Many of the more experienced players of historical games have fond memories of Pax Britannica, a game published by Victory Games in 1985. According to its rules, “Pax Britannica recreates the dynamics of the colonial era, from 1880 to the outbreak of the Great War”. However, many players feel that Pax Britannica has not aged too well, and it is a difficult game to bring it to the table today. It requires detailed bookkeeping and players need to fill in meticulous tax-like forms to reflect income and expenses. Also, the action phase lacks structure, without any specific player order, so that players may interrupt and compete for actions without clear rules. When wars break out, a separate game system opens where only the involved players act, with the rest just looking on for what can be rather lengthy periods of time. Accommodating up to seven players, a game of Pax Britannica usually lasts a full day, often longer. There are other issues regarding diplomacy, asymmetry, and agency, but these are not relevant to the topic of this article.

Pax Britannica is truly a classic, and one addressing a fascinating time period that explains many of the conflicts in the world today. However, there was arguably a need for a better-balanced game covering this period for fewer players, one that could be played in under four hours, but without dispensing with historical accuracy and flavor. Imperial Fever endeavors to be that game.

Card-based mechanics are an appropriate choice for strategic games or games covering long periods of time. Much information and chrome can be included in the cards without overburdening the rulebook. There is a well-established tradition of card-driven games (CDG) recreating full wars or war theaters. Paths of Glory, Barbarossa to Berlin, Empire of the Sun, Here I Stand, or For the People are the first CDG designs that come to my mind, but there are many, many other successful CDGs. Actually, CDGs are not limited to strategic games, and Combat Commander is excellent proof of that.

Deckbuilding

There are, however, some limitations to what a CDG allows. Unless separate decks are created for each faction and those decks are divided into Eras, there is an element of randomness to the appearance of Events that may deviate significantly from the historical sequence and detract from the experience of the game as simulation. This becomes more problematic the longer the period the game recreates. On the other hand, including faction-specific decks and sequencing events historically will make the game feel scripted. Additionally, unless cards present a rather even distribution of action points, the variable number of action points players get is an added layer of randomness that not all players enjoy. With a period spanning more than 35 years and recreating an era of quick technological advance and changing balances, a CDG involved the risk of making the game either too scripted and bland, reducing player agency, or too random, limiting historical accuracy.

There is, however, another way to use cards in a game of historical simulation. According to the Boardgamegeek database, in a deckbuilding game “players play cards out of individual decks, seeking to acquire new cards and to play through their decks iteratively, improving them over time through card acquisition or card elimination”. This mechanic is used very successfully in many thematic games and has already been introduced in games of historical simulation, most notably Time of Crisis, by GMT. Deckbuilding has some advantages that make it appropriate for a game spanning a period such as 1880-1914:

1. Deckbuilding allows players to program their actions. Many deckbuilding games force players to draw cards randomly, but Imperial Fever, like Time of Crisis, allows players to choose the cards they play every turn, reinforcing player agency.
2. At the same time, deckbuilding also limits the players’ choices. Players must exhaust their full decks before they can play any one card again, which simulates red tape, conflicting interests and needs within the leadership of major powers. The actions of Governments and ruling elites are usually not as coherent and efficient as those of a player in a game.
3. Deckbuilding allows players to customize their options by investing resources in more powerful cards. This way, players can promote their chosen strategies. This also increases replayability, since different strategies can be tested in different games. Additionally, players may not always be able to acquire the cards they desire, so they will need to adapt to what they can actually obtain. This will also differ from one game to another.
4. Deckbuilding helps simulate technological evolution and the growing costs of expanding globe-spanning empires in the 1880-1914 period. Players must buy new cards to improve their economy, their army, their navy, and their governance, or they will lag behind and struggle to face ever increasing costs.
5. Cards can be used for multiple purposes, like deciding Turn order and including special effects, without overburdening the rulebook or complicating the game with excessive procedures and components.
6. Having different types of cards helps players remember their options, especially if they are printed on them. It is easier to keep in mind three actions for each of three types of cards, rather than juggling nine separate actions.

Deckbuilding in Imperial Fever

Imperial Fever is a deckbuilding game. Each player has their own starting deck, which differ slightly from each other in order to reflect differences between their powers. Players pay for the actions they want to take by playing cards of the required type. At the beginning of each turn, players choose the cards they want to play from their Action deck, and they discard them as they are played during the Action phase. Hands are refilled at the end of every turn. When a player runs out of cards to refill their hand, the Action deck is replenished with all the cards in the discard pile.

In Imperial Fever there is a common Offer Display with at least five cards, usually more (as players can purchase cards from the Offer ‘discard’ at the far end of the display). The cards in the Offer Display come from the main deck, which includes three types of cards: Action cards, Colony cards and War cards. The Action cards that enter the Offer Display are more powerful than the ones in the players’ initial hands. The Offer Display is replenished immediately as cards are acquired. Each Era has its own deck and the game ends when the Main deck of the Third Era runs out or when the First World War starts. The Main Deck functions like a clock that determines the duration of the game. At the same time, the fact that cards are drawn randomly from the main deck adds uncertainty and replayability to the game.

There is a difference in the way the Action phase is handled in Imperial Fever, compared with other deckbuilding games. In most deckbuilding games, players play all the cards in their hand during their turn and then they refill their hand before the next player’s turn. This may cause considerable downtime, as players have to wait for all the other players to play their hands and refill them before they can play their own turn. In Imperial Fever, each player takes only one action on their turn, and then play proceeds to the next player. As a result, player turns are much faster and players are constantly engaged in the game. An added advantage of this procedure is that players fill their hand simultaneously after they have all exhausted their hands, which saves considerable downtime. This also helps reduce the advantage of being first player, which is important in a game with a varying card offer, like Imperial Fever.

In Imperial Fever there is no set turn order. During the Initiative phase each player plays a card from their hand face down and then all players reveal the chosen cards simultaneously. The value of the cards played determines play order. If there is a tie, it is resolved by the default Turn order: the UK, France, the Central Empires and the Emergent Powers. Play order may be important if a player is interested in a specific card from the Offer Display or wants to determine when an Era or the game ends.

In Imperial Fever there are four types of cards:

1. Strategy Cards (see next section): If played during the Turn Order phase, these cards have special effects. If played during the Action phase, they are used as wildcards that add their value to that of any other card they are played with.

2. Empire Cards: These cards are used to claim a new Colony from the Offer Display or stake a claim in a Colony opened by another player, at a lower cost. They also allow players to increase control of Key Areas for each Power. Finally, European players can use them to move an eligible European Power closer to or away from the Entente or the Triple Alliance.

3. Economy Cards: These cards allow players to purchase Action cards from the Offer Display, recycle Resource cubes, and deploy naval Squadron markers in Naval Zones on the board.

4. Military Cards: They allow players to increase their Armies, gain control of Colonies previously claimed, and wage war against a Minor Power if the appropriate War card is available in the Offer Display.

Strategy Cards

Strategy cards are an innovation on the deckbuilding mechanism. If played during the Initiative phase, players may activate the effects of Strategy cards. Some Strategy cards allow players to generate and refresh resources when they are played. More interestingly, other Strategy cards allow players to flip one of their two Policy tiles, which changes their Power’s orientation in one aspect. For instance, the “Election” cards allows the UK player to toggle between a Liberal government, which refreshes resources at the end of every turn, and a Conservative Government, which reduces the cost of expanding the Navy. Other benefits of Policy tiles include positive die rolls in wars or subjugation attempts or reducing the cost of certain actions.

During the Action phase, players may not activate the special effects of Strategy cards, but they can add the value of one strategy card when paying the cost of an action, provided at least one card of the appropriate type is also played. For instance, a player may pay the cost of building a Squadron in the Third Era (4 Economy action points) using two 1-value Economy cards and one 2-value Strategy card.

This use of Strategy cards gives players flexibility to deal with costs for which they do not have enough cards of the appropriate type. This is particularly important in Imperial Fever because costs increase as the game progresses and players may not always have the chance to acquire the necessary, more powerful Action cards.

The deckbuilding mechanism in Imperial Fever allows players to plan their actions, while limiting them at the same time, which simulates internal politics and conflicting interests within the Powers they represent. Most importantly, players are required to customize their decks to adapt them to their strategies and the challenges posed by a period characterized by frenzied competition on multiple levels and rapid technological and industrial development.

The next article will focus on the choice of the Powers included as playing factions, the different ways each faction plays and asymmetry as a key element in Imperial Fever.

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