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Imperial (board game)
Encyclopedia
Imperial is a German-style board game
designed by Mac Gerdts
in which the object is to accumulate wealth in the form of bond holdings in successful countries and cash. Players take on the role of international financier
s who purchase government bond
s in the six pre-World War I
empire
s of Austria-Hungary
, France
, Germany
, Britain
, Italy
, and Russia
. The principal bondholder of a nation gains control of its government and can order importation or production of armaments and ships; maneuvering of military units; construction of factories; and taxation. During play, an investor card is passed around which allows the purchase of additional bonds. A rondel
– a wheel-shaped game mechanism with eight different options – is used to determine the options available to a country. The game box states that it is for 2–6 players, but a developer-supported variant allows play with seven. Its sequel is Imperial 2030
.
in Germany. It was then translated into English and exported to the United States. It is frequently seen at board game conventions and board game clubs that specialize in Eurogames and is popular at tournaments. In 2007, Imperial was nominated as a Spiel des Jahres recommended game.
Players gain money by
Treasuries gain money from taxation and when players buy bonds. So, gaining money can be a two-step process – one must first enrich a country's treasury and then get that money out of the country and into their own pocket by passing or landing on the Investor field. A country only spends money on two things – importing military units (1M apiece) and building factories (5M apiece) – so most money put into a treasury becomes available to pay back to investors. Money left in a country's treasury at the end of the game does not count toward helping any player win.
In the taxation phase, a country's treasury receives 2M for each unoccupied factory, plus 1M for each tax chip, minus 1M for each military unit. The country's octagonal game piece is moved to the appropriate number on the power chart, and if the country has moved up on the tax chart, a success bonus is paid to the player who holds that country's flag. When a country reaches 25 points on the counting chart, the game ends.
Military units move in a similar manner as in Diplomacy. Armies can be transported over bodies of water by convoys. Fleets and armies destroy each other in a one-to-one ratio. Fleets are always moved first; then armies. Each imperial power has a railroad network within its borders by which its armies can rapidly deploy to the battlefield. For example, in one turn, Germany can move a fleet into the North Sea, and then move an army from Munich to Norway by (1) traveling from Munich to Hamburg by railroad, and then (2) traveling from Hamburg to Norway by convoy. In Germany's next turn, that army can make the return trip by the same means. Chains of fleets in contiguous ocean territories can transport armies over long distances in one turn, but each fleet can only carry one army per turn.
Armies traveling through other empires can be either passive or hostile. A hostile army is placed upright and a passive army is placed on its side. Hostile armies shut down the occupied province's factories and railroads and prevent imports and factory construction in that province. The rules do not allow opponents to occupy (or destroy) all of a country's factories, though. If a country is down to its last operating factory, then other countries' armies entering that province must be placed on their side as passive armies.
Three armies can destroy a factory (and themselves at the same time), but this is rarely done. A reason is that a player with three armies at his disposal has the alternative of shutting down three factories, which can immediately severely hamper an opponent's ability to raise funds and military units needed for a counterattack. To get back to full industrial capacity, the opponent must expend turns and armies destroying the occupying armies. Another disadvantage of destroying factories is that the three invading armies are lost, and therefore are unavailable to be recalled to defend the home country. An offer to withdraw occupying armies can be used as a bargaining chip to get a country to take a certain action. But when a factory has been destroyed, the invader has no way to undo the damage, and therefore has nothing to offer in bargaining (and is also three armies shorter).
Austria-Hungary gets two more armies than the other empires, and Great Britain gets two more fleets.
Each great power has five home provinces where factories can be built. There are fifteen other land regions and nine ocean regions. The regions that can be occupied are:
Switzerland
is a neutral country
that cannot be occupied. Along the right side of the board is the power chart. Along the bottom is the counting chart. Once any country reaches 25 points on the counting chart, the game ends. This is the mechanism by which game time is intended to be limited to approximately 2–3 hours.
Each country has eight bonds. The bond values are as follows:
s in the event two players have the same number of victory points.
It is also important to take note of where other countries are on the rondel. A country whose next logical move would be to tax, invest, build a factory, or do some other innocuous activity is likely not an immediate military threat. On the other hand, if an opponent's country is about to move to taxation and end the game, it may be desirable to shut down its factories or otherwise reduce its tax base. Similarly, if all the pieces on the rondel have just passed investor, and every player has a country, one can make his move without fear of his own country immediately being bought out by someone else, because it will be awhile before anyone has another chance to invest.
A popular strategy is to gain control over two neighboring countries (e.g. Germany and Russia) so that each has a front covered and can launch offensives without worrying about an attack from that direction.
Players' bond holdings are open to public scrutiny, but they are allowed to keep their cash on hand secret. It is usually wise to avoid divulging this information because opponents can use it to gauge whether a hostile takeover is likely.
Sometimes players will buy out a country that has undergone expansion just as it is about to land on Taxation, in order to reap the success bonus. To prevent this from happening, a player on the Maneuver space next to the Investor space may pay the extra 4M to move ahead to Taxation. A player wanting to get rid of a country can begin building up its military, increasing its tax and factory bases, accumulating cash, and in general acting in ways that make other investors want to buy it in order to neutralize it as a threat and/or cash in on its profitability.
The game went through decades of play-testing before it was commercially released. Many variants were created during this period.
One popular variant, mentioned in the rule book, removes the investor card. The rule book notes that this creates a somewhat less exciting but more strategic game. It tends to prevent hostile takeovers before a country's first turn.
A house rule promulgated by the designer allows a player who controls no countries to collect 1M from the bank if he chooses not to invest when the investor card is activated. This may be particularly useful in 7-player games. It may also be a way to prevent less experienced players from getting "stuck" when they find themselves with no flag and little money.
The designer also suggested a "negotiation
" variant in which a country's decisions are made by a vote of its bondholders, with players holding more/higher bonds having greater influence. Specifically, each bond value point (the big numeral on the upper right corner of the bond certificate) counts as one vote. Players can lend and give one another money, but the bank and treasuries still cannot give or lend money in any way. Because a nation can go onto the Investor field against the will of the holder of the flag, the government is not forced to pay out every bond. Rather, the treasury pays as much interest as possible, beginning with the lowest (2M) bond and then up from there. In the event that the investor card is still used, it is unnecessary to allow extra investment by players who do not have a flag, since they are still able to participate in governance through voting. Gerdts notes, "You do not need a government to lead a country anymore. What you rather need is majorities for your ideas, and the right coalition
-partners in critical situations! It's all about negotiation and backstabbing now..." The gameflow can be described as follows:
The Swiss Bank variant, designed to benefit players who lose their last government, makes it possible to force a nation in which the owner of the Swiss bank holds bonds to stop on the investor field on the rondel. The blank cardboard tile included with the game indicates ownership of the Swiss bank. If the nation's treasury is not sufficient for all payouts, the nation cannot be forced to stop on Investor.
The game has a regular and advanced set of rules for beginning the game. Under the regular rules, each player starts out with control of a given country and also acquires two bonds in other countries. The game is generally regarded as "broken" under this set of rules because a player can have his country bought out from under him in the first turn, and end up sidelined from the action before he has even had a chance to act: this is offset by the rule that states that any player bought off the rondel receives $1,000,000 from the buying player and then has the immediate opportunity to buy any available bond. Each time the investor space is passed, the player-without-country again has the chance to buy any available bond. This remains the case until the player-without-country has a majority share of any country. This is a strong position to hold because small bonds pay better percentages than large ones, so the frequent opportunity to buy means that the player would acquire many small bonds. The advanced rules call for a series of opportunities for each player in rotating order to purchase one bond of any available value from each country at the start of the game.
Drinking variants
typically involve a different drink for each country; e.g. beerenauslese
for Austria; strega for Italy; champagne for France; gin and tonic
for the United Kingdom; Kölsch
(or other German beer) for Germany; and vodka
for Russia. Drinking can be required when certain events occur in the game, such as losing a flag or a territory.
Greg Berry created an Asia Expansion map that was approved by Mac Gerdts. The map is based on the Avalon Hill
Colonial Diplomacy map, designed by Peter Hawes. The six imperial nations that appear on this map are China (Yellow), Japan (Green), French South East Asia Colonies (Blue), U.K. India colony (Red), Turkish Empire (Black) and Russian Empire (Purple). As in the regular version of Imperial, there are also territories and sea regions that can be taken over. There are certain neutral countries and sea regions that, like Switzerland in the regular version, cannot be taken over. The Java Sea and Timor Sea are passable but do not score for any country possessing them in the taxation phase.
German-style board game
German-style board games, frequently referred to in gaming circles as Euro Games or Euro-style, are a broad class of tabletop games that generally have simple rules, short to medium playing times, indirect player interaction and abstract physical components...
designed by Mac Gerdts
Mac Gerdts
Mac Gerdts is the designer of German-style board games such as Imperial, Imperial 2030, Antike and Hamburgum. His games introduced the concept of a rondel rather than dice as a mechanism for play...
in which the object is to accumulate wealth in the form of bond holdings in successful countries and cash. Players take on the role of international financier
Financier
Financier is a term for a person who handles typically large sums of money, usually involving money lending, financing projects, large-scale investing, or large-scale money management. The term is French, and derives from finance or payment...
s who purchase government bond
Government bond
A government bond is a bond issued by a national government denominated in the country's own currency. Bonds are debt investments whereby an investor loans a certain amount of money, for a certain amount of time, with a certain interest rate, to a company or country...
s in the six pre-World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
empire
Empire
The term empire derives from the Latin imperium . Politically, an empire is a geographically extensive group of states and peoples united and ruled either by a monarch or an oligarchy....
s of Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Britain
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, and Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. The principal bondholder of a nation gains control of its government and can order importation or production of armaments and ships; maneuvering of military units; construction of factories; and taxation. During play, an investor card is passed around which allows the purchase of additional bonds. A rondel
Rondel (gaming)
A rondel is a wheel-shaped game mechanism with a number of different options....
– a wheel-shaped game mechanism with eight different options – is used to determine the options available to a country. The game box states that it is for 2–6 players, but a developer-supported variant allows play with seven. Its sequel is Imperial 2030
Imperial 2030
Imperial 2030 is a German-styleboard game by Mac Gerdts. It is developed from Imperial.Whereas Imperial was set in the nineteenth century, Imperial 2030 takes place in the 21st century, with the BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China accompanying the United States and Europe as the world...
.
History and development
Imperial was first published in 20062006 in games
This page lists board and card games, wargames, miniatures games, and table-top role-playing games published in 2006. For video and console games, see 2006 in video gaming....
in Germany. It was then translated into English and exported to the United States. It is frequently seen at board game conventions and board game clubs that specialize in Eurogames and is popular at tournaments. In 2007, Imperial was nominated as a Spiel des Jahres recommended game.
Cash flow
- earning success bonuses from countries they control,
- earning 2,000,000 when the investor card they hold is activated,
- reaping dividends from their bonds.
Treasuries gain money from taxation and when players buy bonds. So, gaining money can be a two-step process – one must first enrich a country's treasury and then get that money out of the country and into their own pocket by passing or landing on the Investor field. A country only spends money on two things – importing military units (1M apiece) and building factories (5M apiece) – so most money put into a treasury becomes available to pay back to investors. Money left in a country's treasury at the end of the game does not count toward helping any player win.
In the taxation phase, a country's treasury receives 2M for each unoccupied factory, plus 1M for each tax chip, minus 1M for each military unit. The country's octagonal game piece is moved to the appropriate number on the power chart, and if the country has moved up on the tax chart, a success bonus is paid to the player who holds that country's flag. When a country reaches 25 points on the counting chart, the game ends.
Military units
Armies traveling through other empires can be either passive or hostile. A hostile army is placed upright and a passive army is placed on its side. Hostile armies shut down the occupied province's factories and railroads and prevent imports and factory construction in that province. The rules do not allow opponents to occupy (or destroy) all of a country's factories, though. If a country is down to its last operating factory, then other countries' armies entering that province must be placed on their side as passive armies.
Three armies can destroy a factory (and themselves at the same time), but this is rarely done. A reason is that a player with three armies at his disposal has the alternative of shutting down three factories, which can immediately severely hamper an opponent's ability to raise funds and military units needed for a counterattack. To get back to full industrial capacity, the opponent must expend turns and armies destroying the occupying armies. Another disadvantage of destroying factories is that the three invading armies are lost, and therefore are unavailable to be recalled to defend the home country. An offer to withdraw occupying armies can be used as a bargaining chip to get a country to take a certain action. But when a factory has been destroyed, the invader has no way to undo the damage, and therefore has nothing to offer in bargaining (and is also three armies shorter).
Austria-Hungary gets two more armies than the other empires, and Great Britain gets two more fleets.
Game board
- Provinces: Dublin, EdinburghEdinburghEdinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, LiverpoolLiverpoolLiverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, SheffieldSheffieldSheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
, LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
; BrestBrest, FranceBrest is a city in the Finistère department in Brittany in northwestern France. Located in a sheltered position not far from the western tip of the Breton peninsula, and the western extremity of metropolitan France, Brest is an important harbour and the second French military port after Toulon...
, ParisParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, DijonDijonDijon is a city in eastern France, the capital of the Côte-d'Or département and of the Burgundy region.Dijon is the historical capital of the region of Burgundy. Population : 151,576 within the city limits; 250,516 for the greater Dijon area....
, BordeauxBordeauxBordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
, MarseilleMarseilleMarseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
; HamburgHamburg-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, BerlinBerlinBerlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Danzig, CologneCologneCologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, MunichMunichMunich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
; St. Petersburg, MoscowMoscowMoscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, WarsawWarsawWarsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, KievKievKiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
, OdessaOdessaOdessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
; PraguePraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, Lemberg, ViennaViennaVienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, BudapestBudapestBudapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, TriesteTriesteTrieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...
; GenoaGenoaGenoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
, VeniceVeniceVenice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, FlorenceFlorenceFlorence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, RomeRomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, and NaplesNaplesNaples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
. - Land regions: SpainSpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, PortugalPortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, MoroccoMoroccoMorocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
, AlgeriaAlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
, TunisiaTunisiaTunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
, BelgiumBelgiumBelgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
, Holland, DenmarkDenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, NorwayNorwayNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
, SwedenSwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, West BalkanBalkansThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
, GreeceGreeceGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, RomaniaRomaniaRomania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, BulgariaBulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, and TurkeyTurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
. - Ocean regions: Baltic SeaBaltic SeaThe Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
, North SeaNorth SeaIn the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
, North Atlantic, English ChannelEnglish ChannelThe English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
, Bay of BiscayBay of BiscayThe Bay of Biscay is a gulf of the northeast Atlantic Ocean located south of the Celtic Sea. It lies along the western coast of France from Brest south to the Spanish border, and the northern coast of Spain west to Cape Ortegal, and is named in English after the province of Biscay, in the Spanish...
, Western Mediterranean SeaMediterranean SeaThe Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
, Ionian SeaIonian SeaThe Ionian Sea , is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, south of the Adriatic Sea. It is bounded by southern Italy including Calabria, Sicily and the Salento peninsula to the west, southern Albania to the north, and a large number of Greek islands, including Corfu, Zante, Kephalonia, Ithaka, and...
, Eastern Mediterranean Sea, and Black SeaBlack SeaThe Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
.
Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
is a neutral country
Neutral country
A neutral power in a particular war is a sovereign state which declares itself to be neutral towards the belligerents. A non-belligerent state does not need to be neutral. The rights and duties of a neutral power are defined in Sections 5 and 13 of the Hague Convention of 1907...
that cannot be occupied. Along the right side of the board is the power chart. Along the bottom is the counting chart. Once any country reaches 25 points on the counting chart, the game ends. This is the mechanism by which game time is intended to be limited to approximately 2–3 hours.
Bonds
| Value | Cost | Payout |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2,000,000 | 1,000,000 (50%) |
| 2 | 4,000,000 | 2,000,000 (50%) |
| 3 | 6,000,000 | 3,000,000 (50%) |
| 4 | 9,000,000 | 4,000,000 (44%) |
| 5 | 12,000,000 | 5,000,000 (42%) |
| 6 | 16,000,000 | 6,000,000 (38%) |
| 7 | 20,000,000 | 7,000,000 (35%) |
| 8 | 25,000,000 | 8,000,000 (32%) |
Winning
At the end of the game, victory points are tallied up to determine the winner. The formula is 1 victory point for each million in cash in hand plus the interest (the big number at the top of the bond certificate) for each bond held multiplied by the credit factor shown for that country on the counting chart. There are tiebreakerTiebreaker
In games and sports, a tiebreaker or tiebreak is used to determine a winner from among players or teams that are tied at the end of a contest, or a set of contests.-In matches:In some situations, the tiebreaker may consist of another round of play...
s in the event two players have the same number of victory points.
Strategy
Players need to balance the desire to gain more territories with the need to defend existing colonies and the homeland. As neighboring countries build up their militaries, it becomes necessary to anticipate their actions. For instance, if Germany has several armies within striking distance of French territory, France may wish to take note of the Germany leader's bond holdings. A player without any French bonds will be much more likely to attack France than a player heavily invested in France.It is also important to take note of where other countries are on the rondel. A country whose next logical move would be to tax, invest, build a factory, or do some other innocuous activity is likely not an immediate military threat. On the other hand, if an opponent's country is about to move to taxation and end the game, it may be desirable to shut down its factories or otherwise reduce its tax base. Similarly, if all the pieces on the rondel have just passed investor, and every player has a country, one can make his move without fear of his own country immediately being bought out by someone else, because it will be awhile before anyone has another chance to invest.
A popular strategy is to gain control over two neighboring countries (e.g. Germany and Russia) so that each has a front covered and can launch offensives without worrying about an attack from that direction.
Players' bond holdings are open to public scrutiny, but they are allowed to keep their cash on hand secret. It is usually wise to avoid divulging this information because opponents can use it to gauge whether a hostile takeover is likely.
Sometimes players will buy out a country that has undergone expansion just as it is about to land on Taxation, in order to reap the success bonus. To prevent this from happening, a player on the Maneuver space next to the Investor space may pay the extra 4M to move ahead to Taxation. A player wanting to get rid of a country can begin building up its military, increasing its tax and factory bases, accumulating cash, and in general acting in ways that make other investors want to buy it in order to neutralize it as a threat and/or cash in on its profitability.
Recognized variants
One popular variant, mentioned in the rule book, removes the investor card. The rule book notes that this creates a somewhat less exciting but more strategic game. It tends to prevent hostile takeovers before a country's first turn.
A house rule promulgated by the designer allows a player who controls no countries to collect 1M from the bank if he chooses not to invest when the investor card is activated. This may be particularly useful in 7-player games. It may also be a way to prevent less experienced players from getting "stuck" when they find themselves with no flag and little money.
The designer also suggested a "negotiation
Negotiation
Negotiation is a dialogue between two or more people or parties, intended to reach an understanding, resolve point of difference, or gain advantage in outcome of dialogue, to produce an agreement upon courses of action, to bargain for individual or collective advantage, to craft outcomes to satisfy...
" variant in which a country's decisions are made by a vote of its bondholders, with players holding more/higher bonds having greater influence. Specifically, each bond value point (the big numeral on the upper right corner of the bond certificate) counts as one vote. Players can lend and give one another money, but the bank and treasuries still cannot give or lend money in any way. Because a nation can go onto the Investor field against the will of the holder of the flag, the government is not forced to pay out every bond. Rather, the treasury pays as much interest as possible, beginning with the lowest (2M) bond and then up from there. In the event that the investor card is still used, it is unnecessary to allow extra investment by players who do not have a flag, since they are still able to participate in governance through voting. Gerdts notes, "You do not need a government to lead a country anymore. What you rather need is majorities for your ideas, and the right coalition
Coalition
A coalition is a pact or treaty among individuals or groups, during which they cooperate in joint action, each in their own self-interest, joining forces together for a common cause. This alliance may be temporary or a matter of convenience. A coalition thus differs from a more formal covenant...
-partners in critical situations! It's all about negotiation and backstabbing now..." The gameflow can be described as follows:
- Flag holder proposes rondel action.
- If others dissent, a vote is called for the action to be taken. Player's who hold the bonds of the country in question weighted votes based on their respective bond values. At least 51% of the held bond value is needed to hinder the government from an action. If no alternative gets more than 50%, the government's decision is upheld.
- Players are allowed to trade and negotiate anything at any time except the transfer of bonds.
The Swiss Bank variant, designed to benefit players who lose their last government, makes it possible to force a nation in which the owner of the Swiss bank holds bonds to stop on the investor field on the rondel. The blank cardboard tile included with the game indicates ownership of the Swiss bank. If the nation's treasury is not sufficient for all payouts, the nation cannot be forced to stop on Investor.
The game has a regular and advanced set of rules for beginning the game. Under the regular rules, each player starts out with control of a given country and also acquires two bonds in other countries. The game is generally regarded as "broken" under this set of rules because a player can have his country bought out from under him in the first turn, and end up sidelined from the action before he has even had a chance to act: this is offset by the rule that states that any player bought off the rondel receives $1,000,000 from the buying player and then has the immediate opportunity to buy any available bond. Each time the investor space is passed, the player-without-country again has the chance to buy any available bond. This remains the case until the player-without-country has a majority share of any country. This is a strong position to hold because small bonds pay better percentages than large ones, so the frequent opportunity to buy means that the player would acquire many small bonds. The advanced rules call for a series of opportunities for each player in rotating order to purchase one bond of any available value from each country at the start of the game.
Drinking variants
Drinking game
Drinking games are games which involve the consumption of alcoholic beverages. These games vary widely in scope and complexity, although the purpose of most is to become intoxicated as quickly as possible...
typically involve a different drink for each country; e.g. beerenauslese
Beerenauslese
Beerenauslese is a German language wine term for a dessert wine-style late harvest wine. Beerenauslese is a category in the Prädikatswein category of the Austrian and German wine classifications, and is a category above Auslese. Beerenauslese wines, often called "BA" for short, are usually made...
for Austria; strega for Italy; champagne for France; gin and tonic
Gin and tonic
A gin and tonic is a highball cocktail made with gin and tonic water poured over ice. It is usually garnished with a slice or wedge of lime, or lemon. The amount of gin varies according to taste...
for the United Kingdom; Kölsch
Kölsch (beer)
Kölsch, also written Koelsch, is a local beer specialty brewed in Cologne, Germany. It is a clear beer with a bright straw-yellow hue, and it has a prominent, but not extreme, hoppiness. It is less bitter than the standard German pale lager. Furthermore, Kölsch is warm fermented at a temperature...
(or other German beer) for Germany; and vodka
Vodka
Vodka , is a distilled beverage. It is composed primarily of water and ethanol with traces of impurities and flavorings. Vodka is made by the distillation of fermented substances such as grains, potatoes, or sometimes fruits....
for Russia. Drinking can be required when certain events occur in the game, such as losing a flag or a territory.
Greg Berry created an Asia Expansion map that was approved by Mac Gerdts. The map is based on the Avalon Hill
Avalon Hill
Avalon Hill was a game company that specialized in wargames and strategic board games. Its logo contained its initials "AH", and it was often referred to by this abbreviation. It also published the occasional miniature wargaming rules, role-playing game, and had a popular line of sports simulations...
Colonial Diplomacy map, designed by Peter Hawes. The six imperial nations that appear on this map are China (Yellow), Japan (Green), French South East Asia Colonies (Blue), U.K. India colony (Red), Turkish Empire (Black) and Russian Empire (Purple). As in the regular version of Imperial, there are also territories and sea regions that can be taken over. There are certain neutral countries and sea regions that, like Switzerland in the regular version, cannot be taken over. The Java Sea and Timor Sea are passable but do not score for any country possessing them in the taxation phase.