Imperial Struggle Review and Comparison to Twilight Struggle

 Just recently played another game in IS (already played about 5, which is extremely small for such a game), and decided to describe my first impressions of the game, and now compare it with its predecessor, TS.

 For those who don't know what these stragglers are: TS was #1 on BGG for a long time, about 10 years ago. And even now, in 2021, it is in 14th place in the overall rating. The genre of the game is hard to say. Some say it's a wargame, some call it area control, and some call it a card game. It's all in the game in general, but it doesn't really matter what genre it is, what matters is that a game from 2005 still ranks better than BGG games, and that's saying something.

 Without going into details, both games are a field with a world map and regions/countries that players fight for control of throughout the game. At certain moments, an intermediate count takes place, at which point the players receive points. However, the PO scale and accruals here are not quite ordinary, but are a kind of analog of a rope that players pull. If one player received 5 points, he moves the common marker in his direction, the opponent thus loses his 5. The goal, accordingly, is to "pull the rope" in his direction by a certain amount of PO. There are a few more conditions for ending the game early, but in general, the game plays out in this way.

 Control over regions here takes place with the help of troops, as in some Dudes on Map, and the so-called "Influence", represented by some virtual points. For example, spent 3 points, threw 3 influences in one of the regions - everything is simple.

 These points are obtained by drawing cards as in TS, or by simply drafting tokens with these points as in IS. In this way, players spread their influence, either by accumulating more in a certain region, or simply by removing the enemy's influence.

 Congratulations, you have learned almost all the rules) Of course, in the games there are a lot of nuances and subtleties that make this process of struggle interesting, and also all this does not take place somewhere in the "elven kingdom", but on our mother Earth in a certain historical period with a large number of historical events and references.

 These two games are very similar conceptually, but IS, as a newer game, absorbed all the best ideas from its predecessor and added a bunch of new ones. As a result, after getting acquainted with IS, I do not want to return to the old TS, which seems already outdated and abstract against the background of the heiress of IS.

 Well, let me tell you a little about what was added to the new game.

 I don't even know where to start. The main difference, perhaps, which immediately catches the eye, is the division of the general influence into three different ones: political, economic and military. If in TS players fought only for influence over countries, then in IS it was all divided into three levels.

 Political influence is precisely influence on countries, and here a bunch of connections of these countries with other aspects appeared. For example, the influence on countries in Europe, in addition to simple dominance in the region, is also related to wars that take place "on schedule", namely certain countries can help players in various wars, some only in certain episodes, and some during . all wars And also in the country itself there was a division into alliances (which help in wars) and prestige (another area for which players must fight to gain victory points).

 However, outside Europe, political influence is already used to interact with various groups and movements. For example, in North America, these are different tribes of Indians: after gaining control over them, the player gets the opportunity to spoil the opponent's life, destroying his trade, and even use them in wars on his side. And in the later eras, you can influence the Sons of Liberty, who want to completely make the USA with can-can and cowboys, expelling the oppressors of the English back to their foggy island)

 Economic influence – control over markets. At the beginning of each round, demand is randomly determined: three commodity tokens are drawn from a bag. It is the control over the markets of these goods that will be taken into account at the end of the round. And players will fight for these markets. Moreover, in my opinion, the struggle for markets turned out to be the most interesting. Here you like convoys when exadra are brought into the region to protect trade routes. (In the Caribbean, for example, unprotected trade routes will inevitably suffer from pirate raids.) There are also supply routes that can be actively cut and quickly and cheaply recaptured isolated markets. Throw in the various events and ministry cards that players can play to influence the markets and get extra goodies. (For example, in one of the last games, a player for England played the East India Company, which gives extra points for control of rare goods, seized control of all of India, and ended up winning by a large margin thanks to control of the cotton and spice markets. very interesting and even a little historical.)

 Military influence, which refers to the third separate layer in the game, namely the historical wars of the period. By investing in the military, we will be able to gain additional advantages in future wars, we will be able to build forts at key points, build e squadrons and introduce a fleet into the regions to protect trade interests. Moreover, the wars that take place after counting for different controls over goods and markets, in the event of a major victory of one of the parties, in addition to victory points, also allow the winner to gain new footholds, displace the opponent from the regions in a violent way and are capable of reshaping the influence and distribution of forces in the region.

 I understand that it sounds extremely complicated, and it seems that all these elements were simply screwed on for the sake of complication, but as soon as you delve into this system, it seems ingenious, everything is so logically interconnected. Moreover, so much so that the system in TS in the background seems to be just a primitive commotion and sketching of numbers. The player is always faced with the choice of where to direct resources. Bet on the markets? Is it thanks to the map of the ministry, which gives a discount on the construction of exadras, to dare a huge fleet to sail and make the local Indians a nightmare for them? And don't overdo it either, because by investing too much, the player won't get more, and the resources spent here could be useful in another region.

 I will add a few words about event maps. In general, in my opinion, TS has a big bias towards cards: all influence points come from cards (called operation points), even the preliminary calculation is done by drawing a card. IS avoided such binding, but at the same time the event maps remained. And now they are all mixed up in one common deck, and there will no longer be a situation beloved by TS players, when your opponent's cards came into your hand. Event cards in IS, also due to real historical events, affect the world map, but players have the opportunity to increase the effect of such events with the correct selection of ministry cards, which, in my opinion, is an interesting idea, because I don't want to play. As a result, the player also needs to make the correct selection of event cards in connection with ministry cards. And taking into account that different cards will come from party to party, it results in great re-drawability and variety of strategies.

 Wars in IS came out as a kind of separate mini-game. And although some combat units in the form of squadrons and forts are present on the field and are even taken into account in some wars, there are no armies or their movements during the war in the game. Instead, we again compare who has more influence (different countries participate in different wars, the alliance with which gives the player an advantage), plus additional power is added to us by bonus tokens that we can buy for military influence during the main peace turn Without these tokens, wars would be completely lost. And by the way, in the first games, until you remember which countries are participating where, you have to constantly compare with the list, see who is in control, which is actually hell. By the way, this is one of the conditions for an early victory: if one of the sides dominates in all four "theaters" within the framework of one war.

 There's a lot more to say about this game, but I've only skimmed through the rules. But for a simple introduction to the game, I think it will be quite enough, especially if you have already played TS before.

CONCLUSIONS

 The game, compared to its predecessor, has grown in depth and breadth, a lot of additional layers and decision options have appeared. And naturally, this increased the entry threshold many times over. That's for sure, I wouldn't recommend starting your acquaintance with the world of board games with this game (although, to whom).

 The historical period may not be for everyone, after all, in order to dive deeper into the game, you need to understand a little, at least roughly, what was happening then. And if the topic of the Cold War is still somehow close to us, then the confrontation between England and France may seem distant and uninteresting.

 It's a rather specific genre, it's just as difficult to say where exactly to classify such games. And for someone it will be too wise and difficult. Moreover, I heard this opinion from those who played TS, who said that "they made it more complicated, we will make it easier to understand TS". Although for me personally the IS is superior to the TS in all indicators, it already seems like a boring drawing of numbers from the times of the Cold War.

USEFUL LINKS

Imperial Struggle on the BGG portal

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/206480/imperial-struggle

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