""Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God..."" - Martin Luther
Here I Stand is a lengthy game for between 2 and 6 players that simulates the political and religious conflicts of early 16th Century Europe. The game mixes religious conflict with territorial battles and plays out differently each time as the six primary factions in Europe: the Protestants, English, French, Hapsburg, Papacy and Ottoman Turks.
As a six-sided diplomatic struggle, Here I Stand allows players to plot military and religious advances while offering benefits to those who are able to successfully build alliances through secret and public negotiations that can take place over the course of the game. The game deck consists of more than 100 cards that enable both offensive and defensive maneuvering. The complexity of the game and its action-and-response mechanisms makes Here I Stand one of the most complex games that has ever been coded for the Saito Game Engine.
Here I Stand source code.
The Saito module of Here I Stand attempts to be as faithful as possible to the experience of playing the game in person, with the exception that efforts have been made to speed-up gameplay. The major differences between the Saito Edition of Here I Stand and the packaged boardgame come down to these changes.
The modifications may not be noticeable to most players, but involve heavy automation of the complex rules around combat, and the deliberate speeding-up of actions like the military deployment of units in spring (and their retreat in autumn) so that players have the option of conducting them simultaneously instead of sequentially. These changes allow a game that can otherwise take months to play to be finished within 3-4 hours in most situations.
It would be remiss not to mention that the Saito Editio of Here I Stand is released under an open source license provided by GMT Games, which requires that one player in every game has purchased a copy. As fans of GMT Games, we remind players to kindly reward the company for their generosity and open-mindedness by purchasing a copy.