How to Win as the Protestants in Here I Stand (Three Basic Tips, #10)

Haven’t done a strategy post in over a year! But I know you like them, so there will be more of them over the next months.

Today, we’re returning to a mainstay: Here I Stand (Ed Beach, GMT Games) is one of my favorite games ever – if not my favorite game of all. (I should really do one of those Top X games of all times posts!) So far, we’ve had three strategy articles for it already:

All of them have been in the tried-and-true fashion of giving three basic tips which new and intermediate players can easily remember. Today, we’re doing that with the faction whose emergence started the whole scenario for Here I Stand: The Protestants! They play a bit differently than most of the other factions. Here’s how to make the most of the explosive potential of this faction, to avoid the most dangerous trap for it, and to push yourself over the finish line once you have come out as a fully-fledged contender.

Go Big or Stay Home (Translating)

I’ve said it before: A victory at Here I Stand requires balancing between turns in which you conserve and consolidate your strength and turns in which you go all in. No power is better at this than the Protestants:

Luther’s excellent admin rating allows you to carry two cards over to the next turn.
Your Home Card lets you dive into the discard pile and retrieve one card which you can either play immediately or save for later.

Typically, you want to use the upper effect. The lower one is almost exclusively worth it if that gives you the chance to disgrace a weak Papal debater. Note that both effects are tied to Luther being alive – which means you get significantly weaker after his death (from turn 6 on) and ideally have sealed your victory by then already! Image ©GMT Games.

Those two abilities combined give you excellent opportunities to build a great hand for the next turn. Say, you keep two cards and draw four the next turn (plus the Home Card) – that’s seven cards, already a lot. Now say one of the two cards you carry over is one of these gems which you’ve gotten from the discard pile:

That’s an amazing turn right there!

And when you decide that this turn is not suitable for going big (bad draw, too much pressure from your opponents, or maybe just your opponents being not distracted enough by the other players), you have a great thing to do in your consolidation turns: Translating!

It’s extremely flexible – you can spend any amount of CP.
You can use some debater bonuses.
You can advance in three different languages.

Ideally, you have one or several translations almost ready with only or two CP left for your “big” turns. Combining a card which gives you reformation attempts and/or bonuses (like Printing Press) with all the attempts you get from finishing a translation will result in a big sweep of spaces which are suddenly Protestant.

Lucky Number Eleven: Delay the Schmalkaldic League

Now, let’s not overdo the converting of spaces in the beginning. One thing which you really need to be aware of before playing as the Protestants is how the Schmalkaldic League works.

The League is formed either when the respective mandatory event card is played and the Protestants have 12 or more spaces under their religious influence (from turn 2 on) or at the end of turn 4. Then, the Protestants become a full political and military power, which means that

Any space under Protestant religious control which is printed on the board as such becomes a Protestant home space (automatically under Protestant political control as well)
Electorates under Protestant political and religious control give the Protestants 2 VP each (so, 12 VP if you control all six of them) – electorates under Hapsburg political control give the Hapsburgs 1 VP
The Protestants can now muster additional military forces and move them around – and, of course, they are now a valid target for attacks themselves!

The Schmalkaldic League is thus a double-edged sword. Of course you want the electorate VPs, but entering the political-military sphere of the game comes at the risk of Hapsburg campaigns against you. Thus, you want the event to happen as late as possible – so, at the end of turn 4. As you cannot control when the card will be drawn, you need to make sure that you do not fulfil the conditions for triggering the event as long as possible – and that means staying at a maximum of 11 Protestant spaces for as long as you can. Limit yourself to the most important spaces – so, the electorates, and any space you need to go from one electorate to the other.

Almost perfect: Exactly 11 spaces are under Protestant control here. The only fly in the ointment is that one electorate (Trier) is still Catholic.

Of course, once the Schmalkaldic League does happen, you want your dominion in Germany to be as large as possible, so turn 4 should definitely be a “big” turn as per the first tip.

Later in the same game: The Schmalkaldic League triggers during turn 4 with 19 Protestant spaces (among them all six electorates)!

Against Invasion: An Ounce of Sweat Saves a Gallon of Blood

Once the Schmalkaldic League is formed, you need to change your playstyle. Even though it might be tempting to stick to translating and publishing treatises (after all, Protestant spaces are what gets you VPs), I advise to invest into the defense of your territory early. Some CP spent on mercenaries in the vulnerable electorates go a long way in deterring Hapsburg invasions (electorates with one or two troops will just look like low-hanging fruit and invite the Emperor to spend his vacation in the Rhineland instead of the Balkans), and if the Hapsburgs invade anyway, having to fight their way through strongly defended electorates costs them time and troops – and, eventually, the Emperor will always have bigger fish to fry.