In this article I will explain how the economic mechanics work in Baltic Empires – both in terms of how income is generated and how this revenue is then spent. Both of these are handled differently than in many other games, as I wanted something that was simple and clean, but still felt fitting for a game on the fiscally underdeveloped states of early modern Europe and the prevailing mercantilist thinking.

As the previous article described how a Round is conducted in the game, I will not go into detail with this here but only summarize the sequence of a Round with a focus on the economic aspects:

• Income Phase: Where players collect Goods and Thalers from their provinces.
• Maritime Trade Phase: Where players trade with the Maritime Powers to exchange some of their Goods for rare Trade Resources.
• Finances Phase: Where players can borrow money and must also repay loans and pay upkeep for their standing army and fleet.
• Production Phase: Where players spend their Goods and Thalers to invest in infrastructure, attach Dramatis Personae to their court, or raise new military units.
• War Phase: Where players try to use their military units to weaken the economic base of their opponents and conquer territory.
• Hegemony Status Phase: The Hegemony Status is checked and a player may now win an automatic victory.

Income

During the Income Phase each player will collects Goods and Thalers from their provinces. As seen in the picture on the right (playtest art only), each province has a number of Goods icons on them that represents the local production of that province, as well as icons for Cities if the province is also home to substantial urban areas and their associated merchants.

The icons show what is or can be produced in the province, but not necessarily what is generating revenue for you as the ruler. In order to collect income, the player has to have a Workshop on the Goods icon (these are placed in the blue circles next to them so you can still see which type of good it produces for you), or a City on the City icon, representing the monarch either directly owning that resource, or (more often) having the privilege of collecting taxes from that specific rural region, local production center, trade guild etc. In addition to this, provinces in the game are either under “Noble Control” or “Royal Control” with the former representing provinces with a high degree of local autonomy that are only obliged to pay a limited amount of revenue to the king and the central authority. At the start of the game (1558), this is the norm across the region, as the states of the period were fiscally weak and often ruled by elected kings who depended heavily on the nobility. In a province under Noble Control a player cannot collect more than 1 Good and 1 Thaler, regardless of the number of Workshop and City markers that may be present. Newly conquered provinces will usually default to Noble Control (authoritarian Russia being the exception), but during the game a player can impose Royal Control over a province, and thus get full access to the Goods and Thalers generated there. The cost of doing this depends on which power the player is and which Dramatis Personae are attached to their court. 

Maritime Trade

The Maritime trade phase is very simple and quickly conducted. Each player can discard a number of Goods up to their power´s position on the Mercantile Track, and then draw this many Maritime Trade Resources, which tend to be much more useful (as you will see in the Production phase). As a Power´s position on the Mercantile Track mostly depends on the number of Cities it controls, this neatly shows that a Power with many merchant communities will be better able to do business with the Dutch and English merchant ships plying the Baltic region in search of the grain, timber, metals and hemp that is so vital for their empires, and in turn selling rare goods from their colonies such as sugar and spices.

Finances

National debt is also handled in a very quick and simple manner in Baltic Empires. During the Finances phase players can choose to establish a loan and immediately receive 2 Thalers (the currency of the game), which is quite useful as Thalers are otherwise only earned by controlling Cities. The downside is that you have to repay the loan two Rounds later at a cost of 3 Thalers, and if you can’t afford this you will be forced to either sell off royal assets and rights (be removing Workshops and Cities for each Thaler you are short), or declare bankruptcy, which lets you to skip the repayment entirely but will badly affect your standing (by negatively modifying you on the Mercantile, Production, and Military tracks), as well as limiting how many loans you can take in the future. Of course, you can always take out new loans to pay off your old ones, but eventually this kind of financial mismanagement will catch up with you…

During this phase players must also pay upkeep for their military, depending on how many units they currently have on the map. As upkeep for your military must be paid in Thalers rather than Goods, borrowing money can be a necessary way of sustaining your bloated military expenses in the game – just like it was for the rulers historically. And just like in history players can find themselves caught up in a painful spiral of debt, where they feel forced to borrow more money just to repay their old loans. But just like in real life there is a limit as to how many active loans you can have before your creditors refuse to issue any new ones. Each player has a Loan Limit of 0 to 2 depending on which Power they are playing. This limit is increased for each Dramatis Personae you attach to your court, which represents your state becoming more and more developed as notable figures flock to your court, bringing with them foreign financial connections. In the next article we will look at what you can do with all these Goods and Thalers during the Production phase.

Production

The Production phase is one of the major elements of the Round, during which new infrastructure, units, and Dramatis Personae may be purchased. This period of history was characterized by mercantilism, an economic policy which promoted self-sufficiency in natural materials and manufactured goods in in order to minimize imports and maximize exports. As mercantilism is not among the sexiest of game topics and Baltic Empires is meant to be a simple and fun game that is easily taught to new players, I sought to represent this thinking in an abstracted manner.

Each item you can produce during this phase (units, Workshops and Cities, and Dramatis Personae cards) has a cost specified on the players Power Mat. These costs vary from power to power, representing various cultural, political, and economic realities. This cost must be paid in sets of goods with no duplicates of a specific type of goods. So, for example, a Swedish infantry unit costs 3 goods. This could be paid by discarding an Iron, a Copper, and a Timber goods but not by discarding 2 Iron and a Timber.

These simple rules create a dynamic where players actively seek to gain control over provinces producing a wide range of different goods, and makes the Maritime Trade round interesting since it allows you access to goods that are not present on the game map, as well as Thalers. As cash is more flexible than paying in kind. Thalers are used in the game as a “wild card” resource that can be substituted for any goods, which allow you to build the same Swedish infantry unit for 1 Iron and 2 Thalers, or even 3 Thalers if you wanted to. Thus, Thalers make it possible to produce some of the more expensive items that would not otherwise be easy for you to get as they would require a very varied economy, which you might not yet have. But Thalers are rare most of the time, and as noted above are also needed to pay military upkeep, so there are no easy solutions in Baltic Empires.  

Goods and Thalers can also be used to purchase powerful Dramatis Personae cards, which will be the focus of the next article in this series.

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Victory Conditions in Baltic Empires

The Sequence of Play in Baltic Empires