Overview

Final Score:  (4 out of 5 Stars)

Designer: Mark Herman

When it comes to the genre of historical simulation war games, I’m definitely an outsider looking in. While I have a fairly healthy respect and desire to learn about history, this genre has historically not really been my thing (pun intended). Historical simulation war games is really a world in on itself in the board game space and when it comes to this genre there are few subjects explored more exhaustively than World War II. In Mark Hermans Empire of the Sun this exploration is of the Pacific Theater, arguably one of the bloodiest but oft less known about theaters of the war.

Empire of the Sun however isn’t your typical historical simulation war game even within the genre, it zooms out from the field of battle and functions on an operational level where you make large scale decisions launching vast military operations with sweeping consequences, any one of which can have tremendous impact on the war at large. Whether you are playing the aggressive Japanese trying to expand their empire, or the righteous Americans seeking an end to the conflict, Empire of the Sun takes you through the whole pacific war from 1941 to its conclusion in 1945. Covering in some form or another every aspect of the conflict.

It’s a game that is more than just a tactical game of moving military units around and it’s this particular concept that really intrigued me enough to pick it up. When even within its own genre a game is considered to be “unique”, that is something that peeks my interest.

Using a very clever card mechanic for which Mark Herman is notably quite famous for in war gaming circles, on a subject oft less explored, this award winning game becomes one of my first real deep dives into the genre. I chose it because Empire of the Sun is hailed my many as Mark Hermans crowning achievement in a game designers career that spans over 70+ games according to boardgamegeek. As something of a game design aficionado, I felt an almost natural draw to find out what all the fuss is about!

In this review we will explore Empire of the Sun, but I think I have to offer fair warning that this will no doubt be one of the longest and most exhaustive reviews I have ever done simply because of the depth and complexity of this game. It’s impossible to do it any other way and remain fair and impartial. It’s also the only review I have done that includes a first impressions section. Finally as are all my reviews, it’s absent of a gameplay description (click on Rating System link to find out why I do this). I think it’s such a critical component to this review to understand the difference between having played the game for a week and having played it for several months.

I have also done something I think most reviews of this game don’t do, which is judge it based on modern game design standards and the standards of other game genres outside of the of historical war game simulation. Perhaps it’s unfair but as I researched the game I found that most reviewers where veterans of the genre with a certain level of expectation that I don’t share and though they were clever and well thought out reviews they did not speak to me as a new comer, not just to the game, but to the genre itself. Still this game is considered a classic by fans of the genre so I felt it important to give it a few months and many plays before I come to any conclusions, while simultaneously I felt it important to capture the first moments with the game as well.

Enjoy the review!

First Impressions

I wanted to write a first impressions article for this game because of the enormous disparity between how I felt about the game in the early days of playing it and how I feel about it today, several months and many plays later . The change in perspective is something I feel is significant enough that it really warranted explanation and I suspect that that many will run across a similar experience given this games general level of complexity. There is a wide range of cause and effect for this discrepancy between early plays and later players however that go beyond just complexity and I feel strongly that it’s important to explore and understand in the review of a game like this.

When I first started looking into Empire of the Sun I have to admit I felt excited, I was almost a fan boy before I even got the box home. The game was certainly intimidating and the word “complex” was thrown around a lot but I was intrigued with the concept and when I get on a thing, I go all the way. I have found over the years that this idea of complexity being a property that defines whether or not you should play a game is rather overused and fairly inaccurate. Besides, anytime I venture into new territory as a gamer and expand my horizons I find the experience refreshing and in a way I pride myself on the fact that I’m a versatile game able to appreciate a wide range of genres of games. I really wanted to prove that you can love Euro games, Ameritrash games, Abstract games and historical simulation war games and still be just one person.

I want to be clear on this point, It wasn’t the complexity of the game, at least not directly, that formed my poor first impression of the game. I knew it would be a complex and long game, so a fact being a fact, did nothing to sway me or affect my expectations. I went into it with my eyes and mind wide open.

There are a number of hurdles to entry that have to do with how the game is presented and I have to say, even now, though my impressions of the game have changed since those first few weeks with the game, I still find this to be true as I try to teach others. The hurdle to entry, even through knowledge and understanding doesn’t make it any easier for existing players to teach newcomers trying to grasp this games many in depth concepts. There is a steep learning curve that is demanding, which is fine but I think the issue is that it very easily could have been avoided in my opinion.

For starters the game fails to create a presentation suitable for new players. There are many rules in the game and they are sometimes complex, or at least difficult to remember as a result of the sheer number of them, but not all of them should have been necessary to know to understand and play your first few games. There are many mechanics that could simply be removed for a “basic” or “light” version of the game and I really wish this approach was included as part of Empire of The Sun tutorial process. This is definitely a game that could have benefited from a Basic and Advanced rule system break down and a more intentional approach of teaching players how to play it. Also, If there was ever a game that should have a playbook, its Empire of the Sun.

This practice of having basic and advanced versions of a game and including a playbook to help walk you through the game step by step is seen in many more complex games today, it helps new players to learn to play and experienced players to teach the game to new players. Instead I found that even with the rulebook in hand, examples of play walkthroughs in the back of the book and tutorial videos straight from the designer did little to create sufficient clarity to play the game properly the first few times (about half a dozen). You had to struggle and fight for your right to that Zen moment. In fact, some of the video tutorials and examples of the game made things even more confusing as they are clearly made for people already familiar with terminology and concepts of simulation war games which is kind of a game culture driven hurdle that adds to the confusion. Acronyms are thrown around as if the average gamer is a US marine and we all live on a military base. This is made worse by the fact that even in the tutorials most of these guys made errors as well, so you know there is a problem in learning the game when even the guys teaching it can’t get the rules straight.

In a sense what I discovered is that there was a learning curve to the learning curve. In order to play Empire of the Sun, you have to know all of the rules before you start your first turn, as well as many of the nuances of the ambiguous concept of military and what comes in the box seems to steer you clear of the approach you should actually take to learn the game, namely, by playing the South Pacific scenario (more on that in a minute).

The other issue that you run into is that there are tremendous amounts of rules exceptions scattered throughout the rulebook, the classic “this is true except in these five circumstances”. While much of this is covered in the reference cards, and is important to the design, there is so much of it it can be painful to try to remember everything. I found that some rules and terminology aren’t even defined sufficiently to understand certain concepts until you read some of the Italic designer notes from Mark Herman. Now everything you need to understand IS in the rulebook, this thing is clear as night and day once you understand the game but every printed word is important and skipping or missing even the tiniest of details can create confusion later when concepts, terms and rules are referenced. There really is little in the rulebook to indoctrinate players, its written in a kind of matter of fact way that becomes an extremely reliable source of information once everything clicks, but not before then.

Finally and this was the real killer is the opening plays of the game. When you play the 1941 scenario full campaign, and you will if you want to follow along the only examples of play in the rulebook, the Japanese player must execute two operation cards as a sort of semi-scripted start. These operations (and operation cards) are a principal start of the war and explain a core concept of the game, in essence they are the cards you play that define the way you execute your actions on the game board known simply as “Operations”. In one way this is really great, in that there is a lot of instructions and examples on how to execute these two specific operation cards in a clear and efficient manner. On the flip side these examples are a walkthroughs without any rules explanation as to why certain things work the way they do as it assumes you have read and absorbed the entire rulebook cover to cover by that point. The icing on the cake is that one of the two operation cards that you start the game with is hands down one of the most complicated in the entire game. An operation that requires you to activate 26 units at once launching the biggest and most complex offensive in the entire game with tons of decisions to make all of which will impact the real start of the game in the first turn of 1942. The walk-through example makes all of those decisions for you, holding your hand through the process but doing it on your own is daunting, even if you get some games under your belt. More importantly these examples are kind of out of context, they don’t really explain how to play, they just show you an example of the procedure.

What is worse is that these operations function without certain key rules which gives you the impression about some of the things you can do in the game, but because this operation card ignores rules such as zones of control and reaction actions that would typically be made by the defender it does very little to actually prepare you for turn 2 when all of these rules will be in effect and you are on your own executing other operation cards without walkthrough examples. Now there is a turn 2 example section as well and it was probably the most useful teaching aid in the entire game, but it still does stuff like place X unit in Y spot, without explaining why that is a legal move and what rules are in effect when taking this action.

I think when you get right down to it, the introduction is on its best day very intimidating, one based on some of the most complex events that transpire (most complex operations) in the game. In a sense it just makes learning the game way more complicated then it should be. Given that now I do understand the rules and the game as a whole, when I teach it, it’s definitely not how I would do it, quite to the contrary, the example it walks you through is precisely how you should not go about teaching this game. A 1942 start should be a default and actually using the South Pacific scenario on the smaller map would have been an even better introduction and a place to start your induction into the game through examples, which notably should have been covered in a detailed step by step playbook.

The South Pacific Scenario first off plays on a much smaller map with fewer units, fewer card and cuts out several mechanics like China and India stuff. It’s exactly what you want, a sort of basic version of the game that does not require you to know every rule in the game. This is where the walkthroughs and the introduction to the game should be focused, it’s here you should do your induction to the game. Starting with the 1941 large campaign, or really any of the full map campaigns as a starting point is quite literally the last thing you should be doing as a newcomer, yet this is exactly where the instructional stuff pulls you.

Suffices to say my first impression of the game was that it was very unfriendly to new, inexperienced or even veteran players who might want to induct someone new into the hobby. The complexity of the game is high and this is a fact with which I have no problem, but Empire of the Suns presentation of the material really raises the bar of that complexity unnecessarily. It’s almost like a kind of hazing of new players as if to say “yeah this isn’t for you little buddy”. This is made worse by the fact that hidden in that box is actually a much easier way to do it that really should have been the focus of the games new player education.

Its clear to me how easy it would be to create an even “lighter” scenario version of the game for the purposes of learning to play. So many rules could easily be cut out to thin the required knowledge to play your first few games and you have to wonder why after almost 15 years and several editions this has not occurred to the designer and publisher to change that introduction. In particular since the 3rd edition comes with the aforementioned South Pacific scenario that is played on a smaller map with fewer rules in play, hence much of the work is already done for you.

The whole experience was a struggle and after having learned the game finally after weeks of effort, I came to the stark realization that had I ignored the examples of play and “this is how you learn” direction the rulebook was giving me and simply started with the South Pacific scenario this entire process would have taken half the time and been considerably less painful.

Well that was my first impression and as you can see, it was a rough ride for me. There is however a light at the end of this tunnel and though we have started off a bit negative, as I learned more about the game, became comfortable with the rules, things began to change. That Zen moment was right around the corner for me and this review, I will focus on what happens, how your perceptions will change as the light comes on and you start really playing the game.

Components

Score: 
Tilt:

Pros:  Beautifully illustrated and designed game board and high quality components, plenty of great player aides.  

Cons:  Chits are tiny without replacement parts.   While the reference guides provided are great, a guide that explains what each token/unit is for and what it can do is missing and seems critical as a gameplay reference.  A much needed playbook is missing.

It’s unclear really for me what the expectation for components is in a historical war game simulation like this, what the norm is exactly. My only real exposure to games from this genre is with B-17 Flying Fortress Leader and in that case I was very pleasantly surprised because I sort of expected it to disappoint me.

With Empire of the Sun, I wasn’t sure what to expect but I would quantify the components quality over all as very good by any standard.

The big map game board, the centerpiece of the game is absolutely stunning and is easily the most impressive and high quality piece of the game. Notably the mounted board only comes with the latest printing of the game, which is the one I got. Beautifully illustrated, thoughtfully laid out and structured in a way that even a novice like me could figure it out. Its one of those game boards that is wonderful at the start and becomes even better as you become familiar with the game and catch on to the many nuances of what is on it to facilitate play. More than anything though the map itself is a foundation of the theme of the game, you are meant to feel like a strategic general of a great war theater and this map really gives you that sensation. Some of the most difficult decisions will be made by reviewing this map and the pieces on it in great detail and because its so well illustrated the amount of times you end up asking “what is that mean” is rare even if your a beginner which is a great tribute to the cartographer. It also includes some of the most frequently used tables you need to play the game, well chosen additions to the map.

One complaint I do have about the map is that in the game some nations will surrender when certain hexes are claimed by the Japanese player. It would have been nice if those where highlighted in some clear fashion so you didn’t have to reference the index card to find this information. Its fairly confusing yet a critical element of victory conditions to know which hexes are part of these surrender conditions for which countries.

The cards are of extremely sturdy, glossy finish quality, I’m not sure the quality could be improved to be honest. In fact, is there such a thing as too good? The cards are so stiff they are hard to shuffle. The art work is black and white on the cards reflecting the thematic way we imagine World War II and the card text is clear, easy to read, easy to understand with all the information you would need to reference very accessible. Clearly a lot of thought went into making these cards which you will be agonizing over during game-play as much of your strategy in the game is built around these cards.

The “Chit” tokens are tiny and I suppose they need to be, but they are hard to handle with my big clumsy fat fingers and because tokens are stacked up on top of each other you end up having to handle them quite a bit. I had to get a pair of tweezers, which helped, but I think this is just a normal part of these hex based war games you have to accept. The tokens themselves are of good quality and will clearly last, but that is assuming you don’t accidentally lose any. There are no extras of anything in the box and given their size, losing some seems inevitable and the way the game is designed even a single missing chit will impact your ability to play the game and potentially the balance of it. I think given the expense of the game, it would have been nice to include a couple of extra sheets of everything. Fortunately chits are relatively easy to make yourself and there are contact sheets available online to make replacements yourself so you do have that route to solve the problem if something gets lost.

The rulebook itself is what I would call overly efficient, yet difficult to absorb. Strictly speaking everything you need to play the game is there, I found no question or problem I couldn’t solve/answer without the rulebook but its 50 pages and you will rifle through that thing constantly during play, reading, re-reading and reading it again. I became so intimately familiar with that rulebook over time that I could practically write it at this point, yet I found it physically impossible to play the game without constantly referencing it and even after dozens of play throughs that has not changed.

Suffice to say however I think the rulebook is a bit short on examples. It gives you examples of the first turn and the first part of the second turn of play in great detail but very little else. There are certain aspects of the game that have unique rules, special circumstances and procedure that don’t function in a kind of natural or organic way. These things often sound more complicated than they are when structured as rules in the rulebook, compared to their actual implementation and I think that sort of confusion could be easily alleviated with more examples. In fact I would have thought given the complexity of the game, a whole book (playbook) dedicated to examples of play that cover every faucet of this game could be extremely useful and should have been included. In fact, given Mark Hermans affinity for taking up space with designer notes, I would have thought this a natural document to write.

Generally however the rulebook is extremely efficient, after a play or two you will come to appreciate the intricate style of writing that is clear once you understand all of the terminology and nuance of the game. Getting to that point takes time and you really need to have the game map in front of you when you read the rules as the rules very frequently reference hexes and locations on the map. The game also comes with a lot of useful reference guides, though there are some omissions here as well I would have liked to have seen. For example a clear guide on what each type of unit can and can’t do as there are many special circumstances and rules for individual units that can be hard to remember.

As a whole this is a high quality production, historical simulation war game or not. Considering its size and scope of the game, it is relatively compact and a modestly sized table to play on will do.

Theme

Score: (5 out of 5 Stars)
Tilt:

Pros:  Between the interaction of the operation cards, the gameboard and its many units, this game tells the story of the Pacific War in a way that must be experienced, it’s a masterpiece. 

Cons:  Before you can enjoy the story of this masterpiece, you must traverse this tough learning curve and one cannot be enjoyed unless you suffer through the other.

A game about World War II is definitely going to be very much about the theme, but even more so is that the case in a game that has such an incredible focus on historical accuracy and attempts to really tell the story of the war.

Empire of the Sun is populated with countless intricate details that will have you googling to find out what the significance of these different events were in real historical terms and it’s an amazing way to experience the game to have that reference of realism and history. When you have done this enough times you start to realize that not only is Empire of the Sun uncannily thematic, but extraordinarily historically accurate. In a sense the game is designed in such a fashion that if you put all of the strategy cards in a specific order and played the game out with fixed results of the real war, you could replicate the historically accurate results in game form. It’s quite extraordinary.

Now of course simply replicating history is not what a game like this is about, in this game you are in charge of one of the two factions of the war and will make the decisions your own and the game is really about how you change the history of the Pacific Theater, how you do it differently and the impact of those choices.

With the exception of the opening turn where the events of Pearl Harbor unfold, the rest of the game is up to you. From the initial offensive perpetrated by the Japanese in the south pacific, every tactical and strategic decision is yours to make as you re-write the history of the war. Throughout this game you are treated to microcosms of information about what really happened and how your own war differs. This nuance of the game in the context of real historical events is absolutely fantastic and will have any history buff smiling from ear to ear, while potentially turning you into a historical buff if you aren’t already.

The theme in Empire of the Sun comes through in a number of important ways, but I think the organization and structure of executing the operation cards is the greatest connection to the theme here. These cards are based on historical events that you will use to re-write history as you execute them to tell your version of the story of the many battles in the Pacific. I love how they range from small skirmishes to major operations, from well organized tactical maneuvers to wildly risky almost fantastically sounding epics, yet these things all really happened at some point. Each card feels like it represents an amount of time, both in the size and scope of the operation. There is just so much going on in these cards and they breath life into the theme of this games in ways that its difficult to describe and is simply something one must experience. In 30 years of board gaming I have never seen a single play of a card, have such a huge impact on the theme of a game.

The map too is a core that sort of rounds out the story of this game. The placement (position) of units is such a fundamentally critical component to the strategy in which one hex can mean the difference between success and failure, but this too is very crucial to telling the games story. The map is laid out in a way where you can see the depth of the strategic possibilities wherever you look not to mention coming to an understanding of the historical significance of these places. The flow of the game is such that it’s really difficult to predict everything your opponent will do and as they execute actions you can’t help but smile about all the cool stuff they came up with. It’s an action and counter action story, where each players turn, each card that is played is as engrossing and thematically rich as the next, but both players are always involved in every card played so there isn’t this thing happening where one player acts while the other play waits. It binds the game together and results in a story, one that is unique to that game and will never be repeated, keeping both players engaged at all times.

I can’t imagine the story of the Pacific Theater being told any more masterfully then in Empire of the Sun, it does not surprise me at all that Mark Herman is hailed as a genius and Empire of the Sun as one of his definitive masterpieces. From the perspective of theme, this game is indeed a masterpiece, worth stumbling over the learning curve to get at it. This is one of those games that you will use as a reference and marker for what it means to be a thematic game.

Gameplay

Score: (4 out of 5 Stars)
Tilt:

Pros:  Ingenious card mechanic creates a visceral highly asymmetrical yet balanced experience that is unmatched. The gameplay is diverse and the strategic options feel endless despite the subject and premise of the game being static.

Cons:  Not for the uninitiated, this is a game for veterans and it remains difficult to comprehend no matter how much you play it, always seemingly just out of reach of retention.

This is a historical strategic war game about the war in the Pacific,  I can imagine it must have been quite a challenge for the designer to come up with a way to replicate this historical war in a board game and make it both fun and fair. To understand why that is you have to understand a bit about the history of the Pacific Theater, but at the most high level, the short of it was that this was never a particularly fair war and Japan losing the war was kind of an inevitable thing.  This presents several fundamental challenges to the designer in making Empire of the Sun. How do you design  a board game where one side is definitely going to lose and has a clear disadvantage?  Especially since the part of the goal for the game is to keep it historically accurate.

Mark Herman re-defined the concept of victory in Empire of the Sun and it is here where much of the games historical premise converts into being an exciting game for both US and Japanese players.  The historical reality is that Japan can’t win the war and this is not your goal. In Empire of the Sun, Japan, attempts to instead force the US into a negotiated settlement rather then an unconditional surrender that they demand.  The result is a game where Japan aggressively pursues US allies and tries to deter American commitment to the war, resulting in an accurate historical portrayal for story purposes and a great set of victory conditions for the purpose of a board game.  This objective turned victory condition for Japan, solves the core issue of coming up with a historical simulation of the Pacific War, while being a fair game, a fairness that becomes balance mechanically thanks to the clever cards and starting conditions of the game.

Mark very brilliantly and carefully created highly balanced asymmetrical play here, a feat that is often attempted but failed in board games.  Given the complexity of the rules, depth of the mechanic and continued adherence to historical accuracy, for this game to maintain this asymmetry while being balanced is an impossibility that Mark Herman turned into a reality.  It’s an extraordinary piece of game design, to be appreciated even if the game itself does not speak to you directly.  The study of this games design should be part of the curriculum for anyone wishing to be a game designer, its that good.

Now good design does not necessarily translate to being a fun game, a case I could make with quite a few highly acclaimed games.  The question here is, between the complexity of the rules, deeply rich historical accuracy, asymmetrical design and frankly mind boggling depth, is the game actually fun to play in practice?  Is it something that one might recommend to a fellow gamer?

Its with this part when it comes to Empire of the Sun I struggle.  As a game design aficionado, I can appreciate a game I don’t play and there can be a fair amount of reasons why I won’t play a game I think is a great design.   I don’t think everyone can and I imagine most would not want to view board gaming this way.  I think most people just want to sit down and play fun board games.  So it is fun?

The answer is, most definitely and unequivocally yes.. almost.   It’s not an easy journey to unravel the foggy mystery that is Empire of the Sun, but once the rules click and you examine the gameplay from a perspective of understanding, Empire of the Sun is not only exciting but extraordinarily engrossing. 

In this journey you will always stumble over the rules.  You will always play this game with the rulebook in hand and if you step away from the game for a month or two you will realize that you effectively have to re-learn everything.  The rules complexity is just high enough that it never really fully sticks and I have never managed to play this game through without screwing up several rules during the course of play. In fact, even the tutorials online (All of them!) make major goofs with the rules as they teach you the game.   I said at the beginning that to judge a game negatively because its complex and long when that is what intends to be is poor form, so this may make me a hypocrite, but this is me saying that this game takes complexity just one step beyond the average Joe’s retention and that really gets in the way of the fun.

Still this is a game where you will contemplate your actions into extreme depths, the strategies, plans and ideas you can try in this game are endless.  Here you can theorize and explore the vast possible outcomes of different actions that can re-define the war in what is an always shifting and dynamic game thanks to the card system that drives it.  I can see this mechanic being applied to just about any theater of war, but it seems to work very well in the specifics of the Pacific Theater.  

More than that though the game is chalk full of those “Holy Shit!” moments, which is fundamentally important to good game design merging with fun gameplay.  While there are small curves on this race track as well, most of the action in the game is grandiose, game changing, in that “I can’t believe that shit just happened” space.  It may seem strange looking at a board full of cardboard chits and think the game exciting, filled with adrenaline, but that is exactly what it is.  I found myself at the edge of my seat at every card play, at every activation, at every shift of the many properties be they war weariness, European war track, the India or China tracks.  It all boiled together into a mind blowing experience that had me nodding my head in approval and resetting the game for another play, one after the other.  

If I could dislodge even my limited knowledge of this game and implant it into the brains of the gaming community at large I have absolutely no doubt, complexity or not,  Empire of the Sun would be ruling at the top of the charts on boardgamegeek.  It’s the game we are all meant to play, it’s without question a modern classic.  Unfortunately I suspect it will always be regulated to the undiscovered gems pile and I hate to harp on it, but the high level of complexity really acts as a major barrier to entry that I don’t think most are going to be willing to cross.  Those that do, are in for a treat, those that don’t are missing out.

What drives these exciting moments that has me praising Empire of the Sun like it’s the greatest invention on earth since the Philadelphia Cheesesteak?

At its core I believe it’s the marriage between card mechanics and a hex based war game.  To me, the most unattractive part of most simulation war games is that there is a rulebook, a hexboard filled with chits and the endless charts of doom on the basis of which the games battles are resolved.  Those things may be cerebral puzzles and interesting, but they don’t make for particularly inspiring storytelling and in a game like this, the story is the juice!  To me the source of the juice is really all about the strategy cards. 

The limitations on planning, the execution and the theme of these strategy cards all combine to create not only the cerebral experience that works on countless levels here, but the visceral experience that triggers your imagination.  I think it’s here where the masterful design really comes together to become a fun board game.

Your planning isn’t just around what you want to do, but what you can do and your cards define that.  This limitation is key to making the game feel like the real world, it’s not just manipulation of resources, units,  and the map, but dealing within the confines of the these cards that represent events, people, places, battles and more.   

It’s also important to note that the cards are extremely well designed from a balance perspective.  They are built to create big moments and I have to say that I don’t think just any cards would have sufficed.  It’s clear that these cards have been meticulously tested, adjusted and adapted to get the feel just right, to ensure their impact.  Such a thoughtful mechanic demanded no less and it’s no doubt at the center of the success in Empire of the Sun as a game.

Now this of course isn’t the only part here and I could go on endlessly about how well thought out unit design is, the mindful interactions of units in combat,  how clever the map layout is and how great the abstracted inclusions for things like the war in Europe or China are.  In the end however its the cards that really make all of this work, they are the batteries for the whole system and quite frankly it makes this game nothing short of a work of art.

I would love to give this games game-play a perfect 5 stars and call it a day but being the objective guy I am, I would be remiss not to mention some of the warts in Empire of the Sun and warts it has, masterpiece or not.

For one, this is a game that is going to be tough to learn, something I have already repeated several times resulting in the hypocrisy of my comments in the first impressions section.   To not mention it however would be criminal.   This complexity however isn’t just about learning the game, but it becomes a hurdle in a more practical sense.

Your chances of finding a partner willing to jump through this brutal learning curve with you is not going to be easy.  What makes it even tougher is that once you do finally learn the game, getting to a point where you can put up a decent fight against a more seasoned player is going to take several plays of the game as there is so much that goes into the strategic level here as well.  Experience definitely matters.  Given that a typical full campaign game of Empire of the Sun is an all day affair, the likely result is that this game will collect a lot of dust on your shelf.  If your lucky, you have a friend ready to take on this challenge with you, in which case, don’t hesitate, but if you are picking this up without knowing who you will play it with, know you may end up playing with yourself (pun intended!).  This just isn’t one of those “come over and I will teach you a game” kind of games.  This is a serious assignment for serious gamers,  I would call it a lifestyle game akin to something Advanced Squad Leader.  One does not simply play Empire of the Sun.

Secondly and I can’t stress this enough, this is not an entry level Historical Simulation Game.  I don’t want to discourage someone based on the premise of “complexity”, but this isn’t just about the complexity of the rules, this is a game that assumes you have done this before.  It’s clearly not meant for a first timer and it may very well be the reason why I struggled as much as I did at the start.  Even if this review has peeked your interest, if you are uninitiated, you may want to start with something a bit more docile and work your way up to Empire of the Sun.  This is a postgraduate course, not something to tackle your freshman year.  

Replayability And Longevity

Score: (3 out of 5 Stars)
Tilt:

Pros:  Very dynamic starting conditions, several scenarios to explore.  There is plenty of game here for repeated plays.

Cons:  It’s a very niche 2 player game, it will likely earn dust collector status on most game shelves simply by the nature of what it is.

I’m going to make this short and sweet, no two games will ever be alike no matter how much you play this game and because the story of the game is so visceral you aren’t likely to tire of it. I would imagine most people will play this game and then seek out other card driven games of this type, for which there are several avenues. It will make you a fan of the system.

When it comes to replayability, Empire of the Sun is a prime example of what you want out of a game. It kicks of the 1941 campaign with a massive operation that has you activating 26 units and declaring any amount of battles you want. This start means the game kicks off on dynamic footing. Your card draw in the first round has no doubt a few million if not billion combinations possible and after that there is no way any two games are going to play out the same.

Still its a static subject matter, on a fixed map. This is a game about the Pacific War and that in itself is a bit of a confining space. Certain moves will become your go to moves and I do think even with all the dynamics in the game there are certain things that you must do to win. For example as the Japan player you must take the Philippines in the opening moves of the game, after all you can’t have an HQ within striking distance of mainland Japan when Americans get their re-enforcement by turn 3. After several plays, opening moves and random card draws or not, there is going to be a certain routine to things you will do in this game as just a practice of good strategy.

Scenarios can certainly shake things up, the 1943 scenario in particular creates a fairly engaging yet relatively short game, while the South Pacific scenario is an example of how you can use this system and zero in on specific places. You almost wish Empire of the Sun was a series of games using the same rules. I for one would love to see a European Theater version of this one.

This is a deep and very rich game, you will want to replay it but there are certain aspects of this one that are going to effect how often you will play it. It’s a very long, complex 2 player game about a very specific sub-subject of World War II. That is an extremely niche thing and even if you love this game, the odds of it collecting some dust on your shelf between plays is a likely reality for most of us.

Conclusion

I might not be a historical simulation war gamer, but I have learned and do play some real monsters. Twilight Imperium, Mage Knight and 1830 Railway and Robber Barons just to name a few. Complexity neither frightens me or discourages me from learning and playing these games. If a game is good, its good, complexity or not.

In the case of Empire of the Sun however the complexity is seemingly just one notch above the retention of your average human, namely me. I love the game, as I write this conclusion its setup in my hobby room ready to start yet another campaign, but to play it without making rules mistakes and oversights its just very unlikely. There are just too many rules to remember that no matter how often you play it you always seem to forget something. Its not surprising to me that even the people trying to teach it to you online are making blunders, this one just takes complexity to a whole new level.

That wart aside however, I find Empire of the Sun to be hands down the best game I have learned to play in the last decade and it really has been worth the struggle. It’s dynamic, thematic and unquestionably one of the deepest strategy games I have ever played. The combination of hex based war gaming and card driven play is a perfect marriage. Even when playing this game solo with the AI bot, I found the game to be a pure joy. Its a very cerebral experience while simultaneously an incredibly thematic one. Every action you take is agony as you struggle to make tough choices at all times and after every move the entire state of the game must be reassessed before you do anything else. Like chess, this is one of those games where you can spend hours just staring at the board trying to decide what to do.

The question is always, who is this game for and while I try not to use the word “veteran gamer” too often, I would say that this is one of those games where past experience is almost mandated. Its clear to me that everyone should be playing this game, but its equally clear that not everyone takes playing board games seriously. There is nothing casual about Empire of the Sun, its at its core a challenge just to learn to play, a sort of qualification test to see if the game is for you. If you are the type of gamer like me who perks up when someone says “deep complex strategy game”, then Empire of the Sun may in fact be for you. If that sort of thing scares you, you may want to skip this one.

I don’t know what else to say about it other than that this game is a masterpiece in its own way. Not everyone is going to find “IT” when playing this game, as it caters to a very particular type of gamer, those few of us that are true explorers seeking a kind of ultimate experience in our hobby. Empire of the Sun is a game like that and though I would never recommend this game to most gamers, if you think you are that type of gamer, this is one game you should not miss.