Nearly a full house for games this week. We didn’t expect Stu and had just got Ra out on the table when Orhan arrived which precipitated a ‘what shall we play with 6 players?’ conundrum. The answer was Imperial, and, as it turned out, this was a top choice. We had all played before except for Andy, who took to the game not so much like a duck to water as a cold-hearted international investor to the Great Power politics of the early 20th century.
The starting draw saw James with Great Britain, Orhan with Austria, Adrian with France, Kieron with Italy, Andy with Germany and Deej with Russia (I think - things did change around quite a bit…). Orhan’s Austria expanded early into the Balkans, tussling with Russia throughout the game. Britain and Germany vied for control of the low countries and Scandinavia. Italy and France jostled for position in the Med and North Africa. In terms of investing strategies, David ended up with multiple cards, having had Russia taken off him a few times. Kieron and Adrian more or less stuck to their original countries but with Kieron managing to acquire a wider portfolio than Adrian. James had a small number of high value cards. Orhan and Andy (if I remember correctly) a mid-level spread in 3 or so countries. By the end game Italy and France were out ahead with the rest of the countries a small number of power points behind and so it all hinged on the last couple of turns. In a text-book finish, Kieron managed to acquire funds and invest, and then finish the game on his next turn by taxing Italy.
The final scores were amazingly close - Andy on 94, Adrian, James and Orhan all amazingly on 105, Deej on 110 and Kieron the winner on 125. A very good game with clever mechanisms and enough interaction and lack of down time to make it a good game for six. It also finished in under 3 hours. Good stuff.
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