Special rules:
1 New units may be built in any owned center, not just
initial home centers.
2 "Fleets" but not "armies", may be built in "sea" centers.
The game begins in spring 1764
The players represent the "Slavonian knight" and two brigands:
Varnica: Sombor(A), Kopaccki Rit(F), Bacc(F)
Jeccmenica: Frusska Gora (F), SSid (F), ZZupannja (A)
The Slavonian Knight: Valpovo (A), CCepin (A), DJakovo (F)
There are 12 supply centers - 7 to win.
The variant is set in the time of Maria Theresa. The legal authorities are a bunch of vain and ineffectiv nobles who spend their time holding parties and doing nothing about the who are terrorizing the countryside from their hideouts in the marshes that lie to the side of the Danube and Drava. Serious opposition to these brigands is posed only by the mysterious Slavonian Knight
The title of the scenario comes from the novel by Marija Jurich Zagorka which inspired the scenario. She was a Croatian novelist who wrote around the turn of the century and I'v seen her described as a Croatian Jane Austin.
Slavonia is an inland area without seas. However the marshes are crucial as refuges for the bandits. Hence "seas" in this game are in fact marshes or hilly areas. Fleets represent bands of skirmishers who get distinctly nervous if they stray too far out into open terrain where they can be ridden down by cavalry represented by diplomacy's traditional armies. These skirmishers hav no problem with skipping between "coasts" of the province they are in so the one province that appears to hav two coasts (Vinkovci) is a "canal". You can think of convoying as the skirmishers acting as guides to the cavalry, through the marshes.
Attacking an area represents the whole process of intimidation bribing/blackmailing of informers involved in bringing an area under your control. If you are playing the Knight you are carrying out the reverse process of breaking down the conspiracy of silence etc. Hence the two season time scale of traditional diplomacy is about right.
Varnica is an greedy, aging, brutal but cunning robber who
who has absolutely no scruples and who doesn't even shrink from poisoning his own
mother.
Jeccmenica is the new kid on the Slavonian crime scene. He has
a wicked sense of humor.
Both are devious bastards who will back stab the other without
a seconds thought.
The Slavonian Knight is a noble upstanding fighter for good
against evil, whose word is his bond. Does that mean if
you play the knight you can't back-stab either of the robbers?
Put it this way, saying something that is not strictly true,
to one of those blaggards who hav brought your beloved Slavonia
so low, is not lying but a stratagem. An example of something
not strictly true would be "No of course I won't attack
Vukovar if you move your skirmishers out to attack Varnica. You
can trust me, Jeccmenica."
Most of the area of the map was at the time part of Croatia but the north west was then in Hungary. The whole area was of course, in 1764, under the Hapsburg monarchy.
The double letters are the old system for representing
Serbo-Croat letters used by telegraph operators. I suspect
no one will ever get round to programming the judges to
use Serbo-Croat letters so for want of an alternativ I'll use
that system. (No, it's not on the judges yet but I hope it
will be one day)
cc and ch both represent English ch (but cc is harder)
ss represents English sh
zz represents the s in leisure
j is not and English j but an English y
dj in the main represents the Serbo-croat d with a bar and it is
kind of soft English j .
If you hav comments please send them to dejvid.at.zamir.net.
(of course .at. must be @)
Fruska Gora , Bansko Brdo , DJakova Greda ,
DJakovo and Negoslavci are hilly areas. The
other "seas" are marshes. Most but not all
of the marshes are now well drained farmland
and it is possible some of the provinces which
are designated here as marshes had been drained
as early as 1764. However the exact extent
of marshes in the game is what I think will
make a good game and will change only when
playtesting proves me wrong.
(Kopaccki Rit remains to this day a marsh
and is considered to be a key wetland
of international significance.)
Abbreviations Bacc bac Banov Dol bad Bansko Brdo bab Beli Manistir bel Bijelo Brdo bij CCeminac ccm CCepin ccp Daljska Planina dpl Daljski Rit dri Darda dda DJakova Greda DJG DJakovo djo Fruska Gora fru Gussevac gus Jagodnjak jag Karadjordjevo kdj Karapanzza kpa Kopaccki Rit kop Kosska kos Markussica mak Monjoross mon Mostongo mos Negoslavci neg Onoplje ono Osijek osi Otok oto Petrijevci pet Plavanski Rit pla Semeljevo Jezero sem Sombor som SStid sst Trpinja trp Valpovo val Velike Livade vel Vinkovci vin Vuka vka Vukovar vkr ZZupanja zzu
