Imperial Struggle

My first games of Imperial Struggle felt like a good cigar: you do not rush it, you do not squeeze it into an evening with one eye on the clock, and you wait to see what it leaves behind. Before you can settle into that, though, there is a long queue of small rules to retain. The familiar GMT manual format is not especially kind here, and it badly needs examples and warning text in the places where players are most likely to trip.

This is not Twilight Struggle, where you grab your opponent by the throat and throw them into a bear trap. Its moves mature over a longer horizon, scoring swings back and forth, and the contest commonly runs through all six rounds. Patience matters. So does allowing a move to develop before declaring it clever.

The conflict between players is present, but it lacks the constant alarm of Twilight Struggle or 1984 scoring and actions. With sharper opponents and more attention paid to war, the game moved far more cleanly and agreeably. It does not hit you at once; it makes you watch the other player, work out where their next commitment is forming, and decide whether to spoil it now or later. That is where its tension lives.

The map does not do enough to help: its illustration obstructs reading rather than serving it. Combined with all those small rules, that makes early games easier to misplay than they ought to be. Once the omissions are gone, however, there is a substantial two-player game for people who want a gentler, longer-range duel rather than handing a newcomer a beating at the first scoring.

For me, the needle began at “I like it, but I am not mad about it”, and it stayed there once we played it correctly. Imperial Struggle deserves credit for choosing tastes almost opposite to Twilight Struggle’s; they simply are not, in the end, my tastes.

Updated session

The later game, played without missed small rules and by players who understood what they were pursuing, confirmed that the design works as intended. It did not raise the game in my estimation: the absence of Twilight Struggle and 1984’s more immediate anxiety is a feature, not a flaw — I just prefer that anxiety.