Players: 1-4
Works well with just 2: Yes!
Solo quality: Really good
Age: 14+
Playtime: 40-160 min (40 min per player)
Complexity: 6/10
You are the leader of a famous civilization from history. Will you be able to guide your people through their barbaric years and achieve empire-hood?
Expand your territory, grow your population, husband your resources, keep unrest in check, and grab those Fame cards whenever you can.
I’m a big fan of deck-building games, and Imperium is a deck-builder like no other. There is a market of common cards (in several varieties) that all players can purchase from, but each civilization comes with a personalized stack of cards that represent their own, unique path to domination.
It works like this:
You begin with your starter deck, which is different in size and contents for each civilization. These early cards allow you to start expanding your domain by grabbing new cards from the market, but not by paying currency like you would expect: instead, some card actions let you acquire new cards (while other cards perform other functions). Then you have a Nation deck (also different for each civilization), which slowly drips into your starting deck: one Nation card gets added to your deck with each reshuffle of your discard pile. (So it pays to reshuffle quickly, but go too fast and you’ll miss out on some valuable plays.) Once the Nation deck runs out, the next card to drip into your deck is your Accession card—a famous leader, location or accomplishment (Julius Caesar for the Romans, Olympic Games for the Greeks!). When that happens, your ragtag collection of barbarians becomes a bona fide empire, and you can start adding powerful and civ-specific Development cards to your deck with each reshuffle, further shaping your destiny. (But those are costly! Make sure you have the resources you need to pay for the card you want when you’re about to reshuffle.)
Some cards can only be played by barbarians, and others only by empires. This means that in the first half of the game, you’re trying to temporarily stow away empire cards until you’re allowed to play them; conversely, in the latter half of the game, you’re trying to get rid of barbarian cards so they don’t gum up the works each time you draw a new hand.
Game end is triggered by specific decks running dry, and victory points are tallied. Will your Macedonians defeat the Scythians? Only one way to find out.
Imperium is the most intriguing deck-builder I’ve played so far, partly because it really feels like a civ game in card form (more so than something like Nations, for instance), but also because the eight different civilizations provided in the box—with eight more in the compatible Imperium: Legends sister game—create an impressive network of possibilities to explore. I’ve heard complaints about the art, which has a European comic book style to it, but I really enjoy it, and I can see myself playing this one for a long time to come.
Oh, yes: Don’t spend too much time with the rulebook. At first it’ll seem like it’s not teaching you much of anything, but keep in mind that the cards do most of the heavy lifting. Just start playing the game and it’ll all fall into place.
Most easily forgotten rule: Make sure to drop a progress token on one card in the market when you start your clean up at the end of each turn.
You begin with your starter deck, which is different in size and contents for each civilization. These early cards allow you to start expanding your domain by grabbing new cards from the market, but not by paying currency like you would expect: instead, some card actions let you acquire new cards (while other cards perform other functions). Then you have a Nation deck (also different for each civilization), which slowly drips into your starting deck: one Nation card gets added to your deck with each reshuffle of your discard pile. (So it pays to reshuffle quickly, but go too fast and you’ll miss out on some valuable plays.) Once the Nation deck runs out, the next card to drip into your deck is your Accession card—a famous leader, location or accomplishment (Julius Caesar for the Romans, Olympic Games for the Greeks!). When that happens, your ragtag collection of barbarians becomes a bona fide empire, and you can start adding powerful and civ-specific Development cards to your deck with each reshuffle, further shaping your destiny. (But those are costly! Make sure you have the resources you need to pay for the card you want when you’re about to reshuffle.)
Some cards can only be played by barbarians, and others only by empires. This means that in the first half of the game, you’re trying to temporarily stow away empire cards until you’re allowed to play them; conversely, in the latter half of the game, you’re trying to get rid of barbarian cards so they don’t gum up the works each time you draw a new hand.
Game end is triggered by specific decks running dry, and victory points are tallied. Will your Macedonians defeat the Scythians? Only one way to find out.
Imperium is the most intriguing deck-builder I’ve played so far, partly because it really feels like a civ game in card form (more so than something like Nations, for instance), but also because the eight different civilizations provided in the box—with eight more in the compatible Imperium: Legends sister game—create an impressive network of possibilities to explore. I’ve heard complaints about the art, which has a European comic book style to it, but I really enjoy it, and I can see myself playing this one for a long time to come.
Oh, yes: Don’t spend too much time with the rulebook. At first it’ll seem like it’s not teaching you much of anything, but keep in mind that the cards do most of the heavy lifting. Just start playing the game and it’ll all fall into place.
Most easily forgotten rule: Make sure to drop a progress token on one card in the market when you start your clean up at the end of each turn.
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