History of the World (board game)

German Games Award 1993: No. 9 Origins Award 1993

Empire or History of the World is a board game by Gary Dicken and Steve Kendall ( Ragnar Brothers) for 3 to 6 players in which the rise and fall of various nations is simulated. The game is divided into seven epochs from the dawn of civilization to the eve of the First World War. During these periods, each player takes at random one of the 7 cultures that culminated in this era, such as the Sumerians, Romans, Huns, Franks, Mongols, Spaniards or the Manchu dynasty. It is true, by conquest and construction of cities and monuments and Vorherrschaften in various regions of the earth to collect as many victory points. The special attraction of the game is that each player in a different era, a different people, and distributed his checkers around the world. The game is not only similar visually Civilization, also of the playing time ago it may take several hours here until an end is reached.

The original English version of the game is published by Ragnar Brothers History of the World in 1991. Then it was Gibsons Games, World Games ( in German ), Compendium Games postponed ( in Dutch) and in 1993 by Avalon Hill as Empire or History of the World. After Avalon Hill was bought by Hasbro, a revised edition was published in 2001 again with Hasbro.

Game play

In each of the seven periods, players receive one of seven nations that flourished in this era randomly. These people can either be retained or " inherited ". Because the peoples have different strengths ( number of troops, but also the presence of seafaring or capital ), each player is keen to get himself a strong people and blaming the weak of the leading players; therefore the weakest players begin the era also. If each player has received his people, these are played sequentially, with a randomly drawn event brings the player an advantage; as a sovereign guarantees, for example, a bonus in combat, or a small people brings additional units. The player is now expanding from the start region of his people his empire and conquered it as many regions, cities and natural resources; any fights here are diced similar to risk, where there may be various modifications. At the end of the train nor monuments can be erected. Since this nation is then no longer reinforced, it is necessary to establish his kingdom for later attacks, thus attacking opponents lose as many of your units before the conquest. It follows a score which is dependent on the region and the number of controlled areas, but also the number of cities and monuments. In the next epoch another people is then played, which although has the same color but a different emblem, played. Who has the most victory points at the end of the seventh epoch, wins the game.

Epochs

The game covers roughly the following seven periods in world history from: