Cuius Regio is an operational level wargame depicting the military activities of the Thirty Years War.  This is a summary of activity in the first two turns of a Campaign game from one of our teaching games with our playtest group.  While this is not a detailed explanation of the rules, but it does provide a description of the flow of the game and the basics of how the game works.

NOTE: The Map art depicted in this article is almost final (pending a few minor corrections), but the counter art is not. This game was played online using Vassal.

Starting off, to win in the Campaign game one side must control the seven Electorate cites of the Holy Roman Empire.  If that doesn’t happen, the player that controls the most Electorate cities and Great Cities wins.  Electorate cities are indicated with a crown over the city symbol, while Great Cities are backed by a shield icon.

The game is played in turns consisting of seven phases: the Initiative Phase, the Leader Deployment Phase, the Recruitment Phase, the Operations Phase, the Victory Check Phase, the Diplomatic Phase and the Maintenance Phase.  The main action occurs during the Operations Phase when the players alternate taking turns preforming actions or passing until both players pass in succession.

The Campaign game starts with the Operations Phase, although all other turns will be preceded by the Initiative, Leader Deployment and Recruitment Phases.

This is the starting position of the armies in the game. The red circles are where most of the action of the turns played took place during this example of play.

The Protestants hold the Initiative on the first turn but chose to pass the first activation to the Imperials.

The Imperials activate Tilly, in Passau and Tilly rolled to determine the extent of his army’s movement. The movement roll was not very good, but Tilly’s army was able to reach Amberg in an attempt to attack Anhalt’s army.

NOTE: Each army has a fixed number of Movement Points (MP) which is modified by several factors including the size of the army, its accumulated Fatigue and the leadership rating of the highest-ranking Leader with the army.

As soon as Tilly entered Anhalt’s ZOC, Anhalt had the opportunity to conduct a reaction move.  Anhalt succeeded in his reaction move and chose to move and avoid battle.

Tilly’s army then took Amberg, pillaging it, and its activation ended.

NOTE: In this system the composition of an army determines how easily it can capture a city.  In this case, Tilly’s army was large enough and had an artillery train which made it possible to take Amberg automatically by entering the hex.

Next the Protestants activated Anhalt and moved his army to Frankenthal. Tilly’s army could have reacted as Anhalt was left its ZOC, but choose not to pursue. Anhalt’s army pretty quickly, moving through neutral cities, and along the road to speed its movement.

This action changed the focus of the campaign and, in the Imperials activation the player chose to activate Dampierre located in Pressburg in an attempt to take Krems.  Dampierre as a lieutenant, not a full Marshal, is entitled to a maximum of three activations during an operations phase.

Dampierre’s army moved to Krems but because it didn’t have an Artillery train, it couldn’t take Krems automatically and failed in its attempt.  During the next Imperial activations, the player tried again to take Krems with Dampierre, but failed again.  He then decided to spend Dampierre’s last possible activation to go back to Pressburg.

NOTE: There are two types of leaders in Cuius Regio – Marshals and Lieutenants. Marshals can be activated until they reach Fatigue level 5. Lieutenants can move freely with Marshals but players can move Lieutenants independently only three times during an Operations Phase.

This example shows where Dampierre ended after his attempt to take Krems.  As can be seen he has accumulated 3 Fatigues – one per activation.

NOTE: Each time an army is activated its Fatigue level will increase at least one level. Fatigue is accumulated by activating, by moving through hills, and as the result of battle. Fatigue affects movement, leadership checks (such as the one required to take a city when it’s not automatic) and outcome of battle. A highly fatigued army is almost useless, and can be easy prey for fresh armies.

At this point, both players consecutively passed, ending the activations during the Operations Phase. This was followed by the Supply Step in which both sides were able to maintain the armies at their full strength, although Tilly had to sack Amberg to get enough supplies to do so.

The Operations Phase was followed by the Victory Check Phase, the Diplomatic Phase, and a Maintenance Phase.   During the Diplomatic Phase the two sides attempted to activate additional provinces to their cause but in this case neither was successful.

Thus ended the 1618 turn.

1619, turn 2, began with the mustering and placing of Leaders. First the players deployed a set number of Marshalls, and then decided how many Lieutenants they wanted to place.  Lieutanants are bought with Political Points, an abstract measure used in the game used to track strategic factors affecting the operational situation.  The Imperial player chose Spínola and Tilly as Marshals, and selected Bucquoy as a Lieutenant (using a Political Point to do so). Protestants chose Mansfeld, Nassau, and Hohenlohe as Marshals and chose not to purchase Lieutenants.

Then both sides raised reinforcements from Provinces they controlled, and paid for Mercenaries and Artillery trains using Political Points.

NOTE: Political Points are an abstraction representing economic resources, political and religious influence, and assistance from allies. They are gained when losing important cities, (which reflects foreign allies being incentivized to send help to prevent collapse) and for the control of Electorates and Great Cities.

Again, the Protestants started the turn with initiative and chose to pass the first activation to the Imperials.

As part of the deployment and recruitment phases, Spínola arrived with a Spanish army, and in the first imperial activation took Köln (a neutral city).  Capturing a neutral city triggers an invasion of the province in which it is located, in this case Westphalia, Spinola then continued on to take Mainz. This provided the Protestants with six Political Points because two Great Cities fell to the Imperials, and the invasion of Westphalia will cause the province to be activated as Protestant during the upcoming Diplomatic Phase later in the turn.  Here is it useful to note that players can move through neutral cities and provinces without activating the province, but if they attack or end a turn in a neutral city, it will cause the province to declare for the other side. Still, it is sometimes necessary or advantageous to take neutral cities.

Protestants passed again, and Imperials then chose to activate Tilly, in order to bring him closer to Frankenthal, with the ultimate goal of joining Spínola in an assault on the city.

In response, the Protestants activated Mansfeld and it tried to attack Tilly, but Tilly reacted and was able to move out of Mansfeld’s reach.

This was followed by an activation of Spínola who moved to join Tilly’s army. When Spinola reached Tilly he chose to merge the two armies and the Fatigue level of the combined army became the higher army’s fatigue level (Friendly armies can move through each other and pick up or drop off forces from other friendly armies during an activation,, however if they end an activation in the same hex they automatically combine). Spínola wanted to continue on to attack Frankenthal, but he did not have sufficient movement points to do so in this activation.

The Protestant player then activated Mansfeld, marched around Spínola’s army and seized Mainz.

With the changing situation, the Imperial player decided to activate Spínola again, but instead of attacking Frankenthal, since the city now seemed too hard to take as planned, moved to attack Mansfeld in Mainz. Mansfeld chose to accepted combat and chose not to react, which allowed Spínola to close for battle.

NOTE: Battles are decided by both sides taking into account the Leader level of the best leader in the army, the size of the armies, the Fatigue of the armies (which acts a negative modifier), and the presence of Artillery Trains. The defender also receives a defensive terrain modifier, if applicable. The net modifiers are calculated and applied to a die roll which is compared to the battle results table to determine the outcome of the battle.

The result of this battle was favourable to Spínola, causing Mansfeld to rout.  In addition to battle losses, routs cause retreats, can cause increased fatigue, and can potentially result in the loss of Artillery Trains.  Luckily for Mansfeld, he was able save his artillery during the retreat.

If a player wins a battle and has movement points remaining, they can continue to move the active army.  Spínola has some points left and decided to split his army leaving Tilly in Mainz and moving with the rest of the army to Köln.

Mansfeld, licking his wounds, activated and moved to Heidelberg, for defence and supplies in the upcoming supply step.

At this point, deciding not to activate armies near Vienna or Prague, both players passed consecutively, ending the activation step of the Operations Phase.

Moving to the Supply step, the players find that Tilly’s army lost 75% of the strength because the army was located in a sacked city (Mainz) and in the ZOC of Nassau’s army (armies with cavalry project a ZOC out two hexes). It is interesting to note that the Imperial armies lost more strength point during this turn due to supply than battle.

After the Supply step, both players were again unable to activate Provinces during the Diplomatic Phase.  At the end of the turn, we wrapped up our practice game, concluding that despite Imperial success in battle the Protestants still retained a slight advantage as they had lost fewer troops during the turn and that they still controlled several key cities. 

We hope that this description gives you a bit of an idea of the flow of the game, and the give and take nature of the conflict.  

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