| Title | Qt3 Boardgames Podcast: Imperial Struggle, The Initiative, Unmatched |
| Author | Tom Chick |
| Posted in | Games podcasts |
| When | May 20, 2021 |
Tom Chick finds a game heavier and better than Twilight Struggle, Mike Pollmann finds a mysterious boardgame and now someone is watching him, and Hassan Lopez finds out who would win in a fight between Alice in Wonderland and Sherlock Holmes..
Just like I won’t tell Brett Favre how to pronounce his name, Corey Konieczka can pronounce his name however he wants. But in the country that Corey Konieczka’s name is from, it wouldn’t be pronounced “Koneska.”
I think Imperial Struggle introduces a lot more mechanical complexity for little additional benefit. That, and the ahistorical random VP awards, are my basic dislikes about the game.
This is my main issue with Imperial Struggle. I might be saying that because I’ve only really played two learning games there. But I haven’t figure out how the increased complexity helps.
Good lord is Imperial Struggle sporting one messy, ugly, unappealing board.
I’ll never complain about Arkham Horror 3 again.
Imperial Struggle is in some respects a much more competitively interesting game than Twilight Struggle, though to cut down the length there’s a lot fewer ‘action round’ equivalents, but more can happen each action round. That being said, in order to keep the game from being too much of a ‘take that’ sort of game, there entered in a lot of mechanics to ‘defend’ areas, which is I think what people mean by ‘extra complexity’.
The strategy’s more complex and interesting, IMO, than TS, but it’s definitely a dry-er game, since events play a lot less of a role.
I had this same reaction. It should be something like “Conech-ka”.
I’m really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on Imperial Struggle when I listen tomorrow, because I had a nice chat with @Brooski about it that was very disappointing.
Thematically I find IS more appealing in theory. But in his telling the trade offs are not worth it. So I’m definitely looking to hear the counter argument as it is a game I want to like based on the design pedigree and theme.
I have now finished one and a half games of Imperial Struggle. Early impressions are really positive, but with a huge caveat. At least at this early stage of experience, there’s just too much to keep track of with, especially compared to Twilight Struggle, too many fiddly rules and exceptions. It doesn’t help that the in-game glossary and index are terrible. The game would be vastly better for beginners in an app that could track this stuff for you, not to mention dealing with setup.
We may have different definitions of dry, but I would strongly disagree. The fact that there are so many different ways to VPs, rather than there being only influence (and specific events obviously) and only one kind of influence, makes things much less dry for me as someone, as each turn you’re trying to achieve something different, that you probably had no idea you would need to focus on the previous turn. It makes TS, which I dearly love, feel shallow and monotonous. I also really like what they’ve done with events, though TS’s approach also works well in that design. The interplay with ministry cards and the board state adds another layer of decision-making.
Maybe it’s just because I’m at that part of the Chick Parabola, but I can definitely see this having more legs than TS. There are just so many decisions to make along so many axes and so much potential variability between games.
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