lets say you have 3 heroes and 2 quests...

Can you, during the Summer quest phase

send first hero on quest 1 and complete it, and get a replacement quest 3

Send second hero on quest 2, complete it and get replacement quest 4

Send third hero on quest 3 or 4 (the new quest you got from the first two heroes finishing their quests?

Also, if you fail a quest, do you keep it (and are you able to try it again the same turn with a different hero? (assuming the quest doesnt say otherwise)

winninig the game: Do you win as soon as you have 6 runes? or at the end of the turn?

If I MOBILIZE and send 10 units to an area to attack a large group of 5 neutrals

I attempt diplomacy and succeed. Now I have 15 units (10 of my original army and 5 allied neurtrals).

What can I do? I know I can overstack to attack... but what if I attempt diplomacy and succeed? am I able to retreat my excess units? Can I retreat any excess neutrals? Am I unable to retreat any units because no battle was conducted, and then I have to kill units down to 8?

mateooo said:

If you have a quest and are in the area of the quest you can attempt to complete it. There is no rule that says you can't complete a quest that just replaced a quest you completed this round.

If you do not complete the quest, you do not discard the quest card and do not draw a new quest card.

You win as soon as you control 6 dragon runes.

You would retreat 7 of the units in the area to one adjacent friendly (if possible) or empty area.

Broken is totally correct

Where does it say in the rules you can retreat after overstacking when neutrals join you? I think you must eliminate excess units over 8.

broken said:

I disagree (and agree with the above poster); the rules do not say you could retreat in this case - the only time it says you can retreat if overstacked is after a battle where you are the attacker.

If you recruit Neutrals that put you above 8, you have to lose units until you are back down at 8. The rules do not allow you to retreat in that instance.

sigmazero13 said:

I Agree with sigmazero13. Page 18 seems pretty clear on this point.

TK

I agree with all of the above who say you would destroy down to 8.

Absolutely correct. Page 18 says

"– All neutral units in the area ally with the player. This
result means that the player’s units and the neutral units
remain in the area and that the player may use the neutral
units as his own (see “Allied Units” on page 19)."

Thus, your units remain in the area and since you activated the area to move there, you won't be able to move any units out of there before next

spring. So this course of action would be advisable only in a winter season.

Chancellor of Sol said:

If you are exceeding the limit of 8, why would winter be any different than, say, fall? (Especiall if your food dial is also at 8)

Chancellor of Sol said:

I think you are applying the wrong emphasis there. It is emphasizing that the neutral units stay in the area because they are now allied to you . It doesn't necessarily mean that you cannot retreat.

broken said:

Are you considering this diplomatic action an attack? That's the only way I could see it allowing a retreat, and this is a slippery slope in my opinion.

Would it only be an "attack" when there are 9+ units invloved, if so where's that distinction in the rules? If not, then you are making every diplomacy attempt a battle. What if you had a hex containing 8 neutrals and sent a single unit in to diplomacy, would that be forced to be a battle as well? This last one is important.

If I play Mobilize and have a battle, then on the supremacy bonus I would not be allowed to even TRY a diplomacy attampt on a hex with 8 neutrals if you had already forced that into being a battle.

It is my opinion that you can NOT retreat the overstacked units in a diplomacy attempt. Diplomacy is not a battle, this seems pretty clear to me. A battle only happens AFTER a failed diplomacy attempt if you choose not to retreat.

the rulebook clearly states that a successful diplomacy is NOT a battle, in regards to MOBILIZE and its supremacy bonus.

The rules distinguish between battles and diplomatic actions (mostly due to the mobilise / conquer orders).

Since a (successful) diplomatic action is explicitely NOT a battle, you are not allowed to retreat, since the rules allow for a retreat

forced by overstacking ONLY after a successful assault.

Please explain to me how you can take the same number of units to a hex, but only retreat after a battle? If anything, you should not be able to overload if you plan to attempt diplomacy. It makes zero sense whatsoever to be able to retreat after a battle but not after diplomacy. Honestly, tell me it makes sense.

EDIT: Argh, got an answer while editing ^^

broken, I don't think it makes sense not to be able to overstack and retreat when attempting or executing diplomacy but that's what I believe to

be the stand of the rules.

@ sigmazero: Since I am convinced that the rules don't allow for overstacking-retreats after diplomatic actions, recruitung a big neutral army with

a large contingent of your own forces may be unwise because I assume that you will not always have your food dial maxed out. It would probably

suck to see the newly recruited mercenaries starve in a harsh winter. That's just an insignificant remark on my part, though.

broken said:

It doesn't have to "make sense" (thematically or otherwise) if the rules are already clear on the matter - the fact is, diplomacy is NOT a battle, and thus overstacking forces you to destroy units. If you plan on succeeding with the diplomacy, don't bring so many units in with you. Retreating due to overstacking is ONLY allowed after the battles, and the rules are explicit in this matter.

Broken, you argue the rules based on the letter of the rules so often that I am surprised to hear you asking how it makes thematic sense as the crux of an agrument (I mean that both as an observation and as a compliment).

The rules are very clear about when overstacking is allowed (as previous posts have enumerated).

Think of it this way. You are not overstacked until the instant that the diplomacy succeeds, at which point you follow normal rules and have to go down to stacking limmits. It's akin to if you had 5 routed units in a hex and moved in 6 unrouted units. You could destroy 3 of the routed units (keeping 2) and thus realign your troops in the hex, but the moment you went over the stacking limmit they have to be eliminated.

My initial response in this thread involved overstacking when moving, then recruiting the neutrals and not being able to retreat. It didn't make sense to me because you would always have to be able to retreat when overstacking on a move, else you would just be killing your own units. It now makes sense to me that you aren't even allowed to overstack on a move if you are going to attempt diplomacy (you can only overstack if you are attempting a battle). Then it follows that you would have to disband down to 8 after succeeding at diplomacy.

I absolutely agree with the fact that retreats for his own units only happen during battles, as mentionned in the rulesbook, page 18, and unless a card or effect specifically request you to do it...