In our gamer’s group we have a custom of the New Year’s boardgame convents, where we travel for 4-6 days – including the New Year Day – somewhere together, spend the time sightseeing and devoting afternoons / evenings to our favorite hobby. It has already 10 years of tradition and I am glad to report one of the games we played this year – Time of Crisis, position among our favorite GMT titles.

Our Time of crisis sessions:
Time of Crisis – how does it play with Bots?
Mid-week session with Time of Crisis
Time of Crisis – first game with expansion
Time of Crisis via Vassal
Rome during times of crisis – first steps

What follows is short photo-session report:

01
We played a full, four players games – definitely the best version (click on picture to enlarge)
02
From the onset of the game and through the whole session a large masses of Sassanids were invading the Eastern part of empire – including the two Sassanid Leaders! It was a real problem for Konrad who tried to develop there (click on picture to enlarge)
03
I had my own problems as Rival Emperor occurred in a well-developed Gallia (click on picture to enlarge)
04
And then, when all provinces on the map were acclaimed for, Jarek took a chance and grabbed Italy. As we played with expansion, he had to decide on his Emperor treat and he had chosen a Populous Cesar.
05
Then I executed a complicated operation – striking at Postumus from Spain and at the same time moving into Italy… (click on picture to enlarge)
06
However, the dice failed me and I was not able to become an emperor (click on picture to enlarge)
07
Did I mention that Eastern part of empire had a lot of problems with Sassanids? Above one of their raids – the one in which Konrad finally managed to break the Persian might and grab a lot of points! (click on picture to enlarge)
08
Situation on map mid-game (click on picture to enlarge)
09
Once Konrad’s hands were free, he moved West against Jakub. It took him couple of attacks but finally took over Asia (click on picture to enlarge)
10
Yet one more strategic look at the map (click on picture to enlarge)
11
I finally took over Italy and managed to secure it for two turns. But then the largest battle of our game ensued which I unfortunately lost against Jakub (click on picture to enlarge)
12
As Jakub had proper cards to place governor in Italy, we had a new emperor. Third in a row a  Populous one! (click on picture to enlarge)
13
But he was not able to reign in peace – in far Africa a Pretender emerged, threatening the government in Rome!
14
And then we had to finish our game. It was getting tense and exciting but due to time constraint, we had to satisfy ourselves with short game (click on picture to enlarge)

Summary

I think the expansion brings a lot of interesting stuff to Time of Crisis. We used mix of Base and Expansion cards for play. We also utilized the emperor treats – both things makes the game even better then it initially was. Rest assured, more session report will come!