Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Imperial (board game)/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 01:32, 14 October 2007.

[edit] Imperial (board game)

Has gone through peer review and appears ready for FAC nomination. Captain Zyrain 11:52, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. The article looks good, but it needs a lot of work. I have several questions and comments.
  • The article should provide more sources.
    • "History and development": for translation and export data. Also for it "is frequently seen".
    • "Gameplay": while it may be a bit redundant, a reference to the manual and/or the official or other reliable websites, magazines or books would be a good idea. The reader should know where the info comes from - it's reassuring to know 100% sure it's from the manual. Statements like "Military units move in a similar manner as in Diplomacy" should also be sourced, in order to be verifiable and to avoid OR. Especially, the strategy section needs to be sourced, as it seems to exceed the normal manual content (perhaps it doesn't, but then again the reader must be sure).
    • "Historical accuracy". Almost the whole section is OR. For instance, the mentioning of Lenin's view on capitalism and war in relation to the game is OR. If a notable and reliable source makes a comparison between Lenin's view and the game, it can and should be included. Another example is the comparison with real military plans of that time. Also, Wikipedia cannot be used as source, let alone to advance a position.
  • The sources should also have a dated retrieval so that the reader knows how long it has been since the link has been checked.
  • Several sections are incomplete or missing:
    • "History and Development". Should be expanded. Does the game have an (original) German name? Has it been translated into other languages than English? If yes, how is called there? Do rules differ between languages or countries? Has it been exported to other countries than the US? What company publishes the game? Does the same company does this in other countries (e.g. the US) or did they give the rights to another company? (the infobox mentions this info partially (Rio Grande Games, Eggert-Spiele), but it should be mentioned in the text also with more detail as it is currently unclear how these companies are related to each other.) How did the creator created his work? Did he have particular sources of inspirations or early thoughts and conversations about it? (Creators often discuss this in interviews) How long did it take to develop? The variants section speaks a decades of play-testing: this testing should be part of the history and development section. I would also put the FAQs in this section, as it is a part of the (post-)development of the game.
    • "Reception". For instance, how many games are sold? How much where? What kind of reviews did it get? Also, it is a good idea to put prices or recommendations (such as the Spiel de Jahre recommendation) in such a section.
  • Other comments can be made, but I've have no more time at the moment. I'll try to help you further in the coming days. Anyway, good work and keep it up :) Sijo Ripa 23:00, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. Already made a few changes and added some citation requests, but here are some thoughts. Started at the bottom of the article and worked my way up. Apologies about the slightly weird order.

• I'm pretty certain that every single instance of Imperial should be italicized as per MoS:T. This isn't chess; even older classics like Risk are italicized.

• The FAQs section doesn't really say anything surprising; errata and FAQs being issued after the release of a game is common. Now, if something amazing and shocking was revealed in the errata (like, say, a major misprint), that'd be one thing, but as it stands, this can just go in EL.

• "The mechanics of the game mirror the actual mobilization plans of the great powers." Uh... while maybe they *can* mirror the mobilization plans, that's hardly forced; England can do a totally ahistorical invasion of Scandinavia and St. Petersburg, and the French can send their troops on a grand railroad tour of the French countryside. I considered changing this to "The mechanics of the game reflect the technological capabilities of the day," except even that isn't true, since in reality, taxing your populace or paying off investors doesn't prevent your armies from moving. Um... best to back off the crazy claims here, and stick with "it's a board game." The section is still a little silly, as the Schlieffen Plan called for the conquest of France, which really isn't actually that helpful in game.

• "Once all eight bonds have been sold, the investors contribute no further funds to those nations and typically begin a cycle of taxing and landing on investor as often as possible in order to drain their treasuries. As Lenin notes..." This is a really bad comparison, as in reality, countries don't magically run out of bonds to sell. Just look at the recent request to raise the debt limit here in the U.S.

• "An example of the shifting loyalties of countries (represented in Imperial by the changing ownership of flags) took place in WWI when Italy turned on its allies." Italy turned thanks to promises of territorial gain, not a change in sinister banker masters. The Rothchilds and so on were probably quite helpful for *stopping* many wars with "Come on! We're invested in both of you guys!" Also, shifting loyalities isn't a particularly noteworthy point.

• "It mirrors the course of history in that the imperial powers" This seems to be saying that the imperial powers didn't fight each other until all the "unclaimed" territory was conquered? This is blatantly false - see Anglo–Spanish War (1585), Seven Years' War, the Carribean and Indian theatres of the American Revolutionary War, etc., etc.

• The first paragraph of the "vs. History" section: You're comparing a Marxist with a Marxist-Leninist philosopher here. It's not a surprise they both agree that capitalism was the cause of WWI. This view, however, is hardly universal; personally I'd say that rampant nationalism + stupidity is a far better explanation, as WWI made 0 economic sense. Furthermore, I'm not even certain I agree with you that the game really reflects this gritty, winner-take-all attitude. Maybe my experience with the game is different than yours, but it's not at all uncommon for players to be invested in 4, 5, or even all 6 powers, meaning that they just want powers to quietly leave each other alone. And as noted, invading other countries homelands isn't really helpful, and the most helpful things to do with a country are often to simply sit back, build up its internal factories, and tax it, not attempt to go on a world domination spree. I see this game as a much more abstract "spheres of influence" type deal, and it frankly plays a lot more pacifistically with give-and-take compared to, say, Diplomacy (which is all about ruthless domination). I'm certainly not imagining bloody WWI battles, but rather territorial squabbles about fishing rights. Now, I'm not demanding that my OR about how bankers quietly divvied up nations in smoking rooms prevented nasty wars to be put into the article, but the reverse view doesn't seem much more appropriate...

• Is the Swiss Bank variant that notable? It's a forum thread, and it has no replies, but it doesn't look locked. Okay, it's by the creator of the game, but still, this strikes me as pretty bad turnout.

• The strategy section needs references.

• "The lower-value bonds have higher rates of return, which acts as a catch-up mechanism for players who fall behind." It doesn't really help out that much, and it's not obvious that that's the "reason" if any; I removed the last part of the sentence. SnowFire 00:22, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
  • It was Mac Gerdts who said that it's a catch-up mechanism. See http://www.boardgamegeek.com/file/22053/imperialforumanswers.pdf Captain Zyrain 04:05, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Well, feel free to put that back with a citation- that's why citations are nice. In any case, seeing as not much has happened, I will have to reluctantly oppose this. I think the game may be just too young to be featured yet; citations like a forum post whose the only responses were mocking the layout just aren't good enough for third-party sources. SnowFire 05:47, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
      • Someone should interview Mac Gerdts and ask for more details about the history of the game. I emailed and asked him to expand that section but got no response. Captain Zyrain 17:30, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.