Imperial Review

Imperial is a game I've more recently aquainted myself to, but it's loads of fun. Set during World War I, the board and peices look not unlike a game called Diplomacy. It's a map of Europe, color coded for the six different countries that take place in the game (UK, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and Austria-Hungary). Each country has five zones, and there are multiple other land provinces and sea zones. The only pieces you get are naval and land factories, armies and fleets, and "tax chips" for showing which zones are ruled by which countries. Armies move across the land, and the fleets, yes you guess right, move on water. They even let armies cross them like a bridge across the water. Combat is simple, with a one for one attrition in battle. No dice or cards are used for any sort of randomizing features.

You'd expect with a game like this for the turns to drag on and on, but a neat turn control concept comes into play here and keeps the turns down to a minute or less (unless the player is struck by "analysis paralysis"). At the top of the board is a Wheel of Fortune-type circle with different actions (Factory, Production, Maneuver, Taxation, etc), and each country can only take one of the next three actions depending where it's turn marker is at. For example, you would have to decide whether or not that country would produce more units, or move and attack, or collect income (but not a combination thereof).

Okay, nothing too new aside from the Wheel of Turn Options, that's true. But believe it or not, it's not a war game. Sure, it's themed like war, but here's the kicker. The players don't assume roles of a head of state, but rather, an investor who buys bonds in the countries they think will succeed, and the leading bond holder for each country controls that country on it's turn. So if you think Italy is going to send its amassed naval strength into Mother Russia's profitable sea zones, you could, if you had enough cash, buy out Italy, and send the fleets storming in the other direction instead! Needless to say, it's a very heated game. The countries that do well and capture zones (by occupying them with troops and marking them with tax chips), increase their Power (think Victory Points) every time the country decides to do a tax phase. Once a country gets 25 Power, the game ends. The further along the Power Track the country is at the end of the game, the more their bonds are worth for final scoring.

This is a game with a lot of depth, and it's surprisingly simple rules help it run along smooth. After the first several turns, everyone gets a good general idea of the technical bits and gets down to playing the game. Nobody gets eliminated (even if you control no countries, you lurk in the shadows until you get enough dough through bond payout to buyout a country again). Those who play like it's a war game are the ones who lose--as it's real easy to commit yourself to a country, only to find out nobody else has invested in it, and nobody wants it to survive, and you get crushed by five other countries. There's a lot of underhanded country stealing, and if you like heated games, this is definitely for you!

The downsides are few but substantial: Don't expect this to be a light-hearted game. At all. My wife hasn't played this one since she first played (and won), and another player had to get banned from the game because she would get too frustrated at everyone ganging up on her superpowered country. The game also takes several hours to play out, even though the downtime is hardly noticible due to the short turns and trying to guess what the other player's plans are. Also, it's real easy for several players to soundly trounce the expected lead player with little hope of recovery. Luckily, the games are normally really close, with the winner squeaking past the fray by just one bond purchase or a couple million bucks (considering the lowest denomination is one million, that's not a lot).

Take a look at the Board Game Geek entry for Imperial if you're interested. As of today, it's ranked 26 out of all the board games currently listed, which is definitely commendable, considering there's over 4,700 of them (Risk is listed at rank 3,815 by comparison). It's definitely a ton of fun, as long as you have the right crowd. Make sure you have a comfortable playing area, and keep all sharp objects away from the players!