Deckbuilding games that did something different - Secret Part 3

I wrote not 1, but 2 articles:

And somehow in there I missed an absolute corker of a deckbuilding game that did something really different.

You see - in those previous articles I looked in depth at markets, be they static or dynamic, how costs are handled, the power of removing cards from your deck, and how a game could be purely played in your deck or could have some other kind of on-board aspect.

I completely missed a game that has a dynamic but ‘suited’ market, and no card costs at all - because you do not automatically have the right to buy a card.

I’m talking about Imperium, the 3-part series including Classic, Legends and Horizon, but the game system was re-used and developed in Star Trek Captain’s Chair to great effect.

Maybe you can’t, or maybe that’s what the points value of a card is for? A game of Imperium is won by the player with the most points. That means a card’s only real final value is in how many points it gives you. Of course, that’s a difficult thing to determine - some cards are literally worth points to obtain, and some have abilities that directly score points.

The trickier ones are those that generate other, non-point resources or give you access to unique things that other players cannot (yet) do. How many points are those worth? Answering that question is exactly what it means to understand this game. Perhaps you have lots of cards that want to spend brick to function. Gaining a card that’s a steady brick supply lets your deck run smoothly. That’s going to be more valuable at the beginning of the game than at the end, where raw point scoring takes over the card evaluation story.

So where the traditional deck-building story might look like “Obviously I buy the most expensive card available, because if it’s the most expensive it’s probably the most powerful” - in Imperium where there are no costs on the card, you are genuinely forced to evaluate whether it’s worth the hoops you have to jump through to get the card, and the hoops you’re going to have to jump through after getting the card.

…because a real differentiator of Imperium from any of the other deckbuilding games I listed is that very first turn.

A lot of deckbuilding games start with a very simple deck. Some purchasing power, some points or other kind of power if attacking is a thing in this universe, maybe you have a unique card in play to represent you with some kind of power, maybe ‘you’ are shuffled into your starting deck.

Imperium has no useless point cards to start you with (though you might start with Unrest that you’re actively encouraged to remove), and also no economy to deal with directly, as cards do not have costs. So what does a starting Imperium deck look like? The answer is very specific to which nation you are playing, as every starting deck is completely different.

So, like most deckbuilders, you play the first 2 turns of the game - that’s going to involve drawing half of your deck at the start of the game, playing a turn, drawing the other half of your deck, playing a turn, then for your 3rd turn you’ll be trying to draw cards from your empty deck. You can’t do that, so you’ll shuffle your discard pile, including any cards you gained in those first 2 turns, and that’s your new deck.

Right?

No - Imperium has still more customisation for you. The early development of the nation comprises a separate Nation deck, from which you will gain a card at random for free each time you cycle your deck. Will Japan discover Tendai Buddhism before or after Kanji? Will that make a notable difference in the development of the nation?

Eventually the Nation deck runs out, and you hit your accession card, at which point (usually!) your Barbarian state becomes an Empire, completely changing the landscape of which cards are playable, and opening up the Development deck to you - cards which also come to you each time you cycle your deck, but this time not at random and for free. These development cards are chosen and have a resource cost.

In terms of the cadence of the game, we may well be near the end of the game by the time you reach the ability to buy developments, or you may be able to nearly buy out your whole development deck.

OK, I will say that Imperium does have quite a lot of rulebook. There are some keywords that need to be understood - the difference between acquire and break through - both keywords that gain you cards, but quite from where, what it costs and where they go can be different.

But mostly, the point I’m making about the game being on the cards is that it’s not special rules hidden away in the rulebook that differentiate the nations, it’s literally what is written on the cards in front of you that differentiates them. You don’t have to remember what it is that nations do differently to each other, if there’s something that a nation is bad at doing, it probably just doesn’t have a card that does that thing. Similarly, if they’re good at something, you’ll see that in the cards themselves.

You don’t even have to remember how to buy a card, because by default you cannot. That’s right, there is no basic built-in action that allows you to buy a card. Getting cards from the market is entirely driven by the cards you have. Taking my opening hand from above as Japan, I have Clans, and playing that card will let me obtain a Land card. For this reason it’s very important that the market is laid out in suits. At any given time there will be at least 1 land (or region card), 1 uncivilised card, and 1 civilised card, alongside 2 cards dealt from a mixed deck. Tributaries only appear in this deck, so if you have the possibility to gain one whilst one is in the market you need to carefully consider whether you can pass up that opportunity for something else.

Of course, these differences between nations can be difficult to see when you’re wrestling with your own deck to understand what it even does. You don’t have a baseline expectation of normal yet², so that can make it difficult to see what your deck does differently. And wow is there a great deal of different to be had here. Whilst most nations start barbarian and work toward empire, even that isn’t necessarily constant - at least one nation flits between summer and winter instead, one of the more bizarre nations - the Martians - starts at empire and tries to lose empire status to blend in, whilst the cultists are trying to bring about the end of the world via mass unrest.

If you take one thing away from this article it should be this - if you play a game of Imperium with one nation, and then play a second game with a different nation, don’t expect anything to necessarily work the same second time around.

I love Imperium’s way of dealing with the ‘trash’. Deckbuilding games want you to remove cards from your deck that you no longer need, that you’ve moved past. Other games tend to use a derogatory term for this, letting you ‘trash’ cards or ‘exile’ them. But how would the Macedonians trash Philip II, or exile him? He earns you a valuable card to develop your Nation and in thanks you exile him??

No.

Imperium makes the positive sound positive - in a similar way to Tyrants of the Underdark having an Inner Circle that you promote people to, Imperium has what every Nation has¹ - a History. You don’t want to get trashed or exiled, but how about written into the history books of your nation? That’s surely worth it! Cards in your History score just like they were still in your deck at the end of the game.

Yes, and it takes a couple of different forms.

Firstly, as someone trying to teach the game to a newcomer, it can be difficult to help someone play a deck that you haven’t experienced yet. They might ask for example how you acquire a tributary, and you might not know whether they have a card in their deck that even does that!

This is exactly the same problem I have with other heavily asymmetric games like Root, for example. It’s not the easiest job in the world to teach a table of 4 players how to play Root when each player is actually playing a different game!

I wouldn’t recommend a 4-player game of Imperium with the one experienced player teaching 3 other newcomers how to play. It might work out fantastically but I just don’t see it - I’d much rather teach one and have the other two watch or team up.

And part of that reason is the second downside to Imperium - it does feel a lot like multiplayer solitaire, a term which I discussed in last week’s article On Games and Puzzles. ³The fact is, it’s difficult enough to pilot your own deck correctly (both in a literally-am-I-breaking-any-rules kind of sense, and in the strategic sense) that trying to pilot your own nation whilst also paying attention to what state your opponent is in seems too hard to me. I would have to already know my opponent’s deck well to understand their position at all, and if that’s a nation I haven’t played with then I don’t really stand a chance.

3 counterpoints to the “Multiplayer Solitaire” accusation though:

If you enjoyed this newsletter, we’d appreciate it if you would forward it to a friend. If you are that friend, welcome to the newsletter!

The chessboard in that problem is just an 8×8 grid, like so:

The domino is just a 2×1 rectangle, using the exact same grid size as the 8×8 board, don’t think about pips, or relative sizing or anything like that, a domino will perfectly cover 2 adjacent squares. Also you have as many as you need (and, you know how many you will need, don’t you). One clever reader knew that a standard double-six set of dominoes only actually has 28 dominoes in it, which would be sufficient. Clever, but my bad, the problem does not involve such trivialities as ‘running out of material.’

Here’s the thing - covering the chessboard with dominoes it really simple. There’s lots of ways to do it, some satisfying, some messy as anything, but it’s really easy.

Mutilate the chessboard by removing those opposite squares and the task doesn’t just become hard, it’s completely impossible. The problem is one of proof. How do you take something that seems difficult, and declare it actually impossible? Without proof, maybe the solution you seek is one you just haven’t thought of yet?