Struggle of Empires

I am glad it was unpunished. Listed like new.

I have been wargaming since 1972 and I had a collection of over 1,000 games before Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I regularly play wargames once or twice a week, and _Struggle of Empires_ is one of my favorites. With only 5-6 pages of rules, it is very accessible and with up to seven players, it is very fun and allows for various sized groups. Although largely abstract in many of its mechanics, the game does give a great feel for the time of the Wars of Empire, 1689-1763. It is also very well-balanced, and no one side has an edge. It all comes down to skill and luck. If you are a serious gamer and have a group of like-minded friends, you must give this game a try. The durability of 4 stars is because it is a paper product and does not respond well to pizza grease and spilled drinks!

Struggle of Empires has a steep learning curve when it comes to reading the rulebook and taking it all in, but the system is actually quite easy to repeat once you have played a couple of rounds (much like many other games designed by Martin Wallace). This game is fun and has depth offering players the opportunity to employ different strategies to achieve victory. It is also a nice change of pace from the usual themes of global war. Experience colonization, trade, and slavery over three wars and varying alliances during an age where empires sprawled across the globe.

I like it.

The shifting alliances with 4+ persons make this a very interesting game, but there is much more to it. The game consists of three "Wars", consisting of 5-6 rounds each, with each player having two actions per round. So 30-36 actions per person for the entire game. Those two actions choose from: (1) Acquiring a tile (many of which you can use repeatedly, which have various economic or military benefits/abilities), (2) building an army, navy or fort, (3) Moving up to two military units, (4) Attacking, or (5) Colonization. There are dozens of tiles so there is a good amount of variety and different techniques that you can employ. You start out with only 5 military units per player, so it's not like you are drowning in pieces (it maxes out at 24 pieces at any given time, if you choose to develop that far). Attacks are primarily dice-based and involve some luck, but they are resolved QUICKLY after a fast calculation of bonuses (e.g., Army or Navy Training bonuses) and at most two dice rolls. (This isn't an old Axis and Allies dice fest). The pieces and board are of good quality.There are three scoring periods (after each war) after which you receive an influx of new population (that you use to build your military) and gold (used to primarily to buy tiles and attack), provided that you didn't over-expand during the last war (too much military will cost you more gold/maintenance). If there was one thing I didn't like is that the game can slow down a little bit as people get into the last one or two rounds of each war, as they think about how to position their armies just right to attack and maximize their upcoming scoring. But it's a minor complaint.With the start of each War, there is a unique and interesting mechanism that allows players to bid (using their gold) to determine who is in each of the two alliances, and well as the order of play. This can lead to different alliances during each of the three War periods. This is important because you can't attack the person in your alliance, so you want to choose carefully. Your temporary ally can combine with your forces and you can help each other in battles during the War (usually, it is a good idea) but you are not required to. You can make any type of agreements that you want including how much you or your ally will assist (and possibly at a price), but in my experience it doesn't get cutthroat or nasty.Note that this game can also work with only two players! My wife and I love this game. I'm a moderate gamer, she is less so. You don't use the player alliance portion and a couple tiles lose their meaning/power, but other than that it works GREAT! The game in general easily accommodates House Rules if you like, such as a stronger player starting out with extra Unrest points (you have to avoid getting too much Unrest or your population revolts; Unrest occurs when you have raise gold or when you lose units in a battle). In our two player game, we also only score at the end of War 3 (instead of also War 1 and War 2) and this speeds up the game considerably. After the 10 minute or so set up, we can finish the game in under 90 minutes pretty easily.What I love about this game is that it's fairly deep and has lots of choices without being overly complex. There is a small learning curve, but as another person mentioned, the rule book is only 6 pages long, and after you play it a couple times the mechanisms and tiles will be fairly easy to remember.If you want to see pictures of the pieces, I recommend that you check out the Struggle of Empires page at the BoardGameGeek website. There is a great FAQ there, which includes some feedback from the game's creator, that clarifies some of the rules.

Ma che vi devo dire... leggete le recensioni su Tana dei Goblin. Qualche altra parola a caso senno' Amazon non mi fa pubblicare. Punto.