Rise of Empires

Customer Reviews

Rise of Empires - A Euro Empire Building Game Review by Matt

Price
Value
Quality

Overview:

Another entry in the 'Civilization' genre, Rise of Empires is a great euro entry. This is a simulation of the founding of empires and discovery of the new world, all the while providing the players with interesting decisions throughout the game.

Game/Play Mechanics:

This game blends many popular euro-mechanics into a well thought-out game.

The game plays our over 6 turns which are broken down into 2 turns per the 3 ages in the game. Players spend the first two ages of the game setting up a strategy to capitalize on during the 3 and final age of the game.

The game is victory pointed based with several avenues towards victory. There is an economic based victory path, an Area of Control (on the game board) option as well as construction based path.

The most interesting mechanic to the game is that of how the game turn plays you. Each age, consisting of two turns, is played on an A side and a B side of the age. On the A side of the age, players put 'action' tokens onto one of the 5 action tracks from right to left. Then on the B side, players remove these same actions from the action track from left to right, penalized resources/money for actions that are buried deep.

This makes turn planning very interesting as you need to play out what actions that you wish to have in the following turn, not only the turn you are currently in. A very elegant game system that players can enjoy exploring different strategies and ways to adjust the game levers.

The game in and of itself isn't not too complicated once you get the general idea of how the various actions types play into one another.

Conclusion:

This game provides many interesting choices and paths to victory for game players and does well to simulate empire building and expansion, but on such a level that is not overly complicated and weighed down by hordes of rules.

Definitely a more light weight strategy game than others in the genre, but enjoyable all the same as there is never a case where a player is not making a meaningful decision.

A must buy for any civ fan! (Posted on 11/22/10)