Westphalia

About this board game

Westphalia is a diplomatic and military board game for exactly six players, with a play time of approximately 120 minutes. It recreates the negotiations and campaigns that brought the Thirty Years War and Eighty Years War to an end.

The question is not simply who wins the war. Instead, each player works toward a settlement that satisfies their faction’s political, confessional, and economic goals. These objectives can overlap, allowing multiple players to win together—unless all six factions achieve their goals, in which case a final scoring round determines a single winner.

The game alternates between two distinct phases. During Diplomacy Phases, anything can be negotiated as players cooperate, bargain, and compete. During Military Phases, tense cat-and-mouse chases provide the leverage needed to influence those negotiations.

• Play as Austria, Bavaria, Spain, France, Sweden, or the Dutch Republic.
• Explore six asymmetric factions with different victory requirements.
• Manage Debt instead of money as the game progresses.
• Balance cooperation with personal objectives that may not remain aligned.

Debt only seems to increase during play, but accomplishments reduce it at the game’s end. The remaining Debt is compared with faction-specific benchmarks to determine victory.

Austria must ensure that both Bavaria and Spain achieve their goals, while France must do the same for Sweden and the Dutch Republic. These dependencies are not mutual: Bavaria or Spain may succeed while Austria fails. With its fixed six-player format, Westphalia is designed around the shifting alliances, rivalries, and negotiations of a full table.