Imperial (board game)

Imperial is a German-style board game designed by Mac Gerdts and first published in 2006, in which two to six players do not directly control the six European great powers on the map but instead compete as investors buying bonds in those nations. Whichever power currently holds the most invested capital is directed by whichever player is its largest bondholder at that moment, so control of each nation's army, navy, factories and diplomacy shifts hands over the course of the game as investment totals change. Players earn income from bond interest and from the fortunes of the nations they control, and the game ends after a fixed number of rounds with victory going to whichever player has accumulated the greatest personal wealth in cash and bond value, making Imperial as much an economic simulation of great-power finance as a conventional territorial strategy game.