Retrospective: Conquest of the Empire

Stop me if you've heard this before: I was never a wargamer, but I liked the idea of wargames, specifically simulating a military or other conflict through the use of a board, tokens, and dice. There's just something inherently appealing to me about this, which probably explains why I've spent more than four decades trying but rarely succeeding at finding a wargame that really clicked with me. I owned and played a number of Avalon Hill and SPI games in my youth, but, with the exception of Diplomacy, I was never very good at them (and even there I was hampered by my inexplicable tendency to play Austria-Hungary).

However, in 1984, Milton Bradley released a line of games under the banner of the "Gamemaster Series" that caught my attention. The series was an experiment in bringing wargames to the mass market. Each entry in the series came in a massive, shelf-dominating box filled with lavish components and a rulebook that looked intimidating compared to more traditional boardgames like Monopoly or Risk. The series began with Axis & Allies, designed by Larry Harris, and followed swiftly with another of his creations, Conquest of the Empire.

While Axis & Allies presented World War II in game form, Conquest of the Empire did the same thing for the Roman Empire's Crisis of the Third Century. The game was a grand-scale battle for supremacy across the Mediterranean world after the death of Marcus Aurelius. It was, in every sense, a spectacle, a game whose physical components alone promised an epic experience before a single die was rolled. As a young history buff with a particular affection for Greco-Roman history, this was the game I'd been waiting for.

To appreciate Conquest of the Empire, it helps to recall what the gaming landscape looked like in the mid-1980s. The boundary between “mainstream” and “hobby” games was much starker than it is today. Wargames were, as I noted above, largely the province of companies like Avalon Hill or SPI. They were sold in specialty stores to an audience comfortable with long rulebooks and hex maps. By contrast, the Gamemaster Series was an attempt to bridge that gap by combining high production values, streamlined rules, and compelling subjects to attract both traditional hobbyists and curious outsiders like myself. 

Axis & Allies was, I gather, very successful. Certainly my friends and I enjoyed playing it and we did so often. Of course, even in the 1980s, World War II was a staple of wargames. Conquest of the Empire thus deviated just enough to be considered daring. Furthermore, its subject, the period of the Military Anarchy, was less familiar and its map of the Mediterranean world, divided into provinces and trade routes, hinted at something more intricate than the average family game. Of course, that's precisely why I loved it.

Opening Conquest of the Empire for the first time is something I cannot forget. To start, the box was enormous. Inside lay nearly four hundred molded plastic miniatures, such as legionnaires with raised shields, catapults, coins, and galleys to patrol the Mare Nostrum. There were also cities to build, roads to lay down, and an oversized, vividly illustrated board depicting the known world from Britannia in the northwest to Aegyptus in the southeast. Following the death of Marcus Aurelius, the empire teeters on the brink of chaos. Each player takes the role of a would-be emperor, commanding armies, building cities, taxing provinces, and waging war until one emerges victorious. It's a straightforward and appealing premise – especially to my teenage self.

Like Axis & Allies, the game was structured around economic management and military conquest. Provinces provided income, which could be spent to raise legions, fleets, and fortifications. Armies moved along roads or across the sea, engaging in battles resolved by simple dice rolls. Catapults were useful in sieges and galleys could ferry troops to distant shores. Victory went to the player who amassed the most wealth and territory, though, in practice, the game often ended in exhaustion or mutual ruin long before an emperor was crowned.

That said, the game was not without its flaws. Its economy could snowball rapidly, favoring whoever secured a few prosperous provinces early on. Combat could be pretty random, with legions sometimes crushed or exalted on a handful of dice. The rules for roads and taxation added an appealing Roman flavor but little in the way of meaningful choice. Players spent much of the game counting coins, rebuilding destroyed forces, and waiting for their next chance to strike. One might argue that some of this is, in fact, realistic or at least true to history, but it didn't always make for a satisfying game.

Even so, Conquest of the Empire often felt epic. Setting up the board, arranging your legions, and surveying the Mediterranean was a ritual of grandeur. It was easy to imagine oneself as a latter-day Caesar, eyeing the spoils of empire. The game rewarded patience more than finesse and spectacle more than subtlety, but it delivered a sense of scale that my friends and I found incredibly alluring. It's little wonder that I still think about this game decades later.

From what I have read, it seems that Milton Bradley’s Gamemaster Series never achieved the mainstream success the company had hoped. Axis & Allies became a perennial favorite and spawned multiple editions and spin-offs, but Conquest of the Empire eventually vanished from store shelves, remembered fondly by those of us who had the chance to play it back in the day. I suspect part of the reason was that its theme was less immediately engaging to American audiences and its rules required a level of commitment somewhat closer to Avalon Hill than to Parker Brothers.

I don't mean that as a criticism at all. I absolutely adored this game and deeply regret that my original copy was lost sometime in the '90s. Conquest of the Empire might not have achieved what Milton Bradley had hoped for it, but, for me, it was a near-perfect "middle road" between simple boardgames and the esoteric complexities of "true" wargames. If there were more games like this, I might actually play them.