DiceTower News: “Best Board Game of the Month May 2016” Tech Raptor: “An epic feeling game that does not require an epic ruleset” —- Launch your fleet, capture ports, and wage war in the epic board game adventure for 2-5 players. In Empires at Sea, play as one of five nations and work to amass
DiceTower News: “Best Board Game of the Month May 2016” Tech Raptor: “An epic feeling game that does not require an epic ruleset” —- Launch your fleet, capture ports, and wage war in the epic board game adventure for 2-5 players. In Empires at Sea, play as one of five nations and work to amass the largest empire at the end of 15 rounds of play. During each round, History will give benefits or setbacks to each nation, while the Weather limits (and occasionally improves) movement across a map of the Atlantic from the 1800s. Selected as a KickStarter Staff Pick during our launch and Project We Love shortly after, Empires at Sea is a strategy board game built around the golden age of piracy and huge sailing ships of the 18th century. It brings in elements of “serious” strategy games, but is extremely easy to learn and really, really fun to play. The basic premise of Empires at Sea is to establish an empire. At sea. Each player starts with a port on the Atlantic and a small ship, each port produces resources and resources are used to purchase ships or advancements (for example: stronger cannons, thicker hulls). Once you’ve established your fleet, you can use it to attack your enemies, raid Pirate’s Bay, or continue to grow your Empire. At the end of play, the captain with the most Empire Points wins. The game is tightly tied to the historical events of the 1700 and 1800s. A History Card will give benefits/setbacks to different nations each round. A Weather Card will dictate which way the winds will blow and how your ships will be able to move across the map. Both the two-player and three-plus-player maps are based on actual maps drawn during the period. The ships are modeled off of actual ships of the time. Piracy also plays a large role in Empires at Sea. Each round, players commit gold to a bribe, and whoever bribes the most can control the pirate and wreak havoc on their enemies. The early game is expansion and industry, the end game is war.
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Pretty good start. If you are a hardcore gamer, and you only play games like Agricola and Through the ages, this game won’t satisfy you. The game is too light for hardcore gamers, and these type of gamers do tend to get really angry at the mistakes, which this game does have; they have little patience for that kind of thing. However, These are the type of people who will laugh at you if you even mention games like Monopoly or Yahtzee.
Nice surprise You wouldn’t guess from the boring box art but this is a pretty fun game. Played with 4 and we can’t wait to play again and see all the history cards. It has a good combination of mechanics: trading, resource management, buying/launching stuff, upgrading, combat, and pirates! Not to mention the game modifying history/weather cards. And who doesn’t like to be greeted as the “High Admiral” every time (as required by the game as a winning perk).
Good, solid Good, solid, and fun game that is simple enough and short enough to play in a quick evening and with younger players. Given the amount of components, the quality of the components, and the overall good game play this is an amazing buy for $30; the only detractors from this game are a few confusing rule nuances, and a bit of repetitiveness in some of the artwork. A good solid buy, recommend for board game lovers.