 A basic understanding of what the 18th century world looked like can't do any harm but is essentially not necessary. A certain understanding of the English language might nevertheless prove quite useful for gamers from outside Britain, as "Struggle of the Empires" originates from such a small publishing house that specific foreign versions with translated game board or markers are as yet not available. At least a leaflet translates these materials into French and German and explains the purpose of the many counters we use to expand our nation's sphere of influence over Europe and the far away colonies in Africa, India, Oceania and America. To do this, we need military power on land and sea, sufficient funds and preferably a huge population - and the counters can help us to achieve all of it. Some of them provide our nation with a rocketing birth rate, others with money or neutral people to use as allies in the continuing struggle against our opponents. But our path to world domination is beset with danger. Even in a fictional game world no one likes to be thrown
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carelessly into a war of conquest, so Unrest Markers pose a constant threat to our aims. Those players who don't keep that in mind over the course of three rounds are taught a lesson by their people and their victory points are washed away in a sudden surge of revolution. Though it is not uncommon for strategy games to rely on a slender set of rules with cards or counters serving as the real motor of the game, here the multitude of counters causes such a variety of effects that to ignore any of them would mean to miss a vital part of the game and thus part of the fun. So, depending on our personal preference or geostratigic orientation we can follow a continental or a colonial policy, expand aggressivly or by mutual consent - being driven ever onward on the path of expansion by lack of funds as the use of counters, the loss of armies and the meddling with the fragile web of temporary alliances costs us considerable money. In the face of the perfectly balanced gameplay even the slight disappointment about the graphically simplistic playing pieces underneath the lavish cover art makes way for the deeper understandig that more graphical detail would only distracted from the complex elegance of the game. Any more would have been less and anything less would have been a loss. © 2007
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