Report from the Imperial Province of Gashidda.

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Your Majesty:

It is my duty to inform you that the Terran Confederation accepted our overture of peace and have ceased their warfare against the Ziru Sirka.

I would like also to note that while we were glad to receive your permission to build B1 Dreadnoughts, the vessel did not fare well in actual combat, it was in fact destroyed.

We still hold the new outpost of Apishal and have the Sirius bottleneck stoppered.

Your Governor of Gashidda.

OK, I just purchased and finally played my very first almost game of Imperium.

First off, I was going to lose, but it was real late, so we ended up calling it around Turn 5. I was holding it down as you might have guessed for the Ziru Sirka, my friend D__ was holding it down for the Terrans.

Some things I have already noticed were that I should have cranked out Outposts and Troops and dropped them all in my territory so as to build up my RUs, cause holy crap can the Terrans produce!

The poor Terran Player had a question which I don't know the answer to.

How does one get more Worlds other than 3 RU/Turn for 50 Turns?

He made the point that he had three worlds more in his territory that he could have take that were primary worlds (white) and not secondary worlds (red), but he only gets three World Markers to start with. What's the deal?

I told him as far as I could tell he was hosed. He gets the initial three Worlds and then all the Outposts he could drop. He didn't like that answer.

Anyway, comments welcome, as are strategies and such.

 

[mearrin69]

Apologies for the threadomancy, if that's frowned upon in these parts.

I've had this game for years and only ever played it solo until recently. We played through one war with me as the Terrans. It was quite fun, though we had a few moments of trying to figure out exactly what the rules meant. They're pretty clearly worded, except in a few places. I'd say I won if only because I managed to lose one outpost, take one (a new one placed during the game), and place two new ones. The Imperium still has me bottlenecked at Sirius (but it costs her dearly) and Nusku (there's a monitor in the system hex so I have steered clear so far), but that's not a big deal really.

On worlds: Yeah, you can't buy one and terraforming is just plain silly. I do believe, though I don't have my rules handy, that an outpost in a primary system box will convert to a world during an extended peace. That's the place to look for the answer to that question anyway...I'm sure I saw it there.

We're going to play another game someday soon and maybe I'll post a log if anyone's interested.
M

 

[aramis]

The game is best played as a campaign, not a single war.

That is, record the ending positions, and apply the rules for between wars. If he can take and hold 1 or 2 worlds in war 1, he's going to start war 2 with them... and so he slowly nibbles away at the giant.

 

[mearrin69]

We plan to do just that!

 

[aza]

Hello,

I've been lurking a while here after discovering a dusty box full of teenage memories in my parents garage but this is the first time I have posted. This is because I have recently played a couple of the old traveller wargames (although not the RPG itself) and Imperium has been one of them!

What we found was this - the Terrans will get almost always get crushed by the might of the First Imperium on the first turn unless they follow a very specific strategy - which is to park all of their warships, other than one scout to block the other approach through the no-fuel system next to Procyon (can't remember it's name aright now), on Barnards' Star. Otherwise the Imperial fleet can react onto Barnards' on the first turn and thence onto the Terran worlds and economically strangle them for the rest of the game - using the appeals to the emperor to ensure they loose all the wars and start from a position of strength in the following war. Also the Terrans must build CRs to avoid getting swamped with Imperial scouts.

Given this it is interesting that the Terrans seem to have been the stronger side in the games played by others so I'm wondering if I have missed something. We did initially play using a dodgy rule from a dragon magazine (IIRC) which stipulated that maintenance did not have to be done on the first turn but the situation still seemed similar without that ruling in place.

Aza

 

[mearrin69]

Interesting. We didn't do maintenance first turn either. I thought that was in the rules as written? Have to look back at that.

As the Terran player, I saw it was vitally important to block all access to my rear via the two choke-points. I parked a lot of ships in those system hexes and then trailed single ships back into all systems connecting so the Imps wouldn't have free access to my systems or the space behind.

Maybe my Imperial counterpart wasn't as aggressive as she could have been...but I'm not sure she could have gotten past my defenses in the first turn to lock me down in any case. She got through Sirius on the second turn and managed to take one of my outpost but my reaction force took out the fleet in the system hex, leaving a high-powered jump troop stranded on a rock...and I sealed off the Sirius gap right after. She also managed to (third turn or so) take the system just in from Nusku, but was still choked off past that and I took it back before the end of the first war - scoring a victory point for the Terrans!

Looking forward to exploring strategy in this game. We'll do the campaign thing with the existing game...but I want to play the Imperials too.
M

 

[aramis]

Maintenance on turn 1 hurts the Imperial player more... reduces his fleet construction.

 

[Blue Ghost]

If I recall correctly, "Imperium", though set in as a Traveller game, was actually published before Traveller itself. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here. I remember it was a big flat box with a blue green cover or something.

 

[mearrin69]

There were at least two versions. I have the later one. Check on Boardgamegeek for details on publication history. The Japanese version had a very cool box cover.

On first turn maintenance: my book says on page 12, "Maintenance is not required for new units on the turn in which they appear." We broadly interpreted that to mean starting units on the first term of the game...although perhaps that isn't what the authors intended.
M

 

[aza]

Good point mearrin69 maybe the magazine article was a clarification of that rule - it was claimed to come from Marc Miller himself. I don't have it here so can't check. I remember we weren't sure what to do at the start of subsequent wars but that interpretation of the maintenance rule solves that.

The Imperium must be aggressive to exploit the Imperial Replacements rule in order to keep up with Terran production. That CR in the initial forces should be in combat every turn. In my optimal initial setup Adidda should be an imperial outpost and the entire combat fleet deployed there as the Terrans do not start with a tanker and can't go past Sirius (that was the name I couldn’t remember!) on the first turn. In the first game I played as the Imperium using this setup I reacted the fleet into Barnards' Star in the Terran player turn as he had divided his ships, then weathered a counter attack and occupied the sol system hex on the Imperium Player turn, unsuccessfully deploying jump troops to the world hex. Not having to pay maintenance on the first turn meant there was no possibility of disrupting my ships at the beginning of my turn. I was kicked out of sol by the newly build ships coming on line but the Terrans never recovered from the hit to their production and I continued to operate scouts through the the Terran worlds to disrupt production as much as possible. Zerging with the scouts helped as well.

One thing that help in the above strategy, and which I am not sure is correct, is that Imperial ships lost during the Terran Player Turn could start coming back as replacements as the beginning of the Imperium Player Turn. This meant that the Imperium was essentially getting production on the first turn of one ship - unless they suffered no losses in the Terran player turn.

Blue Ghost I'm not sure if Imperium was published first or Traveller but I know Imperium was used as the basis of the OTU so I consider it a Traveller game.

Aza

 

[mearrin69]

I think the Imp reinforcements don't come back until the following Imp turn. Not sure though.

Where was the Terran monitor? We didn't have one enter into battle but we were both scared of them. Mine was in the Sol system hex and she didn't want to mess with it I guess...because she wouldn't come near Sol. We'll have to see how they fare after the next peace. Imma take Nusku for sure! (that's where she has he monitor parked...and I avoided it as well)
M

 

[aza]

The Monitor was at Barnards. The Monitors aren't as scary as they seem due to the fact that they are unable to attack at either short or long range depending upon the type - just feed them a scout when at the wrong range. Remember the Imperial CR has a 1 in 6 chance to kill the Terran Monitor at long and the CL a 1 in 3 using high intensity missile fire.

Just reread the rule on Replacements and it talks about player turns so I think I would go with my original interpretation - particularly with the option to scrap at any time means that the only way that would work otherwise in a consistent fashion is if you didn't put the replacements on the turn track until the end of the current game turn.

One thing I'm curious about is we kind of house ruled that you can not place more than one Planetary Defense marker on a world at a time. It doesn't say so in the rules but we thought that it could be a bit nasty otherwise. What do you think of that?

Aza

 

[aramis]

Both Traveller and Imperium were published in 1977; Imperium was ©1974, however, so the "countdown to Public Domain" starts there; it was still in copyright when the need to file extensions was waived, so it's got quite a while. We know from the designer's notes that Traveller was a 1977 project.

 

[dean]

If a rules clarification about maintenance is needed, just submit it trough the consolidated Errata thread. Don M. is pretty good about getting things clarified, although it's not necessarily going to get any sort of priority treatment at this time..

 

[aza]

I played a little bit of Dark Nebula, the sequel to Imperium, with a friend of mine last night. We only did one full turn and made a few mistakes - how were we to know the Solomani were the red counters not the Blue? - however we were both very impressed with the game and will try to have a bit more of a go some time in the future.

One thing I noticed in the rules is that it explicitly states that no maintenance needs to be done on the first turn of the game so I think given the very similar game mechanics to Imperium that this holds true for the previous game as well. Of course Dark Nebula raises some questions of it's own, like why is there a price for monitors when neither side has them in the counter mix?

I'm not holding my breath on Imperium going into the public domain Aramis given that the length of time a copyright is valid for is forever increasing as certain IP reach the end of their current life time.

Aza

 

[mearrin69]

So, we finished off the last turn of our first war last night and worked through the two-turn peace that followed in preparation for the next war.

In the last turn neither of us initiated any hostilities. Since the Imperial player's Glory was at 3 on turn 6 she knew the war was over at the end of the turn unless she took an outpost so she went for Imperial Favor and got a +4 RU budget increase.

We rolled 2 on the length of peace. No territory was exchanged.

The Terran player (me) got busted during inter-war attrition, losing two planetary defense markers, a monitor, and a jump troop (strength 6!) demoted to ordinary troop status (strength 2!). I lost a couple of decent ships too, though I can't remember what they were now. The Imps lost a strike cruiser and had a jump troop demoted.

She lost so got her full budget (with the 4-RU increase) and I got half (13 I think). I had a couple of outposts unplaced so those went out.

I've got outposts at Agidda (up against the Nusku/??? dual system) and Procyon just past the Sirius bottleneck. There's another Terran outpost in the primary system box in the arm of systems off of Procyon, forget what that one's called at the moment. I think I've got my original holdings plus maybe two or three additional outposts 'behind the lines'. I think the Imperials have a couple of new outposts behind their lines, placed just prior to the end of the war.

When we start the next war I've got zilch: a couple of strike cruisers, a few scouts, a couple of transports, and quite a few regular troops. She's got a fair sized cruiser fleet (several strike plus a heavy granted as 'token reinforcements' by Imperial Intervention in the last war) a bunch of destroyers, and quite a few scouts and transports. She doesn't have any jump troops, however, so at least she won't be able to take any territory in the first turn...which is good, since my defenses are weak after losing those two PDMs and a monitor. Edit: She *could* use regular troops, of course, but she seems averse to subjecting transport/troop units to planetary defense fire, so I'm hoping that holds.

Looking forward to continuing this. Also looking forward to starting another game from scratch with me as the Imperials.
M

 

[Whipsnade]

Blue Ghost I'm not sure if Imperium was published first or Traveller but I know Imperium was used as the basis of the OTU so I consider it a Traveller game.

Imperium is definitely a Traveller game. The relationship between the two is a little screwy however.

As Wil wrote, both games were published in the same year. Imperium was designed somewhat earlier and that shows, especially in the first edition where the empire fighting the Terrans is said to consist of "seventy star centered on Capella" and the word "Vilani" cannot be found. The design notes also say the jump lines on the map are similar to the Alderson lines from Mote in God's Eye. (That last bit led to some big problems decades later.)

After being published both games sort of cross pollinated each other while Imperium went through at least three GDW version/revisions. Among other things, the whole Ziru Sirka/Vilani schtick was imported into Imperium from Traveller and the idea of a long period of hot and cold war between the new & small Terran confederation and a old & large interstellar empire was imported into Traveller from Imperium.

While Imperium was kit bashed into Traveller's slowly growing official setting, it never really fit that well because some basic game mechanisms like the jump lines were never part of the setting and could never be made part of the setting.

Still Imperium is one corker of a game, especially if you play the campaign version as you're doing. Stay away from the later Avalanche Press version. It's pricey and contains lots of additional rules which only detract from play. Do try and track down the JTAS variant which adds a ground war component to the game. It's in the JTAS Reprint from FFE. If you're playing the campaign version in multiple sessions, you can use some sessions to play out ground combat with the military units on various planetary maps.

P.S. Please do keep posting about your sessions. Reading after action reports from wargames makes my withered old heart go pitter pat.

 

[warwizard]

I think the first turn both sides should perform maintance, it generally prevents the placement of the Terran monitor at Terra, and makes the imperial player disperse his fleet stack, or else take the risk of getting the CR disrupted and unable to jump into offensive combat.

I've purchased 3 copied of Imperium through the years, two of the original and one of the reprint, concurr the reprint rules are missing some important bits. The Drive thru comic's PDF file is of the original version and is good to get if you have the new version.

I've found that a skilled Imperial player has the game to lose, while the Skilled Terran player needs quite a bit of luck to be able to win, or a mistake in initial setup by the imperial (letting the Terrans have the system just past bernard's star for instance)

If the Imperial player is ever able to take and hold Bernard's star, you may as well conceed unless you can get the 4th world at Miribilis, or take one or two Imperial worlds in exchange.

My games usually go something like this: Imperial has occupied the system adjacent to bernard's star and has stacked his entire fleet there, first player phase the Terrans use their 6 transports to place outposts and troops to guard the back entrance, reaction movement the entire imperial fleet hits bernard's star, using the monitor to hold the door shut, and one scout to hold at the back entrance. if the Imperials win the space combat, they drop the troops on Bernard's star's world box, and may be able to take out the defending troops or even win outright. Terran is left with no combat forces, and on the imperial player turn there are Imperials holding the high ground in Terra and Alpha Centauri, and the Terrans are on the defensive and are generally unable to maintain their other outposts, leading to a situation by turn 4 of Terrans holding just Terra and Alpha Centauri, with no hope of breaking out of the defensive position they find themselves in, With the Imperial buying 2 strike CR a TR and a Jump troop every turn, and using appeals to the emperor to ensure they LOSE the war... 2nd war starts with a planetary assult capturing Alpha Centauri (both worlds) and then it's just Terra, with another possibly long peace to attrit her fighters and monitors, and troops that with income of only 8 RU, she cannot replace.

To avoid this Imperial tatic, Terra must not deploy forward, place a single scout at bernard's star but DO have the monitor on the world surface, along with your PDF and all your troops, if the Imperials take the bait and attack in force, you leave them there, and allow them to try to maintain their force in an enemy system, with luck the CR, 1 CL and 1 DD will be disrupted, and unavailable to provide the forces able to hit your reaction stack at proxima Centauri, Terran turn on the 2nd turn you have all your production as your reaction movement cleared the imperial ships from Terra and Alpha Centauri, and now with your new production in place you wipe out the imperial fleets in their various locations, scattering scouts into the imperial backwaters to disrupt trade.

I concider maintaining your forces on the first turn to be essential in that the Imperial force is the stronger of the two and without missing out on the services of a couple of ships, has the ability to destroy the entire Terran starting fleet, monitor included. Try a few test battles and see what you get, then do frontier maintence on both forces and repeat the test battles, the maintence requirement tends to ballance the starting fleet's combat ability.

 

[mearrin69]

Interesting analysis warwizard, thanks.
M

 

[aza]

Thanks warwizard excellent analysis and I'm glad you broadly agree with me. Excellent strategy of keeping the Monitor on the world surface - brilliant! Would be interesting to do a detailed analysis of the Battle of Barnard’s Star to see what the probabilities of success for the Terrans is. You can throw everything in on the first turn as the Imperials I think as the Terrans don't have a tanker to to get past Sirius yet.

What is your position on Imperial replacements in the first turn? A consolidated errata was mentioned above for those types of questions but I haven’t been able to find it.

Aza