Campaign Musings

There has been an interesting discussion thread on The Miniatures Page about campaigns, started by CorpCommander. There seems to be a consensus that campaigns fizzle out too easily, something I can understand from my own past experiences. I've been through the whole range of possibilities, using board games for the strategic elements, with fully worked out army rosters and so on. The reason I liked Empire as soon as I saw it is that it abstracts all of this. The long turn length is varied by the appearance of great commanders, and there aren't even any armies. What matters is which provinces one controls, and thus which enemy or neutral ones can be reached so as to expand one's empire. We play it at the club, and it doesn't matter who is there on the night. Some players have an affinity for a certain power, and they tend to make the decision as to what that state does when it gets a shot, but apart from that it just keeps generating tabletop battles. And they lend themselves to multi-player. The good thing about not having fixed army compositions and the need to keep records is that we can vary the armies within the permitted parameters from battle to battle. From my perspective, the game is giving us a continued rationale for what we play on Tuesday evenings without being too onerous.