game went back-and-forth then, as I managed to keep the Spain regulars away from England, got some VP's from several events, Earl of Leicester married successfully Louise of Dutch (during their second try) and by the start of last turn I was a bit surprisingly ahead of others with 2VP. After mandatory plunder moves (out of 4 4-dice plunders I managed to get 3 with results that no dice were showing higher value than 2) I noticed that Seville was left empty by Spain so I made surprise attack there and increased the lead after successful siege. And then, when I was waiting for the end of last turn, someone mentioned that Holy Roman Empire was one key short of having automatic victory. What? Nooo! During my next impulse I used all the CPs of my home card for assasination attempt against the HRE leader, planning to ambush Ottoman key city. I had 4 dice, HRE defended with 2. First roll... and result... re-roll! Second attempt... 2 hits... and nothing for defender! HRE leader was dead! It wasn't daysaver yet, as HRE had still one card left he could use for siege... but without leader it was more difficult... and Ottomans survived this siege. Protestants needed to get 4+ VPs from science/artists but this was really long shot and they didn't succeed... so it was a really glorious play for England! Good game!