Indian Empires:
Developer’s Preview
by Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
July 2022

I’ve always had a weakness for our Soldier Emperor: Indian Empires game, from the offbeat topic to the gorgeous artwork. It engages a topic that has long fascinated me, the glory of pre-colonial India and its fall to barbarian invaders (chiefly, the British East India Company).

Indian Empires uses the map and pieces and playing cards from a game we did a long time ago, under the unfortunate title Soldier Raj which both obscured the topic and centered the barbarians rather than India and its kingdoms, who are the real players in the game. But other than the title, the artwork’s phenomenal, the work of Terry Moore Strickland in her pre-fame days as an Avalanche Press staff artist (even the greats have to start somewhere).

Indian Empires is a sister game to Soldier Emperor, our multi-player game of the Napoleonic Wars, and takes place in roughly the same time period (its scenarios extend both earlier and later than those of Soldier Emperor). Each game stands alone, but they do share a very similar set of rules; once you know how to play one (and neither is a very difficult game to learn), then you should pick up the other very easily.

Indian Empires is a game of intrigue and backstabbing with a military-economic element, too. Each player (up to five of them) moves and fights with armies and fleets, but it’s through card play that you can suborn enemy armies and leaders, raise additional troops, bring plague and storm and a hunger for fresh mangoes (yes, really) upon your enemies, and similar things. The play of cards – which can happen at any time, not just in a separate phase of the game – drives the action.

The map is divided into provinces, each represented by a box connected to other areas by routes. Armies can move along these routes, and move faster if they have a general with them, or slower if the route is mountainous. The provinces are rated for their fortification value (representing local garrison forces as well as actual fortifications), money value (how much money they produce), manpower value (the recruits and labor they produce) and if they include a port.

Capturing those provinces is the point of the game: they yield not only additional resources for your war effort; they also give you victory points. Get enough of those, and you win the game. Your opponents will be trying to stop you through diplomacy, card play, and use of their fleets and armies. While your armies are besieging rich enemy provinces, your enemies are stirring up your other neighbors against you and pointing out all the lands your army can’t defend at the same time as it’s busy trying to conquer some other place.

Though play is pretty simple, I’ve always been impressed at the way it shows rather than tells of the great tragedy of Indian history: the inability to unite in the face of barbarian invaders set on rape and pillage (and that’s not an exaggeration of the colonizers’ motives or behavior). The five major powers in the game include two European colonial empires (Britain and France) and three indigenous kingdoms (Mysore, Hyderabad and the Mahratta Confederacy). United, the three Indian powers can throw the Europeans into the Bay of Bengal. But it’s very difficult to win the game that way: there can’t be three winners. So even if they manage to unite temporarily, they will fall out at some point. Exactly as it happened in the real world.

And as the game also shows, the British can’t conquer India with British troops – it takes half a year just to get a newly-recruited European army transported to the waters off India, let alone actually do anything with it. The British are going to be dependent on locally-raised East India Company forces, plus Indian allies and Indian mercenaries. The French are even more dependent on allies and mercenaries. It’s Indian manpower that will subjugate India. Exactly as it happened in the real world.

While Britain and France are short of manpower, they do have something the Indian kingdoms lack: sea power. Even though much of India lies out of reach of European fleets, it’s going to be difficult for the Indian powers to defend their coastal regions given the mobility that sea power gives to the barbarians. Only the Mahrattas have a fleet, and it’s not much of one. Mysore and Hyderabad have no navy at all. Mysore at least has a very good army, on par with those of the Europeans (it was trained on European lines, and featured rockets along with new-model muskets and cannon). The Mahrattas have a much larger if less efficient army, but it’s hampered by factionalism within the Confederacy. Hyderabad . . . needs to pay close attention to its diplomacy.

Indian Empires isn’t a particularly complicated game to play, but does require some subtle strategies. The armies of Indian Empires are a good bit smaller than those deployed in Europe, and that leaves much less margin for error than players enjoy in Soldier Emperor. The empires themselves are smaller, for the most part, so you’re not going to be able to rebuild huge forces in a single turn, like the bigger major powers of Soldier Emperor can do. You have to pick your battles with a great deal more care than in Soldier Emperor, which means that card play, diplomacy and bald-faced lying are even more important on the subcontinent.

You’ll be able to play Soldier Emperor and Indian Empires together, after release of the upcoming Soldier Emperor: Sultan & Shah expansion. They’re a lot of fun combined; Sultan & Shah includes a linking map and some extra pieces, and extends the Indian Empires playing area to the north and west, so you can do more with the Afghans (who were briefly a major power in this era) and the Sikhs.

Indian Empires is a great game, with a beautiful map and pieces, full-color playing aids and clean game rules. The Playbook edition changes none of that. With our print-on-demand process we can afford to do a special game every now and then that we just really like. I like this game a lot, and if you’ve read this far you probably will too.

Click here to order Indian Empires right now.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published an unknowable number of books, games and articles on historical subjects. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children and his new puppy. He will never forget his dog, Leopold.

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