Below you will find Part Two in Brian Asklev’s “The Women of Baltic Empires” two-part article series. In the first part of this article he looked at Marie Louise Gonzaga and and Sophia Alekseyevna and you can read that here. -Rachel
Queen Christina (1626-1689)
Christina became Queen of Sweden as a young child, upon the death of King Gustav II Adolf in 1632, and didn’t rule in her own right until 1644. She was one of the most learned women of the 17th century and her interest in religion, philosophy, mathematics, and alchemy attracted many scientists to Stockholm, which she wanted to become known as the Athens of the North. As part of this ambition, she persuaded scientists and philosophers like Hugo Grotius to become her librarian and René Descartes (who brought an impressive collection of 2000 books) to organize a scientific academy and serve as her tutor. Her financial extravagance caused public unrest, and this combined with the scandal she caused by her decision not to marry and to convert to Catholicism was likely behind her decision to abdicate in 1654, in favor of her cousin Charles X. Following her abdication, she moved to the Vatican where Pope Alexander VII described her as “a queen without a realm, a Christian without a faith and a woman without shame”.
From the very start of the design of Baltic Empires I knew I just had to include Christina as a DP card, as she is such a strong and interesting personality. The only reason her biography is so short is because I had to force myself to write only the mere highlights, as it would otherwise explode in length! I strongly encourage anyone interested in the period to read more about her fascinating life and personality. Despite Christina being one of my favorite characters of the period, I actually struggled for a long time with HOW to include her, as all her traits seemed to fall outside the focus and scope of the game.
The +2 Production bonus that she grants represents Christina´s ambitions to establish her capital as a center of science and learning, while the Alternative Victory Condition is more of an abstract representation of the imperial ambitions and policy goals within Swedish society in the period of her reign, than anything directly related to Christina. Alternative Victory Conditions can be a huge game-changer in Baltic Empires, as they can cause massive changes of strategy as a player suddenly begins to pursue a different plan, and they can be a real life saver for a player who finds their normal National Ambition blocked by their opponents. Some of the DP cards that give you Alternative Victory Conditions replace your standard National Ambition, as is the case for Christina, while others simply give you an additional Victory Condition. The Provinces in, or adjacent to, Hanover are mostly independent at the start of the game and are among the richest and most developed. This part of the map is within relatively easy reach of Denmark, Sweden and Prussia and will thus likely attract these players’ attention during most games. As the order DP cards appear in during play is totally random (and some might never appear at all) players should never, as a strategy, rely on getting a specific Alternative Victory Condition, but must instead make a quick judgement call on whether or not the victory condition is feasible or not when it pops up (or if you need to get it in order to prevent one of your opponents from getting it).
Hedwig Eleonora (1636 –1715)
Hedwig Eleonora was the daughter of the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. Queen Christina passed through Holstein on her way to Rome after her abdication and suggested a marriage between her cousin, Charles X of Sweden, and Hedwig, which was quickly accepted by the Duke, even though Hedwig was already engaged to Gustav Adolph of Mecklenburg. After the death of Charles X she served as regent during the minority of her son, King Charles XI, from 1660 until 1672, and again during the minority of her grandson, King Charles XII, in 1697 and during his absence in the Great Northern War from 1700 until the regency of her granddaughter Ulrika Eleonora in 1713. Hedwig Eleonora was a dominant personality and was regarded as the de facto first lady of the Swedish royal court for 61 years, from 1654 until her death. She was popular at court for her humor and fondness of parties, and had a great interest in gambling. Her position would cement the strong relations between the houses of the Swedish monarchy and Holstein-Gottorp (nominally a Danish vassal) for generations, and ensured that Holstein-Gottorp would be a thorn in the Danish side in all its wars with Sweden.
In Baltic Empires, the effect of getting Hedwig Eleonora in your court represents her long-lasting links to the house of Holstein-Gottorp. In game term she is less scripted and can represent dynastic links between your royal house and any of minor principalities of Germany. The ability to hold this card in your Court and activate its effect later, when it suits you best, shows the advantage of carefully cultivated dynastic links as opposed to purely opportunistic shifts of allegiance. There is another DP card in the game (“The Radziwill Cousins”) with partially similar effects that represents powerful nobles opportunistically switching sides, and unlike this one that card must be activated immediately.
Activating her effect represents either an independent prince or a prince who is under nominal control of another power declaring his open support and alliance with you. The latter case is what historically happened with Holstein-Gottorp (part of the Hamburg province in Baltic Empires, and then under Danish noble control), and cannot happen if the province is under Royal Control, as the local nobility would thus have forfeited their rights to maintain personal armies and conduct independent relations to other powers. As the mere threat of you activating her effect is something your opponents must keep in mind whenever they are negotiating or fighting with you, Hedwig Eleonora can be a quite useful addition to your Court even if her effects are never activated.
Countess Maria Aurora von Königsmarck (1662–1728)
Maria Aurora was a Swedish/German noblewoman, originally from Stade in northern Germany. In Sweden, she and her sister Amalia were among the most known participants in the amateur theatre of the royal court, which had the patronage of the queen. In 1684, she participated in the Swedish premier of “Iphigénie en Aulide” by Racine. This is regarded as a significant event as both the first play performed by an all-female cast in Sweden, and an introduction of French Classicism in Sweden. She was described by Voltaire as “the most famous woman of two centuries”. In the 1690s she spent years in Germany, where she attracted attention both through her beauty and her talents, and where she met August the Strong, the elector of Saxony and future king of Poland. She became his first official mistress and two years later gave birth to his son, Maurice de Saxe, a future Marshall General of France. However, the Elector quickly tired of Aurora, who was then appointed to the prestigious position of Princess-Abbess of the Quedlinburg Abbey. In 1702, during the Great Northern War, the Elector, now also King of Poland, sent her on a critical diplomatic mission. Aurora was to use her beauty and charm to arrange peace between himself and the (famously unmarried) Charles XII of Sweden. However, even Aurora was unable to impress Charles, and on one of her attempts to seduce him she tried to meet him on his usual horse stroll, but when he saw her, he galloped away. After this episode she told everyone that she was the only enemy the great King Charles ever ran away from.
In Baltic Empires, Aurora von Königsmarck is the classic, almost stereotypical, mistress event, where a woman is sent to use her beauty and charm to distract and ensnare an opponent and cause a dramatic shift of allegiance. Since physical attraction and love are not really an exact science, this is not the most predictable basis for your foreign policy, and thus this DP card´s effect is dependent on a die roll. It is in fact the only card in Baltic Empires where the element of chance is a factor (beside the timing of when, or if, a certain card is drawn). When recruiting Aurora to your Court there is thus a chance that the target may do as Charles XII did and gallop away, leaving you with a card in your Court that does nothing apart from being there (although the number of DP cards in your does Court increase your ability to establish loans), which would make Aurora von Königsmarck by far the weakest DP card in the game. On the flipside, however, she is among the most powerful cards in the game when Cupid´s arrows strike their target. There are other DP cards in the game that can remove a card from an opponent´s court, but none like Aurora von Königsmarck that allow you to steal a card to your own court, and thus get two DP cards at the price of one while also upsetting the strategy of one of your opponents. Königsmarck´s ability is all the more powerful as most slots in your Court also have conditions that must be fulfilled before you can put a DP card there. So whenever the charming and beautiful Auroa von Königsmarck is drawn you can be sure that she will grab the attention of the players and be the focus of much table talk leading up to the Production Phase.
We hope you enjoyed this tour of some of the women of Baltic Empires, and next time we will be introducing the Dramatis Personae cards representing foreign interventions by countries beyond the borders of the game map.
Previous Article: The Women of Baltic Empires: Part One
Author: Brian Asklev
