Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
Downfall of Empires is an army level World War I strategy simulation wargame designed with the goal of creating a fluid, historical and fast game.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Read the full game description
Downfall of Empires is an army level World War I strategy simulation wargame designed with the goal of creating a fluid, historical and fast game. This is a game with only 4 pages of rules that works perfectly as an introductory wargame, lasts 18 turns, can be played from 2 to 4 players (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Allies and Russia) and can be completed in less than 3 hours. Each turn, each player has 2 or 3 actions (depending on which side they control) that they can use to move or attack with their armies, build trenches, conduct diplomacy with non-aligned countries, reinforce their armies or secretly develop technologies. At the end of the game someone will win with most victory points obtained by controlling key areas on the map. The German and Franco-British Powers have three actions per turn. The Russian and Austro-Hungarian Powers have two actions per turn. Available actions are: • Recruit: Create new units or reinforce reduced units to full strength • Activation: Move units and attack • Research: Develop new technologies. • Entrench: Build trenches in an area. • Diplomacy: Increase markers on the political track to persuade neutral countries to join the war. • Missions: Create Air missions and Tank missions to help in attacks. With the exception of Activation, actions can only be played once per turn. The Recruit action can only be played as the first action. Conquering enemy cities earns Victory Points, at the end of the game the side/player with most Victory points is the winner.