The box. The cover art was not changed. Difference to first edition is the integration of the logo for being the Best Historical Simulation 2006 (awarded by Games Magazine, USA) and the words Second Edition.

The opened box. If you open the box, you will find a carton inlay. This is good for a better stability of the box, good for sorting of the game materials. And it makes the game board sitting on top of the box.

The game board. Nothing has changed here. Only exception is that the formerly missing city names of Meißen and Radeberg are now printed.

The die cut sheet. With the first edition there came a postcard, which could be transformed to control markers by self cutting and glueing. This component is gone! Now, the second edition has a die cut sheet. You can loosen the control markers easily out of the frame. – Furthermore, one side of the markers shows the coat of arms while the other side shows a question mark: The coat of arms is used to indicate conquered objective cities; the question mark is used to indicate that a city can be conquered retroactively.

The labels. The changes on the labels are almost neglectable: a) Francois de Chevert is no written with correct letters: François de Chevert. b) The sentence in Hanover's coat of arms has real letters now and can be read using a reading-glass. It is the motto of the Order of the Garter: HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE (Shame to him who thinks evil of it.)

The Tactical Cards. On the cards valued from 2 to 9, the numbers in the lower corners have been deleted in order to avoid confusion between the values 6 and 9. The colour of the spades symbol has been re-defined so that it looks less purple. Some portraits were slightly improved in colour and/or style. (You can see 3 examples of old versus new cards when clicking on the picture to the left.)

The Cards of Fate. Now there exists a complete english deck for the Cards of Fate as well. In the first edition the translation was provided by the Sheet of Fate, which is gone now.

The game turn marker. The game turn marker is gone also. It was replaced by 5 hour glass markers. At the beginning of the game, these are put on the time track. After each game turn, one marker is removed. If all are removed, you start to pick the top Card of Fate at every game turn's end. – The similarity of the two actions of "removal" makes for a smoother game flow.

The rules. The rules were restructured: The description of playing pieces and of the set-up is now incorporated in the beginning of the rules. Furthermore the rules were translated anew by Bowen Simmons from Simmonsgames. The rules are reworded in order to meet the most common FAQ. Several text examples illustrate the rules. There was no real rules change. Only exception: If a player recruits new armies, he has to tell the current total of his nation's armies immediately. – You can download the second edition rules here .