As stated before, the winter is a special turn, in which all have to supply their people with corn (of previous harvests). Famine lets people revolt and a player might loose part of his estates. At the end of each year all players are evaluated by the number of countries and buildings they possess. There are additional victory points for the majority of buildings of the same kind in one princedom (i.e. for the most palaces in "Kurpfalz" (3 P) or the most churches in "Bayern" (2 P)). So buildings become only important for the scoring during winter turn.

When a player's action is corn or gold collection, the people of that district become angry and possibly can initiate a revolt. So if the taxes or supplies are collected, a unrest marker comes on that country. The more unrest markers are in a land the likelier a revolt will occur.

In order to extend the borders of his princedom and increase his influence in Germany (and to win the game...) players can fight each other or against "vacant" countries. This leads us to the clue of the game: The Battle Tower. It consists of twisted slots and obstacles inside and all involved armies of the two combating opponents are thrown into the "dungeonous" tower. Those armies that fall out of the tower determine the result of the fight, but part of the initial load might stay inside the tower and influence the result of the following battles. There are peasant armies in Germany which either aid the defender or stay neutral. In case of a revolt peasants are even the attackers. The influence of the peasant armies in battles between two players is hardly predictable. It can also happen that a player receives more armies from the tower than he has put in for this fight, this depends on the number of armies he put into the tower in previous fights. If peasant armies are on the defender's side, they can be considered for damage first before one's own troops. The Battle Tower is a funny element and brings much more tension than rolling dices or counting armies and adding a bonus.

Evaluation:

Wallenstein lines up in the gallery of Queen Games' strategic and tactical boardgames. In the past these games sometimes lack of atmosphere despite their historical or whatever background. But Wallenstein is different, it is not just moving wooden tokens over a map and playing tactical cards. Wallenstein combines several elements, military actions, the question of supply and maintenance and finally the possibility to establish dominances (palaces, churchs, ...). One always has to consider all three things and find each turn a balance of interests. One cannot fight other leaders and conquer their countries without solving the question of supply and maintenance of the little empire. Additionally there will be no reliable dominance of palaces, churches or merchant halls, if the boundaries of the territory are open to enemies, who are leering at the easy to take buildings. I especially enjoy the planning and activity phase, when you have to build up your strategy and consider the possible movements and actions of your opponents, but more than once the order of the face down action cards unveil a surprise. Also the battle tower is a nice substitution for rolling dices or playing combat cards. Queen Games has already published a similar game with a battle tower "Im Zeichen des Kreuzes"in 2001. But in that edition the effect of the tower differs slightly and in my opinion in Wallenstein the battle result is better balanced and more tailored to the game: Depending on the unrest state of the country involved, peasant armies falling out of the tower may count for the defender or not.

Now let's come to speak about design issues. The troops are little coloured wooden block tokens, practical but not very nice. This also applies to the map and the cards, the design is simple, effective, but you will not get a vision of delight when opening the box.

The rule booklet is kept quite brief, but while reading you get confused due to frequent cross references. Somehow awkwardly is that the start setting is explained in the middle and on the last page. This means you will read how to play without knowing where and how you start and what your base material is. This is a real disadvantage when you try to explain the game to your friends in the order of the booklet, you cannot demonstrate some moves or explain standard constellations. Quite bothering is that the given start up setting for 3 players is erroneous: one section states that a subset of countries is not considered for 3 players, although some of those appear in the start setting of armies.