Summing Up The Empire Strikes Back Play-Through

Situation in 150 BC

I HAVE now played four games of Philip Sabin's Empire.

The first, a solo test game, saw the Macedonians struggle to overcome the Persians, while the Romans had little trouble containing and then eliminating Carthage, before successfully dealing with the Macedonians.

The second game, which was also solo and was posted on this blog, saw the Macedonians sweep through the Persian empire, while the Romans faced major difficulties against the Carthaginians, in the end leaving AFRICA in order to attack the Macedonians. But the Macedonians suffered from a series of revolts and an emergent Parthian state, and that left the Carthaginians as winners.

The third game was a four-player affair in which Andy's Macedonians destroyed the Persians and prevented the Romans from expanding east out of Europe.

Finally we have the fourth game in which my Romans caught Andy's Persians/Parthians at the last gasp for a memorable tie.
We hope to play more games of Empire, and have decided to keep campaign scores in which the winner of a game gets four points, second gets three, third gets two and fourth gets one.
Here are the standings after two games between myself, my regular wargaming opponent and two of our mutual friends, security consultant Richard Johnson and Andy, a serving officer in Britain's armed forces.

                                               Game One                       Game Two                            Total
Andy                                      4pts (Macedonians)         3.5pts (Persians/Parthians)   7.5pts

Me                                          3pts (Carthaginians)        3.5pts (Romans)                   6.5pts

Richard Johnson                     2pts (Romans)                 1pt (Macedonians)               3pts

Regular Opponent                  1pt (Persians/Parthians)   2pts (Carthaginians)            3pts