IMPERIUM - Empires in Conflict: Worlds in the Balance
designed by Marc W. Miller and published by Game Designers' Workshop in 1977 and 1990.
The Traveller game in all forms is owned by Far Future Enterprises.
Copyright 1977 - 2012 Far Future Enterprises.

Game Module by Chris Hansen

Notes on the Module and it's use

1. Introduction
Recently I rediscovered my copy of Imperium, and to my delight found that my friends in our local gaming group were interested in playing.  I was a bit apprehensive at first as Imperium is what you would call a wargame, and my current gaming group with a couple of exceptions are not wargamers.  As it turns out, my fears were ungrounded.  As I taught the others how to play the game, each in turn soon found themselves quite engrossed in the game and eager to continue their campaigns against each other.  Several weeks and over 12 games later it was quite clear that despite being a game design from 35 years ago, it was still able to bring a great deal of fun and enjoyment to our gaming tables.  The game really is the definition of a classic, and I can't praise enough the efforts of Marc Miller, Frank Chadwick, John Harshman, and all the others who were involved in the creation of this game so many years ago.

It was during all of this that one of the players mentioned that this would be a great game for Vassal.  I promptly checked and indeed found two different modules for the game, one was a port from an ADC game module, and the other was a newer effort based on the 2nd edition of the game by Ed Messina.  I found that I rather liked the 1st edition map better, and so started tinkering with Ed Messina's module, first changing the map, then this, then that...and soon I found I had created an entirely new module.  Though there is now as far as I know nothing left of Ed's module in this one, I still have to thank him for if nothing else the inspiriation for several of the ideas that I eventually incorporated into this module.

And so, this then is my take on the Imperium game in Vassal form.

2. Versions
This is my limited force pool version of Imperium, thus the players are limited to the same quantities of the various counters as existed in the original board game, and it's 2nd edition reprint, with the exception of the number of World and Outpost markers.  These I increased to allow either player to have control of all the different types of systems on the map, as well as including 5 extra World markers on the chance that players wanted to employ the optional Terraforming rules.  This limiting of the counters in the game has come up a couple of times back in the early days of the game in two different magazine articles.  The original game was designed with a limited counter mix in mind for the military forces, though Marc Miller did state that if both players agree beforehand, that the counter limitations can be lifted.  Personally, I feel that other than the above mentioned World and Outpost markers, that the counter limitations add to the game and the differences between each side. Maybe someday, time permitting, I will add an additional module allowing unlimited unit builds.

My reasons for going with the limited counter mix version initially is first of all this is how I've always played the game, but it also has somewhat to do with the background of the game in it's now Traveller RPG setting, an RPG I also once played extensively.  While the Imperium could obviously build virtually an unlimited number of ships and ground forces, if the Imperial Intervention Table is anything to go by, the Emperor doesn't particularly want his Governors to gather too much power in their hands, and thus the limitation is a political one.  On the Terran side, I feel that the limitation would not be on the political side, but rather the logistical side of the equation.  Being able to man and maintain a huge number of ground and space forces would only become available to the Terran Confederation after the 8th Interstellar War at the earliest, and at that point, the historical action of this game in the Traveller setting had left the area of the game map entirely.

3. The Module
In this section I will describe the various parts of the module to explain the presentation as well as how to use it's various parts.

A. The Map - The game map is a reworking of the map presented on the very excellent Classic Traveller CD-ROM.  About the only thing that remains from the map however is the numbered hex grid, the map legend, and the dashed provincial boundaries.  The latter actually has no effect on the game at all, and was kept to give the players an idea of the historical situation.  Also, while I kept the original convention of having the primary system names in white text, and the secondary/tertiary system names in red, I did add a new text color of orange to designate those systems that are eligible for terraforming should that optional rule be used.

B. Ground and Space game pieces - Each of these game pieces has various options available via their right-click menus. Disrupt will put a Disrupted label on units tha fail their maintenence rolls. Battlestations! will send all the selected units to the battleboard for combat resolution; Back to Map will appear once on the battleboard to allow you to return the units to the hex from whence they came on the main map. Neutralize puts a marker on the unit to show this combat state. Transport shows a unit as embarked on a transport ship. Note that any of the above functions that places a marker of some kind on the piece can remove the marker simply by selecting the relevant state a second time. Note also that the right click menus do change somewhat depending on the unit type. Finally, the counter color codes have changed so refer to the Production / Combat Tables 01 chart for more information on that.

C. Markers - The marker button on the menu bar gives the players access to the terraforming counters; the other two markers are merely used for the start up as a reminder and are not used in the play of the game.  As for the terraforming markers, they do have a right click menu that allows you to make any sort of note you might like to keep track of, like the systems name, or the turn that terraforming started.  There is also a box for terraforming markers on the RU track part of the Force Pool map to keep track of the continuing expense of terraforming. Thus you could have one marker on the map at Epsilon Indi for example showing the turn terraforming started there, and another marker saying Epsilon Indi to remind you of the cost in IU that must be deducted each turn for each terraforming project.

D. Dice - I included both a single 6 sided die, as well as a second button for two 6 sided dice one colored red the other blue.  This allows the players to press this button once to determine initiative rolls for range determination during combat.

E. Battleboard - Just an offmap space to lay out the counters for a battle.  At the top of this map is a marker showing 'Long Range'.  Right clicking on this will allow the players to switch this to say 'Short Range' as a reminder of the range if they desire.  Note that right clicking a game piece on this map will allow the players to set each pieces battle state, such as being hit.  Using the right click menu is also how you remove units from the game board by choosing 'Destroy' which will send the piece to the force pool or the Imperial Repair Yards.  Note that that the destroy action also clears any game states or overlays that may be currently on the game piece.

F. Force Pool - This large map is basically the production center for the game, as well as the location of markers showing different states of Imperial favor.  The first part is the force pool itself, showing the various counters in the game, and in a small box next to each counter, the quantity still available to be built.  The ground forces for both players show a hidden side face up, since ground forces are drawn randomly when built. Right clicking on any of these stacks gives you the option to pull multiple pieces from each stack.
	
Next is the Imperial Favor/Build column.  The top part shows first whether further Imperial appeals may be allowed.  A right click on this marker allows the player to flip it to the No Appeal side.  There are then three markers showing the economic situation for the Imperial player.  The first shows the current Imperial Budget.  A right click on this marker will allow you to increase or decrease this, or to reset it back to 10.  This marker will only rarely be changed, as it is the permanent Imperial Budget that carries over from war to war, and is only changed via a Civil War.  Below this marker is the temporary budget, increases that are received via the Imperial Budget Appeal table, and only last until the end of the current war.  Again, a right click on this marker allows changing the value or resetting it back to 0.  Finally this section ends with the Imperial Economy marker.  This starts at normal, but can be changed with a right click menu to a boom or a depression, with the latter starting with a turn duration of 3 as listed on the marker, and then can be reduced from there to keep track of the depression's duration.  The next section lists the ships that the emperor currently is allowing the governor to build, each of which can be changed via a right click menu.  Lastly is the Terran BB build available marker.  This is only used if the Terran player is using the optional BB build restriction rule requiring a B ship to be destroyed in combat before any BB's can be build, and once again can be changed via a right click menu.

The next columns show the Terran and Imperial Economic tracks.  Each side of the track has two counters, a 00 for tens, and a 0 for ones.  Above those markers is the space I mentioned earlier to allow the players to put Terraforming markers as a reminder.

Next we come to the Turn/Glory Track.  This shows the current game turn in the middle of the track, with the Glory track running around the outside.  If at the end of any game turn, the Glory marker is in a box that is at the same or lower level than the turn markers box, then the side that the Glory marker is on has won the war, the left side for the Terrans, the right side for the Imperials.  Note that some of the Glory boxes encompass several game turns. For example, the 0 Glory box is adjacent to the turn 1, 2, and 3 box showing that if the Glory marker is in the 0 box at the end of any of those turns, the Terran player wins the current war.  The turn marker itself has a right click menu allowing it to be flipped to a Peace Turn side if the players so desire. Also note that given the way Glory works in the game, no game can last more than 8 turns without one side or the other winning at the end of the eighth turn.  However there are two turns listed in grey, turns 9 and 10.  These are merely there for bookeeping purposes to show future builds for both players that would show up during the coming peace should a war last the full 8 turns.  Incidentally, the colored boxes shown on either side of the actual game turn track are for placing future production for the Terrans, and future production and replacements for the Imperials.

The last section of the Force Pool map shows first, at the top, the Imperial Repair Yards.  The module is set up so that whenever any Imperial starship	units (only) are destroyed either in battle or from the main map, they will show up in the Imperial Repair Yards empty box.  From there, at the end of each player turn, the Imperial player can take these forces and place them, one per space, on the Imperial Replacements section of the Turn/Glory Track. Any units not placed, or any currently queued replacements that are removed to make room for new replacements, can be returned back to the force pool via each pieces right click menu and choosing 'to Force Pool'.  Note again that all of this only applies to Imperial starships; Imperial non-starships and all Terran pieces are automatically returned to their respective Force Pools when destroyed.

And finally, below the Repair box is a copy of the Production Cost Chart.  Just included this here as this is the primary place this information would be needed.

G. Charts - Just a tabbed listing of the various game charts.

H. Turn - This button calls up the turn counter, which can if the player wants be docked to the menu bar via a right-click menu.

I. System inventory button - This button, shown as a top down view of a stellar system, is an inventory window that shows how many worlds and outposts each player has currently deployed on the map.  This is purely for ease of determining income and saves the players from having to physically count these systems during the economic phase.  Note that Neutralized worlds and outposts, and outposts that are marked as Embarked and not yet placed in a system box are NOT counted in these totals.

J. Notes - A button to allow the players to write notes to each other.

K. Map buttons - Two of these buttons show up on every map and allow taking a pic of the map, or changing magnification.  The main map also has a	button show/hide the counters on the map, and also a button to allow the player to open up an overview map.

L. Other buttons - These buttons at the far left side of the menu bar allow the normal functionality of undoing a move, stepping forward through a log file, connecting to the Vassal servers, and allowing the player to swich a side.  Speaking of which, there are three sides listed for the game, Terran, Imperial, and Solitaire.  You can only access the game pieces (markers are always accessable) of your listed side, unless you choose Solitaire which can access the counters of both sides.

4. Closing
Note that all of the game pieces have location specific menus.  For example actions that would only occur during combat such as being hit or exhausting a units missile supply for High Intensity Missile fire only show up when the unit is located on the Battleboard.  

Any further information on using Vassal game modules can be found on the Vassal main site at www.vassalengine.org.

I do hope that those who do decide to download and use this module have as much fun using it as I had in creating it.

Chris Hansen
8/13/2014