Eight Minute Empire Cards and their Attributes

Six cards are placed and maintained above the game board. Cards are priced according to their placement above the game board. Each card contains a good, a good point value, and an action. Goods include Trees, Food, Iron, Coal, and Crystals.

The actions that are provided are as follows:

Place New Armies

You may place as many armies as indicated on the card. Armies may be placed either on Start or a region that you have a city.

Move Armies

You may move the number of armies indicated on the card to another region. You may move as many or as far you want to move your armies. For example, if you pick a card that allows for movement of three armies, you may move one army up to three places, or move three armies on place, or any other combination of moves to get your total indicated movements.

Move Over Land or Seas

As the title specifies to armies may be moved either to other regions or to other continents via the move lines to adjacent continents.

Build a City

You may add a city to any region that you have at least one army already posted. Cities are counted as armies and a region may contain more than one player’s cities. Cities are new starting points for your army placements.

Destroy an Army

Well, this one is self-explanatory; you may remove one of your opponent’s armies from a region of your choice. At the end of game you control whatever regions and continents you have more of a presence.

And / OR Actions

Basic logic here; an AND allows more than one action indicated on the card, while a OR give you a choice between two options.

Eight Minute Empire-Battle Report-#2

In a review I have read about the Eight Minute Empire game it was mentioned how there seemed to be an element of luck in the way the cards were drawn. I can’t say that I have found this to be true as of yet, but in our last match we did find that the drawn cards can have a stifling affect on game play.

On more than few rounds the cards that allowed for movement were not available, while other rounds these cards were available, however, if you wanted to advance your armies you were forced to pay more for these cards.

Six cards are arranged at the top of the board. Each position, in which the card is placed, has an assigned cost; the last few cards having the highest cost. This didn’t seem to impede the game, but did make expanding into other regions a bit more challenging.

Eight Minute Empire-Battle Report #1

My wife and I played our first game of Eight Minute Empire last night and contrary to the inference of the games title, it took us around thirty minutes to complete the game. Although the game is card driven you get to choose the card from the six cards that are always available. Cards indicate a good, a move action, acquiring or removing (your opponents) armies. Points are gained by controlling regions, continents, and goods. Our scores were close 17 to 19. I won by strategically acquiring goods cards that  were worth a bit more than the others.

This is a simple and quick game to play and is quite enjoyable. It is nice just to get to play an enjoyable game without having to reed through pages of complicated rules and scenarios. Good job Red Raven Games.

Similar Games, Expansions and Sequels to Eight Minute Empire

Although Eight Minute Empire is a simple game and quick game to play it is fun. Since my first experience with Red Raven Games was positive I wondered what other games they had published. I came up with the following three games from Red Raven Games that looked interesting.

Eight-Minute Empire: Legends

Eight-Minute Empire: Legends is a sequel stand alone game to Red Raven’s Eight Minute Empire. Instead of the goods that Eight Minute Empire featured the games cards now give the holder special abilities. These special abilities give the player unique advantages and ways for the player to bend the rules for their benefit.

Eight-Minute Empire: Legends make use of a modular game board for more verity, instead of Eight Minute Empire’s two sided board.

Eight-Minute Empire: Lost Lands

Eight-Minute Empire: Lost Lands is an expansion for Eight-Minute Empire: Legends. This expansion adds components for a fifth player, a new two-sided island board, new playing mechanics, a “lost” faction, and new heroes. The last time I checked retailers were taking

The Ancient World

This is another stand-alone game where players take turns sending citizens to attack titans. The game board is quite large and includes some very nice art work. The game also includes a rule book, two sets of double-sided cardboard game pieces, a set of special dice, two sets of cards, and several other player aids.

Eight Minute Empire-Odds and Ends

Here are few reviews and other sites that offer a description of the Eight Minute Empire game.

Boardgame Geek

Before I make a purchase Boardgame Geek is always the first place I go to read-up on a game. You will find all sorts of information about a game, including reviews, prices, images of game and its components, related forums, fan created files, like alternative game boards, card sleeves,

Red Raven Games

This is the home page of Red Raven Games where you can find information about the Eight Minute Empire and the other games and expansions created by Red Raven Games. Many of these games look pretty interesting and deserve some more research.

Board Game Quest

Nice review of Eight Minute Empire, its components, and basic play instructions.

Dads Gaming Addiction: Eight Minute Empire Review

This is another nice review of the game. I especially liked the two videos at the bottom of the page. One of the videos walks you through a round of the game between the author and his son. It is nice to see fathers doing something constructive with their sons.

Game Boards as Works of Art

As you know I have made more than a few posts on maps. I love maps, especially old maps and those of made-up places. In the previous post I reviewed Red Raven Games, Eight Minute Empire were I mentioned that the game board is double-sided and depicts two fantasy worlds. These maps are beautiful in their own right, but I wondered what could be done to give them a more ancient look and feel. Here is the outcome of my experimentation with various processes and solutions.

Map A

Map B

Eight-Minute Empire

Eight-Minute Empire, published by Red Raven Games, is a beautifully simple game. It comes in a 6 x 9 inch box with some very nice box art on the cover. Inside the sturdy box you will find five sets of 14 small wooden cubes and wooden disks, 1 double-sided board, 42 cards, 44 coin tokens, 10 goods tokens and the rule book. All the components of the game, including the cardboard ones are of good quality.

The board folds out to 10.5 by 8.5 inch map of two fantasy lands. Like was mentioned above the map is double sided so you can try your hand at controlling two separate worlds. There is a third map, a map of Europe that can be downloaded from Board Game Geek for even more verity.

The title of the game is a bit misleading, unless the authors meant that you could read through the rulebook in about eight minutes, which seems about right. One round of the game will take you between twenty and thirty minutes and for longer play, it is recommended that you play through the game three times and add up your “victory” points from each round.

The game is card driven. Cards are chosen by the player form the six cards, placed at the top of the game board and are always available. Once one is chosen by a player the remaining cards are shifted toward the left and a new card is added to those that are available. Cards are chose by each player according to what they are willing to pay or the player’s individual needs or strategies.

The object of the game is too tally-up as many victory points by the end of the game. A game is ended when player‘s accumulate a set of cards, that depending on the number of players that are playing. For a two player that is 13 cards. You gain victory points by the number of continents, territories, and goods you control by the play of the thirteenth card.

It looks like it should be fun game to play and I hope to get a try at it over the weekend.