Interview with Kris Van Beurden Designer of No Peace for Thirty Years!: The German Wars of Religion, 1618-1648 from Compass Games

A few years ago, I did our first interview with designer Kris Van Beurden covering the very interesting game called Europe in Turmoil: Prelude to The Great War from Compass Games. I next did an interview covering his Barbarians at the Gates: The Decline and Fall of the Western Roman Empire 337 – 476 from Compass Games. Then I saw where he was working on a follow-up effort to Europe in Turmoil called Europe in Turmoil II: The Interbellum Years 1920-1939 and did another interview. Well, when I noticed he was working on a new game in the No Peace Series and due to my interest in the topic, I reached out again and Kris was more than willing to share.

Grant: What historical event does No Peace for Thirty Years! cover?

Kris: No Peace for Thirty Years (NPf30Y) covers the entirety of the Thirty Years’ War, the last of the German Wars of Religion, lasting from 1618 (the third Defenestration of Prague) to 1648 (the Peace of Westphalia). With the Franco-Spanish War (which erupted in 1635) would last until 1659, there would be no no Pan-European peace in 1648. However, it brought to an end by this time largely proxy war in Germany while at the same time ending the Eighty Years War between Spain and the United Provinces of the Netherlands.

Grant: What attracted you to doing a design on the German Wars of Religion?

Kris: Firstly, it is a very important historical period for Europe, being a very defining moment for Germany – the Treaty of Westphalia delayed its unification for another 200-odd years.

Secondly, I thought it a very interesting challenge to make a 2-player game on the Thirty Years’ War, a conflict more often simulated via multiplayer, partially-diplomatic games. 

Finally, the original idea for this game was to design a kind-of sequel to Here I Stand and Virgin Queen…that design was, ironically enough, a multiplayer, partially-diplomatic game.

Grant: What from the history of the German Wars of Religion did you need to include and model in the design?

Kris: Something I found really important to include was the steady growth of the conflict from its rather limited origins to the Europe-wide conflict, with parallel wars in Spain, France, the Netherlands and Italy.

At its onset, the war was merely a conflict between the Catholic Austrian Habsburg Emperor and the Protestant Bohemian rebels and their protector, the Elector Palatine Frederick V. When the war broadened to also affect the Palatinate, it started to pull in other Protestant German princes, making it a broader but still German civil war. Even the Danish Intervention does not count as a foreign intervention, as the Danish King intervened in his guise of Duke of Holstein and Schleswig. Yes, there was Spanish support for the Austrian Habsburgs, but that was in the sense of a dynastic war (with the Spanish Habsburgs and Austrian Habsburgs being mere branches from the same family tree), not an international alliance.

If we ignore the concurrent Eighty Years’ War in the Netherlands and the War of the Mantuan Succession between France and Spain in northern Italy, it is only when first Sweden and later France decidedly intervened on the side of the Protestant German princes that the conflict loses its civil war aspect and becomes a wider European war.

The last concept of the war being about religious rather than princely rights ended when France, a Catholic nation governed by a Cardinal, fully entered the war on the side of the Protestant princes. Henceforth, it was a war to limit the reach of the Austrian and Spanish Houses of Habsburg, and its end would see the end of Habsburg dominance and the beginning of the rise of the Sun King.

I wanted players to experience this growth from initially fighting mainly in Bohemia, with the conflict slowly spreading throughout Germany before erupting in the Netherlands and Italy.

The war was a long one, and ended in a devastated Germany. Although exact numbers are hard to find, and its effect may have been overstated by biased historians, it is almost without doubt that the population of the Holy Roman Empire declined by a third. I found it important to have a mechanic that showed both this devastation of vast territories (which were subsequently avoided by armies in future campaigns, ever focusing the action on new regions). Many wargames simulate the passage of an army through a region merely by changing a control marker – not in NPf30Y, where an army’s passage may be accompanied by a series of sackings devoiding the region of its wealth and value.

Something I struggled to include and eventually added in a “design for effect” way was the switching of sides that occasionally occurred. Neutrality in NPf30Y can never be regained, and once a power joins a side it will forever remain there. Vacillating princes (and even worse, double-crossing princes) do not feature in the game. More on this further below.

Grant: The game uses the No Peace Without Spain! System. How was the experience of designing a game in this well established and respected system?

Kris: As mentioned above, the game began as a more traditional CDG, first as a 6-player game and then later on as a 2-player game. During the early COVID lockdowns when the idea of bringing together larger playtesting teams felt hopeless, I abandoned the multiplayer game and tinkered a bit with reducing the 6-player CDG to a 2-player game. However, the more I tinkered with it, the more I began incorporating elements from NPWS into it, until I finally realized I was making another entry in that series. At that point, it was very easy to port what I had already made into the NPWS mold. 

This is not the first game using the NPW System that I have designed, and as always returning to this system is a designer’s dream. The system is very well suited for warfare of the 16th-18th century, with the many sieges and especially uncommon battles, with generalship mostly meaning outmaneuvering the adversary while besieging their strongpoints. Using the well-proven framework, I merely had to change the map, the cards, the scenarios, the setup and add some chrome before playtesting could start!

Grant: What did you have to modify about the system or change from history to fit your design into the No Peace Without Spain! System?

Kris: Obviously, as a two-player game, the NPWS System does not support minor powers changing sides very kindly. A breakthrough was my realization that there is very little difference between the spaces representing Saxony being converted to Habsburg control via sieges and Saxony switching sides from the Anti-Habsburg Alliance to the Habsburg side – in both cases, the Saxon spaces will be Habsburg-controlled. While the game will never simulate these changes as well as a 6-player game might, I still think the flow of the war and its changing alliances is well-represented in the game.

Generally, games using the NPWS System have a limited set of named leaders, which -when eliminated- flip to unnamed minor leaders from the same nation. Due to the much longer scope of this game (30 years versus more-or-less a single decade for all the other games in the series) several powers only have unnamed minor leaders representing their leaders, which -when promoted- represents a named leader from another power altogether (one of the examples being Condé, whose reverse side is the Transylvanian rebel Bethlen Gábor).

The NPWS System uses yearly turns, which again meant 30 turns as opposed to the 12-15 turns from previous games in the series. As such, the game comes with three scenarios, one focusing on the largely German internal civil war of 1618-1929, one focusing on the more international proxy wars of 1630-1648 when first the Swedish and later the French intervention gradually expanded the scope of the war, and finally a grand campaign scenario for the entire war, using the setup of the first and the victory conditions of the second scenario. Each of the first two scenarios should be playable in a single evening, with the campaign scenario taking about a day or so.

Grant: How did you go about differentiating the forces of the Habsburgs and the Anti-Habsburg Alliance?

Kris: Powers in NPWS-style games are differentiated mostly in their force composition (i.e. the amount of corps they can field are limited to the less-than-generous counter mix) and the available leaders. 

The Habsburgs have a more stable alliance (all their powers are active at the start of the 1620 turn) and operate on interior lines, which means their armies are more fluid and tend to reinforce each other and/or occasionally switch theatres. A limiting factor is the abundance of Austrian Habsburg leaders (such as Bucquoy, Hatzfeldt, von Werth, etc.) combined with a paucity of Austrian Habsburg forces (which are mostly grouped in the Austrian heartlands). An important rule in NPWS is the “Home Corps” rule which means that for a leader to function at full capacity they need to be stacked with a corps of the same power. This restriction means the Habsburg player will spend some of their time in ensuring there are Spanish expeditionary forces in Germany (such as the historical ones in e.g. the 1620-1622 Palatinate campaign and during the 1634 Nördlingen campaign), as well as Austrian/Imperial contingents in Italy and Flanders.

The Anti-Habsburg Alliance is, as the name says, a pan-European alliance, with a constantly-changing Schwerpunkt determined by the latest power to join the alliance. The game can somewhat irreverently be compared to “whack-a-mole”, with the Habsburg player constantly having to change direction to face the latest crisis, with the Danish intervention in 1625, the Swedish intervention in 1630 and the French intervention in 1635 only the largest of these changes. With each of these allied powers situated at another corner of Germany, it is much harder to coordinate forces and ensure a mix of corps to serve as Home Corps for transferred leaders. As such, rather than being able to move first class leaders around to the most-threatened point (as the Habsburg player does), the forces of the Alliance are focused on threatening multiple points at the same time.

One special aspect of this game is the fact that it contains specific mercenary forces, both for the Alliance and the Habsburg player. Mercenary corps belong to the respective Mercenary power, a power without home spaces or capital. Instead, the Mercenary powers use all friendly home spaces and capitals as theirs. The disadvantage is that certain events punish mercenary corps, and additionally that a force composed of more than 50% mercenary corps will be slightly less capable in battle (more on that below). Finally, as there are only a few mercenary leaders, mercenary corps will not often be able to serve as Home Corps. Thematically, these mercenary corps are not the only mercenaries engaged in the war – most of the regular corps also represent mercenary forces. However, the mercenary corps represent truly independent forces such as those commanded by Wallenstein or von Mansfeld, more similar to the condottieri of yore than the regular, national armies of times to come.

Grant: What area of Germany does the map cover?

Kris: “All of it”.

The conflict, while originally a War of Religion, is mostly about who rules the Holy Roman Empire – its princes, or the Emperor (with the Protestant princes not only fighting for Protestantism, but also and predominantly for their independence). For this reason the map shows the entirety of the Holy Roman Empire (including those areas now in Italy, the Netherlands, France, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, and Belgium). In addition, the Netherlands are represented (still occupied with its own religiously-laden war of independence with Spain), as well as some border territories of France and some portions of Switzerland (still nominally a part of the Holy Roman Empire until the Treaty of Westphalia).  

Grant: What key strategic areas need to be considered by the players in how they go about their campaigns? What pinch points does geography create?

Kris: Contrary to other games within the series, each space on the map is fortified. Germany was at this time a patchwork of small principalities, each of which had armed forces and fortified spaces (however inadequate). There are no easy conquests on the map.

A very important rule in the game is the “Spanish Road” rule. Spain was embroiled in a long-lasting conflict in the Spanish Netherlands, and needed a route to transport its armies from its Italian possessions overland to present-day Belgium. This requirement is in the game represented by a contiguous line of adjacent, Habsburg-controlled spaces (preferably containing Chur) from Milan to Brussels, and maintaining it (or breaking it) is a very important strategic target during gameplay. This rule also quite nicely provides a desire for the Habsburg player to swiftly occupy the Palatinate (as they historically did) and for the Swedish player to set out to occupy the Rhineland and take Mainz.

Speaking about Mainz, one Event card will turn Mainz into a second Swedish capital and Home Space while Alliance-controlled. As rebuilt or reinforcing corps can only be placed in Home Spaces, this is a very important and valuable position. Stralsund, likewise, serves as an additional space for Swedish reinforcements to be placed.

Each power has at least one capital and capitals are the origin of lines of communication and are needed to restore or rebuild corps. As such, each capital is an important strategic target. 

The Milan – Turin area serves as an important pinch point, with a Spanish breakthrough on this front allowing the Habsburg player to conquer Savoy and invade France, providing a shortened Spanish Road. Alternatively, a French breakthrough and conquest of Milan will break any possible Spanish Road.

The Dutch Republic consists of only two spaces, and defending this will take some effort from the Alliance player (and its defence will mainly consist of opening too many alternative fronts for the Habsburg player to be able to expend resources on the Dutch fight). Breda is the gateway to Amsterdam, and its loss will open the road to knocking the Dutch Republic out of the war. Habsburg control over Amsterdam, on the other hand, voids the requirement for a Spanish Road to exist at all, as the Eighty Years’ War would be over by that point!

While there are other important areas and pinch points, the main objective of the game was also to show how open Germany was to warfare from all directions. Unlike other games in the NPWS Series, there are no easy positions to station a killer stack of leaders and corps, allowing you to intercept any invading force. There will always be movement options. There is also no stacking limit distinction inherent to the map – each space can stack the same amount of corps, namely twelve (for more on this, see below).

Grant: What different values do regions have and what are their unique benefits when controlled? What do the various colors of the spaces represent?

Kris: The map is divided in several powers, with their own Home Spaces (indicated by their power color). Ignoring Sweden and Transylvania, who do not have Home Spaces and only a home box, the following powers are represented in NPf30Y: France, Spain (including its Italian, Burgundian, and Netherlands possessions), Austria (the Austrian Habsburg hereditary lands), Bohemia, the Dutch Republic, Denmark, the Catholic League, and finally the Holy Roman Empire. Additionally, there are several neutral spaces.

The Holy Roman Empire spaces are a bit special in that they serve as Home Spaces of the Protestant Union power while Alliance-controlled, and as Home Spaces of the Austrian Habsburgs while Habsburg-controlled. The Holy Roman Empire itself is not a power. 

All spaces are fortified, with all fortress strengths being either one or two. As usual, most spaces are worth VP equal to their fortress strength, with some spaces being worth additional VP (usually the capitals of powers or the capitals of lesser principalities subsumed into larger powers e.g. Berlin, Dresden). 

Grant: What are the Alliance-only Strategic Connections?

Kris: A typical recurring phenomenon in NPWS games are Alliance-only Strategic Connections. The game uses a point-to-point map with regular connections, but some connections are considered “strategic”. Generally, the rules restrict such strategic connections to one side only, at an increased cost of using them compared to regular connections.

In this game, these strategic connections were added for multiple reasons.

For the sake of simplification, there are no naval rules in the game (as only very limited naval conflict occurred, with all of the fought-over territories being connected by land and the Habsburg player being very limited in their naval power in the North Sea and Baltics). For this reason, the Baltic Sea transport of Swedish and Danish troops is conducted via the use of strategic connections.

Neither Transylvania nor heartland France were ever seriously threatened as a result of the Thirty Years’ War, and as such I prevented any infeasible or ahistorical “sweeps” through these lands by transforming them into single-box spaces connected with Alliance-only strategic connections. 

France, Transylvania, Denmark and Sweden are “safe havens” for the Alliance player where defeated and demoralised armies can rest and recuperate, meanwhile giving the Habsburg player the agonising choice between keeping an army nearby to mask such a recuperating force, or move away and leave their territories open for a renewed offensive. The same does not count for the capitals and bases of the Habsburg powers, which are at all times vulnerable and need to be defended. 

The final strategic connection is the route between Montbéliard and Chur. While the Swiss cantons attempted to remain neutral within the war, the Grison cantons were crucial to the Spanish Road and were at various times occupied by either France or Spain. The rest of Switzerland could remain neutral, but occasionally allowed the passage of French armies into Chur. 

Grant: Why was a point to point movement system best for your design vision for the subject?

Kris: Even prior to the decision to base this game on the NPWS framework, I was using a point to point movement system. As mentioned earlier in this interview, early modern warfare was all about slow marches from region to region (preferably following rivers which allowed for supply – hence the use of linear connections rather than unrestricted movement via a hex system), eating out these lands before moving on while occasionally besieging, plundering or ransoming cities.

As a quick aside, the game originally had multiple methods of treating spaces (via foraging, Brandschatzung, or sieging) depending on the actions and decisions of the active and inactive player. However, these could and are in the end all represented through the same siege mechanic the game has in common with the other NPWS games. In effect, foraging or Brandschatzung (the ransoming of cities, where money was paid by cities in exchange for enemy armies marching further and ignoring the city) would usually only occur where the local authorities had no armies (which means in game terms no garrison and thus an easy siege). At the same time, when a garrison was present, no such activities were possible and a long siege would be required to take possession of the land.

Grant: What is a sacked marker and how does this affect the game?

Kris: One of the events of the Thirty Years’ War was the Sack of Magdeburg, one of the worst massacres of the entire war. From the start of the design (even in the 6-player version), a mechanic to sack cities, offering a short-term reward while making the space less appealing to your opponent to reconquer and also making it less valuable for yourself in the long run, was an almost obligatory addition to the ruleset.

Generally, at the end of a siege in a NPWS game, the garrison (if any) is given honours of war and the space switches sides.

In NPf30Y, the besieging player has two options when ending a siege. Either they do as above, or they decide to sack the city instead. Such a sacking has the following effects: the garrison is not given honours of war but eliminated instead, the besieging player will gain one additional resource during the following turn, and a sack marker is placed on the city (or flipped to its x2 side if already sacked once before during the game – no place can be sacked more than twice as everything of value will be gone by then). At the end of the game, spaces containing sack marker(s) are worth -1 VP. Important: this -1 VP is only counted when the game is ended at the final turn, not when the game is ended through automatic victory!

Sacking a city gives you a short-term reward (the combination of gaining one resource while potentially costing your opponent one resource through the elimination of the garrison). It also makes the space less valuable for either player through the -1 VP penalty. This exactly fulfils the design intent.

To compensate for the loss of value (in the case of pinch points which a player simply needs to conquer in order to have movement options), besieging a space becomes easier when a sack marker is present (representing the reduction of populace and thus defenders, the weakened state of fortifications, etc.). 

Sack markers, once placed, are never removed!

Remember how I mentioned earlier that Germany was very open, that there were almost no choke points, and that stacking is uniform across the map? Well, that statement is only valid at the start of the game. Each space with a sack marker has its stacking limit reduced by 4 (by 8 instead if sacked x2). This can truly devastate a region, making it unappealing (or even impossible) to campaign or manoeuvre in it with larger armies. This has the double effect of (early in the game) the action moving from one region to another, less devastated one while also (later in the game, when all of the map might well be devastated) reducing the size of campaigning armies to only the size that can still be supported by the wasteland. 

A final word on sacking is the following: notice how the effect is better when the opponent had a garrison in the besieged space? The possibility of a space being sacked historically was much larger when the siege had lasted for a long time, as prolonged resistance was often punished harshly – and mechanically, the presence of a garrison will make a siege last longer.

Grant: What is the anatomy of the counters? 

Kris: The game does not distinguish between cavalry, infantry or artillery, but only uses “corps” counters representing mixed, all-arms units. As such, corps counters are two-step counters with 1 strength on their front side and ½ strength on their reverse side. This is obviously a simplification but given the relative high-level-simulation a meaningful one.

Grant: What is the role of Leader Counters? What is different between named and minor Leaders?

Kris: Most game actions can only be performed by a “Force” – the combination of several corps and one or more leaders. Leaders determine the amount of corps that can be activated during an action (the sum of the command rating of the two best leaders in a space) and provide bonuses in battle / siege / avoid battle / intercept equal to their tactical rating.

Each leader has a named leader on its front side, and a minor leader on the reverse side to replace them when eliminated. Named leaders are generally better than their minor replacement, but can be captured or eliminated.

Grant: How can Leaders be Promoted? How do they change after Promotion?

Kris: Leaders enter the game (via setup or reinforcement) either on their named or minor leader side. At certain turns, certain leaders become promoted (flipping from their minor leader to their named leader side). 

As mentioned above, in this game (far more than other games) this can lead to a major shift in the axis of offence. For example, to simulate the 1635 French intervention into the war, when the minor war effort of France mainly aimed at Italy turned into the Franco-Spanish war fought in the Spanish Netherlands, several minor leaders will be promoted to French leaders during that (and subsequent) turns. Similarly, the Protestant union minor leaders will disappear to provide leaders for the Swedish intervention. 

These are the front and reverse sides of the three Swedish leaders. When Banér and Torstensson appear, it is at the cost of losing minor Protestant Union leaders. Gustavus Adolphus, on the other hand, is a reinforcing leader in 1630, who (when eliminated) will be replaced by a Swedish minor leader. This  former simulates the internationalization of the war and the marginalization of the local princes, while the later (increasing the number of leaders in the game) shows the increase of the conflict in magnitude.

Likewise, when Turenne is promoted in 1635, he will replace the sole Transylvanian leader, and when Condé is promoted in 1643 he will replace the sole Bohemian leader. Both simulate the lessening of Transylvanian and Bohemian rebellion and the shift towards French intervention.

Grant: What types of cards are available in the game?

Kris: Like all NPWS games, the game comes with two types of cards, Event cards and Action cards.

Grant: What is the anatomy of these cards? Can you show us a few examples and explain their use?

Kris: Event cards are drawn at the start of each turn (with the exception of the first turn of each scenario), one per player. Some Event cards can remain in a player’s hand indefinitely, but most Event cards are played immediately after which their effect is resolved. Some Event cards have a long-term effect, while others are one-and-done.

Event cards come in different decks, with each deck being added to the current Event Deck at certain stages of the war (1625 Danish Intervention, 1630 Swedish Intervention, 1635 French Intervention and finally 1643 the Final phase of the war).

The Winter King Event card is an event belonging to the 1618 starting Event deck. When drawn, it will immediately take effect, with the alliance player gaining 2 VP as long as Prague is currently Alliance controlled and unbesieged.

The Command Dispute Event card is an event belonging to the 1625 Event Deck. When drawn, the player drawing the card may retain it in their hand until they want to play it. This particular event affects battle resolution.

Finally, the Maximilian von Trauttmansdorff Event card is a card from the 1643 deck. Like the Winter King card it will immediately take effect, but the red border around the card indicates its effect is for long term (in this case, for the rest of the game).

Action cards are drawn during the strategy phase (generally five per player) and provide action points. In other NPWS games, action cards range from 1-3, with no further text. In order to mitigate the risk of one player consistently drawing higher value cards, in NPf30Y I added detrimental text on all the “3”-value cards while adding beneficial text on all the “1”-value cards. It is up to the player to mitigate the “3”-value penalties, and to use the “1”-value bonuses as best as possible. The Action Card Deck contains 2 copies of 4 different “3”-value cards, 2 copies of 4 different “1”-value cards, and 16 copies of the same, no-text “2”-value card.

Grant: What is the general Sequence of Play?

Kris: Once again, there are no wild changes here from the general NPWS Sequence of Play. A turn begins with the Event Card Phase, which involves drawing Event Cards and executing mandatory diplomatic events (usually the entering of another power into the war). Play progresses to the Reinforcement Phase, where resource points are acquired and spent, reinforcements are placed, and leaders are promoted and/or transferred. The Campaign Phase is next, which is the main part of the game. Players receive and play Action Cards, taking campaign actions in order to move leaders and besiege spaces. Finally, during the Winter Quarters Phase the game is “reset” for the next turn, with unfinished sieges being abandoned, temporary markers being removed, the Spanish Road is checked, and the turn marker is advanced after an automatic victory check.

Grant: What are Lines of Communication? How do they affect supply?

Kris: A Line of Communication is a contiguous series of friendly-controlled spaces from a supply consumer (i.e. any force, corps or leader) to a supply source (a capital of a friendly power). A LOC to any friendly capital is sufficient for the purposes of sieges; a LOC to a matching capital is required for building or restoring corps. A LOC can be threatened; this means at least one space along the Line is currently enemy-occupied. A threatened LOC is still a valid LOC, but if it is the only LOC for a besieging force, that force will receive a penalty on its siege rolls.

Grant: How are Resource Points acquired? What are they used for?

Kris: Due to the nature of the conflict, with its many powers and especially with the varying intensity of a power’s contribution (mainly Spain and France, who were also at war in different theatres), I realized early on that I needed more than the regular “one resource amount” per player. 

NPf30Y has a grand total of seven Resource points, three for the Habsburg player (Regular, Mercenary, and Spanish) and four for the Alliance player (Regular, Mercenary, Dutch, and French). 

When a power with a Resource marker (i.e. Spain, Dutch Republic, France) joins a side (due to a Mandatory Diplomatic Event), it will provide one (or more) Resource Point per turn. These points may only be used for that particular power, unless that power is fully built in which case they count as Regular resource points. 

Both sides receive a fixed amount of Regular and Mercenary Resource Points each turn. Regular points can be used for any power, while Mercenary points are limited to the Mercenary power. Additionally, whenever a player places (or flips) a Sack marker, they gain one additional Regular Resource Point. All Resource Points generation can be affected by Event card play and further Mandatory Diplomatic events.

The Cardinal Richelieu Event card is a long-term event that increases the Alliance Mercenary Resource Point generation by one per turn.

Grant: How does Battle work in the design?

Kris: There are no ground-breaking changes between Battle in this game versus the other games in the series. Battle resolution still hinges on a bucket-of-dice procedure, with each full-strength corps, pair of reduced-strength corps, and point of Tactical rating providing one die, with dice scoring hits on a 5-6.

Both players take a number of step losses equal to the number of hits rolled by their opponent. The side rolling more hits wins the battle. 

One minor yet relevant difference between the NPWS and NPf30Y is the following: if at least 50% of participating corps on a side belong to the Mercenary power, the amount of battle dice rolled by that side is rounded down. Otherwise, the number of dice is rounded up (which is the default rule from NPWS). Overly relying on Mercenary forces may cost you a single die in battle – but for want of a die many battles have been lost!

Grant: How are Leader Casualties determined?

Kris: For each named leader contributing their Tactical Rating to a battle, the owning player rolls 2d6, eliminating each leader for whom a 12 is rolled. Each leader for whom an 11 is rolled is either wounded and removed for the remainder of the turn (if belonging to the victorious player) or captured (if belonging to the defeated player). Captured leaders are either eliminated or removed for the remainder of the turn at the cost of VP equal to their Tactical Rating (owning player’s choice).

Grant: How are armies Demoralized? What are the effects of Demoralization?

Kris: Any force that is defeated in a battle becomes demoralized. Demoralized leaders and corps roll their dice separately from non-demoralized ones, and only roll hits on a 6. Additionally, a demoralized force may not perform interceptions.

Grant: How do Sieges work?

Kris: Whenever a leader (with sufficient corps) is activated while starting a round in an enemy-controlled space, its controlling player may make a Siege roll. The modified roll is then checked with the siege roll table to determine the amount of Siege points achieved. Siege points first reduce fortress level by one level per point, before affecting the garrison (with each siege point inflicting one step loss). When the final fortress strength (if not garrisoned) or garrison step (if a garrison corps is present, with one corps being the maximum garrison size) is lost, the space changes control (and as mentioned above, the besieging player chooses to give honours of war or to sack the space).

Grant: How is victory in the game determined? Which side seems to have the greater challenge in reaching victory?

Kris: Players can win an automatic victory by reaching the end of the Victory Point Track at the end of any turn. Alternatively, at the end of the final turn of a scenario the current VP level is compared with the Victory table and a winner is determined (or the game may be a draw).

There are various ways of gaining VP, but the most common VP gain will be finishing sieges and gaining control over enemy spaces. Alternative ways of gaining VP are winning Famous victories (any battle victory in which you inflicted at least 5 hits on your opponent) and successfully denying the Spanish Road to the Habsburg player.

The Peace Talks mechanic allows (on turns where it is permitted) to spend a variable amount of VP to make a Peace roll (the VP is lost regardless of the result of the roll). As a result of the roll, it is possible that the current turn counts as the final turn of the scenario.

The first scenario has the Habsburg player start off a little weaker than the Alliance but grow much stronger towards the end of it – as such, the victory condition for the Habsburg player is harder to achieve. The second scenario has the Alliance player start off strong and retain that strength (but again, having a harder time to achieve victory condition). Overall, the first scenario is either player’s game. The second scenario (and the campaign game) favours the Alliance player if it goes to the full length, but the Peace talks mechanic can balance that towards the Habsburg player.

Grant: What are some basic strategies for both the Habsburgs and Anti-Habsburg Alliance?

Kris: As the Habsburg player, the first thing in the early scenario you want to do is end the Bohemian revolt, either by crushing the Alliance army there or taking Prague. Watch out, as early on these forces outnumber you. Retain control over Vienna and wait for the Catholic League to reinforce you in 1620, then march on Prague – without its capital the Bohemian corps won’t have a LOC and will not be rebuilt. As soon as Spain joins the fray, focus on obtaining and then protecting the Spanish Road, while attempting to take first Breda and then Amsterdam. Attempt to block at least two fronts (preferably Bohemia/Transylvania and Italy) while focusing your resources (and resource points!) on the main German and Dutch Republic fronts. If you can weather the first couple of turns, you are (much) stronger than the Alliance, and should be able to hold any spaces you want while achieving gains elsewhere. 

In the second scenario, the Habsburg player starts off on the wrong foot. A large Alliance army threatens the north while most Habsburg forces are deployed in the south. The Habsburg player must choose here: redeploy towards the North aiming to contain Gustavus Adolphus (by inflicting sufficient losses on the Swedish army that the Alliance player can’t continue leveraging their better leaders) or remain in the South and conquer Savoy. The events will eventually wear down even the best Habsburg player, so aim for ending the game via early Peace talks before you lose too many VPs.

As the Alliance player, regardless of scenario, make the most of what you have when you have it – as the war continues, different armies, forces and leaders will become available to threaten different fronts. Do so. The Habsburg player prefers to put up roadblocks everywhere but their chosen front of advance; even if you cannot face him there, by attacking elsewhere you might divert his attention from his own objectives to yours.

Generic advice: as always, try to conquer any lightly-defended capital you can. Even one turn of denying restoration of corps to a power might cripple that power sufficiently that it cannot regain its capital for the remainder of the game. Avoid enemy armies unless you outnumber them, and attempt to siege ungarrisoned spaces while garrisoning the spaces you expect your opponent to siege.

Grant: What changes have come about through play testing?

Kris: Once again, I can mostly point at Don Herndon for making a great system. I changed little to the mechanics and as such there were no massive changes anywhere triggered by playtesting. Instead, playtesting was all about 1) balancing the scenarios both in setup and victory conditions, 2) proofing and 3) ensuring everything was as clear as possible. My playtesting teams (both on- and offline) did excellent work there and I am very grateful for their support.

Grant: What do you feel the game design excels at?

Kris: I think it really captures the essence of the subject material, in a game playable in a single evening, or two evenings if playing the campaign game. It utilizes a simple (but not simplistic !) game engine to simulate an entirely new historical situation, and does it well (a testament to that engine’s robustness). There are always too many options, too many fires to extinguish, and a player has to carefully husband their resources and actions to spend them in the exact right spots. One of my playtesters said there was always too much to do, and too little to do it with, and that was what I was going for.

Thanks so much for your time in answering our questions Kris. We appreciate your great answers and the way that you always approach the history of these games. I am very much looking forward to this game and can’t wait to get it to the table. I am keenly interested and truly do enjoy these Wars of Religion type of games.

If you are interested in No Peace for Thirty Years!: The German Wars of Religion 1618-1648, you can pre-order a copy for $56.00 from the Compass Games website at the following link: https://www.compassgames.com/product/no-peace-for-thirty-years-pay-later/

-Grant