Rarely has a game been as deeply, frighteningly cynical as Imperial. We are sadly inured to the notion of vast military conflicts; and we are sadly inured to the corrupting influence of enormous wealth; but never before has a game combined the two and posited the Schlieffen Plan as a gambit to improve the marginal rate of return of someone's portfolio. Oh, my RRSP is Russian firepower, by the way.Games Played Last Week:-Papillon 1m42s (J.B. Howell, Kolossal, 2019)-Talon 3m47s (Jim Krohn, GMT Games, 2016)-On Mars 7m20s (Vital Lacerda, Eagle-Gryphon, 2020)-Deception: Murder in Hong Kong 10m34s (Tobey Ho, Grey Fox Games, 2014)-Principle Dilemma 12m37s (Joe Tanowski, Self-published, 2019)-Las Vegas Royale 21m14s (Rudiger Dorn, alea, 2019)-Sushi Roll 23m22s (Phil Walker-Harding, Gamewright, 2019)-Cthulhu: Death May Die 25m43s (Rob Daviau & Eric M. Lang, CMON, 2019)News (and why it doesn't matter):-Wiz-Kids' Clash of Cultures 28m23s-Grimslingers Two 30m14s-Marvel United 31m39s -Hansa Teutonica Big Box, Eventually? 33m01s-Tortuga 2199 34m24s-Truffle Shuffle, for some reason 35m03s Feature Game: Imperial (Mac Gerdts, PD-Verlag, 2006)/Imperial 2030 (Mac Gerdts, PD-Verlag, 2009) 35m32s