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[...] Can you tell us about your new project?

Actually, I’ve already designed it and it’s in the hands of the publishers now. There’s still quite a bit of work to do, but it’s ready to be played by somebody that isn’t me, or while I’m not standing there. It is called Imperial Struggle. It is the global rivalry between Britain and France from 1697 to 1789, so it’s about almost the entirety of the eighteenth century. It’s another two player game like Twilight Struggle. It is about two great powers with different cultures and different world views attempting to further their goals on the global stage. And I hope people like it. I have to constantly remind myself that if it doesn’t get to number one, that doesn’t mean it’s a failure [laughs].

You’ll be dethroning your own game if you do get to number one.

That would be okay!

Will it be using a similar card system to Twilight Struggle, or something different?

There’s definitely some new mechanical approaches in it. One of my goals was to put some fairly substantial evolution into the system that Twilight Struggle uses, and that’s appropriate because whilst this is another story of two great powers going at it on a global stage, it’s very different from the Cold War. I mean, for one thing they fought four major wars involving soldiers in red uniforms shooting at soldiers in blue or white uniforms, right, so it definitely is a very different kind of game and it covers a lot more time than Twilight Struggle. Twilight Struggle covered approximately forty five years, this one covers almost twice that and so there are definitely a lot of changes that had to be made to the mechanics. So the experience is very different from Twilight Struggle, as well as the fact that one of my goals was, despite the fact that it is covering almost twice as much time and has a whole system to deal with the fact that major wars were fought between these two countries during this period, I still wanted the rules weight to decline. So I wanted this game to play faster and be easier to learn than Twilight Struggle, and we’ll see if I succeeded.

I look forward to playing it. Do you know when it will be released?

I don’t. So the way board games work often, especially with GMT, is that once the designer is done, they will pass it off to a developer who will provide a fresh set of eyes and coordinate play testing and will advise the publisher on how much work is needed and what needs to change. So GMT obviously has a fairly high comfort level with me at this point, and with Jason, but I think none-the-less we will wait for the verdict from the developer and that will determine when it will be placed on the pre-order list. I hope that the pre-orders will go faster this time!

I’m sure they will. Did you mention you were working with Jason on it as well?

Peripherally. Jason’s definitely taking a smaller role on this one than he did on Twilight Struggle. He’s got a lot going on in his life right now. Not in a bad way. I mean, his career has taken off and so he’s had less time. But he is always an incredibly valuable and candid source of feedback. [...]

[...] I hope you all like my next efforts as much. Next year (I hope!) Imperial Struggle will be ready for people to order. Another two-way global struggle, but this time Britain and France take center stage. The time period is 18th century and the battlefield is the whole world. [...]

BlueSwan wrote:Spændende! Jeg er en lille smule skeptisk overfor det med at det skal være nemmere og hurtigere end Twilight Struggle, men det skal da helt sikkert prøves når det kommer.

Frouvne wrote:

BlueSwan wrote:Spændende! Jeg er en lille smule skeptisk overfor det med at det skal være nemmere og hurtigere end Twilight Struggle, men det skal da helt sikkert prøves når det kommer.

Men imens vi venter, må vi jo hellere få spillet noget Twilight Struggle!

BlueSwan wrote:Spændende! Jeg er en lille smule skeptisk overfor det med at det skal være nemmere og hurtigere end Twilight Struggle, men det skal da helt sikkert prøves når det kommer.