Empire (board game)

Empire / History of the World
Game data
author	Gary Dicken , Steve Kendall
publishing company	Ragnar Brothers (1991), ; Gibsons Games (1991), ; World of Games (1991), ; Compendium Games , ; Avalon Hill (1993), ; Hasbro (2001)
Publishing year	1991
Art	Board game
Teammates	3 to 6
Duration	3 hours and more
Age	14 years and older
Awards
	German Games Award 1993: 9th place ; Origins Award 1993

Empire or History of the World is a board game by Gary Dicken and Steve Kendall ( Ragnar Brothers ) for three to six players, in which the rise and fall of different peoples is simulated. The game is divided into seven epochs from the beginnings of civilization to the eve of the First World War . During these epochs, each player randomly takes over one of seven cultures that had their peak in this epoch, such as the Sumerians , Romans , Huns , Franks , Mongols , Spaniards or the Manchu dynasty . The aim is to collect as many victory points as possible by conquering and building cities and monuments as well as dominating individual regions of the world. The special attraction of the game lies in the fact that each player takes on a different people in a different epoch and thus distributes his game pieces all over the world. The game is not only visually similar to Civilization , the length of the game can take several hours to reach an end.

The original English version of the game was published by Ragnar Brothers as History of the World in 1991. It was then published by Gibsons Games , Welt der Spiele (in German), Compendium Games (in Dutch) and in 1993 by Avalon Hill as Empire or History of the World . After Avalon Hill was bought by Hasbro , a modified new edition was published again in 2001 by Hasbro.

Game flow

In each of the seven epochs, the players randomly receive one of the seven races that flourished in that epoch. This colony can either be kept or "passed on". Since the peoples are of different strengths (troop strength, but also the presence of seafaring or a capital), every player is careful to get a strong people himself and to push the weak ones to the leading players; therefore the weakest players also start the epoch. When each player has received his people, these are played in sequence, with a randomly drawn event giving the player an advantage; so a ruler guarantees z. B. a bonus in battles, or a small race brings additional units. The player now expands his empire starting from the starting region of his people and conquers as many areas, cities and raw material deposits as possible; Any fights are rolled in a similar way to risk , although there can be various modifications. At the end of the turn, monuments can still be erected. Since this people will not be strengthened afterwards, it is important to fortify your empire for later attacks, so that attacking opponents lose as many of their own units as possible before the conquest. This is followed by a scoring that depends on the region and the number of dominated areas, but also on the number of cities and monuments. In the next epoch a different race is played, which has the same color but a different heraldic animal. The player who has collected the most victory points at the end of the seventh epoch wins the game.