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Last week I got to thinking about Crown of Roses and dissatisfaction with its victory conditions. My own problem, the one I’m struggling with, is of theme but, across the internet, more seemed concerned with play balance. Allow my thoughts to wander a bit while I mix and match.

It’s the Economy, Stupid

The biggest criticism seems to be with the “Economic Victory.” As I understand the issue, this is easiest path to victory which incentivizes players to push for this condition and this alone. It is because of this that the revised, living rules make the “Economic Victory” into an optional rule as well as changing the manner of its calculation.

It seems like the key problem, under either the old or the new formula, is the invocation of the “Economic Victory” for a sudden death game ending. Running the numbers… and using the “3.1” scenario to keep it simple, such that a “Political Victory” results from a player racking up 5 game turns as King. This Political Victory is simultaneously an Economic Victory, because that also uses turns as King to compute Economic points. Furthermore, the Economic formula tallies each “heir” killed as worth 1/2 of a King turn or 1 turn holding the Chancellor. Thus, this political victory is always simultaneous with or preceded by the economic victory. And this is only using the formula as revised in the 2013 update to the rules.

In the original version of the “Economic Victory,” which seemed rather more aligned with its name, physical control of provinces translated to economic might. This was changed when it was found that it turned the game into one purely focuses on this “economic” control; acquiring Economic Victory Points was easier than any other strategy. The designer says that an Economic Victory was always meant to serve as a “tiebreaker” when other measures were inconclusive, rather than the main goal. Under the optional rules, this is explicit; Economic Points are not tallied until all turns are played and no Military or Political victor is determined.

Politics by Other Means

This one aside, the conditions don’t seem viable when set along side the “most turns as King” target, at least according to the internet buzz. The “other” political victory (controlling 75% of the assembled parliament) sounds difficult, although that is a hard one for me to determine. Gut feel, it seems more like a play boundary than a way to victory – i.e. to keep in the game you can’t neglect maintaining political control of your share of the nobility. Likewise, I’ve read that the military victory, the taking of the core provinces of your enemies, consumes more resources than other game strategies and is not a fruitful pursuit. It too seems placed just to keep you from ignoring the military facet of the game entirely. The historically-accurate victory – eliminating all the potential challengers to the throne – also strikes me as long-shot approach to winning the game. Even when you do manage to corner and eliminate an heir, there is always the chance that they return to the pool to fight another day. Is it really feasible to set out to clear the board of all other heirs? Or is this a strategy one might stumble into after a few lucky rolls leaves his opponents at a disadvantage?

It seems that it is necessary to concentrate on the King figure and whomever might succeed him. Eliminating a senior heir, either through political means or by killing him on the field of battle, might be a worthwhile focus. The only time it’s worth committing resources to worry about the lesser heirs (and, for that matter, the playing of political influence) is as it furthers the goal of gaining gaining that crown. In a sense, this is historical to the extent that (potentially) royal heirs were eliminated, not willy-nilly, but with respect to their threat to one’s own succession.

Absent the “Economic” rule, that early political victory, calculated from turns holding either the Crown or the Chancellery, should be nearly impossible in a multi-player game. Any player that is about to obtain this win should be facing a 3-1 pile-on against him. Obviously this gets murky if either multiple players are on the cusp of victory or the opposite; one player so dominates that they can win the “election” for King on their own. It also wouldn’t apply to the two-player game which seemingly would hinge on a competition as to who can control the King more.

It Is Good to be the King

Complaints also abound of the outsized influence of the “King” at any given moment. In addition to direct manipulation of point tallies, through his game-power of ordering and tie-breaking, the King has a number of unique powers. The King gets an extra 5 votes in parliament, extra influence, extra popular support, and the ability to use of the once-per-turn powers of other Offices. Add that to the military power of the King block and it really is good to be the king. Is it this tilting of the board that makes the multiplayer cooperation work in a three or four -player game? Could be. The crown’s momentum could easily be overwhelming in a two-player game; essentially pitting the King versus the Not-King in an uneven contest.

As I think about the victory conditions relative to the theme, it occurs to me that – much like Richard III – the events simulated in the game may not be meant to span the entire thirty-plus years. Despite the inclusion of the nobility from Henry VI through Henry VII, the victory conditions suggest that the end-game is to make it to one of the various pauses in the conflict. As much as I poo-pooed the military victory above, I note that it can be won by the player who has the sole heir at parliament or the sole heir not in exile. Thus, for example, Henry VI’s death, eliminating a Lancastrian challenge to Edward VI, could easily have ended “the game.” Likewise might the lull between the 1483 rebellion by Buckingham and the 1495 landing of Henry Tudor; assuming the correct heirs are in exile at the correct time. Of course, neither of these hypotheticals are allowing for the proper application of the “Popular Support” rule (which seems included specifically to enable the historically-proper differentiation between a “lull” and a “victory”).

To Cooperate or Not to Cooperate

My other historical concern is the long-term ineffectiveness of cooperation. In the end, as they say, there can only be one. The winner-takes-all approach probably makes for a good game, especially among a group of players who carry with them grudges from other nights and other games. However, wasn’t the deciding factor in the various ascendancies and, ultimately, victories determined by the support of the Nevilles and the Buckinghams for either Lancaster or York? The incentive for players in a four-player game to cooperate (multi-session schemes for payback aside) is limited to whether you think that cooperation can be turned to your favor before the end. Again – good game? Maybe. Accurate political assessment of 15th century England? I’m not convinced.

Furthermore, the extent of the cooperation is limited, although there are rules (including optional rules) that mitigate this. The historic battle of St. Albans could not* have taken place. Warwick (the Kingmaker) is under rule-bound control of the Warwick player and, thus, could never have commanded troops in Richard of York’s main force. The rules do allow a cooperating player pair to avoid killing each other and optional rules allow for the play using permanently-aligned teams. But doesn’t this miss out on an important angle? Namely, the ability for two player-houses to tie themselves together only to turn around a break those bonds, changing the course of history?

For Next Time…

I’ve had a couple of thoughts on new rule variants that might improve upon this. I also notice that a player** has rewritten the rules to create both a more-historical version and a more streamlined version. I think I’ll want to see what’s out there and then I’ll come back and share some more thoughts with you.

*I’m going to hedge my bets here, as I’m not entirely sure that there isn’t some way to bring in a lower-ranked heir in place of a non-active but still-living higher-ranked heir.

**For what it’s worth, the player rewriting the rules to be more historical is the source of many of the victory path critiques that I’ve echoed above.