Search Results for: the barracks emperors

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The Barracks Emperors: Examining the Influence Cards Part 3 — Populace Cards

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This is part three of a three-part series of articles examining all the influence cards in The Barracks Emperors, one suit at a time. If you would like to read the previous two parts of this series, they can be found here and here. In this final article, we look at the features of the cards in the Yellow suit. Just as in Time of Crisis, Yellow represents power and influence with the people of Rome. The special abilities provided by the Populace cards vary a little more among themselves than the Senate and Military cards do, but there is some emphasis on affecting how Emperor tricks are resolved and on affecting other Yellow cards.

(Note:  All art shown in this article is playtest art only.  It is not final.)

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The Barracks Emperors: Examining the Influence Cards Part 2 — Senate Cards

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This is part two in a series of articles examining all the influence cards in The Barracks Emperors, one suit at a time. Part one, which can be found here, discussed Military cards. In this article, we look some of the uses and subtleties of the cards in the Blue suit. Just as in Time of Crisis, Blue represents power and influence with the Senate of Rome. All the special abilities tied to these cards represent things the Senate or the Emperor might rule on, including “peaceful” ways to deal with barbarians and different ways to draw cards, with one notable exception. Read on!

(Note: All art shown in this article is playtest art only. It is not final.)

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The Barracks Emperors: Examining the Influence Cards Part 1 — Military Cards

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The Barracks Emperors is a strategic trick-taking game that offers many new twists on the genre – see my earlier article here for more information on how the game is played. One twist is that every card played also grants the player a one-time special ability, in addition to the card’s inherent trick-taking potential based on its suit and value. This means that even when you’re playing a card that may not capture an Emperor for you by itself, you may be able to use the special ability to turn the tables on your opponents in a different way. Becoming familiar with what abilities are available in the game and how to use them is an important part of playing well.

In a deliberate nod back to our last game, Time of Crisis, we’ve adopted the same events used in that game and its expansion and designed reminiscent abilities for The Barracks Emperors.

This series of articles will examine all the influence cards in The Barracks Emperors, one suit at a time. In this article, part one of three, we begin with the Red suit. Just as in Time of Crisis, Red represents Military power and influence. All the special abilities tied to these cards represent battle effects and generally involve abilities to move, “defend”, and “attack” other cards.

(Note:  All art shown in this article is playtest art only.  It is not final.)

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The Barracks Emperors: Trick Taking, Weaponized

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At first glance, The Barracks Emperors seems to be a bit of an unusual game to appear on the GMT Games website. It’s not a wargame, although it does feature player conflict. It’s not a historical simulation, although it is historically themed. And it’s not part of a great series, although it does share its setting and some of its material with the light wargame Time of Crisis, and its expansion The Age of Iron and Rust.

To find a game reminiscent of The Barracks Emperors in GMT’s stable, you’d want to think about Battle Line, Reiner Knizia’s card game that put an ancient war theme on three-card poker and took it to a new level of play. Like Battle Line, The Barracks Emperors is a themed card game rooted in traditional card games, with new mechanics that add tactical depth and player competition. It’s a trick-taking game at heart, with a core mechanic that may remind you of games like Spades or Bridge, but this isn’t your grandfather’s card game. It’s not a friendly Euro game either. The Barracks Emperors adds a number of twists that turn a simple trick-taking game into a veritable battle, requiring players to find ways to leverage multiple different aspects of card play to cleverly steal Emperor Cards away from the other players (the “tricks” – representing opportunities to seize the throne of Rome).

One playtester memorably described The Barracks Emperors as “trick taking, weaponized.”

The purpose of this article is to explain some more about how The Barracks Emperors works, focusing on the twists that make it distinctive and take a “simple” trick-taking game to the “weaponized” level.

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The Barracks Emperors Preview

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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

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Buyer’s Guide to GMT’s 2024 Fall Sale

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Every year when we roll out our Yearly Sale, we get lots of requests from customers asking for a variety of information about the games that they can buy in the sale. Which games have the lowest stock levels, which games of a certain series are available, which hot games are available, which games have the highest retail values (usually for the folks who are looking to resell some or all of their sale purchases), etc. So this year, as we approach the GMT Sale that starts on Tuesday, September 3, Rachel and I have created this Buyer’s Guide to try to give you some of that information to help out with your buying choices. We encourage you to use this information and the links below to build your sale carts on the GMT website between now and Tuesday when the sale begins. I hope you find this Buyer’s Guide useful.

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Looking at the Solo System of Time of Crisis from the Perspective of an Admiring Bystander

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The solo rules (”SR”) pit the human player against three Bots. Each Bot has a distinct personality induced by its preferred area of influence: military influence (red), political influence on the Senate (blue) or influence on the populace through bribery or other means (yellow). The SR recommend, but do not require, that the military Bot be the red player, the political Bot the blue player, and the populace Bot the yellow player, thus matching each Bot’s color with the color of its preferred area of influence. The human player becomes by default the green player. Note that human players can appoint one or several Bots to replace their missing human counterparts. For the sake of simplicity, the remainder of this note will discuss games with one human player facing three Bots. I will also assume that the optional emperor rules are in effect and that the fixed set up providing for all cards to be played has been adopted.

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