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Just got a four-player game of Virgin Queen in. This was a little last second on arranging, and only two of us had managed to read the rules at all, and there were a lot of places we were still very uncertain.

Jason had to be picked up from the train station a little later than the normal start time… so, with all of that we got through three turns in one longish day.

We had really picked up speed during our group’s second try at Here I Stand, so I’ve been a bit annoyed at not being able to get it to the table again, and we were back at square one today.

We were picking up steam, slowly but surely. I hope that if we can get back to it soon we can get a Tournament Game to finish.

France (Dave) had a surprise victory at the end of three, zooming ahead on three good marriages (20 VP). On the other hand, I would expect that that might have attracted a Huguenot rebellion on the next turn.

Spain (Patch) was falling off (15 VP), with the New World, Dutch rebellion and the Turks to worry about. However, they had just successfully deactivated the Turks right before they could take Naples (probably trading it for Tunis) and hit him with Spanish Fury and Sack!

England (me) had not done a whole lot (16 VP). I managed to invest enough in Scotland to take control when Scottish Lords Rebel came up. Four cards (+the obligatory jilting) is not a lot to work with, and Drake didn’t manage much on his first turn, though Dee had gotten me the Plantations bonus. Right at the end, I got control of the Holy Roman Empire, but we skipped trying to figure out if I could do anything with it in the interests of finishing the turn.

The Protestants (Jason) had actually managed to catch up to the end of the pack (13 VP) with two keys in the Low Countries, and concentrating on causing the Spanish (and Waloons) as much trouble as possible. A good marriage with France had also helped.

I still have no idea what to do with espionage, and our diplomacy was quite perfunctory, but I’m happy and enthused with the game. 4-player seems to work very well, with the activation/deactivation mechanics and the Mandatory realign cards adding a nice wrinkle to the system.

After that, I’m up for a Vassal game! ^_^