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J. R. Tracy - 01:19pm Apr 30, 2003 PST (#4195 of 4201) 
"I no drive just for drive. I drive for to finish in front." - Milka Duno, 
Le Mans

Last night we tried Wallenstein for the first time. The setting for this
multiplayer is the 30 Years War, and there's been some debate over
whether it is enhanced or diminished by its goofy combat system. 

The system in question involves the notorious combat resolution tower.
Military strength is represented by small 4mm wood cubes. To resolve a
battle, participating forces are scooped up and poured into the tower.
Whoever has the most cubes kick out the bottom is the winner. The tower
itself has several baffles that catch blocks as they pass through. The
tricky bit is the tower is 'seeded' before the game with cubes of every
player, and as the game progresses more are 'caught' and released with
each combat. So, you might conceivably have more cubes come out the
bottom than went in the top for a given fight. Yes it's weird, but it
works, or at least four of our five players felt it did. One player
dropped nine units for his first fight and had only two pop out - I'll
leave it to the reader to guess who offered the dissenting opinion on
the tower's merits. 

In addition to the combat tower, Wallenstein offers a pretty neat set of
mechanics. The map is central Europe, with five large regions each
divided into several provinces. The game lasts two years, each composed
of three campaigning seasons, plus a winter season for resolving revolts
and tallying the year's victory points. Each season consists of ten
actions: three army purchases, three building purchases, two move/attack
actions, one grain collection and one taxation. At the beginning of the
season each player secretly determines in which province he will perform
a given action. He can only perform one action per province, and he'll
often have less than ten provinces, so in effect he'll usually be
passing on one or more actions. 

A season's order of actions is randomly determined before the players
make their allocations. The first five actions are laid face up, the
last five face down, so the players have at least some idea of how the
turn will play out. Player order is randomly determined after the
players make their allocations. Then, each action is resolved in player
order before proceeding to the next action. Sometimes the build actions
come out before taxation, cramping your style a bit. Other times, the
move/attack actions are out early, leading to some tough choices over
where to build or tax - you might well lose your province to an enemy
before you get to execute your action for the area. 

Victory is based on one point per province and building controlled at
the end of a year, plus bonus points for controlling the most of a given
type of building in each of the larger regional groupings. Building
decisions are a sweat as you can find yourself paying for the
construction and having the fruits of your labors snatched away. There
are one minor and two major sequences to worry about - player order
matters a bit but is imposed after you've made your major decisions.
Action order within the turn is much more important, and overall you are
concerned with your metaplan, as you try to coordinate builds, moves and
province improvements over the two year arc. 

In addition to the player interaction, the local populace makes an
occasional appearance in the form of revolts and as militia in some
battles. Every time you tax or collect grain in a province, you generate
a revolt marker. If one or markers is already in place, a revolt occurs
and a number of 'farmer' blocks equal to the number of revolt markers
fights your local garrison. Note the tower is seeded pre-game with ten
farmers, so you may have more on your hands than you bargained for.
Angry farmers also show up in the winter season if you find yourself
short of grain. The greater the shortfall, the more revolts you suffer
and the more severe the revolts themselves. Again, this can add up to
lost provinces. On the plus side, if you are attacked in a province free
of revolt markers, the local peasants fight on your behalf and any
farmer blocks shaken out count toward your total. 

Overall, we had a unanimously good opinion of the game, even with the
one anti-tower player. Combat was greeted with much hooting and
hollering. The situation allows for several styles of play, from
conservative and defensive to gambling and piratical. The tower and the
unknown aspects of the turn sequence will probably bug the hell out of
control freaks but I found it an exciting challenge. Highly recommended.

JR