Imperial

Rating after 1 play with 4 players. And it seems to merit more plays before that rating settles down.

I enjoyed it and I think the game is very clever, but it didn't seem that exciting.

Update: Played again. Still enjoyable. But long.

Same designer as Antike and it shows because it's core mechanism is the 'Rondel' track. Antike has it's flaws, but this isn't one of them and it does keep the game moving quickly and allows different strategies to be adopted. The board looks like the diplomacy map, everything is set up for a wargame but ultimately it's an economic game and a very very good one at that.

One word: mega!

Essentially the same game as 2030 but looks a lot worse

Played four times with 3, 4 & 6 players. Almost everyone really likes this game. Once everyone gets the rules down the game play goes fast and everyone keeps pretty busy. We had much more fun using the pick your own shares and not using the start up on the back of the flags. I think keeping the investor card works very well. Use poker chips instead of the paper money that comes with the game!

Was a 10 rating for me back in 2013 when I first got it, but has degraded now over time after about 30 plays. It's fun and moves quickly despite taking 3 hours to play, but it's a bit formulaic and not altogether enjoyable as it once was, vulnerable to group think. The last game was pretty unsatisfying -- I just used a relentless invest-tax cycle to win by a large margin. I am still trying to figure out how to A) win as the Swiss banker and B) disrupt someone's money making machine. I think the latter might be insurmountable at times when three or four players are colluding to take one country over the top and you are locked out of any decent bonds to join their tax fest.

reviewed on my blog.

151117 Held up nicely in my mind's eye, back up to a 6.

120909 Enjoyable enough in my one play, but not much interest in playing this again. I'd play chicago express over this. I think the added complexity of the "wargame" theme as opposed to "track laying" theme would make this a much better/deeper game for those into that sort of thing, but I was just happy playing financier and won the game by managing to avoid running any countries.

I would want to play this game again a lot more if I liked the wargame aspect (which I typically do, but not in this game).