Pocket Imperium

Pocket Imperium is a small-box game with a big-box theme: a vast galaxy that players set out to conquer, and get in each other’s way as they do so.

The basic game set up is arranging six tiles randomly around the large central planet, and then each player chooses an unoccupied planet and places two ships on it as their fledgling empire. Then the game plays out over 8 rounds, with everyone taking three actions per round.

The actions are of three distinct types: expand, explore, and exterminate. Everyone has three cards matching these actions and at the start of each round, you secretly choose the order in which you’d like to do them. Then everybody’s first card is revealed, and the actions are played out in a specific order: expand first, then explore, then exterminate. If two or more players chose the same card, there’s also a turn order to follow. But note that the fewer players who chose an action, the more powerful it becomes. So the expand, for example, lets one player – if they’re the only one to choose it – add three ships to the board. But if three players chose it, they only add a single ship each. And if all players choose the same card for the same action, nobody gets to activate them!

So expand is a matter of adding ships, on to any planet where you have ships already. As you may have guessed, explore is a matter of moving these ships, two hexes at a time, across space and potentially onto unoccupied planets – which is what you want. Exterminate only allows you to move ships a single hex – but crucially, you can attack occupied planets. To win a battle you simply need to outnumber your opponent: if you have three and they only two, both sides lose two ships and you will have one remaining with which to occupy the planet.

After all three cards have been revealed and resolved, players score! You can choose a single tile and score for all the planets you occupy on that tile – but be aware that if other players are on planets there, they’ll score as well. The huge central planet doesn’t score until the final round, but in the meantime it rewards the current occupier with the ability to score two tiles instead of one, so it can be highly sought-after regardless.

And that is that! Pocket Imperium does however have an advanced game (on the other side of the tiles) where occupying certain planets gives the player certain advantages, to spice things up a little.