Struggle of Empires notes Object: As major European powers in the 18 th century, the players vie for majority control of11 areas during three major periods, called ‘wars.’ Each war consist s of 5 or 6 rounds which start with the players spl itting into opposing alliances . In each round a player gets 2 actions to build and fight with military units and to buy til es for various benefits. Victory points (VP) are scored for the 11 area s after each war. The player with the most VP aft er the 3 rd war wins. Setup: Place the Country counters in a bag/container to draw from. • Draw 10 Country counters and place them in their areas on the map, face up. • Lay out the tiles, create a bank for the coins, and place black cylinders on the ‘1’ spaces on the Round and War tracks. Randomly deter mine the 1 st player. • Each player chooses a set of counters (the color indicates which power you are), places Control tokens on 5 on the Population track and on 0 on the VP track and one near the Alliances display (for the Alliances phase) , and takes 10 gold from the bank. • Each player draws 5 Country counters and places one of his Control tokens in the area matching each count er drawn. These Country count ers are then removed from the game. • Then each player places a total of 5 military units of their choosing (armies, navies, and/orforts) on the map. This is done one unit at a time, going clockwise from the 1 st player. The units are placed in any of the 11 areas and can be placed in areas that a player doesn’t have a Control token. Gold: Copper coins are wort h 1 gold. Silver coins ar e worth 5 gold. Players can get multiples of 2 gold from the bank at any time but must take 1 Unrest point forevery 2 gold taken . Gold cannot be paid b ack to remove Unrest . Unrest: Gained for taking gold from the bank, for taking an Industrialization tile, and when your units are destroyed . Unrest can be discarded by taking Gove rnment Reform tiles. Unrest counters are kept face down so that their values are hidden from other players. War Sequence (6 phases) 1. Country Counters – pla ce 10 random Country count ers (the first war i s done during setup) 2. Determine Alliances and Play Order3. Player Actions – this is 6 rounds with 2-4 players or 5 rounds with 5-7 players. Each player performs 2 actions per round: A – Buy a tile (only once per round) B – Build 1 unit C – Move 2 units D – Make 1 attackE – Colonization or Enslavement (only once per round) F – Pass 4. Income and Maintenance 5. Victory Points 6. End of War
