Dark Ages: Holy Roman Empire

For the season finale we wanted a big game for nearly the whole group and, since we did not quite make eight players, Dark Ages seemed like the more manageable medieval 4X option. We had already played a few games with the individual boxes, and we were curious about the “big” version in which they are combined. It remains a good 4X that consciously tries to move away from the genre’s usual ailments, such as snowballing and kingmaking, but it also replaces them with a fair amount of randomness, which you can only hope the game’s long duration will smooth out.

At its core, the game is a large medieval contest of development and war: you build production, spread across the map, and eventually settle disagreements through battles and dice. The pressure comes precisely from the fact that, in a game of six or more people, not everyone can invest in their army to the same extent. Anyone who races ahead in points and production without defence immediately draws attention, while the rest can act through direct invasions or more opportunistically, taking advantage of the chaos.

Combining the two boxes doubles the map and is meant to make room for a larger table, but it also doubles the asymmetries. The decision to have peasant levies on only one map leaves one side exposed, and I cannot see what meaningful compensation the eastern players receive. Still, the core system holds up at the higher player count: with players who know the rules and trust one another, six, seven, or eight people can finish in around six hours, a little better than a game of TI4. The many modules leave room to make your own recipe, although they need care: the 20-city limit with six players is constricting, while 24 battles to end the game in Great War applies equally to two and eight players, which feels simply overlooked.

In our game, one player shot ahead in points and production without spending almost anything on troops, while a more organised second power followed not far behind. That dictated everyone else’s moves: I descended on an undefended opponent, others moved into Italy, closed borders, stockpiled resources, or ran guerrilla actions amid the disorder. The game stayed interesting until the end, especially in the race to end it early, and the notional lead changed hands several times in the final rounds. In the end, the most ruthless opportunism won by fewer than three points, after a last-minute hit completely ruined my zen.

That is also my main caveat. Dark Ages is prone to dick moves, and if your group carries grudges, habitually targets the same people, or struggles to accept a harsh opportunistic strike, this is probably not the game that will reconcile it. But if everyone agrees beforehand on the module mix and the tone of the conflict, it has enough design depth and enough stamina to justify a very large table—even if the combined game remains more uneven than it ought to be.