For those of you interested in learning more about one of our newer P500 offerings, The Barracks Emperors, here are a some notes from Brad and Wray as well as a few videos for you to enjoy. -Rachel

Thoughts on the Inspiration for This Game

I was originally inspired for this design when I was thinking about a mechanic for a political game where every card you played might also help (or hurt) each other player. Then I came up with what I considered to be an innovative idea where the position of the card played in a grid relative to the “issue” cards you were playing on would matter. (I actually wanted to use this in a Republic of Rome-style game I was thinking about.) This was quite a few years ago, before Wray and I came up with Time of Crisis, but Wray was working with me on this idea even back then, and with some tweaking, I turned it into a Roman-themed trick-taking game that I and my early playtesters thought was pretty cool and meatier than it first appears.

The game went through a lot of revisions but has honestly been waiting for something to give it a definite spark. (In the latest revision prior to Time of Crisis, you were capturing generic Roman officials with generic card-placement events, but the core mechanic was quite similar to what we have in The Barracks Emperors.) Then with the success of Time of Crisis, Wray and I together thought about upgrading the theme to overlap with elements from Time of Crisis, and we really think that was the spark we were looking for. Consolidating on the 3 Time of Crisis suits (instead of the 5 I had), re-applying the thematic abilities we had from Time of Crisis (instead of generic abilities), and capturing historical Emperors (instead of generic Romans), along with the introduction of the migrating barbarians, made the game tighter and more thematic. I also think the introduction of a card drafting mechanic (instead of dealing your whole hand of cards at once) balances the luck of the deal to some extent and adds a whole extra level of tactical play.

-Brad Johnson

Videos from Wray Ferrell

The Barracks Emperors, unlike Time of Crisis is a more of a pure Euro. It is a trick taking game where all 13 tricks are in play at one time. Since it is a bit hard to visualize we have created some videos to help show the game play.  

Solo Rules Overview (4 Minutes)

Solo Game Demo (30 Minutes)

Multiplayer Game Demo (27 Minutes)

Note that the multiplayer game was filmed at a game convention so the quality is not the best, but it still gives you a good idea of how the game plays.

If you would like to pre-order The Barracks Emperors or just learn more about the game, the P500 page can be found here.

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