Kingmaker Q: Royal Heirs

[boylermaker]

1. Must one besiege a town in order to capture a (unaccompanied) royal heir? The reason I ask this is page 3 in my rulebook:
A royal heir is captured by a faction when one or more noble counters of that faction occupies the open area of a square, town, city, or castle as the royal counter at the end of their [sic] move.

My instinct is to say yes, assuming the "open area" goes only with "square" and not "town, city, or castle," but just checking up on it.

2. Can one transfer a royal heir among nobles so that he ends up travelling more than 5 squares in a turn?
I cannot find anything explicitly forbidding this in the rules, but it feels wrong. Also, there is a rule stating that boats may not travel twice in a round after being transferred between factions. That seems rather (sorta-kinda) applicable here.

3. Can one choose not to capture a royal heir? The rules would suggest no, and it would cause all kinds of gameplay difficulties, but I just want to make sure.

[canvasback]

1) Initially that would seem to be the case. During game play you could catch an heir out in the open for various reasons though.

2) I think the answer is once a stack stops moving, it can't keep moving even if it hasn't used it's full movement. So two stacks that are 4 spaces away from each other couldn't split the difference and meet in the middle and keep moving. A transfer of nobles or the royalty can't happen unless the stack do join up. So my instinct here is no...

3) Nope, you're stuck with those heirs. Which can make for interesting choices if you capture some from an opposing house.

[boylermaker]

4. If all the nobles accompanying a royal heir die in a successful siege, is the royal heir put inside or outside of the town?
-With nobles, one can choose whether or not they enter a town. But once all the escorting nobles die, a royal heir can no longer move. So is the heir dropped like a hot potato and stays outside, or may the (formerly) controlling player move him inside?

5. If all of one side's nobles die in an indecisive battle, in an accompanying royal heir just dropped in the space by himself (for the other side to get on subsequent turns) or does the other side get to grab him right away?
-My inclination is he sits there for a turn.

[canvasback]

4. I would say no. And if fact, the successful seige would be nullified in this event I believe as there would in effect be no force left to effect a transfer of power. The royal would be left in the open.


5. Yeah, I think you're right.

Wow, these questions are getting pretty tricky.
Are these incidents actually coming up in game play are you just noticing them?

[boylermaker]

Most of them are from actual (though solo) game play. But I imagine that once I get my friends playing they will get trickier (as we start stretching those vague transfer rules.)

[boylermaker]

6. If a player has both senior royal heirs while parliament is called, for the purposes of determining votes those [heirs] of the unfavored house are considered executed. So, do the 10 Lords and Common votes go to the highest heir who is not controlled by the double-dipping player? Or are they counted as "abstentions."

7. What are "abstentions?" (i.e. if no one controls the senior royal heir his votes are "abstentions") Are they "nay" votes, or are they merely not counted in the total tally?

8. In an Advanced battle, what happens to an Heir if the noble accompanying him in the battle line is slain? Does he stay there until picked up (my instinct)? Does he move into the reserve? Can he move by himself during combat movement?

[canvasback]

6. It means that their votes don't count.
7. They are not counted as yea or nay, and thus, don't count.
8. Never played the advanced battle portion of the game, sorry. I think your first instinct is probably right.

[boylermaker]

I agree with you on these. If we both agree, we're probably right, so now my soul can be at rest over these rules. By the way, thanks a lot for your input.