Last night we played a new game called Rise of Empires. Rise of Empires, as you may guess, is an empire-building game in which players develop their empire from Ancient Age to Modern Age. This is done over 3 era’s. Each era is broken into an A turn and a B turn. One unusual dynamic of the game is that what you do in your A turn, dictates what you will be able to do in your B turn. The B turn is almost a mirror image of your A turn. The main part of each turn is the Action phase. In it, each player takes six actions, one at a time, in turn order. These actions allow you to bolster your empire by adding territories, cities, technologies, and resources to it. You must manage carefully what you select because at the end of each turn and at the end of each era, you must pay for what you want to keep. As far as empire building games go, this game is more abstract than most. I had a hard time getting my mind around just what I should be doing. Because of this, many errors were made. You win the game by having the most Victory Points.
After Owen explained the rules to us, I think most of us were still in the dark as to how the game would play out and to what strategies we should try to employ. By the end of the game, or at least by the time we had to stop, I was still in the dark. I strayed from my normal strategy of going after victory points; this is probably why I was in last place almost the entire game. Mike took an early and substantial lead. But as the game progressed, it was easy to see that Owen was gathering a large amount of resources, control cubes, and gold.
We only played through two eras. Just by happenstance, I had a stellar B turn in era two that earned me 25 victory points (as compared to my normal 5-10 points in previous turns.)  This thrust me into second place. Owen was out in front by now, but not by that much. Mike was in third place. A place he didn’t think his playing deserved. I agreed. I think had we continued to play he and Owen would be battling it out for first place. But let’s not discount Ben’s effort. Sure he was in last place…at the end…behind everyone…even me, but I could see him as a solid finisher had the game continued. Many of us–ok, not me actually–had empires poised for greatness. At one point during the game Owen exclaimed I was a genius. Only to realize he was looking at someone else’s tokens, then changed it to “Steve, you’re an idiot.†There were many, many other creative and fun comments during the game. Fortunately I can remember any of them.
We’ll certainly have to play this game again, and soon, so we can further work out our strategies. In the meantime, I’m looking on GeekDo.com for a playing aid that shows all of the city and territory tiles.
Chaos Steve