Empires of the Middle Ages
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Empires of the Middle Ages was first released by Simulations Publications, Inc. in 1980. The game was designed by James Dunnigan, a prolific game designer and writer. However, often a Dunnigan design would consist of no more than a four-page outline on a legal pad and a developer would then take over, doing the lion's share of the work and completing the project. In this case, this was done by Anthony F. Buccini who also received a designer's credit. A third design credit went to Redmond A. Simonsen who was responsible for all the graphical features of the game and no doubt played a significant role in development as well.
The game is a multi-player simulation of grand strategy and diplomacy in the Middle Ages. Each player controls a kingdom composed of provinces which are rated by wealth, religion, and culture. Each kingdom also has a monarch whose talents in war, administration, and diplomacy are represented by numerical ratings. The object of the game is essentially to grow an empire in terms of wealth and/or geography.
The game is played in 5-year turns where each player can attempt an Endeavor each year (a maximum of 5 Endeavors in his turn). Endeavors may be Diplomatic, Economic or Military in Nature. Central to the Game are 2 decks of cards, Event and Year cards. Event cards create random events such as Plague, Famine, Schism etc., and Year Cards affect the players endeavors. A key element is the ever-present possibility of civil unrest and other military/political threats.
The full Campaign game begins in the year 770 (the advent of Charlemagne) and continues to about 1475. Smaller "scenarios" begin with the historical situation in a particular year and last a century or two.
At the time of release the game was unusual in that it did not use Army counters to represent the military actions in the game. Instead military action was carried out as an endeavor with its success depending on the military skill of the ruler and the relative strength of the target province and the province that the attack was launched from.
The game quickly achieved a cult status after it went out of print and SPI folded and was bought by TSR, Inc.[citation needed] A DOS computer version of the board game was released around 1990 under the name Rise of the West. TSR and its subsequent owners have sold the rights to a number of games to other publishers; Decision Games bought the rights to Empires of the Middle Ages, and updated and re-released the game in 2004.
