World Empire...V

I just found an old friend on-line. Many years ago I borrowed a CD from my sister, it was a share-ware CD that had come with her new computer. One of the games I found on it was called World Empire (I think either the original or II). It was somewhat of a Risk type game, except that the map had every country of the world on it. As in Risk there are connections between every continent--e.g. Brazil to Liberia--even when there is no actual connection in nature. Also there is only one connection between each set of continents. Europe and Asia only connect between the Ukraine and Russia.

Each turn you get a certain number of armies based both on the number of territories that you control and how many continents you have completely dominated. There is one catch though, you have an ideology, as does every country on the map. Countries are initiall independent and occupied by a certain number of armies (between one and four I believe). If you conquer a country with the same ideology as you there will be no need to leave anything but the one army required by the game (just as in Risk you have to have a minimum of one army on each territory). If, however, you conquer a territory with an opposing ideology you must leave a certain number of armies (the computer will tell you 2 or 3) to prevent a revolt. If you do not leave enough armies and the territory revolts control will be granted to the enemy (the other player with the same ideology as the country) as well as five armies on that territory.

I enjoy the game because you get to see every country in the world. V, the newest version, does an excellent job of showing nearly every nation. I was slightly disappointed that they didn't include East Timor, but I did see Monaco and San Marino! I downloaded the 30 day trial of V, so I probably won't be buying it. 'Tis a fun game, but not forever. Plus I found a few things in my storage unit this evening!

I found three items of especial note: two DVD sets and a game. I found both my complete set of the series Firefly, but also my Band of Brothers DVD set. Now I can watch either whenver I want--and I could even go from Firefly to Serenity! Though I would read the three comics in between--which I of course bought back before the movie was released. Additionally I found my Diablo set, so I can reinstall Diablo II, restore my saved game from well over a year ago, and go back to playing whenever I have enough time. :-)

Okay, I didn't realize that I'd stayed up so late--but I just had to finish my first game on World Empire V! :-) I work the next three days 9-5 so I need to be getting to bed earlier.

~Matt