You were much more aggressive in the second game. In prior games, you would use either the Bavarians or the Imperials, but not usually them both at the same time. Once you did, you were able to pick up a lot of territory. Either one of those forces are pretty strong and together they are a lot for the Protestants to handle.
I don’t know if you saw it or not, but there is a rule that if all of the cities in an area are at level 2 devastation, the VP for that area drop by one. It seems like a rule that wouldn’t come into play much, but both Saxony and Brandenburg might have lost VIPs in the last game. We rolled poorly for recovery and by the end of the game, central Germany was a howling wasteland.
I was a little gun shy with the Swedes. I had lost pretty much all of my other armies and leaders, so I didn’t want to get Gustavus killed in battle….Man, if I’d only had one more turn!
I probably should have been more aggressive against the Spanish and tried to attrit them down a little bit, so they couldn’t clobber the French. I thought about moving the army in the Netherlands out, but events always worked against it.
It occurs to me that I didn’t make particularly good use of my fortresses (it didn’t help that you rolled very well on your siege combats). I wonder if garrisoning them would force you to leave armies in place, rather than moving back to base areas at the end of the turn. Anything that slows down the Imperials in the early part of the game is worth trying…
Note: This was drafted last Friday morning, but due to sloth not posted until today.
Finally back from a month of travel.
With Tim arriving later today for a game of Wavell’s War East African Campaign, I need to post up about our mid-August 30 Years War game. Tim took the Protestants, and I had the Catholics.
We played a few turns Friday afternoon/evening to re-familiarize ourselves. Lucky for me, we reset for a Saturday game. My play on Friday can best be described as cautious and inadequate.
Friday’s experience reinforced the lessons from our previous game. These were 1) Secure electorates for VIPs, 2) Recruit whenever possible 3) Try to pay as many of your forces as possible, rather than rolling for desertion, 4) Larger stacks of units are very effective and 5) The pillaging effects of movement can render large parts of the playing area almost untenable.
Both Lessons 2 and 3 involve the use of at least two cards per turn, leaving a maximum of four cards for operations. The Early War card deck has a large number of event cards, so the operational options are limited.
Play on Saturday had a good pace and tempo. Both of us adhered to the lessons learned.
By Turn Three I had been able to use my Spaniards (west of map, yellow counters) to secure the regions within their permitted area of operations.
By Turn 6, I had pushed Tim out of Hungary and advanced into the Palantine regions. France entered the war by Turn 8, pinning down my Spanish forces, with Tim’s Danes representing a threat from the North. Some electorates changed hands, but neither side could control the number required (all of them) to score significant VIPs.
I was very active with the Bavarian Forces (Blue counters in South). They took a beating, being wiped out and reconstituted twice. I was less aggressive with my Imperial veteran troops, taking losses from mercenaries. I rarely recruited militia.
Both sides used large stacks. Tim was especially adept at moving rapidly to destroy isolated units.
By game’s end Lesson 5 held true. Literally every province was devastated. Unfortunately, I did not take a photo of this.
The game’s last turn ended with a climatic battle between Imperial troops and Gustavus’ Swedes. Tim scored a tactical victory, but both sides were substantially reduced in size.
This is a good game that requires more than one playing to appreciate. Not as involved and mind numbing as Pursuit of Glory, but with far more nuance than Paths of Glory. We’ll put it on the table again.
Here are Tim’s observations. Lots of great insights.
A few thoughts about the game, in no particular order.
I wish I’d found that chart with the nationalities information during the game and not afterwards…
We had made a few mistakes including: the imperials can’t recruit in Bavaria and the Danes go home if Christian is killed (which he was during his first battle).
There was a different chart that went over the foraging rules– I know I forgot that units removed due to foraging losses are out of the game…oops.
Those LOC rules are pretty important. Without them, armies are free to go pretty much wherever they please. With them, protecting bases becomes much more important, especially for the protestants since their big advantage in the early game is that they can pay most of their units.
You remarked more than once that it is hard to get a good handle for what strategy each side should use in the game. I think both sides should concentrate on grabbing electorates, which pay off big in victory points.
I think in the early game the protestants are just trying to stay alive, although I had pretty good luck in grabbing saxony. I think the Imperials should move hard into Bohemia. When you tried that in the last game, I wasn’t able to stop you.
I had mixed luck in getting armies to the Netherlands. Most of the ways of getting their involve moving through neutral territory, with the loss of victory points or through the lower palatinate (aka the valley of death). As long as the spanish are on the map in force, its probably better to move through neutral territory. I guess it goes without saying that knowing whether a particular city is or isn’t in the Spanish zone is pretty important…minor details like that can have a major impact on game play.
Had a couple of sessions this GMT game with Tim over the weekend.
It’s been awhile since we played it, so there was some fumbling and stumbling at first, as though that has never happened before. We had agreed to play a few turns, then reset for a second go-through.
Both sessions were different.
This is a card-driven game, with point-to-point movement, and like its GMT siblings, cards can be used for a number of purposes including triggering events, activating leaders so units can move and fight and receiving funds to pay units.
The turn sequence involves alternating play (rounds) of six of the seven cards in your hand (and subsequent movement/combat), paying units and then determining what attrition occurs to those units you cannot pay. Units are either veterans, mercenaries and militia, each of which have slightly different capabilities and costs to pay. When larger armies move, they reduce the ability of a selected point to support subsequent moves. The effects of this pillaging can be reduced in a subsequent “recovery” phase, which is actually the first phase of a game turn.
There are only a few charts, all of which are printed on one side of the map. I was able to really improve my ability to read charts upside down during both sessions. This is a skill I would have preferred not to have developed.
In the first session, cards were played for their event, not as much to activate leaders, get foreign aid to pay troops, or recruit. In the second session, both of us focused on the operational aspects of the cards.
This can be attributed to card flow. In some cases you must play one event in order to trigger other events. And, it is in your best interest to play them successively, not wait a turn or two before playing the second or third card in a sequence.
On the other hand this can be attributed to not really knowing what the hell you’re doing. Between sessions I asked Tim, “What’s the strategy for this game?”
Since troops weren’t being recruited in the first session, the opposing forces were rather small and the effects of looting (when not paid) were minimized. These effects not only ravage the countryside, reducing the chance of living off the land without pay, but also ravage your units. In the second game, my victorious Bavarian contingent was decimated because they were without pay, and in an area that had been previously looted and couldn’t support them.
We agreed that the Catholic forces had better leaders (fewer points to activate), but that the funding for the Protestants allowed them to avoid having to roll as many times for attrition of units.
The second game featured far more action. The Upper and Lower Palatinate was the scene of most of the fighting, but with the Protestants coming very close to taking Vienna. We shut it down to have dinner and, after celebrating Tim’s birthday at Gustav’s (fitting given the game), we returned in no condition to continue.
In conclusion, a very good game with – once you get it – accessible mechanics, excellent game flow, and plenty of strange twists due to the effects of attrition.
The Map Illuminated in the Soothing Glow of Tim’s Dining RoomSpanish Veterans Cower In Their Area of OperationsAction In Palatinate & Hungarians Threaten ViennaThe Other Dog of War
