Bellum se ipsum alet: Conquest and Devastation

Bellum se ipsum alet - the Board Game is a game about war and devastation during the Thirty Year's War. The players take on the roles of commanders and have to fight not only each others on the battle field but also the devastation that follows the war. Bellum se ipsum alet is a tactical game but unlike many others in the genre, the resources are not unlimited. The players must continuously feed their armies by storming and occupying cities but the cities will continuously fight to free themselves and for each new occupant, there will be less to plunder. Add to this a battle system where the players need to balance between wasting soldiers to win the battle and saving them for the next battle. Each player must thus find a way to make best use of the scarce and diminishing resources at hand to be able to deliver the final blow at the right place at the right time.

Game mechanisms include:

1. Tile laying: You gain influence by simply passing through areas and leaving your influence tiles behind you. However, you must defend your influence not only against your opponents but also against the cities, that eventually will revolt and reclaim the influence.
2. Resource economy: Your army is no better than your economy, its strength is linked to supply from cities and if you lose the cities, you will eventually (but not immediately) lose your army and the war.
3. Hidden bidding: The battle system is a kind of "hidden bidding", which does not reward the player with the strongest army but rather the player who throws in just about more soldiers into the battle. The more you spend, the more you lose, and like Pyrrhus, you may find that your victories are so expensive that they will cause you to lose.
4. Changing game board: The more the cities are conquered, the more they are devastated and the less they will contribute to your army. Your army must claim the victory before there is nothing left to feed it with.

Bellum se ipsum alet is the second game in the Nova Suecia series.