IMPERIAL BORDERS - THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA

IMPERIAL BORDERS – THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA
by Larry Harris

For the past year, I’ve been regularly playing board games with my near neighbor, John Perkin. This week, his latest purchase—the Kickstarter game Imperial Borders—finally arrived. It’s a strategy game for two to six players, each taking the role of one of the victorious powers of the Napoleonic Wars: Britain, Monarchist France, Prussia, Austria, Russia, or Spain. The players compete for influence and position in the period leading up to the Congress of Vienna.

The game combines elements of Risk and Diplomacy, featuring military and naval units, several types of fortresses and ports, and pre-planned movement orders. It is played over six to nine game turns, emphasizing both strategic planning and diplomatic foresight.

Yesterday, John set up the game, and today we played through the first two turns of an initial learning session. John controlled Britain and Prussia, while I played France and Austria, leaving Spain and Russia neutral for the time being. Given the complexity of the rules, we were pleased with how smoothly the practice game progressed.

I was particularly impressed by the overall quality of the game—the clarity of the rules, the production values, and the components themselves are all excellent. The map is a large square, and a substantial amount of table space is required for it and the troop boxes, counters, dice and medals as well as the clever national combined quick-reference sheets/wipeable order maps.

One practical issue did emerge: many regions on the map are far too small to accommodate the number of force pieces that can be committed to them—even for a single nation. The game would seriously benefit from a mechanism for managing large formations off the board. See the photos below, particularly the third image, where much of my French army in Belgium is actually out of frame, sitting in the Atlantic.

More to follow next week.