Board games in which we manage big corporations were nothing new as of 2019. Still, the easy premise to introduce a resource-management eurogame means we get to see a similar scenario often, and such was the case with this game (which also combines mechanics seen in other games). The big box hides a ton of components, and even though placing them on a table doesn’t require much space, you will actually need lots of space to place the cards correctly over the course of a game, so I recommend you prepare a big table with enough room for big displays.

The premise is that we will headline specific empires that strive to rule over the world. This is done via producing resources and constructing the empire from the ground up. The game includes an awful ton of cards, though if you play the maximum 5 players you will use nearly all of them. Place the five empire cards with their A side face-up, which is the side in which all have the same appearance, this will provide the starting resources you can use to keep progressing through the game.

The interesting quirk of this game is the ability to choose whether the corporations are symmetric or unique, with symmetric being the A side mentioned above and unique meaning each has its own starting resources and endgame points and favors different playstyles. Symmetric is recommended to start the game and grasp its concepts, but sincerely it also takes away a bit of the fun because it’s hard to focus on anything specific given everyone is on the same boat. Being a game relatively easy to play I recommend skipping directly to playing with unique corporations so you’re immediately put forward to play in a certain way which will help novices in focusing in certain parts and better understand how the game works.



Thus, once the empire has been chosen (must be the same side for all players), prepare the game by placing the production board and all the small cubes like the image above. Place the red general and blue financier tokens as well as the special kristallium tokens on their respective spaces, and the game can begin. Everyone plays at the same time here, so there’s no starting player or whatever. Simply deal the starting hand of 7 cards to each player, and the game can commence.

The game follows a draft mechanic, meaning every player chooses one of their cards and then passes the rest to their right. The process will continue until all players have selected 7 cards, at which point they must decide which to build. These will be placed face up on the players’ side, and all the rest will be “burnt” to recycle. And what does recycle mean? To explain that, let’s see the cards more in detail.



The image above the five types of cards available, each favoring the production of a specific type of energy as we’ve seen with the colored cubes. Every card has its cost on the upper left side, which must be filled for the card to be built. On the lower part we have the construction bonus, if any (the red general on the black and yellow cards, the blue financier on the green card and the kristallium tokens on the blue card), and below it we have the production it grants, which will be added to our empire’s resources and allows us to build more potent cards as the game progresses. The lower left corner indicates if it grants points at the end of the game, which will be analyzed later on, and in a white circle on the lower right we see the recycle bonus, which is a single cube of any color the card grants when it’s discarded. During the starting phase, recycling cards allows you to put that cube on any card you’ve placed for construction or place it on your empire. We’ll see later on why this is also important.

Once everyone has decided which cards to build and which to recycle, having deployed all recycled cubes, the first production round starts. Everyone produces the grey cubes, and whomever produces the most gets a financier token. Once all cubes produced have been placed by all players, production of black cubes starts and the one who produces the most gets a general token. Then go the greens, in which the one who produces most can choose between general or financier token. Yellow follows the same as grey and blue follows the same as black, after which the round is over. In case two or more players are tied for highest production, no token is awarded. Any card whose construction is completed is then placed on your empire over its granted production (either inverted below ir or overlapped above it, however you like it best), letting you add them up more easily as well as showing end of game points they award.

In the odd rounds, the initial draft of 7 cards goes to the player to your right, but in the even rounds it goes to the player to your left (to that end, the green round marker we’ve seen in the first image is turned to the other side where it’s red and the arrows are inverted), meaning you’ll be getting and sending cards to your two neighbors in an alternate way during the whole game. That’s the only change we’ll see through the four rounds the game lasts. Also remember that cards you complete have their production immediately available, so you might want to update how many cubes you produce at their exact timing.

We’ve talked about kristallium before. These red cubes are actually jokers, as they can be used in substitution of any cube. There are cards, however, that require them specifically, as well as cards that grant them when built. The other way to receive kristallium is by recycling: whenever you recycle a card after the draft, you have the choice of sending the cubes to the empire instead of any card (you can also discard cards you think you won’t complete its construction so they’re automatically recycled into your empire), and when you have five cubes in your empire card like in the image below they’re automatically turned into a kristallium cube you have at your disposal. General and financier tokens are also required by some cards for its construction, so pay attention at these hard to earn resources when choosing which cards to construct.



At the end of the fourth round, it’s time to check the points. The scoring sheet allows points for the cards of each color that award them, and then go the special categories. First off, each general and financier token you have nets you one point at the end of the game, and then we have the specific bonuses of each empire card. These can be enhanced by cards which provide the same form of scoring so you can fully focus your game towards a specific strategy. While this can lead you to believe people will attempt to block you for being predictable, in reality everyone is aiming for their own strategy so they will focus on getting the cards important to them and forgetting about what could be of your interest (though, if they have multiple choices to make, they may attempt to “steal” the most beneficial one for you even if it’s just for recycling purposes), so don’t worry to place your bets so openly.

Since each empire focuses on a specific gameplay, with two of them being clearly more difficult than the other three, this creates additional challenges whenever you play this game. It’s all great to play with the one you’re best at, but sometimes you may want to go for a challenge or leave novices to make their choice which may accidentally hamper you. If that’s not enough, you can always try any of its expansions, which include campaigns you can follow, or if you want more of a private challenge, move on to its spin-off It’s a Wonderful Kingdom which is specifically for 1-2 players.

This is one of those games I’d never get tired of playing for its variety. I definitely recommend any eurogame fan to try this one out, its mixture of mechanics and simultaneous play allows for a much greater learning curve meaning it’s easy to grasp but difficult to properly master.