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Main Catalogue | Board Games & Card Games | Rio Grande Games | Imperial

Imperial

Price: £47.99

(RRP = £49.99)

Board Game, 2-6 Players, Ages 12+ by EggertSpiele By giving credits players gain influence over the six imperial nations Great Britain, Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Italy and France. Because the six imperial nations are under changing influence of different investors, strategic alliances and conflicts arise between them. Sometimes this leads even to war! +++++++++++++++++++++ Counter Magazine Review +++++++++++++++++++++ 2-6 players, 120 minutes designed by Mac Gerdts reviewed by Alan How Based on its pedigree, Imperial came to Essen with mixed credentials - most people either liked its predecessor, Antike, a lot or not at all. Unusually, I fell into the middle, as I enjoyed it but found there was something missing, something that would take it from being a good game to a very good one. The map of Imperial is rather like the Dipomacy map, representing Europe and some of North Africa. Each major country has five spaces where factories can be built. These are fixed in terms of their type, so Britain has 4 places to build fleets and one area for armies, while Germany has the reverse position. Imperial\'s slant on world domination is different, however, as players represent investors rather than owners of countries, and the lead investor can decide what actions a country can take, in much the same way as the director in an 18XX company decides the actions for the train company. As ownership of countries changes, so do the policies followed by each lead investor. One minute they are supporting their neighbour, the next they are attacking them. This makes play very interactive and compelling as you will have interests in several countries, often while they are competing with one another. Similarly to the 18xx games, the personal money is kept separate from each country\'s money as the country\'s money is used to buy factories, pay interest on loans made by the investors and raise taxes. Initially players are dealt an investment in two countries. One is a larger investment and the other a smaller investment. Each investment card has three numbers. The first is the cost, the second is the value of the investment (which is used to determine who is the lead investor) and the third is the interest earned on the investment. Small investments earn a better rate of interest (50%) while larger ones have smaller percentage gains but the value of the investment is significantly increased. There are 8 investment cards for each country on thick stocked cardboard and players can trade them in when upgrading investments to obtain high value investments during the game. Imperial uses its predecessor\'s excellent device - the roundel - as its central system, but there the similarities end, as in other parts of the play the two games feel quite different. For those who missed Antike, the roundel is a dial with 8 segments that show what a player can do each turn. The clever element is that the space where the marker is located limits what actions are available on the next turn. In Imperial as in Antike, the next 3 spaces are free to use, while the following 3 spaces cost you money and the further the marker moves round, the higher the cost. Such a simple device has wonderful gaming consequences, especially when the actions are so carefully sequenced. The roundel features Production, Import, Manoeuvre, Factory, Investor, Taxation - with Production and Manoeuvre listed twice. Production allows the factories to produce armies or fleets and these are the only types of unit in the game. Import allows a choice of three units (armies or fleets) but at a cost of three money and as money is a part of the final victory point score, this means a sacrifice of points to gain a territorial advantage. Movement of armies and fleets is one space per turn, though armies can be shipped over several adjacent fleets to a distant area. This is pretty simple and one of the good aspects of the game is that there is clarity about what actions are available each turn. The factory option allows the largest investor in a country to add another factory at a cost of 5 money from the treasury of the country. The taxation option is the only way that money is raised for a country\'s treasury from normal activity and is based on 2 money per factory plus one for each area conquered less one for each army or fleet. The effect of this is to increase a country\'s treasury, so that money can be paid to investors at some time. In order to raise this money the lead investor of each country must raise armies and fleets to conquer neutral areas which allow tax to be raised. But the areas owned must try to use as few fleets and armies as possible in order to maximise tax revenue, and this delicate balance is one that players must maintain so that they are sufficiently well defended, while still having money come in when the tax option is selected. The investor choice on the roundel is the most interesting. It forces interest to be paid from a country\'s treasury to the investors; it provides 2 money to the owner of an investor card (which moves to the next player afterwards) and the investor card owner can now make further investments in countries using their personal money. This money goes in the swell the treasury of the country. Finally a player who does not control a country can also make an investment. These investments often cause a change of lead investor in one or more countries and make the game have some bite. As the game round is played in a strict sequence - Austria / Italy / France / Britain / Germany / Russia, which you\'ll see means that neighbours go after one another - the accord one player may have previously struck with another can be upset. The game is about gaining control of the neutral country spaces as these provide the marginal income for tax purposes, so there are always wars going on between major countries. The trick is to time these so that the tax option allows a big score as there is an additional dividend available for the largest investor in a country who increases their tax income and more importantly, the tax level is referenced to movement on a score track which shows the worth of each country\'s investments. All investments are worth the interest amount on their card multiplied by the value on the country track. This latter aspect starts at nil, but with successive taxations increases to a multiple of 1, then 2 and so on up to 5. When one country reaches 5 multiplier, the game ends and victory is given to the highest value of investments plus cash. This is rather like 18XX as the cash in a country at the end is worthless, much like the company cash in 18XX. Other aspects of the game are neatly woven in - foreign armies on another country\'s home territory can be hostile or not. If they are hostile, they can neutralise the tax revenue from that location\'s factory. You can also destroy factories with a large force of 3 armies, which can knock back a country for some time. The game plays really well and the choices for each player are deliciously offered. Do you go for production, move your pieces and take an area? Or would you be better heading straight for taxation so you get some more money which will allow you to diversify more quickly? The decisions are by no means clear cut but are interesting to make. My experience of the game has been with 5 players and the first one was very long (5 hours), but this was a learning game and we all thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I suspect a smaller number of players and more experience will decrease the time down to the box target of 2 to 3 hours. Imperial is a significantly better game than Antike in my opinion and one of several excellent games that came from an encouraging Essen. It has plenty of player interaction, clear options to choose from and some planning, and while there is downtime, the fact that you have invested in several countries means that you are never uninterested in what someone is about to do with your investment. Highly recommended to players who like intense and enjoyable action in their board games.

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Main Catalogue | Board Games & Card Games | Rio Grande Games | Imperial

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