Kaiserkrieg! The Great War 1914-1918

“Kaiserkrieg!” (‘Emperor’s War!’) is a strategic solitaire game of the First World War of 1914-1918. As the player, you control the Central Powers (“CP”; Germany, AustriaHungary, Turkey and Bulgaria). The game’s automatic systems direct the efforts of the Entente Powers (“EP”; France, Britain, Russia, Italy, Serbia, the United States, and their minor allies) who are trying to defeat you. As in many of Ben Madison's games, you play the “bad guys.”  

The heart of the game is its depiction of the ground war, which saw the battlefield deaths of some ten million soldiers. Kaiserkrieg’s treatment can be traced back to Darin Leviloff’s inspired Israeli Independence (2008) and the “States of Siege” system it started. The evolutionary leap in Kaiserkrieg! is the shift from the old ‘horizontal’ States of Siege model – where enemy forces converge on your central position along clearly defined lines of advance – to a new ‘vertical’ model where enemy forces mass in separate regions around you, to eventually achieve an advantage in size that threatens your overall position. This adaptation allows Leviloff’s original concept to more closely simulate the trench warfare realities of World War I on the continental level.

The game also depicts the epic naval struggle of pro-German blockade runners trying to evade fleets of British cruisers. Many historians identify the failure to outwit the British naval blockade as the main reason for Germany’s defeat in the war.

The ‘sideshow’ war in the Near East, where Germany’s Ottoman Turkish ally was assailed by Russia and the British Empire – including a massive army of Indian troops – is also simulated. This theater also includes East Africa, where a German-led Black African army (the Askari) held out against Indian and British Empire forces even after the Germans in Europe had surrendered!

The game is an uber-strategic view of the conflict. Some aspects are dramatically simplified to make it playable and to emphasize the “cool stuff” of World War I, like Zeppelins, trenches, and U-boats. Kaiserkrieg! is not a detailed historical simulation, but a fun and challenging game covering the salient themes of the actual conflict.

Game Components

• One 18 x 18" Color Game Map 

• One 8.5 x 11" Counter Tray Sheet (single-sided)

• One 8.5 x 11" Game Setup Sheet (single-sided)

• One 8.5 x 11" “Berliner Tageblatt” Card (double-sided)

• One 16-page Rules Booklet (You are reading it!)

• 176 Color Game Pieces or “Tiles” (single-sided)

THE GROUND WAR

• Tanks

• Trench Warfare

• Poison Gas

• Forts

• the Siegfried Line (Hindenburg Line)

• the Gallipoli Campaign

THE AIR WAR

• the Red Baron,

• Zeppelins

• Strategic Bombing Campaigns

 ​

THE WAR AT SEA

• the British blockade

• German Blockade Runners

• the U-Boat Campaign,

• the German High Seas Fleet

• Major Naval Battles in the North Sea

 ​ 

INFLUENTIAL LEADERS

• ​Putnik

• Brusilov

• Mackensen

• Foch

• Diaz

• Hoffmann 

• Kemal

• Plus German Alpenkorps and Stosstruppen

THE BIG PICTURE

• Socialist Agitation and Revolutions,

• the French Mutiny

• American Intervention

• the German "Askari" Defense of German East Africa

• Armenian Genocide and Resistance

• Senussi Wars in Egypt and Libya

• the Arab Revolt and Lawrence of Arabia

• National Morale

• Urban Unrest

• the Hindenburg-Ludendorff Dictatorship versus the German Constitution

• the Free Press and the Rule of Law.