Imperial Miners

The Game

In Imperial Miners you develop your own mining complex over ten rounds of play, adding a mine every round. You get to activate the powers of a series of mines, and these powers do all sorts of things like earning money and scoring points. Every card in the game is a mine, and there are four levels. The level of a mine determines how deep it must be placed. Usually the deeper it is, the stronger the power. Also the deeper mines are more costly to build. 

You can only build a level 2 mine after you have a level 1 mine, because you need to dig further down from the level 1 mine. The same principle applies to level 3 and 4 mines. Every time you build a mine, you trigger its power. You trace a shortest path from there to the surface, and you also trigger the powers of every mine along the way. 

Player board

4-player setup

In addition to levels, mines are also divided into factions. Factions affect the powers of some mines. Along the edges of every mine card there are six half mine carts. Some contain gold. Mines are built next to other mines. When a half cart that contain gold lines up with another which also contains gold, you score points. So this is another aspect to consider when you develop your mining complex.

The Play

You need to do a lot of planning in this game. This is like a project manager’s heaven. Or hell. You need to work with what mine cards you draw, deciding which to build, where to build them, how to create effective activation paths. You need to plan for generating income so that you can afford to build the right mines every round. There are many factors to consider. Every round there is one event which affects everyone. Often these are opportunities you want to utilise.

Event card

These are called progress charts. Some actions allow you to move your token along these tracks. Whenever you do this, you gain some benefit. If you manage to reach the top, you get a handsome reward. After that, you get to pick another track and start doing the progression again. 

There isn’t a lot of player interaction. You are kept busy enough with your own mining complex. This is a tableau game. You want to collect mines which combo well. Usually mines of the same faction work well together. The interesting challenge in this game is how to plan your activation path every round.

The Thoughts

This is a complex development game. There are many elements you need to consider and you make plans meticulously. This is the kind of game many heavy Eurogame lovers like. I didn’t like that there is little player interaction. There is a lot of work to keep you busy and engaged, but for me I didn’t find much which is new or interesting.