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Latest Reviews| Oregon |  | | Reviewed by: Ron McClung |
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Imperium
I have been a fan of Avalanche Press for many years. Their games are always of the utmost quality and replay value. But when I purchased Imperium, nothing could have prepared me for what was in store.
To start off, the game has beautiful boards. That's right, I said “boards”. Three to be exact. Three wonderfully colorful gaming boards to wage war against your friends. One board represents the strategic map where you will spend most of your time. The two others are battle boards (space and ground) where your armies/navies clash. I'll get into more details on the gaming boards later.
The counters are also impressive and easy to read. It's amazing the amount of detail presented on the counters (beam or laser weapons, missiles, speed, fighter capabilities). It makes the game move quickly as you don't have to waste time looking up the information in a hard to read manual. The manual is also very easy to read and includes tables the player will have to use often.
Now, the game play. There is not enough room to explain how many hours I've spent enjoying the excitement and tension of this game. The game can be played in shorter scenarios or the gigantic all-out galactic war (recommended). As mentioned before, most of the action is on the strategic game board where players move fleets (hidden from their opponent so they don't know if it's a wandering scout or an armada of warships until it's too late) and protect crucial jump paths. If two fleets collide, the action moves to a 3D battle board where a nail biting battle can occur. If a planet is being attacked, the play moves to a planet gaming board where armies clash on planet surfaces.
In order to warn any buyers, this game takes a long time. Luckily, I can set up my game on a ping-pong table to leave out. There is no way on God's green Earth this game (entire campaign game) could be finished in one sitting (my friend and I played the campaign game, meeting when we could, and played for four months). For that, try the shorter scenarios.
The only complaint is the fact the game boards are not mounted but that is a small price to pay for such a wonderful, exciting, and beautiful game.
Overall, AP created a game with endless depth and excitement. If you ever wanted to see if you had what it takes to take over the galaxy, this is the game for all you would-be Imperial Governors.
Let's hope they create a sequel!
Added: May 23rd 2003
Reviewer: L.E. Thomas
Score: 
Related Link: Grand Strategy Games
Hits: 6686
Language: eng |
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Imperium
Posted by hcobb on 2005-12-21 09:30:28
My score:  
Yes, I3M has too many neat ideas and not enough outside playtesting.
So I''ve put together a Yahoo group to work on it.
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/i3m/
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Imperium
Posted by An on 2005-09-03 19:29:06
My score:
Unlike a previous commenter, I find the map to be quite interesting, and have no difficulty in using it. I also have no problem with a TWO DIMENSIONAL PLANET being represented with ONLY TWO DIMENSIONS. Wow you''re an idiot!
However, the planetary maps don''t really add anything to the game and could have been discluded, plus it''s a real PITA to find the world you''re looking for. Organization? I can''t find a method that was used.
Your Carrier gripe is a holdover from the original game, btw.
The game does lack dramatically in the rules department, but it also comes up with some innovative new ways to do things, and once those are cleaned up, the game becomes not just playable, but fun too! Naturally, the game works best in the areas that they modified the least, but unfortunately it looks like most things were changed just for the sake of changing them, not for improving them.
http://www.bggfiles.com/viewfile.php3?fileid=4443
Check that file out for a good solid attept at cleaning up, but these do not take into account the new custom rules on AP''s site, as they were made a couple years ago.
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Imperium
Posted by Anonymous on 2003-12-04 06:18:45
My score:
Hight on glitz, low on quality. This is for both the components and game play. The counters are very nice, but some of the Imperial stats are just plain stupid; example, the Imperail moniters lose 3/4 of its beam and 2/3 of its missile factors when crippled. Every other ship loses only 1/2. Another example is the Imperial carrier which can only carry two fighters compared to the Terran carrier which can carry three. A better solution would be for Imperail carriers to carry three fighters, and Terrain carriers to carry four.
The strategic map is very pretty, and very confusing. Why do a 3d map when movement is 2d? 3d tactical space combat is a sad joke. Vectors aren''t used so fighters can''t fully exploit their movement advantage, and all missiles can''t hit targets that they ought to. To make the matter even worse, combat has an artificial terminating condition and victory condition. What is all the more amazing, is that even though they went to all the trouble to have 3d space combat, they abstracted all planets from 3d spheres to 2d plains.
The game mechanics do have some improvements. Activiations segements work well, and make for a more interesting game play then the original. This is a most needed improvement, because it makes the Imperium expansion that was never fully developed, do able. The playtest material for this expansion was published in the Classic Traveller Reprints #5, Classic Games by Far Future Enterprises. Note there isn''t much there except the expansion map.
My recommendation, buy both the GDW and the Avalanche Press versions of Imperium. Play on the original map (GDW) and play with the new counters (AP). Merger the two rules sets to get the best of both. Or just wait for a while for me to merge the rules, then buy the original GDW Imperium (for the maps) and pay an obscene amount for the Avalanche Press counter sheets ($10 per sheet plus shipping is too much, but still cheaper then the game with a bunch of useless but pretty components).
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Imperium
Posted by Anonymous on 2003-12-01 17:12:31
My score:
This review was obviously written only for the money.
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