Travis Reynolds: Basic Training – Empires in Arms

Things have been pretty quiet on the gaming front for me over the last month or so. I haven’t even been able to find the time to make it to our group’s regular weekly game sessions!

I suspect that this is just the calm before the storm. This year has already been a busy year and it is just getting started. Origins is coming up in June and we are greasing the gears for another year at CharCon, so the near future is going to be super busy.

While I may not have been playing games, I have been busily preparing to play a beast of a game: Empires in Arms. I am like a kid in a candy store waiting for it to start up. I played a few games back in the early 1990s, and it was enough to hook me for life. For as long as I can remember, the thought of playing this game has been in my subconscious, surfacing from time to time to remind me how much fun it is.

Over the years, the game has taken on an almost mythic appeal. It is far from easy to find seven players willing to commit to playing. Why, you ask, is it so hard if the game is so much fun? Well, it might be the play time. The back of the box has the play time listed as two to two hundred hours. Yep, that’s 200 hours to play the big daddy grand campaign game and I think that may likely be a low estimate. So when organizing a game, you inevitably end up conniving at least one person into playing (and committing over 200 hours of his life!), which never goes well. Take a coerced player or two, mix them in with your typical early 1980s Avalon Hill rulebook and see 18.4.7.3.12.1.4 to find the results. In short, while lots of fun, the game becomes hard to hold together.

That said, a surprisingly strong online presence still actively supports this game, and it is fairly easy to find a play-by-email game to join just about anytime you are interested. They generally use Cyberboard or some other game box tool for map location and movement. The problem with playing Empires in Arms this way is the excruciating amount of downtime. It takes weeks to get through turns and this is a big downer. Plus, one of the best facets of the game are the face-to-face diplomacy sessions and that element is totally lost playing online. Finally, I can’t even begin to imagine trying to play this game via email if I had never played it on the tabletop, but people do. All this combines to make playing the game online a significantly reduced experience.

So, after years of failed attempts to play the game and frustration while trying to play by email, why am I so optimistic that my latest efforts will be fruitful? It’s all about the players. This time I did not find myself searching for that last piece to the puzzle. All seven players are die-hard gamers with a taste for wargames. Instead of having to harass them to read the rules, I find myself answering questions because they’ve already read them. While the time commitment remains the same, they all seem eager to play instead of hesitant. In short, I think we finally have a good crew for playing the game.

For those of you not familiar with the game, let me tell you a little about it: Empires in Arms is an Avalon Hill/ADG title from 1983 in which players control one of seven countries during the time of the Napoleonic Wars (1805-1815). The players have complete control of their country, making all military, economic and diplomatic decisions as needed. The game is won by (surprise, surprise!) accumulating enough victory points to meet the requirements for your country. Countries move up and down the Political Status Chart (which drives victory points) for just about everything they do: move up the chart when you win battles, sign alliances, conquer minor countries, and win wars; slide down when you lose battles, declare war, break alliances, sue for peace and more.

The diplomacy part of the game is really what makes it go. This is where the game is won and lost, as players negotiate, intimidate, beg, lie and barter for the fate of their country. The way that this is implemented into the game makes it crucial and lots of fun. I have never really enjoyed the game Diplomacy, but the diplomacy phase of EiA – with all of the implications it has on other phases of the game – is pure gold.

Economically, players collect money and manpower for their home nation and any other holdings they may have. They use this to produce new troops/ships, care for the maintenance on existing corps, fleets and depots, loan money to allies, pay reparations (if they got their butt kicked), and handle other assorted expenses. Economics occur only once a quarter, so in addition to spending money, emperors must save enough to supply their troops over the next three months, which can vary greatly based upon what you plan to do.

For me, the military aspect of the game works just right. It involves organizing your forces into various corps so that you can mobilize them to defend your country or expand your empire. The corps are led by various historic leaders of the period (all licking the boots of Napoleon when it comes to skill comparison). Supply is where it gets tricky. Corps can either forage or be supplied via depot. Depots are limited (assuming you are using the optional rule that limits them) in the number of corps they can supply, and it costs money to supply through a depot. Foraging is free, assuming you are successful. If not, then the cost can be disastrous as your army starves to death. There is a fine balance in saving enough money to supply your troops, especially when you are trying to wage an aggressive war. Come up short and watch out!

The combat system is the final piece of the military side of this game. EiA‘s combat system has at times been criticized as being too simple. Taken at face value, I can see how the selection of chits can be seen as a glorified version of rock/paper/scissors. Both the attacker and defender have a selection of operational possibilities from which they can choose: Outflank, Cordon, Echelon, Probe, Assault, Defend, etc. For each selection, there is at least one obvious counter among your opponent’s choices. Select the right chit, the argument goes, and you significantly increase your chance of winning the battle.

However, I disagree with this criticism. Chit selection is more than simply selecting chits as you have to consider a variety of factors during the process, such as who your opponent is, what (if any) leader he has in the battle, whether he’ll outnumber my forces, whether his troop morale will be significantly higher than mine, whether he has cavalry superiority, and what terrain the battle is taking place in. Quite often, when considering all of these factors, it becomes plainly obvious which chit is the optimal choice for your opponent and which chit will best counter that selection. Of course, your opponent is considering the same factors and is also aware of those things and he can surely see what the obvious counter to his optimal choice is, and is then considering what the obvious counter to your obvious counter is.

When considering all of these factors, the combat system fits just right. It is not overly complicated – if it were the game would take 500 hours – but it has enough depth to make a variety of factors in the game relevant to each battle. Plus, it still rewards luck just often enough through chit selection and die rolls. Two notes: First, staring at the card comparing chit selections for longer than five minutes can be hazardous to your mental health. Second, never fall victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous being never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well known – Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line! Unless you have developed immunity to iocane powder…err, have lots of experience at the game…

And so it is that I find myself as giddy as a schoolgirl while waiting for this game to start. In boardgaming today, it seems like we all too often get caught up in playing whatever is the newest release that we can finish in less than sixty minutes. On occasion, it’s nice to be excited about playing a 25-year-old game that takes a year of regular sessions to play. I know I’m thrilled! Besides, I’m sure we will play lots of those other games during our downtime…

Next month I hope to talk about plans for Origins and start the first regular session update on our EiA game!

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