Review Detail

There's a lot of really good stuff in this game, and my rating would be higher were it not for the very complex rules, glacially slow pace and monstrous play time of the game. The event cards, setup and asymmetric powers capture the history of the time brilliantly and the game offers all the usual excruciating and thrilling CDG choices between events and operations and what to use those operations points to do, although this is diluted by the multi-player nature of the events. As an added dimension the negotiation in the game is as tough and vital as it is in Diplomacy - and HIS is the only other game I know which semi-forces it onto the players as a prerequisite for success. But the bottom line is that unless you've got a vast amount of time on your hands to learn and play this, it's going to see the table very rarely indeed. It's suitable for PBEM play but is very, very slow.