Author Topic: Conquest of the Empire II - Returning after 4? Years  (Read 5256 times)

Dragon

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Conquest of the Empire II - Returning after 4? Years
« on: September 16, 2012, 23:43:56 »
As I awoke this morning, I was glad I had originally planned to stay home with my family, because even though my wife and her friend had started some new plans rolling, they didn't work out. So, I gave myself a haircut, got some coffee, and started taking care of some things in preparation to break out my favorite boardgame - Conquest of the Empire, except this time we're using the "II" rules that were published by Eagle Games. My wife had previously agreed to play the game with me if we could get a babysitter. I have been trying for such a long time to get my gaming buddies to play this again, but it's a game that I know will take a big chunk of the day if we're not used to playing. Due to that, I feel like it's been something that is rarely ever looked on in favor. I'm not sure what other things are not liked about the game, but I know people are even split on which version of the game to play, so that doesn't help - personally, I like both versions, but simply due to the age, I'm much more familiar with the classic version.

We did manage to get our neighbors to watch our youngest daughter for a while, it didn't last long, but it was enough to get our game underway. At that point, it was already afternoon, but there was still plenty of time left in the day and I figured we'd get in one game using the newer (2005) Conquest of the Empire II rules and then maybe have time for Isaac to get his other little buddies together for another level of HeroQuest.

After the first turn of the game, things started picking up - we knew what we could do, for the most part, but Beth was still not grasping that this version of Conquest of the Empire was not much at all like the original version. For example, after she came into Italia and fought me, on my turn I recruited a few Infantry in Italia, right where she was - she thought that I would have to bring someone back to attack, but I explained that since I had an Influence marker in that territory, I could bring new recruits there. Another example came at the end of the first Campaign Season, 4 rounds into the game: We Collected Taxes, then we got Victory Points for our Influence markers on the board. She asked when we were going to "get the money" and I had to remind her again that we just got the money from the taxes and now we are determining how many points we have toward winning the game - the Income Track for the classic set of rules is the Victory Point Track for the "II" rules. Unfortunately for me, that didn't mean that she was behind at all - as a matter of fact, I was already in third place, 40 points behind the leader. The random starting positions that Beth had required her to move more to get to the battlefront in Italia, but also naturally protected her influence in the outer regions.

Starting the second Campaign Season, Isaac had taken what appeared to be a massive lead. Beth and I had been in a large battle that cost both of us quite a bit, allowing Isaac to come in afterward and take over Italia as the dust settled. He had also picked up a couple "Barbarians at the Gates" cards, which allowed him to build up quite a large army in a short amount of time. The battle for Italia was fierce though, bringing waves of troops to the battle-scarred land. I was pushing my resources to the max, trying to get the Senate to work in my favor, only to lose out on what were probably some critical Senate Votes. While I was working to build up my power in the Senate, Isaac and Beth were still duking it out. Unfortunately, I wasn't watching enough about the Influence that was being made outside of Italia and when the scoring time came, I was left far behind.

I spent the second half of the game trying to recover from the huge lead that my opponents had, but my advancements weren't enough. The gap created by me having the most Chaos in the first two Campaign Seasons was closing. It helped that Beth needing to take Special Taxes more often than I did, but I was still having a cash flow problem. Isaac was hungry for war, so he attacked almost every turn. Usually those attacks left me where I could no longer expand my influence without leaving myself unprotected in areas where he already had troops.

In the end, the struggle between Beth and Isaac encouraged Isaac to focus on his army in Italia rather than branching out across the water. In some cases, he even missed out on converting some influence from Beth to himself, which allowed Beth to simply recruit new troops on the spot. Beth thinks that he might have won the game if he had refocused on some Influence markers after a big battle, but that's how the game goes. Beth won the game with almost 300 Victory Points, with Isaac just about 20 points behind. I was following along, probably 50 points behind Isaac, not happy with my position on the Victory Point Track, but happy that my family had come through for me, playing one of my favorite games on my birthday, despite multiple breaks (for feeding and playing with the baby and to "repair the world" after the baby pushed the 3-peice-board apart or threw some dice into a legion of infantry, sending them flying across the board) and completely missing out on our traditional trip to Carrabba's - there wasn't even time to make a birthday cake, but it was an enjoyable day for me to think back on.

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