Now on Kickstarter- Empires at Sea

Empires at Sea is an indie board game (seriously - it's been completely built by Zach and Amy Silverzweig, a board gaming couple) currently on Kickstarter. In Empires at Sea, 2-4 nations launch fleets, capture ports, and wage war against each other to amass the largest empire over the course of three eras. Here's a quick overview of the game from the Kickstarter:

• Players each command a nation: America, France, Britain or Spain

• The game is played in 15 Rounds.

• Each Round opens with a History Card, which hurts or helps one nation or another based on the actual impact of the actual historical event.

• A Weather Card is played, limiting or improving movement for all players for the Round (e.g., ships can only move North and East)

• Next, all players gain resources, based on the Ports they own, plus any Resource Cards played during the game.

• Each player than takes a turn, first by by playing a Captain's Card (used to launch a ship, advance your military, strengthen a port, etc) and then by sailing their fleet to take command of new ports, trade, or attack their enemies.

• The combat system is based on a roll of the dice, plus modifiers for ship size, the weather gauge, military advancements, and Captain's Orders.

• At the end of the round, all players may bribe the Pirate. The highest bidder gets to use this ship to attack their enemies.

The game strives to be accurate by making the movement and combat actually feel like sailing and attacking ships. Also, the map is almost perfectly to scale. There is randomness in the game setup (ports, history cards), so there is good replay value. The game should take around an hour for 2 players and 2 hours for 4 players, but you can also extend the gameplay. So far, Empires at Sea has been built from scratch by Zach and Amy Silverzweig, and they plan on using top-tier manufacturers when the game goes into production. The components look high quality - the plastic ships will include stickers to act as realistic looking sails! The Kickstarter also includes a pledge level where you can have your face on the box cover, if you have $10K to spare. Check out the Kickstarter for more info.