Rather, it has the feel of a light strategy game with the familiar Euro elements of area control and resource management mixed in.

His goal was a large central European empire dominating Western Europe.

His ambitions led to his dismissal in 1630, but he was reinstated to defend the empire against Swedish attack.

Wallenstein's intrigues with the Protestants and his rapidly growing power alarmed the Catholic princes, and he was murdered in his bedroom at Eger by Irish mercenaries.

Elements from that era intermix with the game mechanics to create an engaging experience.

Players must raise grain and gold, feed the masses, stave off rebellions, build churches, trade houses, and palaces, and possibly conquer other provinces.

During the last phase (Winter), players camp and feed their troops and score victory points for buildings.

The first five actions are placed on the game board face up, allowing players to plan based on their order.

At the start of a year, special “season” event cards are randomly chosen from a deck.

During the last season (Winter), the modifiers are ignored, but a number on the card reveals the extent of grain shortage for that year.

This element allows players a certain level of planning, but an uncertainty of when (or even if) the season event will happen.

A successful revolt will cause the player to lose the region, all buildings will be destroyed, and he receives none of the income from the territory.

Pressing the same region over and over results in stronger unrest and increases the chances of a successful revolt.

Due to the vagaries of the cube tower, it can be very difficult to predict the outcome of any battle.

During initial setup, armies from all players are added to the tower as well, so it is also possible that in some battles, more cubes come out than were poured in.

During each Winter phase, players score victory points based on their positions on the board.

One of the largest elements of uncertainty in Wallenstein is the cube tower used to decide the outcome of battles.

This randomness makes for a good amount of luck, without letting it overpower the game.

Because of the reliability of receiving victory points from buildings and the uncertainties of battles due to the cube tower, most players tend to avoid conflict in the first year in order to amass larger armies for the second year.

A two-player variant[permanent dead link‍] created by fans of the game is available at BoardGameGeek.

The game was rethemed as Shogun, released by Queen in multi-language international edition in 2006.

The game is set in the Sengoku period (approx 1467-1573) which ends with the inception of the well-known Tokugawa Shogunate.

The game will be an international edition with language-independent components and a multilingual rules booklet.