Board Game: Empire Builder: Mediterranean

Initial Game design

Rules and Map

Mercenaries, Technology, and Cities

Civilizations

The final part of this series is an explanation of how the game is played, and the difference between each of the six regions. The final part will be broken up into many pieces to fulfill the full depth of the game.

The Start: Every player begins the game with one army, one food, one wood, and one gold. This starting combination formed out of the need for each civilization to be able to expand successfully from the beginning of the game. The one army every nation gets, excluding Alexandria which starts with two, allows for an attack on the surrounding territories on the first turn of each players game.

One problem that came up in initial playtesting, was that if the initial army died attacking its first region then a nation would not be able to ever recover. To remedy this I tried to make it so that armies could be bought for cheap in the first few turns of the game, one of any resource, but this became too clunky. Having to keep track of the turn number, and having it so that only people who had lost their army could buy a cheap one did not work.

Instead, the idea that armies attacking from their capital could not be destroyed came to fruition. This idea was not turn-based, and would apply to each player evenly making it much simpler. It also solved the initial problem of a player being out of the game on the first turn because they were unable to take a neighboring region.

The three resource cards given at the beginning of the game allow for a player to build a settlement on the first region they take. Through a settlement, each player is able to start a constant feed of resources. A food region is located next to every capital so that it can be taken first and settled on, allowing the player to always have the ability to create armies and expand from there throughout the whole game. The beginning of the game is very individual as each player starts to expand from their capital and grow, creating settlements, fortifications, ships, armies, and new technologies.

Gameplay: After the initial turns of the game, each player will generally continue on their individualized empire building. This is supported even more through the use of the same colored regions. Each of those regions is a "revolting" territory from the main capital and is thus easier to take, having a defensive roll of only one, except cities which have one of two. Comparing this to foreign or barbarian regions which have a defensive roll of two if not controlled the same colored revolting areas are much easier for one player to gain then others.

As the game progresses and players start to control most of their starting territory they can either try to expand further into white colored "barbarian" territory, or start attacking other players. Both have their upsides as attacking other players in areas they have already settled gives greater economic bonuses as the settlements transfer, while attacking barbarian regions that are uncontrolled lets the player not gain the enemy hood of opposing players. Cities also start to become more important later in the game because they support a full troop by themselves and can give bonuses which are unique and powerful. Cities are also much easier to take as the game progresses and armies become larger, and ship support more abundant allowing for the the taking of cities.

Technology is a very important, and controlling the technology islands which give a much cheaper price of only two gold becomes key. Ships can help control the islands, and as such creating a navy becomes essential. Navies can also support armies through giving an additional die roll to attacks, allowing them to be influential in attacks against neighboring regions, and even enemy capitals.

As resources become more abundant the amount a player can buy also grows. In the late game, resource sponges like mercenary armies, and upkeep costs for additional ships, fortifications, and settlements become very important. These allow for every player to constantly be in the need for resources, and punishes to a limit players that only focus on economy. To keep players from only focusing on themselves and their economy, upkeeps costs for all of the aforementioned areas causes a limit on their ability to stockpile. Players cannot create infinite settlements, ships, fortifications, or even armies because of these limitations. Armies are limited not by an upkeep, but by the fact each player needs either a city or three regions under your control to support each army under a player's control. These limitations cause player interaction to be pushed and create on the coolest identities of the game.

Players can build on regions, settling them, fortifying them, and can even buy a technology card that doubles their output. These are very strong economically and defensively, but they come at an unseen cost. A player can put all those resources into a single region, but if an enemy player ever takes that region they gain all of the resources the player put into it. This causes militaristic approaches to be a great danger to pure economic approaches adding some very interesting back and forth into the game.