From: Bill Campbell Subject: Re: Barbarians, Kingdom and Empires? RASPUTINXS wrote: > Hello- > > What is this game about. Anyone know? > > Rasputin > > P.S. - please e-mail me. Title says all :) Seriously, though, it is a game of war and resource management set just as the Roman empire is about to fall. There are a number of different scenarios for 2-6 players, but our group tends to play the open scenario. In that scenario, everyone starts as a barbarian tribe in the hinterlands. Basically all the barbarians can do is move and breed, until they decide to create combat units (which they can do only once). They have a time limit as barbarians once their population reaches a certain size, and at the end of that limit, they become a kingdom. They obtain certain advantages, such as a leader, and more effective combat units, but now they have to pay to support old units and to form new ones, AND to support infrastructure. Money (which = victory points) is obtained by holding cities -- some cities are worth more than 1 GP per turn. So it's rare to be able to score any VP's as barbarians. Infrastructure gets more and more prohibitive to pay for, until finally the kingdom becomes an empire. As an empire, you get dif ferent combat units (some better, and more expensive to build and maintain, some worse, and more expensive to build and maintain), and the very important garrison unit (cheap, strong, and immobile). Again, infrastructure gets more and more expensive, until the empire collapses. Then you become a new barbarian tribe in the hinterlands, and the cycle renews... There are two features about this game that I really like. One is that each of the three periods has a very nice feel or flavor -- as barbarians, you are carefree, breeders and movers, and plan to attack a weak existing empire, or expand into unoccupied territory; as a king- dom, usually you can go on the offensive a bit, capture new cities, build up your army, and prepare for the coming days of empire; as an empire, usually you are scoring a lot of gold/VP's every turn, and you want to keep it that way -- you defend, and stave off corruption by supporting your infrastructure, until, inevitably, you decay and col- lapse. Two, in the open scenario, new players can join in and drop out any time without affecting gameplay -- new players just start as a barbarian tribe, and for players who wish to leave, there are rules for abandoning your position. You could just keep the same game going over time (it's easy to record the board position on photocopies of the player map, and the history of your empire is recorded turn-by-turn as the game progresses). When our group first discovered this game, we got together to game about 5 times more frequently than we normally did, and gaming sessions lasted 1 1/2 to 2 times as long. This is absolutely my favorite game (could you tell :)); everyone in our group owns a copy, and some own two. If you can get it, get it! -- William F. Campbell "Correlation is not cause." Trident Systems Incorporated http://www.tridsys.com ----- This message may not reflect the views or opinions of Trident Systems