I am a big fan of this game, and over the past decade, have collected all of the expansions for this game. This game has taken on a cult following among gamers, ever since it announced itself in the mid-80s. People either love it or hate it. For the purpose of this review, I will be referring only to the Basic Game.

To be successful in this game, you must be very adept at resource management, negotiation, and strategy. To neglect even one portion of this three pronged feat would spell certain doom. Each player controls a near-future Superpower (the game was designed in the 80's), which includes the USA (yay!), the USSR, China, a unified Europe, a confederated South American continent, and a conglomeration of African states not completely controlling all of its continent. Canada, Central America, North Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and Australia all fall into the 'neutral' catagory and the superpowers control their few client states for added resources.

Everyone pushes hard to build their war-machines, but such machines need money and resources. There is a world market in which Minerals, Oil, and Grain are produced and traded. Each superpower usually produces a balanced set. On the roots of these resources, Superpowers can build Armies, Navies, Nuclear Missiles, and L-Stars (Laser Satellites/SDI).

Not everything is about guns and money. The options are so varied, and the opponents so easily matched, that the world quickly desolves into mutual defense pacts and an 'Us vs. Them' situation. Because of market fluctuations or a hiccup in the supply of resources, somebody can become weaker than the rest, and someone will risk stepping up to squash their neighbor, and war ensues.

The nukes fly and the board turns into an orgy of conflict. Does everyone back down before the world is turned into a cold nuclear winter?

This game has many flaws; the market jumps up and down as players buy and sell massive amounts of resources, nuclear winter can make it so no one wins, and strategy sometimes comes down to being able to overwhelm your enemy with numbers. Regardless of any shortcomings, I am easily a fanatic of this game. You will not find another game like it, and I haven't after 15 years of searching.

Expansion sets include an additional set of resource cards, fortuna to include random natural disasters, warlords and pirates of the neutral zone so that it is a little harder to push around those little countries, unconventional forces to include assassins, spies, saboteurs, generals, admirals, and chemical, biological, and environmental weapons, nuclear submarines, main battle tanks, neutron bombs and anti-satellite satellites, middle powers (to include Canada and Australia as players 7 and 8), Hi-Tech Edge stepped technological advancement for Strategic and Conventional weapons, a Mega-Map (which expands the territories), and the Colonial Legions and Merchant Marines. All of the expansions are collectively called 'Mega-Supremacy' and it falls into the realm of other ber-games like Star Fleet Battles.

I play this game whenever I get the chance and if you love a large variety of games, whether they be trading games, negotiation games, or pure strategy games, you will find this game to be very worthwhile.