Portal Games 331603 Imperial Settlers, Multicoloured

Product Information

Ignacy has even gone the extra mile and added 4 great solo play scenarios to the game. They tweak and change a few rules and give you a different challenges and goals. I had a blast playing it and it’s among my best solo play experiences ever.

Empires of the North plays until someone reaches 25 points. Each round consists of a Lookout Phase, Action Phase, Expedition Phase and a Clean Up phase. Designed by Ignacy Trzewiczek and published by Portal Games, Imperial Settlers is a 1–4 player, empire creating, engine building, resource gathering card game with a strong element of player interaction.

I JUST WANT ONE STONE!!

The main treat however, is the graphics on the cards, which are full of intricate details and funny stories, which are not immediately visible at first sight. Look closely and you will see the titular settlers going about their business, Roman soldier occasionally tripping, or Barbarian warriors setting a trap for the unsuspecting passersby.

Imperial Settlers: Empires of the North is a stand alone game set in the Imperial Settlers universe. It’s not compatible with the original Imperial Settlers game. Created by Ignacy Trzewiczek it does share some mechanisms with its predecessor, and is still very much a tableau / engine building game. But what’s it like? And is it any good? You’ll soon find out. What is Imperial Settlers: Empires of the North like? I’m a huge fan of Imperial Settlers, so my hopes were maybe a little too high in the case of Empires of the North. I have had rounds of Empires of the North where I basically threw the round to gather a scant three wood resources and a food, just to be ready for the next round. There is no trade action, which is clearly a move to tighten the experience for those who thought the base game was a little too loose in finding creative ways to scrounge together the stuff you needed to build cards. In the first phase the active player rolls the dice. There are three resource dice offering either wood, stone, fruit or coin (which is wild and can be used to “buy” any resource) and one worker die. This worker die indicates how many actions a player gets (basically how many boxes can be crossed off). The Roman faction produces a small amount of almost all goods, but they can store Raze tokens. This makes them very confrontational. Make sure to keep a Defense token on your most valuable location at all times, especially when playing against the Roman faction. Romans also have a lot of faction locations the work well together to score victory points.The next pro that I have for the solo campaign can probably be said for Imperial Settlers as a whole — the factions play very differently. As an example, the first campaign I started was with the Barbarians. They are very straightforward — they get VPs primarily by building tons of buildings, but they can also activate some buildings to trade goods for points. The next campaign I played was with the Atlanteans. The Atlanteans don’t get VPs from their faction specific buildings (other factions get 2 VP per faction specific building), but they get a lot of “technology” tokens, which improve common buildings. This meant that I had to build a ton of common buildings (they also only win if they have more common buildings than the virtual player — instead of buildings of any type). Building all of these buildings meant that I got buildings Razed by the virtual player almost every turn — but the technology tokens caused me to generate huge piles of resources to help offset those losses (and to feed into buildings to generate VPs). Before starting all players receive an Empire Sheet, a Village Sheet, a pencil and the Favour tokens are shuffled and drawn at random equal to the number of plays plus one. The randomly chosen active player draws the first Favour Token followed by the other players. These Favour Tokens give the players unique special abilities for that turn. The game ends when all 10 rounds have been played and players move on to final scoring. After all points have been totalled up, the highest score wins. Well, there are plenty of things that I like that feature in other Roll and Writes. Things like the limitation of the rounds, and that you have so much to do, maybe even too much to do, in the goes given to you. As a result, good choices need to be made. At the start of a round of the game you’ll draw 4 cards and you can keep as many of these as you like. But each card you keep will cost you 1 worker. So keeping all 4 in the first turn will leave you with just 1 worker to use that turn. Workers will however become a very precious commodity later in the game, since you will need them to activate many of your location cards.

Empires of the North is a card game in which players lead one of six clans from three different factions. The game plays out over a series of rounds, during which players explore new lands, construct buildings, trade resources, and sail to new lands with the aim of either conquering, or pillaging to gain more goods! Each action draws the clans closer to becoming the greatest empire! The game ends in the same round that any player reaches the 25 victory points mark. Use an Action – A player can exhaust a location card in their tableau to perform the action on that card. Actions typically require players to spend resources to gain victory points, more resources or additional actions. The Action Phase is where the meat of Empires of the North occurs. Players can do any number of actions until they decide to pass. Actions that can be performed are:

Ignoring Gems for Fish

Raid other players, by spending axe tokens to tap one of your opponents cards (preventing them from using them that turn) The digital version of popular board game – Imperial Settlers Roll & Write from Portal Games. The app contains settlements from Competition Set and 14 Adventure sets from classical board game. More will be added soon! The quality of the components inImperial Settlers is also at a very high level. The three resources and workers (pink meeples!) are made out of wood (shaped, not simply cubes) and they are a pleasure to look at – especially the apples, with their vivid red colour – and are clear to distinguish between. The cards and the remaining cardboard pieces are also sturdy and colourful, and are greatly complimented by the text on the cards, alongside a well written rule book, with a further explanation of the faction specific cards and abilities in an FAQ section. Build a location - Players can build a location from their hand paying the displayed resources. Certain buildings will have a specific action requirement to be able to build. These actions are performed on the clan action wheel, see below. As well as location action cards, there are also feature cards that give you on going bonuses, new fields, field upgrades and instant effect cards. Moreover, the swords, shields and gold coins are made out of cardboard, and one would only wish they were the same high quality wooden pieces like the rest of the resources. None of the above criticisms detract from the gameplay however, or the enjoyment from playing the game and are strictly personal preference.

Players will continue with the four phases until someone reaches 25 points. If a players reaches 25 points in the action phase then the rest of the round is played out. If a player reaches 25 points in the Expedition Phase then one more full round is played. Players score one point for each card in their empire, one point for every two resources and one point for every gold. The player with the most points is the winner. Final Thoughts on Empires of the North The factions themselves are unique, each with their own play style. The barbarians are aggressive, the Japanese value trade, the Egyptians have plentiful gold and the Romans are builders extraordinaire. The Expedition Board is there for a reason: resources feel much tighter in Empires of the North than in the base game. Activate an Action Location: If a player wishes to use the ability of one of his Action locations, he pays the required goods (placing them on the card to signify that the location’s action has been used), and performs the action. Unless a card says otherwise, a location’s action can only be activated once per round.

Empires of the North is similar to the base game in one very important area: turns are snappy, at least until they are not. The fifth action on the wheel is the Sail action, where you can send one of your two starting boats on an Expedition to either Pillage an island card for resources, or Conquer an island card to take the card into your tableau and grant your Clan an additional action in future rounds. Raid an Opponent - A player can discard a raze token to exhaust an opponents location card. This location is not available for the rest of the round, unless a player can refresh that card. Empires of the North is a one to four-player engine building game designed by Ignacy Trzewiczek and Joanna Kijanka. It’s published by Portal Games. The game is set in the Imperial Settlers universe and will feel familiar to players of the original game. However, there are enough changes to gameplay mechanisms and new additions to ensure that this game stands apart from its predecessor. I like that everyone plays at the same time so nobody can copy your moves. In this game you must make your own mind up on what is the best path to take. I like the special abilities of the favour tokens, and these can bring in real differences for you and your opponents and how they play.