How they work and the history behind them.

The victory conditions in Baltic Empires have been constructed to give players multiple paths to victory and to allow for sudden death victories, as it is my experience that this keeps players on their toes and gives a far more exciting game with more intense diplomatic interaction between players. Besides the default victory conditions, players also have the opportunity during play to recruit Dramatis Personae that either replace some of their default victory conditions or offer entirely new ones. In this article I will go through the different victory conditions and explain how they work and what they represent in terms of history.

There are 3 ways of winning a Sudden Death Victory:

The first one is to achieve Cultural Hegemony by being on top of the Mercantile, Production and Military Hegemon Tracks (prototype track pictured to the left). The Hegemon Tracks and how they influence Turn order will be described in detail in the next article in this series, but for victory purposes all you need to know about them is that a Power’s position on each of these tracks is the sum of their controlled infrastructure or units associated with that track (Cities and Customs Houses for the Mercantile Track, Workshops for the Production Track, and units for the Military Track), as well as any modifiers that are specific to that Power, or from Dramatis Personae cards that they may have attached to their Court.

By achieving all three Hegemon positions at once, you have put yourself in a position where you are ahead of the other players financially, economically, and militarily. Such a status would naturally make your power a cultural center and the envy of the other rulers. As such it represents the ultimate goal of every great power in history. A victory of this kind is relatively rare, but it allows for a potentially non-violent way to win, and gives an incentive for the other players to work together to pull down a clear leader.

The second way to win a Sudden Death Victory is by achieving a Monopoly on Trade. This is done by controlling 2 Center of Trade Provinces with built Customs Houses at the same time. There are only 3 of these on the map, so a player needs to gain control of at least 2 of them and maintain that control long enough to build the Customs Houses. As you can’t build in a Province containing enemy units, and as any built Custom House bestows you with great benefits in the Income phase, you can be pretty sure that your opponents will not let you do this without a fight. Controlling the mouths of the great rivers of the Baltic and the rich trade that flowed through them would put a power in an extremely favorable situation. The money flowing into their coffers from trade revenues would enable that power to establish a true Dominum Maris Baltici – an empire dominating the Baltic Sea!

The third way to win a Sudden Death Victory is by Fulfilling Your National Ambition. This victory condition is asymmetric and specific for each power – both as a play balance mechanism but also to represent each power’s historical, political and geostrategic goals:

• Russia seeks to maintain control over Moscow and Smolensk and conquer Kiev, Riga, and Ingria. This represents that Russia’s goal was the unification of the cultural, economic, and spiritual centers of the orthodox world, as well as securing access to the river mouths and vital trade routes.
• Sweden seeks to maintain control over Stockholm and conquer Scania, Riga, and Pomerania. This represents how recently independent Sweden sought to secure its autonomy and increase its power by following a highly expansionistic policy backed by all elements within the society.
• Denmark seeks to maintain control over Copenhagen and Scania and to conquer Stockholm, the capitol of Sweden. This represents that Denmark, already a great power in the region, had as its singular goal to overcome the upstart Swedes and re-establish the Danish-dominated Scandinavian Kalmar Union. This would also give Denmark undisputed control over the Baltic Sea and its rich trade. 
• Poland seeks to maintain control of Cracow, Danzig, Vilna, and Kiev, as well as conquer Smolensk. This represent that Poland’s strong nobility was wary of costly foreign entanglements, which often served only to strengthen the power of the monarchy at their expense. They remained dedicated, however, to the defense of the traditional borders of the Commonwealth, including Smolensk that had only recently been lost to Russia. 
• Prussia seeks to maintain control of Königsberg as well as conquer Pomerania, and to add 5 Dramatis Personae cards to their Court. This sounds easier than it is, since there are a number of requirements that need to be fulfilled before all 5 Dramatis Personae slots in the Prussian Court are available. They must expand their territory and, most important of all, they must cancel their starting status as vassal of Poland. This vassal status, a special rule for Prussia, effectively protects them and prevents any conflict between them and Poland, their much stronger neighbor, until they choose to cancel it. This represent that the ambitions of Prussia, the underdog among the powers of the game, is merely to attain full independent status and lay the foundation for later greatness by building a court of notable historical figures.

The map below shows the locations of each power’s objectives for their National Ambition (circled “A”), coded by color – so Russia is green, Sweden is blue, Denmark is red, Poland is white, and Prussia black. The 3 yellow “TC” circles mark the location of the 3 Trade Centers on the map. This should give you some idea of what each Power is aiming to achieve, and where some likely areas of conflict are located (note especially that Riga, towards the center of the map between Estonia and Kurland, is a Trade Center as well as the target of two National Ambitions).

To help players, each of the above Sudden Death Victory conditions are clearly listed on each player’s Power Mat, avoiding those annoying game night situations where one player suddenly declares themself the winner after stealthily completing a seldom used victory condition that everyone else had totally forgotten about. As can be seen on this map, several powers share some of their objectives, and thus tend to be natural enemies in the game, but players should always remember that Fulfilling Your National Ambition is just one way to victory. If that path seems blocked by another player, or if a player offers you useful benefits in return for letting them have a contested province, never forget the option of going for a Monopoly on Trade or Cultural Hegemony, or that a Dramatis Personae cards might suddenly offer you a new objective that is better in line with your current map-situation.

If the game lasts until the end of the final Round (which can be either Round 8, 12 or 16, depending on what game length the players chose), Prussia will win if they control both their starting areas (Königsberg & Brandenburg), as they will have succeeded in Maintaining the Balance of Power. This is a balancing mechanism to compensate for the fact that Prussia’s position is far weaker than the other powers, and thus will likely find it very hard to achieve the Cultural Hegemony or Monopoly on Trade victory conditions, but it also neatly represents history. For Prussia, a minor power in the region, it was important to maintain the balance of power between the other states to prevent any of them from steamrolling Prussia, and to create situations where Prussia could take diplomatic or military advantage of the rivalry between their stronger opponents, thereby opening opportunities for their later growth to great power status. As one of Prussia’s special rules (besides the Polish Vassal status described earlier) is greater control over the independent powers, this victory condition also aligns nicely with the historical goals of the major powers on the fringes of the Baltic (the Ottomans, Habsburgs, English, French, and Dutch), as they too sought to maintain a balance of power in the region to better further their own interests in the region.

Tied games, where no power manages to win the game at the end of the game, or if the game ends with more than one power achieving their sudden death conditions at the same time, will go to the most fiscally responsible power, which in game terms is the power with the fewest unpaid loans and bankruptcy markers. As some players prefer longer games where players have to establish a very significant lead to win, I have also created a set of alternative and harder to achieve victory conditions for each of the above categories that can be used by experienced players, but I will not go into them in this article. In the next article we will explore the turn structure and general sequence of play for Baltic Empires.

---