General Philosophy for
An Empire in Arms

This is an early version of a discussion of the general philosophy I suggest should be followed in an implementation of the Thirty Years' War using the Empires in Arms system. Some day it may contribute to the development of a scenario along with design commentary. My web page also provides access to further Empires in Arms material.

This is an attempt at writing down some of the general philosophy that I think a campaign of this kind should follow. I'd appreciate comments.

What we don't use

Some Empires in Arms concepts I doubt will be useful include:

Players

My initial concept is that one player would play the Habsburgs. Everyone else would be generic non-Habsburg players, not tied down to any particular country as of the start of the game. During play countries would become available as they decided to enter the war. Occasionally they may enter on the side of the Habsburgs, but more frequently they would enter against them. They would certainly be played by a non-Habsburg player in the second case, and might be in the first too, if I could work out the mechanics for it. The various non-Habsburg players bid for countries, I guess.

Habsburgs

The Habsburg powers are initially Castile (including Flanders, Peru, etc.) and Austria (including the Milanese). There are also inactive Habsburg powers that may later enter the war: either as Habsburg allies or, more likely, to gain their independence from the Habsburgs. These are Aragon (including the Two Sicilies and Tuscany?), Portugal (including Brazil), Catalonia and Lorraine.

Non-Habsburgs

The following start at war with the Habsburgs: Palatinate (includes the 1805 "Rhenish" Palatinate, Upper Palatinate which is part of Bavaria in 1805, and Bohemia), Transylvania?, Holland?.

The following historically intervened later or were close enough to merit inclusion as a counterfactual: Denmark, Sweden, France, England, Baden, Bavaria, Saxony, Brandenburg, Savoy, Mantua, Poland, Hesse, Venetia, Wuerttemberg. Actually, most of the German states described above were split into pieces in this period (e.g. "Baden-Durlach", the part of Baden containing, and having its capital at, Durlach, as opposed to "Baden-Baden", the part of Baden that actually contains the city of Baden). I don't know if we want to address this or not. I suspect the different parts of a state would be relatives and hence allies more often than not, so a single-state model may be acceptable.

Some other candidates that would be needed to address wars either peripheral or largely irrelevant to the Thirty Years' War include factions within England (Crown, Parliament), factions within France (Crown, Nobility, Parliament), Ireland, Scotland, Russia, Ukraine, perhaps the Ottomans.

The Hanseatic League has a fleet marker for the Baltic and the Habsburgs may want to try to gains its loyalty as a counter to the Danish or Swedish navy. The Protestant Union and the Catholic League are multiple-country organisations that also need to be represented. So do mercenaries like Mansfeld and Wallenstein.

Victory

Something in the style of Britannia, I think. Each power gets victory points for achieving its objectives, subtract the bid for that power. Each player adds up all his powers victory points to get a grand total. The Habsburgs have a separate system, but it might work quite similarly.

Defeat

I was thinking of a morale system very vaguely analogous to that in Fatal Alliances, the Canadian Wargamers Journal's first world war variant for World in Flames. Countries enter with a certain amount of gumption. They lose gumption when they are defeated in battle and/or get their army chopped up, when their territory is occupied, and gradually as the war goes on. They get gumption back for glorious victories. If their gumption drops below a threshold, they may be forced to agree to a peace, and the lower their gumption has dropped the more they will be willing to give up for it.

Span in time

The centre of the game is the Thirty Years' War, so it should start in 1618. The standard game ends when Austria or Castile is knocked out of the war, historically in 1648. The long game ends when both Austria and Castile are knocked out, historically in 1659.

Granularity in time

The system I used in my 1702 scenario seems appropriate here: three months per turn, one year per economic interphase. That means the game should last about as long as a standard game of Empires in Arms.

Span in space

I think the standard game should focus on Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands and northern Italy. An extended version could address, e.g. the English Civil War.

Foraging with extreme prejudice

Rules to describe the deterioration in a country due to soldiers wandering over it. The Swedes are relatively benign. Foraging isn't very easy.

The Holy Roman Empire

I guess we need a voting system, just in case the war goes really badly for Austria and Gustavus Adolfus gets himself elected emperor. Also, votes in the electoral college allow Austria to push through changes to the imperial constitution (e.g. add Bavaria to the college) or reallocate small conquered countries to its allies (e.g. the Upper Palatinate to Bavaria, or Mecklenburg to Wallenstein).

Casus Bellum

I don't think any power can declare war on any other power just for the fun of it. Most will declare war on the possessor of some piece of territory to which they feel they have a claim. For instance: in the first turn of the game, or perhaps in the last turn before the game starts, Austria declares war on the Palatinate. Others will enter in pursuit of religious objectives, or in support of allies.

Religion

Can't discuss the Thirty Years' War without mentioning the Catholic-Lutheran-Calvinist split. But there's a lot of realpolitik going on as well, for instance a catholic cardinal leads France into the war on the protestant side, with the Pope as an ally.

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