Boardgame Session @ OTK Cheras 4 April 08

Ξ April 11th, 2008 | → | ∇ Boardgames |

Phuah and I arrived at Old Town Kopitiam (OTK) Cheras at 9pm sharp to find jack208 eating all alone and forlornly in our favourite corner of the shop. The situation was remedied dramatically in a matter of minutes as keealvin, keealvin’s friend weiyii, patomas and rhyen arrived in quick succession. As keealvin and fren was the only people who don’t know the rules, I tried my hand at teaching them Imperial.

Now this is a rather difficult game to master as the bond purchasing actions are critical to winning. I tried my best at explaining the basics, covering some key timing tactics and let jack208 finish up with the rules for the bonds and setup. After wishing keealvin and fren good luck, jack208 sat back and let the rest of us slog it out for the title of… the Master of Europe.

Yea, yea, lame title, I know, but since I’d always envisioned Imperial to be a game of shadowy conspiracy figures manipulating the various imperial nations of Europe, Master of Europe doesn’t sound too far fetched for a conspiracy figure.

After shuffling the starting positions, the six shadowy conspiracy figures each ended up controlling a country as follows:

ArchDuke keealvin: Austria-Hungary
HisMajesty patomas: United Kingdom
Chancellor rhyen: Germany
PrimeMinister phuah: France
Dictator ayheng: Italy
Comrade weiyii: Russia

with special rumour monger and instigator jack208 doing some… well, rumour mongering and instigating.

Austria-Hungary start out strong with swift advances on the Balkans, sharing the spoils with pal Russia. Italy turned her sights onto the western Mediterranean but was met with strong counters from the French. Encountering no resistance, United Kingdom send out her massive fleets eastward and southward. Germany imported in some mercenaries and took the low land countries right under France’s nose.

keealvin and weiyii checking out which bond to buy.

patomas and rhyen sharing a strategy

commentator jack208 sipping a cup of coffee while phuah frets over his investments

By mid game, Austria-Hungary’s sea domination plans fell to tatters as her diverted attention means that her land bound armies were torned to shreds by the advancing Russians. Most of the Balkans fell to Russia under the guiding hand of patomas, who usurped weiyii’s control. Italy did better than expected as France falls from phuah’s capable hands into the arms of newbie weiyii. Italy had a few sweating moments as France and Austria-Hungary conspired at some point to launch a two prong attack on Italy. However aggressive invasion by United Kingdom and Russia put paid to those plans. Italy was left uncontested! Passive expansion by Germany saw limited growth and failure to check United Kingdom and Russia’s advance. By this time, United Kingdom has also changed hands onto rhyen’s arms and uses it to crush France mercilessly.

The game’s final leg saw Italy cruising to a comfortable finish followed by United Kingdom and Russia due to unchecked advances from Germany. However rhyen wasn’t complaining as he has substantial shares in those countries. Austria-Hungary fought back too late and lost her early game momentum. Germany playing a passive role was relegated to 5th place while hammered France never recovered.

End game Result: ayheng won with a 97million net worth due mostly to his iron grip rule over the winner Italy. patomas came in second with only 2million net worth difference from his investments in all three leading nations. rhyen came in third as his investments in frontrunner Italy wasn’t enough to offset the low yield generated from his weak Germany strategy. weiyii fared poorly as his hammered France did not do anything to rouse itself. Consequently, phuah and keealvin also lost out from their France investments, putting them on the lower end of the rankings. phuah did well in his investments with the frontrunners while keealvin’s steadast loyalty to Austria-Hungary meant that his investments paid off poorly.

A close game between the veteran players. Maybe now we are prepared to take on the BSW champion, sir aanemesis.

As the clock struck twelve, keealvin and weiyii have to bid a cinderella farewell, leaving jack208, rhyen, patomas, phuah and heng to continue with Age of Steam: Italy. This is n interesting map physical wise as it is long and fits perfectly on OTK’s long marble top.

This AOS expansion has some additional rules notably the introduction of black cubes as negative multipliers. In theory the black cubes will make the game brutal as negative points will impact greatly on the bottom line. In practice, the absence of income reduction tames the prospect some what. None of the players were remotely in the red the whole game. Also, the black cubes are in practice a king-making device. The end result is that the (perceived) leaders will get a thrashing from other players and there is nothing the leader can do about it. You can only hope to lie low and wait…