Ottoman Eclipse

 This is another one in Tims seemingly inexaustible supply of strategic solo games. This one is 'Ottoman Eclipse' and covers the fortunes of the Ottoman Empire in WW1. The general structure is that there are a series of 'fronts' - Mesopotamia, Caucasus, Palestine, Galliopli etc which wicked enemies advance along, while there are also external fronts (France etc) and various external events driven by event cards. The player has a number of action points each turn to be able to influence/respond to these and the aim is to keep the "National Will" at sufficient level to avoid defeat for as long as possible. You do that by having military successes, avoiding the enemy occupying key points, fometing successful rebellions abroad etc. With anything up to six active fronts, various external things and only 1-3 actions per turn, there is always more to do than you can, so it is about prioritising.

The general layout, you can make out the nearer campaign tracks for Palestine, Arab Revolt, Mespot and the Caucasus. Over on the other side are Gallipoli, Salonika and 'The Narrows'. There are also boxes to track external theatres like Galicia and the Western Front, as well as India, Afghanistan etc. The National Will track is in the  bottom right, and we surrender when it hits -4. 

This was naturally an excuse to field ridiculous headgear. Many fez on the assembled Pashas (Pashi?). Mine is from the grand bazaar in Istanbul, purchased by a friends son. I also have one from Kosovo, obtained by a friend doing reconstruction work over there after the civil war.

There were repeated but disjointed attacks in the Middle East and Caucasus, and we beat a lot of these back with varying degrees of success.They are are only really a problem once they get within two zones of Istanbul, as each space lost then reduces Will by one. The British have just landed at Gallipoli and the Germans have won a great victory over the Russians so we are currently on +1.

We used some spare actions to fortify The Narrows with minefields and gun batteries and after a few turns it was looking quite strong.

It all went a bit pear shaped after that. Although we defeated the landings at Gallipoli and held off the various attacks from advancing too far, a string of overseas disasters (all those counters in the top right box) saw our National Will whittled down and the government finally collapsed in 1917! It wasn't quite a catastrophic defeat, but merely a strategic defeat. According to Tim, the worst performance so far. I think we'd over prioritised the immediate threats and should have put more resources into supporting the overseas fronts.

That was actually a very good game, and it very much felt like running a country on the back foot. There were just too many things to fix at once, and I think our priorities went out of the window as the pressure ramped up.

We tried it again on Wednesday night and this time put some more resources into the overseas fronts, which generated some more victories in both Russia and the Western Front and we were also quite successful holding back the various enemy offensives. Having built the Gaza line and with no landings at Gallipoli, we were feeling quite pleased with ourselves. Sadly we had reckoned without the Royal Navy who assaulted The Narrows and proceeded to fighting their way through all the minefields and forts to bombard Constantinople! At which point we were forced to surrender.

It transpired that this time we'd achieved a tactical defeat this timet, so we'd done slightly better than the day before, but still no win and worse than Ottomans irl.