Luckily we have here some gamers who are not afraid when box says "4-8 hours" about playtime... so last weekend I had nice game of Revolution: The Dutch Revolt 1568-1648. It simulates the power struggle between five fractions during Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Netherlands. It was first time for all players and at least I had some cautious approach towards this game - will it be at least some moderate fun or complete waste of time. Instead it was very tense and enjoyable game, after we managed to get through the rules (2 hrs for that).

We had four players, so Nobility fraction was not participating, but Catholics, Habsburgs, Burghers and Reformers were all there. I got the Burghers, so my special victory points were coming from securing the "high-commerce" towns. After first round Catholics had big lead but during next turn they were (naturally) quite heavily pulled back. With great help of Habsburgs, I should mention - closest fraction to ally with for Catholics - so the Pope had to hire some expensive armies and this was the start of their downfall. Well, not only this... but I suppose this was the ignition. As a result of those conquests Habsburgs had quite a nice lead during next turn - so all eyes turned to them. Meanwhile I had managed to get quite a nice setup, with establishing strong base to the Geldland and Holland but Reformers were quite weak. I was afraid that Habsburgs continue their invasion into my lightly-guarded territories in Zeeland, so wealthy Burghers spent some money to change the influence of two cities in Flanders into strongly Reformist. This was the biggest mistake I made - and this time it was also determining the winner - but we knew nothing as half the game was still ahead. What happened was that suddenly Reformers became from nothing into everything and with that momentum it was quite impossible to stop them. But still, game was on and Burghers were leading on score track, so my intent was to maintain the status quo. Burghers hired an massive army and tried to "liberate" the Artois - but without success. During last turn Burghers lost one of their cities to Reformers by citizen allegiance, another by siege - and this was enough for Reformers to win with end scores as 12-11-10-10.

An excellent game! Total playtime (excluding the rules explanation): 5 hours.