7

Around 10 years ago, I've met a bunch of people who swore this game was THE best thing one could play. At the time I was mostly confused and didn't get all the awesomeness, and now, never found it back. The name still is a mystery so far...

The game played in ages - somehow like Seven Wonders except the actions were quite different between ages, in Age 1 for example you could wage war with neighbors and build infrastructure, in Age 2 you could explore by land and search technologies, Age 3 you could wage war with distant countries and form alliances etc... Each ages took around 1 hour to play, it was really a very very long game.

The game was set in Europe, or at least Western Europe around the 14th century or something. The main board contained at least the Italian states, pretty sure it had Vienna, Paris and Barcelona in it, it was quite a long time ago sadly I do not recall every locations on the main map.

The game used miniatures and cards, if you had some cards you could have a town, castle or something like that built in one location. The board was MESSY. Lot of information, lot of "provinces" and things to move around.

The battle system was a dice and card combo, every contestant rolled dices, you could use cards to help, but it costed money (or something like that).

The starting position were focused in Italy IIRC, kinda sure there was someone who picked Milan and someone else who played as Venice.

With enough technology you could invest, discover a random sub-map and play things in it. If Venice discovered Mexico for example, no other player could go there unless a certain age is discovered, it was very useful to hit the victory conditions.

Pretty sure to win one had to have a certain number of victory points AND a fixed amount of provinces, IIRC it depended on the starting position (Venice needed more victory points less provinces etc) but it might have been technology or external factors that reduced/increased it.

There was a lot of random events that could screw people, like revolts, plague etc, that happened more frequently to the one on top, don't remember if it was dice-based or cards based but it was advertised on the box of the game.

IIRC the box was red-ish and the name in yellow or something. The name was something like "Conquest" or related to war.

2
  • @LamaDelRey This surely was a nice one 6 months ago, but shouldn't it be resolved now? Sep 30, 2019 at 1:11
  • Yup but since the answer isn't exactly it...
    – LamaDelRay
    Sep 30, 2019 at 8:01

2 Answers 2

4

I think you talk about Conquest of the Empire (from 2005)
enter image description here

STRUGGLE OF EMPIRES is a better re-implementation of it.

3
  • Hmm this does not seem to be it, the main map was more euro-centric and I'm very sure there were mini-maps searchable or so, yet very close. If no answers come close i shall accept yours I might mix two different games together
    – LamaDelRay
    Apr 2, 2019 at 12:12
  • On your Struggle of Empires i've found Age of Renaissance which looks a bit more like what I remembered tho
    – LamaDelRay
    Apr 2, 2019 at 12:14
  • Conquest of the Empire reimplemented Struggle of Empires. Unless you are referring to Struggle of Empires reimplementing Conquest of the Empire from 1984.
    – icirellik
    Apr 23, 2019 at 19:34
0

I think that the description is a composite of several games. The largest portion is from Age of Renaissance, other fetures are from Conquest of the Empire, Age of Empires III, Condottierre.

  • The map, showing whole Europe plus the northern coast of Africa and the western most part of Asia
  • Starting positions Venice, Genua, Barcelona, Paris, London and Hamburg
  • Cards, separated into 3 Decks representing an age each (yet not really with different actions for each age)
  • Lots of provinces and lots of things to move around, resulting in a quite "messy" board
  • research
  • the time frame
  • "events that could screw people, like revolts, plague etc" - there are cards doing this, however they are played at will against another player, the only random effect here is who will draw them...

The battle system from AoR does almost fit: the attacker rolls 3 dice, one attacker die, one defender die and one turn-order die (but you might house rule that the defender rolls the defender die instead), in the whole deck there are 4 1-time-playable cards that give you a small advantage during this round. It does not cost money to play cards, but it costs money to keep cards for the next round.

Some other features are from Conquest of the Empire as suggested in the other answer, namely the description of the box plus the minatures und building of infrastructure (roads, towns, castles). This game, however, has a battle system only with dice, no cards at all.

For some other elements I'm not sure where they come from.

  • discovery of random sub maps could be from Age of Empires III, this one also has lots of miniatures
  • the fixed number of provinces to win could be taken from Condottierre
  • forming alliances in a 4X-game is something I rather connect with space-themed games like Twilight Imperium or Eclipse
  • random events that hit the top players more frequently is a feature I rather know from computer games
  • different ages with totally different actions to do is something that sounds really interesting but I've never heard of that in a real game (the only exeption was another hoax in a German board game forum ca. 15 years ago)
8
  • 3
    That's not how April Fools pranks work...
    – AndyT
    Oct 1, 2019 at 9:39
  • @AndyT That's not how April Fools pranks work - So you think that it is just a coincidence that this question, which is obviously a prank was posted on 1st of April? Oct 1, 2019 at 17:06
  • @VolkerLandgraf yes
    – Cohensius
    Oct 2, 2019 at 6:39
  • 2
    @VolkerLandgraf - "obviously a prank" is opinion, not fact. It reads as a genuine question to me. And I do believe that it's a coincidence that a question you think is a prank was posted on 1st April. As to how April Fools pranks work - the joy is in revealing to someone that they've been pranked, not sitting there six months later while people still believe its genuine.
    – AndyT
    Oct 2, 2019 at 11:17
  • @VolkerLandgraf I'd like to know why "it's obviously a prank", since I didn't notice the day and really was searching for a game's name. Since I hardly wish to disturb more people in this community, would you please explain to me what was "pranksty" in it ?
    – LamaDelRay
    Oct 9, 2019 at 15:11

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .