Imperium: Horizons - Compatibility

Today on the blog, we are spotlighting some of the almost 50 cards appearing in Imperium: Horizons that replace certain cards from both Imperium: Classics and Imperium: Legends. If you do not own either of these games, just leave the cards in the box as you will not need them, otherwise these should permanently replace their matching originals (which can be discarded).

Common cards

We’ve taken the opportunity to adjust a few common cards, with integration into Horizons in mind.

Eleven regions are updated to add Ocean or Hunting grounds icons or adjust their production; five from Classics and six from Legends. Some regions in nation decks are updated in the same way: Balearic Islands for the Carthaginians, Celtica for the Celts and Crete for the Minoans. These changes are both for thematic reasons (as Ocean didn’t exist as an icon before Horizons) and to improve integration when using the Classics and Legends civilisations with Horizons or using the Horizons civilisations in games utilising common cards from the older sets.

For Mysticism and Religion, the Unrest you take goes on top of your draw deck rather than into your hand, and they have both gained a Miracle icon, something the Cultists should care about when collecting icons. Invasion is now put into history if you play it as an Empire – with the Cultists and the Martians in mind, we did not want invading empires to dominate too much. Notorious, again thanks to the Cultists, needed some adjustments, so now includes a card draw and scoring for attack cards instead of Unrest. 

Jade Mask now gives a choice of gaining Goods (a new resource for Horizons), drawing 2 cards, or returning an exhaust to your state card, to better fit with the Mayans. The tributary card Celts has a new cost of 1 progress, to weaken its replayability somewhat, and to make it harder to combine with Progress:Goods conversion combos found in Horizons. Finally, Ambassador has a new icon (Merchant, again something new in Horizons), for both thematic reasons, and to combo with certain cards in Horizons.

Nation cards

A number of the civilisations in Classics and Legends have also been revisited. Some we’ve looked at for thematic reasons, to integrate them with the trade module, most obviously the Carthaginians. They are traders, so it didn’t feel right that they wouldn’t integrate with Goods, Oceans, and trading. You’ll therefore see City of Carthage, Berbers, Trading Ships and the previously mentioned Balearic Islands getting an update. Similarly, Greek Prosperity counts trade routes along with regions when gaining population.

Integration with other new icons and cards necessitated some changes. The Arthurians’ Cafall scores for Hunting grounds icons both for thematic reasons and to care more about the market when playing with the Horizons cards. The Minoans have Crete (previously mentioned) adjusted along with Minoan Traders and Pottery – we’ve established placing resources on cards as a new mechanism in Horizons (mostly in the Taino deck, but also elsewhere), so we wanted Pottery to work the same. 

Scythia’s strategies seemed difficult to master, so we’ve used this opportunity to give them some much appreciated boosts: the usability of their nation power is much improved, their Nomads’ materials production has been increased (to make an actual hoarding strategy viable, as implied by their scoring condition), and their leader Ateas got some extra late game kick as well. The Mauryan Indian Elephants are getting slightly weaker: you now have to pay to break through – a card discard for a region or 3 materials for a Tributary. Chandragupta now has a choice; either to acquire a region or a trade route and free play it, or find Indian Elephants and put it on top of your deck.

The inclusion of Oceans meant that, thematically, the Atlanteans needed revisiting. This led to further changes to reduce their effectiveness somewhat; their power of discarding a card instead of putting it into history now also requires you to abandon a pinned card. Additionally, their Advanced Culture and Vast Wealth cost an Unrest to develop. The former no longer scores for regions with Oceans and the latter card’s exhaust effect has been switched to Solstice (making it mandatory to sink cards). Gaining Fame via Myths and Legends has been made more difficult: you need to sink a region and abandon a second (instead of just sinking one). Finally, the Atlantean Fleet can now also break through for a trade route. 

Utopians always had a hard time focusing on their path to Shangri-La, which is now doubly true, so we’ve given them a few new tools and adjustments to interact better with the markets new and old. Portals now gives an option to trade (to make it easier for the Utopians to dabble in the new mechanism), and Lost Scrolls gives access to Goods. Shangri-La itself has been redesigned for balance reasons, to make sure it is always at least worth it to finish your journey, even when shiny new things like the Merchants card of Horizons are vying for your attention and using your extremely limited pool of exhaust markers. Finally, their power card has been redesigned, so both sides are viable in solo play, and their Journey card Gates of Shangri-La is reworked to require a materials cost rather than progress, so it doesn’t potentially lose you a lot of points for almost making it to Shangri-La.

In summary, the inclusion of these cards is to add the new icons (Ocean, Hunting grounds, Miracle, Merchant) into Classics and Legends, both to common cards and to specific civilisations where theme or gameplay warranted it. They also ensure the Horizons Trade Routes module can be used with Classics and Legends rather than being restricted to just Horizons. We are excited to include them to give players new horizons to explore in both Imperium: Classics and Imperium: Legends, discovering new strategies when playing with or against familiar civilisations.

Imperium: Horizons is out February. Pre-order now.

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