It is about time for a new Development Diary. We have talked a little about Actions in previous diary entries, but mainly about Action Cards. This time we want to talk about the Basic Actions. Those are the Actions that you can always perform, without the need of any cards.
Basic Actions
The Basic Actions are, in the same way as the Action Cards, divided into the three types of Monarch Power – there are Administrative Actions, Diplomatic Actions and Military Actions. They normally cost either Administrative Power (AP), Diplomatic Power (DP) or Military Power (MP). But there are also some Special Actions and Free Actions that are not tied to any of these in particular.
Free Actions
Free Actions are Actions that you can performed alongside another Action during your Turn or, in some cases, even during another player’s Turn.
Declare War
By Declaring War, you go to a War against the target Realm. If you have no justification for doing so, no Casus Belli, you will suffer a –2 Stability drop. Most of the time a Casus Belli involves a Claim on some of the target’s Provinces.
Hire Advisor or Leader
Pay the recruitment cost to hire a new Advisor (Square portrait) or Leader (Circular portrait) from the cards in your hand. Advisors cost Ducats and provide extra Monarch Points in the area of their expertise, while Leaders cost Military Power and provide bonuses in Battles.
Take/Repay Loan
Take a Loan Tile and 5 Ducats from the general supply. You must pay an interest of 1 Ducat every Round until the loan has been repaid. You can take a loan at any time as long as you don’t already 5 active loans.
Special Actions
Special Actions are not necessarily linked to a particular type of Monarch Power, and don’t always cost Monarch Points to perform. They do however take up a whole player Turn.
Research Ideas
You may spend the Monarch Point cost stated on an Idea, to activate this Idea and claim the bonuses it provides.
Change National Focus
May only be done once per Round. Perform either or both of the two options below.
- Discard any 3 Action Cards from your hand and draw 2 new cards of your choice. Alternatively discard 2 cards and draw 1 new.
- Increase one type of Monarch Power by two tokens, while decreasing the two others by one token each.
Change State Religion
From Age II onwards it is possible to change State Religion from Catholic to Protestant (or from Protestant to Catholic) by taking this action. Changing to or from other Religions can only happen as a consequence of War or Rebellion.
Explore
Pay 1 DP and 1 MP to move a Fleet or an Army into unchartered territory on one of the Exploration Maps. Requires “Quest for the New World” Idea.
Christopher Columbus discovers America. Illustration: Olly Lawson
Administrative Actions
Increase Stability
You may spend 6 AP, modified by your current Stability value, to increase your Stability by 1 step. (Stability ranges from –3 to +3.)
Convert Area
Pay 3 Ap and 3 Ducats to Convert the Religion to your State Religion in an Area where you own all the Provinces. Roll a number of Rebel Dice for the Area you convert equal to half the Tax Income of the Provinces.
Colonize
Spend 1 AP per Colonist token to Colonize any unoccupied Colony Space which you have Explored, and placed a Claim on. 5 Colonists are required to complete a Colony, an thus replacing it with a regular Province.
Diplomatic Actions
Influence
Pay 1 DP or 3 Ducats per token, to place Influence tokens in, or adjacent to, any Areas where you own at least one Province or already have one or more Influence Tokens.
Trade
Pay 1 DP to draw 3 Trade Cards and choose one of the cards that has a Trade Node where you have, or can move, a Merchant that has not already been activated this Round. Discard the remaining cards. All players with a Merchant in the chosen Trade Node will now collect Trade Income from the Node according to their Trade Power.
Fabricate Claim
Spend 1 DP per Claim, to place Claim tokens on Provinces in Areas adjacent to your Realm.
Military Actions
Activate Army/Fleet
You may spend 1 MP to activate an Army (or a single Land Unit) or make a Naval Activation. An activated Army or a single Land Unit may then either Move or Siege. When Land Units enter an Area containing enemy Units, a Battle will be fought immediately.
A Naval Activation will let you move any number of Ships on the board to a single destination (Sea Zone or Port). Fleets and Ships may move a maximum of 2 spaces (Sea Zones). They must stop and fight if they enter a Sea Zone containing enemy Ships.
Getting ready for battle. Illustration: Olly Lawson
Recruit Military Units
Pay 1 MP, and the required amount of Ducats, to recruit as many Military Units from your Manpower Pool as you desire or can afford. Hire Mercenary Units from the general supply when your Manpower runs out. Build up to one Ship per Port you own.
Refresh Manpower
Pay 1 MP per 2 Units, to Replenish as many Exhausted Units in your Manpower Pool as you desire. These Units are moved from the Exhausted area to the Available area, and are ready to be Recruited.
Handle Rebels
Pay 1 MP per Unrest that you want to remove from your Provinces.
New Illustrations
As you might have noticed we have got some new illustrations this time around. That’s because we have Olly Lawson working on the cards for the game. He is a UK based illustrator and in his portfolio you can see that he is the perfect guy for the job. He’s got other historical games, such as the cards for Pandemic: Fall of Rome, already under his belt, and he’s even a fan of Europa Universalis!
All the illustrations in this Development Diary are of his doing, and there is a lot more to come!
Olly’s illustration admiring the paragraph I wrote about him