7 Empires

Mac Gerdts has built another wheel, and you will spend two hours deciding when to stop turning it.

Rio Grande's release of a Mac Gerdts design about political and military dominance in Europe, with seven empires manoeuvring for position. Gerdts is the designer behind Imperial and Concordia, and the through-line in his work is the rondel — a wheel of actions where the cost of the thing you want is measured in how far round you have to walk to reach it. Here it drives an empire game decided by jockeying and timing rather than by dice.

Two to six players and anywhere from ninety minutes to two and a half hours, so it is a main-event game rather than a filler. The rondel does what it always does in a Gerdts design: it removes the option of simply doing whatever looks best, and replaces it with the far more interesting question of what you are prepared to skip.

Perfect for: The player who has owned Imperial for a decade, still brings it up in conversation, and has been waiting for a reason to talk about rondels again.

2–6 players | 90–150 minutes