Struggle For The Throne (1984)

The Klingon Emperor is dying, and the Struggle For The Throne has already begun between the powerful Thought Admirals. Each Admiral uses bribery, assassination, spying, accusation, threats, battle, and even making deals to gain power while the Emperor lives. The diplomacy is intense, for when the Emperor dies, there will be a battle to the death.

The game has 2 stages to it. The first is the political play while the Emperor is still alive and you try to gain favor for more fleets or less for others. Then at some point someone will play the Emperor has died card. This is were the game design was so well thought out. All cards have two sets of instructions. The first are for politics and then they become combat cards as it turns into the last man standing game.

Combat is very basic as your elite core fleet gets built up with many lesser strength support fleets. One die roll determines battle outcomes on the point to point hex board. The board is made up of the throne world at center and everyone has a homeworld set up around this center hub. If you have played the Babylon5 Modular game this could have been the idea for the mapping, just no arcs of fire for units.

A great beer and pretzel game that can be played in a short time. Simple mechanics and basic layout. Units are abstract fleets. Very easily expanded by adding sets together.