From: Arnaud Bouis Subject: Thirty Years War We played "THe thirty Years War" today, Joe Miranda's release of S&T173. It turned out to be quite a potent Empire-In-Arms-style game. The four powers are the Habsbourg, France, the Protestants, and Sweden, in descending order of perceived strength. I played Sweden. This game is very original, stays simple but not fast-playing. It took us four hours to play the first three turns of scenario I. We noted that it is certainly very hard for the Habsburg player to win. He starts with too huge a VP divider (135, Sweden by comparison has only 25). In our game he finally overrun the protestant provinces yet finished third. The French barely did anything (invaded England but I thwarted him when his army mutinied and thanks to a scorched earth policy) and ended up second. On to the problems we noted, despite the great quality of the game. 1) The victory point calculation stipulates that all the final treasure of a major power is added as VP. This enabled me to win big by simply doing nothing during the last turn. A country may well win by accumulating money and doing little during the whole game, or at least during the last few turns, when a money-race will begin. 2) The control of attacked minors poses a problem. Since controlling these units means that you suffer all DIP losses consecutive to their defeat, noone wants to control them, still less pay to control them. The rule says that should nobody bid the neutrals disappear ! When our French player landed troops in England nobody bid for the English and the whole English army...vanished !! 3) The rule does not say how at-start and victory RV's are calculated. Do you take into account leader revenue multipliers ? pillaged areas ? Revenue bonuses ? This is of extreme importance for at-start RVs. I would have appreciated the scenarios to give them (gaining time for the players and preventing crucial errors) 4) Cavalry is much more expensive than infantry, yet less efficient ! It may fire before and cause 50% more losses in pursuit, but it fires with half its efficiency otherwise. The former hardly compensate for the latter, or just. 5) The result of this, and the fact that the cheap militia absorbs one loss like all other units and garrisons revenue areas as efficiently, is that big militia armies seem much better than quality armies...fortunately, this is limited by the countermix. But we found them too strong. Other glitches: the siege table is too similar to the field battle table. Cavalry charges during sieges ! The defender is also better off in the field than behind his walls. All very strange. Some neutral units also have their back face printed in Swedish color. I therefore propose the following variants: NEUTRALS - When a neutral is attacked, players bid in turn. The offending player CANNOT bid. Should nobody bid, the controlling player is determined by random die roll among the enemies of the offender; if none, among the major powers neither enemy nor allied; if none, among allies. FIELD COMBAT - Cavalry now hits on "5-6" in field battles. However in sieges it now hits on a "6" but in the "Engage" round. Delete the "Charge" round in sieges. SIEGES - The defender gets a +1 on all attack die rolls. (This will make fortresses something more than death traps). RESSOURCE VALUES Ressource values, as well as final Treasure value calculated for VP purposes, includes: - Values of all occuped areas, partial value if shared with others. Ignore pillaged markers. - Country bonus points of the Treasury Chart if the conditions are filled. VICTORY POINTS - Add only half of a country's treasury as Victory points (fractions rounded down). If this still promotes passivity, divide by three ! - something must be done to allow the Habsburg to win but I don't know yet :-). Lower his at-start RPV divider by 50 maybe. Arnaud.