A few time ago Andy Daglish asked me if I could analyze 
GMT's recent 30YW, feeling it has potential problems:

- too big temptation to leave armies unpaid and Loot
instead (OK, it was used a lot historically);
- too easy to recruit often then leave troops desert;
- insufficient reasons to collect Aid by playing a card
then pay the troops [previous two choices being better],
especially for Catholics who have assembly bases
in Austria and Bavaria where troops eat 'for free';
Protestants don't have similar privileges;


- too easy for Catholics to rise from 21 to 35 VP,
then ask for negotiations and get a Minor Victory peace
before Sweden can intervene effectively.


    Then I got and analyzed the game (electronically :-) 
and found a moderately complex game, with good basic
ideas and a lot of confusing political chrome, mainly in
the 'country' rules and cards, with exceptions to exceptions.
    Similar to the Napoleonic _War&Peace_, here Leaders
are the key to every action of troops, and there are similar
rules on units defending inside/outside fortresses, here the 
ubiquitous 'stellated octogon' of recent GMT games. 
    Actions are based on alternating card play, with some
very gamey choice between using the same card as Leader
action (move+attack), Recruit, receive Aid or an Event.
What's its reason in the similar _Paths of Glory_ ?


    Analyzing the tables, found a nice combat system 
inspired by Dupuy's observations on attrition: smaller armies 
inflict more than proportional losses on the enemy, and 
leader qualities and new strategies (here: special cards)
influence the result a lot. Dynamic leaders make draws wins.


    Looting - mandatory check for Unpaid units - is dubious
in that 8 units loot the same as 4, and not much more than 1.
It pays to leave whole armies unpaid, the 'opportunity cost'
of the other options being too large.
I proposed a roll-per-unit system instead.
    The system encourages the player to see any yet 
un-Pillaged area as a resource to be used indiscriminately 
in the hope of a quick win. Then 'run forward' to greener pastures.
Martin van Creveld said something like this in _Supplying War_.


To quote again Andy Daglish (he isn't on the list, but please leave
him in the CC: to get a better discussion):


> 1. Aid system clearly doesn't work. This is so extremely obvious from 
> design and historical point-of-view there is little or no excuse, except 
> that the same thing has occurred many times before with other designs, 
> which has shown anything if producers as over-familiar as they wll be 
> with a developing design. In this case polite testers almost never have 
> the guts to recommend wholesale alterations to fatally flawed rules.
>
> 2. Getting VP is easy. So getting to 35 VP and rolling for Minor Victory 
> is too easy, as least for a game, helped by Truce.


    Thank you for thinking on this,
    Mircea Pauca (mpauca@fx.ro)