Innovation Ultimate

The Game

I wrote about Innovation 15 years ago, in 2010. That was when the first edition of the game was released. This is a slightly older game, so some newer hobbyists may not have tried it, or may not have heard of it. Since I'm a big fan, I'll give a quick overview. Having played the game many more times compared to when I first wrote about it, I now have a different appreciation of the game. 

Innovation is a card game about human civilisation and inventions, ideas and technologies. Every card in the game is unique and has a different power. The cards are divided into 10 ages (11 in Innovation Ultimate). You start from the ancient age and gradually progress through the eras, possibly advancing to the near future. The basic actions in the game are very simple. You draw cards, you play cards, you activate powers on your cards. When you play a card before you, it becomes part of your empire. Cards come in five colours, and you can have up to five stacks of cards in your empire, each for one colour. Every card has four icons, and there are six types of icons in the game. You will be regularly comparing icons with your opponents. When you have more icons of a particular type than your opponent, you will be able to attack them using some card powers. Also when they use a power on their card, you also get to use it. You piggyback on their actions because you are stronger in that particular icon type. 

One important concept in the game is splaying. This is how you can increase the number of icons in your empire. In the beginning of the game, cards of the same colour are stacked together. When you gain the ability to splay some of your card stacks, you will reveal some icons on the non-top cards. Depending on whether you can splay your stacks left, right or up, you will expose a different number of icons. 

Some cards let you score points. When you do so, you claim some cards face-down and tuck them under the left edge of your player board. The age number on these cards now become point values. You don't win by having the most points. In fact the points you score are not secure. Your opponents may rob you of your points. Whenever you reach certain thresholds of points, you can claim achievements. It is the achievements which help you win the game. You need a certain number of them to declare victory. Collecting points is one way of claiming achievements. The other way is completing specific missions, which are quite difficult. 

Innovation is a crazy game. There are many powerful cards in the game. Some cards don't look like much, but under certain situations they suddenly become deadly. This is a game with huge swings. The game situation can shift quickly. A trailing player can become the biggest threat just because of one new card being played. There is certainly some luck and randomness in the game. There is always a sense of hope. You never know - the next card you draw may just be the killer card you need to turn things around. It's a lot of fun trying to figure out how to make good use of the combination of cards you have in play and in hand. This is a game with variety and surprises. 

Innovation Ultimate

The Ultimate edition (2025) is released 15 years after the first edition. Over the years there have been four different expansions released for Innovation. The game is perfectly fine without any expansion. Only if you have played a lot of it you might want to have even more variety. The Ultimate edition includes all four expansions and adds one new expansion - Unseen. 

One change introduced is Age 11. I'm not sure whether that's necessary. In my previous games of the older Innovation, I rarely even get to Age 9. The rulebook recommends arranging the card stacks in a circle like an analogue clock, placing the row of achievements at the 12 o'clock position. I find that cumbersome. I just place my stacks in two neat rows. 

The card backs now have new art. It's okay for me. The old art worked just fine for me too, and I don't tire of it. Different expansions use card backs in different colours. Beige is the base game. Grey is the Unseen expansion. 

Younger daughter Chen Rui and I tried one game with the latest Unseen expansion. The first thing I noticed was that they had changed the base game too. My base game is the first edition. Even before Innovation Ultimate, the base game had been updated several times, up to the fourth edition. So my copy is pretty outdated. I haven't paid attention to what have been changed. I'm so used to my first edition that this latest edition is a little unsettling. 

The Unseen expansion is about weird stuff in history like magic, superstitions, legends and witchcraft. There are some powers which remove whole stacks of cards from the game. That's shocking! When this happens, it means we will advance more quickly to the higher ages. That's a good thing I guess. In the past, I rarely even get to Age 8. 

The Unseen expansion has its own set of special achievements. 

Card backs of the Unseen expansion (left) and the base game (right)

One new-to-me concept in Innovation Ultimate is the Junk keyword, which means permanently removing cards from the game. This Medicine card above junks an achievement. This is the first time I see achievements being removed. This doesn't happen in the first edition of Innovation. 

This card April Fool's Day is from the Unseen expansion. When I first read it, I thought this was an easy way to score an achievement. Upon rereading it, I realised you can only achieve if you have no hand cards and also no score cards at all. If by Age 4 I still have no score cards, I probably deserve some pity and thus this achievement. 

The Knights Templar is also a card from the Unseen expansion. This is an attack card and it can force your opponent to unsplay their cards. This is such a nasty thing to do! I did it to Chen Rui several times. Thankfully she hasn't disowned me yet. 

2-player game

In the past when I played Innovation with two or more expansions, I thought it was a little bit too much. Too many things to juggle at the same time, and it felt tedious. Now in the Ultimate edition, the rulebook says play with just one expansion at a time. In addition to the base game the expansions have also been adjusted. They are tweaked to be more independent of one another. When these expansions were previously released one after another, the later expansions used mechanisms introduced in the earlier expansions. This means if I want to skip some expansions and play with only a later one, I still need to learn the new rules introduced in the earlier expansions. In the Ultimate edition, this has been greatly reduced, so that from the base game you can choose to proceed to any of the expansions. There are still some rules which are relevant to all expansions, but this is much more manageable than before. 

Innovation is an important game in the world of boardgames. It is like Hamlet. If you like English literature, you have to read it. Innovation is an amazing achievement. It is a game with crazy swings and much replayability. It should always be on this kind of list - the top 100 games that every gamer must play. 

Tapestry

The Game

Tapestry is a civilisation game in which players develop their civilisations from prehistoric tribes to modern day nations. Player actions are designed as making progress on four tracks - science, technology, exploration and military. Every turn you simply decide which track to advance on. You pay the required resources and perform the actions specified on the space you advance your token into. Actions at every step differ. They get more powerful as you advance further. The four tracks have different characteristics and let you do different kinds of things. Let’s look at the various aspects of the game.

You have a hex map. One action lets you collect hex tiles. One action lets you discover new lands, and this is when you pick a tile you have to place on the board. One action lets you place your marker on a tile. This translates to expanding your controlled territory. When your border gets in contact with others, you can attack and capture their lands. However warfare is limited and on each tile there will only ever be one battle. 

You will spend quite some effort on your capital city. It is a 9x9 grid which you try to fill up as much as possible. Some spaces are already filled at the start. You gain resources by filling 3x3 sections. You gain points for filling complete rows or columns. Think sudoku grid, but without the numbers. Some actions let you remove small buildings from your player board to place in your capital. When removing these from your player board, you reveal icons which let you produce resources. If you beat your opponents to certain spaces on the tracks, you get to claim large buildings which help you fill your capital quickly.

Some actions let you claim and upgrade tech cards. They give various benefits. Sometimes you get tapestry cards, and every new era you get to play one to augment your abilities. The game is called Tapestry, but the tapestry cards in the game are just one of several mechanisms, not the main one. I guess calling a game Four Tracks is not exactly sexy. 

Ultimately you win by scoring the most points. Some actions give you points directly. Some give you points based on how well you have done in a certain aspect, e.g. territory you control or tiles you hold. Every era you start with some resources. Actions require resources. When you eventually run out, you must end your current era and enter the next one. You want to be able to collect resources efficiently because more resources mean more actions. Players may have different numbers of turns in this game. 

The Play

I found it challenging to understand how Tapestry works. The rules are not complicated. However I had little idea what the right things to do were. The decision you need to make every turn is simple - which of the four tracks do you want to advance on? What I struggled with was how to evaluate the four options. I did horribly in my first game, missing out on almost all the large buildings. I learned the hard way that balanced development wasn’t a good idea. In my second game I decided to almost exclusively advance on the technology track. It worked better. However I wasn’t very comfortable that an arbitrary rule of sticking to one track worked relatively well. It felt like the game was playing me and not me playing the game. I only made an arbitrary policy, stuck to it blindly, and it worked, without me really understanding why. I only did some minor maximisation, e.g. if a space offered an additional benefit for a fee, I made sure I could afford the fee before I advanced to that space. 

It might be because I played on BoardGameArena.com that the game was less fun for me. I hadn’t taken time to understand all the rules well. So I felt I was making arbitrary decisions. I find the way civilisation development is translated into game mechanisms is rather abstract. I can’t quite associate the game mechanisms with the theme. The four resources in the game could have been called anything, even by their colours. They don’t make much difference other than being needed by one of the four specific tracks. 

The Thoughts

Tapestry didn't work for me. I feel most of the game mechanisms are disjointed from the theme. I do like the civilisation theme. I would say Tapestry offers something a little different from other civilisation games. Maybe it'll work for you. 

Imperium: Classics

The Game

Imperium: Classics is a civilisation game which uses deck-building as its core mechanism. It contains eight different factions. Its sister game Imperium: Legends has eight other factions, and they are more advanced. Both games are complete standalone games. 

At the start of the game everyone picks a faction to play. Every faction has its own set of cards, and you set up your faction more or less like this photo above. That first red card indicates that you are still at the barbarian stage. You need to spend effort advancing your nation to become a civilised empire. This is a big part of the game. At the third position there is a stack of nation cards. They are your countdown mechanism for becoming a proper empire. Each time your draw deck is exhausted and you need to reshuffle your discard pile to form a new draw deck, you draw one nation card to shuffle into your new draw deck. This is how your nation advances. Once the nation card deck is exhausted, you graduate to become an empire. You can start using empire cards (with blue icons), which are generally better. However barbarian cards (red icons) become obsolete. Some cards have neither icons so you can always use them. 

Those cards on the right are development cards. You can only buy them after you become an empire. You get to buy one each time your deck is exhausted and you need to reshuffle. So even after you become an empire, you still want to cycle through your deck quickly in order to buy more of these development cards. They are powerful and they score points too. 

You have a hand limit of five. You get three actions on your turn, and usually an action is simply playing a card and using its power. Cards not played need not be discarded. You can hold on to them for your next turn, just that you will draw fewer cards to refill your hand. You need to stick to the hand limit. Holding cards allows you to play them at the most opportune moment, but it also means you are cycling through your deck more slowly. You are slowing down your advancement. 

You set up the central playing area like this. There are several types of common cards which are accessible to all players. Buying cards work differently from typical deck-building games. You can't just buy anything any time by spending money. You need to have specific cards which let you buy specific types of cards by paying a specific currency (resources or citizens). There are two ways you buy cards. The cheaper way gets you an unrest card. If you pay more you don't need to take the unrest card. Unrest is bad. An unrest card has no function. It clogs up your deck, slows you down, and costs you 2VP at game end. You have to pay to return an unrest card to the centre of the table. When buying cards they go directly into your hand and not to your discard pile. You can use the new card immediately. 

Cards with swords (right) are attack cards. You rob your opponents or force them to take unrest. Most cards have some power. Unlike typical deck-building games, Imperium: Classics does not have basic currency cards. It doesn't have $1, $2 and $3 cards like Dominion, or attack value 1 and 2 cards like Ascension. There is more text to read in Imperium: Classics. It is not easy to earn the currencies in the game - resources and citizens. Only specific cards give these. 

Some cards once played are kept in front of you. Their powers can be single-use or ongoing. All region are kept on the table. Some other card types also stay in front of you. One common ability of region cards allows you to place a garrison. What this means is you can attach a card to it (see rightmost card above). Normally you do this to remove weak or useless cards from your deck. E.g. after you become an empire, you should stick your now-defunct barbarian cards underneath your region cards. 

At the end of your turn you place a 1VP marker (those arrow chips) on one of the common cards. This makes the card more attractive. You can place it on a card you intend to buy, but you can't guarantee the card is still available by your next turn. In the photo above you can see many VP markers have accumulated on the cards. That means in our game the rate of buying cards was low. 

The status card on the left flipped to the blue side meant I was now an empire. The card at the centre was my Roman faction card. It showed my special ability, which was to score a point for every two citizens at game end. Some cards were buried under this faction card. Some of them were single-use cards which had to be removed from my deck. Some of them scored points at game end, and thus needed to be kept here. 

This is a Glory card. Every faction has one. When you play it, you discard three region cards in play in exchange for a Fame card. Fame cards are important because they let you score points at game end. Most of them have useful abilities too. One way the game ends is when Fame cards run out. 

This is one of the Fame cards (purple bar). This one happens to be an attack card too (sword icon). It robs victory point markers from your opponents. 

This is the card at the bottom of the Fame deck. It cannot be claimed. You can only use its ability. Once any player uses it, the game ends after the following round. 

There are a few other ways the game ends. If any player develops all his development cards, the game ends. If the common deck runs out, the game ends too. In all these cases, victory is determined by victory points scored. Another way the game can end is when the stack of unrest cards runs out. This represents human civilisation collapsing and we all descend into chaos. The player with the fewest unrest cards wins. 

In Imperium: Classics every faction has its own character. In general you keep advancing your faction, improving your abilities and gaining more and more new ways to score points. The factions have different strengths and weaknesses. Depending on the combination of factions in play, you will have a different play experience. You have to balance between defending against your opponents' strengths and utilising of your own strengths. 

The Play

I played with Han and Allen. Han had played before and taught us the game. 

It took some getting used to at first, because it is quite different from typical deck-building games. There are a few new concepts to digest. Almost every card has a unique ability, and the abilities vary widely. There is a lot of text to read. The game is very much about understanding the strengths of your faction and making good use if them. There is not a lot of player interaction. When I planned how to grow my nation, I didn't need to watch the others closely. The most I spent attention on about my opponents was their attack cards. I needed to either develop the ability to block them, or prepare what they were going to rob from me. Now this sounds dumb. Why would I meekly produce resources and prepare them for the robbers? The thing is if I were to run out of resources, I would instead have to take an unrest card, which is usually a worse fate. I'd rather just pay tribute. Just take the money and go. There isn't much I can do to stop others from progressing, other than the occasional attack card. 

Progress is what you will be constantly obsessed with. You know once you become an empire, you'll get access to better cards and more scoring opportunities. There is always the incentive to keep your deck thin, so that you can cycle quickly. Fame cards are important because they give you points. They will also affect your play because often the points you receive from them depends on how well you fulfil certain criteria. 

We played two games back to back, trying out different factions. I played the Romans in the first game, a faction suitable for beginners because it is straight-forward. The Romans scored points for having high population, so I focused on that. Han was the Vikings, and he kept raiding us, stealing resources. One unique aspect about the Vikings is they would never advance to become an empire. If they get to that situation, the game ends instead. Allen was Carthage, and he was good at accumulating resources. 

In the second game I was the Scythians, Han the Greek and Allen the Celts. The rulebook advised that the Scythians should expand and get many region cards, and I obediently heeded that. My ability allowed me to score points for resources accumulated. I had two cards which produced resources based on the trade icons on my region cards. When I had enough such icons, I regularly produced resources and stockpiled them. Later in the game I found that one of the nation cards added to my deck allowed me to score points for region cards. No wonder the rulebook game me such advice.

I had many nation cards, which meant there was much work to be done to go through them to become an empire. Thankfully although I bought many region cards, they could be played onto the table and didn't clog my deck. My deck remained thin. 

Allen's situation was the opposite. The Celts were good at buying leaf (uncivilised) cards, and he used that ability frequently, growing his deck. That slowed his progress. Whenever he bought a leaf card, he forced Han and I to take unrest cards. That was a pain in the neck for us.  

One disadvantage of my Scythians was they would only get their Glory card after becoming an empire. I had no way to claim Fame cards when I was still in the barbarian state. Progressing towards the empire state was crucial to me. Han's Greek faction had a thin nation deck, which meant he could become an empire quite early. When he had to place the 1VP markers onto common cards, he usually placed them on empire cards (blue icons), because he knew Allen and I were not able to use them yet and would not likely want to buy them yet. 

This is what a 3-player game looks like. 

One of the Roman cards - Bread & Circus - is very handy. It can return two unrest cards per turn! 

These were the cards buried beneath my faction card by the end of the game. Those with a golden circle at the bottom right corner are cards which scored points. 

The card on the right is the Scythian faction card. You identify factions by the colour at the bottom left corner. 

The Scythians tend to have many region cards (yellow bar). 

I love the art style in the game. 

This was the Scythian card which scored points based on the number of region cards, 1VP for every two region cards. 

By game end I had 14 region cards. One had just been returned to my hand because I had just used it for defense. 

This was Allen's Celts faction card, which gave Han and I much headache. 

The Thoughts

Imperium: Classics is a game with character. It is different from typical deck-building games. When I played it I felt this was a game with heart. It felt slightly clunky at times, but there is uniqueness. This is your quirky and friendly neighbourhood bartender, not the clean-shaven and slick superstar salesman. Right out of the box you already have eight factions to play with. That's good value for money. 

There is not a lot of player interaction. Depending on your preference this can be good or bad. Unlike Through the Ages, you are not regularly comparing military strength, science level etc. Player interaction is mostly in the form of the occasional attack actions. In theory you do compete for the common cards. However in practice I find that since we don't buy cards all that frequently, this aspect doesn't feel very competitive. Most of the time I am just focusing on my hand of cards and developing my own nation. 

I like how the factions are constantly progressing, getting more and more abilities. I see this game as a race game as well. You do want to maintain good progress so that you get access to stronger cards and more scoring opportunities. How to fine-tune your deck and whether to keep cards for your next turn are questions that will keep you engaged. 

You do have to play to your faction's strengths. That somewhat constrains you. However you do have some freedom for creativity through augmenting your deck with common cards. That creates some variability even when you play the same faction. The faction card has two sides, one more challenging than the other. This too helps. 

Brazil Imperial

The Game

Brazil Imperial is a game of colonisation and nation building set in the age of exploration. It is a 4X game and a civilisation game in which you start with a humble capital and grow into an empire, competing with other players for territory and resources. You construct buildings and cities. You produce resources and use them to expand your empire. You discover unknown secrets of the land. You raise troops and conduct battle to seize opponent cities, buildings and resources. The game is played over three eras. Every player gets one mission card per era. An era progresses to the next the first time anyone completes a mission of that era. Once anyone completes a mission of the third era, the game ends. Many things you do in the game give you points. The highest scorer at the end of the game wins. 

The game comes with many different setups. This above is one of the 2-player setups. The starting locations of the two capitals are fixed. The fog tiles are secrets you get to explore. They are usually good and the benefits are claimed on a first come first served basis. The map has different terrain types - plains, forests, gold deposits and lakes. Different terrain types allow different buildings. 

Everyone gets a player board like this. The large tile on the left is a monarch tile. You have a few options and every monarch gives a different bonus. The player board is mostly identical between players. The only differences are the army composition and costs. Each different coloured player board comes with a set of monarchs. 

The green player has two archers, a monarch, a cavalry and a cannon. The icons below the units are the costs to raise these troops. The units have different combat strengths and are also worth victory points the moment you create them. They never die. If they lose a battle, they just go to a waiting area. The next time you perform the deploy action, you may deploy them to your city or capital for free. 

The monarch unit is the only unit type which can establish a new city. The cavalry unit brings along any number of other units when it moves, which is very handy. The cannon can initiate a battle from an adjacent space. Normally you need to enter a space occupied by an opponent to initiate battle. 

A player turn is short and simple. You pick one action, and you march once or twice. You can always march a unit once. Whether you get a second march depends on the action you pick and what kind of extra march it gives. E.g. the buy painting action gives an extra march if a unit is going to march into an adjacent forest. So it's situational. 

The 7 action options are shown in arches on the player board (see above). You can deploy troops, buy paintings, construct buildings and cities, collect resources and convert resources. Paintings give you special abilities and are worth points. They augment your abilities and are good investments. There's one action called manufacturing. You spend resources to move a cube, a pentagon or an octagon (see above) to one of the action arches. This enhances the action designated by the arch, e.g. waiving the payment for producing goods. This is also good investment especially when you enhance an action you plan to perform many times. 

There are three types of paintings and two of each type will be made available at all times. The rightmost two are free, the others require payment. The leftmost two are the most expensive because you need to pay science. The blue resources are science, the most precious resource in the game. 

These are mission cards. They are what drive the core progression of the game. Think of them as a countdown mechanism. Whenever a mission of a particular era is completed and announced, everyone progresses to the next era. You must work on your missions so that you don't miss out on the point value and also the reward of building a palace. There are 6 types of palaces in the game. The first one is free and is used to mark your capital. The rest can be built only when you complete missions. They give various bonuses, and often these come in the form of extra victory points based on specific criteria being met at game end. Your choice of palace determines how you play. 

These are the palaces you get to build during play.

When you construct a building, it immediately produces resources. You place the resources on the building itself and you can use them any time. Once you exhaust them, you can make the building produce again by picking the renovate action. It's called renovate and not produce because before you produce, you may flip the building to the other side, transforming it into another building type which produces a different resource type. 

This little side board is for organising some of the components. At the top left you have the combat cards. You draw a combat card when you deploy a unit. Combat cards give you extra combat strength. During combat, the strength of units, buildings and cities are open information. The strength of combat cards is hidden information. Both combatants commit combat cards face-down. They are revealed when combat resolution is done. 

At the top right you have the gold cards. They have various abilities. Some may score you points at game end based on certain conditions being met. Some give one-time powers. If a gold card is not useful to you, you can simply spend it as a gold coin. 

The two stacks at the bottom are city tiles. When you build a city, you must pick from the top of one of these stacks. Cities are worth 5VP each, which is a lot. They are also expensive to build. 

Brazil Imperial is a game where you race to grow your nation, producing more resources which you then spend to construct more buildings and cities. Almost every other thing you do in the game scores you points - buildings, cities, military units, paintings and so on. Whoever does the best overall job of building his empire will be the ultimate winner. 

The Play

I did a 2-player game with Allen, so our map was small. We were both new to the game. 

Allen (light blue) picked the capital location at the bottom right, so I took the other one at the top left. One thing unique about the light blue empire is most military units are built with gold coins, so Allen focused on constructing buildings which produced gold coins. A new building can only be constructed next to a capital, a city or another building. Only new cities can be constructed without being adjacent to your territory. 

The mission of the first era was not very difficult and I completed it quickly. I had a strict focus and minimised the number of steps needed to complete the mission. The speed surprised Allen a little. However for both Eras 2 and 3 he beat me to the missions. 

 

This piece in the middle is Allen's monarch. The monarch is a military unit and has combat strength. Its most important function is to build new cities. 

My (green) monarch was now deployed too and sailed towards the group of unexplored territories (fog tiles). Allen and I competed to uncover the secrets of these unexplored territories. He was faster than me in building construction. By now he had five buildings while I had only three. 

When you perform an action, you place your action marker inside the corresponding arch. This reminds you not to perform the same action next turn. You use a different action marker every era. When an era ends, you flip over the expired action marker and place it below one of your action arches. This boosts the action from then on. In the photo above you can tell this is the third era, because two action arches now have been boosted, with old action markers placed below them. 

My monarch tile (on the left of the player board) gave me resources when I purchased paintings. I picked this particular monarch because one of my missions required collecting many paintings. I wanted to create synergy.

At the top right Allen and I were now in a stalemate situation. We had both built cities, and now we both had armies stationed in our cities. No one dared to attack, because whoever attacked would be at a disadvantage. The defender could rely on the combat strength of his city. Fighting never broke out between these two cities until the end of the game. 

The map doesn't take up much space, but the rest of the game does. 

One of my (green) palaces scored points based on the number of cotton farms I had, so I build as many cotton farms as I could, and also renovated foundries to become cotton farms. The white resources on the map are cotton. 

When we did the final scoring, Allen and I both scored 76! I fell behind Allen in expanding my empire so I was not optimistic. I was the one who read the rules and I was more familiar with some of the intricacies. That gave me some advantage in some detailed execution aspects. The tiebreaker was science (blue resource) on the map. Allen had two and I had none, so he was the victor. I wasn't able to start constructing Era 3 buildings, and he already had two. 

The Thoughts

A turn in Brazil Imperial is very simple, and it makes the game feel accessible. You only perform one action and you may march up to twice. Down time between player turns is minimal. You always feel engaged. Actions are simple, and you usually have to plan a few steps ahead to complete a certain objective, e.g. renovate a certain building to produce resources, then spend those resources on manufacturing a product to enhance the deploy action, and then perform the deploy action to be able to deploy two units at once. 

You are always in a cycle of producing resources then spending them to expand your empire, be it in enhancing your abilities or building more and more stuff - buildings, military units and cities. You are always hungry and growing. That said, being big does not guarantee victory. You may have more space to construct cities and buildings, but smaller empires which are efficient in utilising their buildings can still do well in scoring points. 

There is a delicious tension between upgrading your abilities and racing to complete missions. On one hand it seems a no-brainer to upgrade your abilities in the early game, so that you get to enjoy the advantages for the rest of the game. But how far should you go? There is time pressure in completing the missions. If you spend too much time on upgrading many different abilities, you may not be utilising all of them enough. You may fall behind your opponents. Yet if you only focus on the race without developing a competitive edge, you will likely be outpaced by your opponents. There is pressure to grab land and to explore the unknown territories too. Finders keepers (usually)! 

Brazil Imperial is the type of game with many different ways to score points. Sometimes when playing such games I feel my strategic planning doesn't matter much. No matter what you do, you will score points. It's just a matter of being efficient and being clever with tactical execution. As long as you are efficient, you will end up scoring more points than your opponents. You try to be lazy. You want maximum gains with minimum effort. It comes down to an efficiency game. This is something that nags at me when I play. 

I like that the game makes me feel that there are many things I want to do, and I have a tough time deciding which I should do first, and which I may have to give up. You can't take your sweet time and do everything you like. There's a race going on. You need to pick a few areas and make sure your actions synergise well. Brazil Imperial is a development game. It is fulfilling to see your empire grow. You progress to construct better and better buildings. You accumulate wealth. You push your borders outwards. There is some combat but it won't be your primary focus. Raising troops gets you victory points, but killing opponents' soldiers doesn't. It takes much effort to capture your opponents' cities and buildings. It may not be worthwhile. The military aspect is an arms race. You can't afford to fall behind too far because your opponents are still threatening to steal your resources and points. You may not want to spend too much effort on planning an offensive because you may not get much out of it. It's not too hard to play defense and to match an aggressive neighbour in strength. 

The production of the game is top-notch, from the art to the game components. Allen said he decided to buy it because of how pretty it was, and that was before he even read the rules. 

I like how Brazil Imperial maintains a sense of urgency. You don't know your opponents' missions and how close they are to completing them. The clock is ticking and you always worry about falling behind and being unable to complete your own missions. Era 3 missions are broad and thus not easy to fulfil. You are often torn between focusing only on the main missions and going off on lucrative side quests. You want to do everything, and you are constantly worried you won't have enough time.