Moves #37, pp.16

SPACE OPERA And Some Operettas, Too
by Phil Kosnett

The last paragraph of the review of the game "Imperium".
Problems: A few things I would have done differently, but those are hardly problems, just differences in viewpoint. The rules are quite short and, as usual for GDW, some points are murky. A little unofficial errata from a telephone call with designer Marc Miller follows.

1. High Intensity Missile Attacks may not be made in Planetary Bombardment. This makes it harder to take worlds.
2. A friendly Outpost in a captured enemy Primary System becomes a friendly World after five turns of Peace, only if the enemy World in the system is held or neutralized.
3. A beam ship may be used to screen a friendly transport or tanker in a missile fire round, even though it may not fire.
4. Enemy ship types cannot be copied. One Imperium monitor is supplied with Terran monitor strengths. This was an error in production, but you can use the ship anyway.
5. Regular troops can assault a world or outpost by landing in a ship, which may undergo fire from planetary defenses.
6. The Imperial Intervention Table runs from 2 to 15. Die roll modifiers apply in Civil War procedure.
7. One stack may move and stop, a second friendly stack may move, and the first stack may move again.
8. Ships can avoid combat by sitting on a planet surface, but they are vulnerable to normal planetary bombardment.
9. Monitors may not move during peace, not even at sublight velocity. They must remain in the hex they occupied at the end of the last war, unless eliminated through attrition.

Also, my map is horribly warped. Marc says they've fixed the problem with the mounted map.
I liked this game. I wasn't particularly impressed by what I heard about it, but when I played it I changed my mind immediately.
And there are so many options, every game is different. It may not be a giant leap forward in simulation theory, but it's a lot of fun.