Dark Ages: Holy Roman Empire

Dark Ages: Holy Roman Empire is Dark Ages in its large form: the two boxes become one map, and the game opens up to six, seven, or eight players. Its principal virtue is that it does not treat medieval 4X as a mere expansion exercise; it makes a real attempt to restrain snowballing and kingmaking, the two diseases that usually decide a large game well before its ending.

The game is built around production, development, and dice-led warfare, with enough modules to make its overall shape vary substantially from one table to the next. Its restrictions often keep empires from running away with the game, but they can be overzealous: the 20-city limit at six players is needlessly tight, while luck remains prominent enough that one hopes the length of the game will smooth it out.

In the combined game, the central system holds up at higher numbers provided everyone knows the rules and the table has a basic level of trust; six to eight players can finish in about six hours, a little faster than TI4. Doubling the map, however, also doubles its asymmetries: peasant levies exist on only one map, and the eastern side appears to receive no matching compensation. The Great War module also asks for the same 24 battles to end the game at two players as it does at eight. That scaling has simply gone unattended.

The game I played displayed both the strengths and the liabilities of that structure. Two players leapt ahead in points and production without equivalent military investment, so the rest of the map became a study in raids, opportunistic invasions, sealed borders, and the race to trigger an early end. The notional lead changed hands several times in the final rounds, and the winner finished fewer than three points ahead; that is Dark Ages at its best. It is also a game that makes spiteful moves very easy: attacks that may serve less as strategy than as a private argument conducted across the table.

There is plenty here for demanding groups, because the modules allow them to find a configuration that suits them. The interesting decision, though, is not only what to do during play; it is whether everyone has agreed beforehand on the same version of the game and the same level of aggression. Dark Ages: Holy Roman Empire is an ambitious, uneven, and occasionally over-constrained 4X that rewards a mature group but does not forgive its old habits.