Get the Rule Book on BoardGameGeek.com
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| Star Trek: The Invasion of Klingon Empire (Tsukuda Hobby, 1982) |
Scott Muldoon and I have completed our English translation of the rules for Star Trek: The Invasion of Klingon Empire (スタートレック：クリンゴン帝国の侵略) and posted the new rule book on BoardGameGeek.com. The document also includes a translation of a later article about the game with variant rules for the Romulan Star Empire*.Get it here (may require site registration): https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/291961/star-trek-the-invasion-of-klingon-empire-english-r
What is The Invasion of Klingon Empire?
"The Invasion of [the] Klingon Empire" appears to be taken from the Japanese title of the TOS episode "Errand of Mercy" (S1 E27). In that episode, the Enterprise defends the planet Organia from an invasion by Klingons, but the Organians don't need or want the Federation's help. By the end of the episode, the Federation and Klingon Empire are held to a peace treaty, brokered and enforced by the super-powerful Organians.
The Organian Peace Treaty is paramount to the game's backstory. The Klingon Empire breaks the treaty by invading Federation space, somehow evading the Organians' enforced peace (this is never explained in the game, but the Klingons disable the Organians by surrounding Organia with an energy shield**). The Romulan Star Empire takes the opportunity to also invade the Federation, breaking their treaty as well. The game is a galaxy-spanning war with a grand strategic scale.
This is the first strategic-scale simulation game that incorporates production designed and published in Japan*.
The Federation and Klingon players strike out from their home regions, racing across the galaxy to capture and hold various star systems. Each faction constructs starbases, base stations, and factories at these systems to build and maintain its fleet of starships in an all-out war with the other faction. The Federation has lost survey data for many of the deep-space locations far from Earth and must map out known space with three explorer vessels: USS Lexington, USS Constitution, and USS Enterprise.
Additionally,
Enterprise is also tasked with carrying out assorted missions throughout the game. The ship may have to pick up diplomats for a important meeting at Babel, deliver medicine to a plague-ravaged colony, or even visit Vulcan to deal with a Vulcan crew member's reproductive cycle. There are several scenarios included with the game and the Federation player must complete
Enterprise missions as part of their victory conditions.
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| Battle board, Photo by Hayaru (source) |
When friendly and enemy units move into the same hex at the same time, a battle occurs. The battling units all move to a separate battle board where they are lined up in different battle lanes, either in forward or rearward position. There is also a secondary line where defense satellites and starbases are played into battle. The battle board allows for tactical maneuvers, jockeying into a preferred weapon range, breaking through enemy defenses to attack the secondary line, or withdrawing from combat altogether.
There are a lot of units in the game, which can become unwieldy as there is no stacking limit for a single hex (each hex is 10 parsecs, 32.6 light years, across - plenty of room!). The designers admit that this proliferation of counters actually impairs the game's playability*****. Ships in the game can move for nigh unlimited distances along green "warp routes" printed on the map, as long as the warp route has been secured by friendly forces. This keeps the vast distances in the game manageable in this war of attrition. Replacement forces can move to the front lines within one movement phase.
The game certainly has a grand strategic scale and I find the battle rules to be simple and clever. They are a far cry from the intensely detailed tactical combat of Star Fleet Battles, but they don't need to be. Calculating maintenance and production values of all the factories and space stations in your fleet can be daunting, but the game's log sheet does alleviate some of that pain. It is a typical simulation game of the era where a several-hour play time is expected. The counters are cleanly detailed, but many ship models appear to be repeated, so they are hard to differentiate at a glance. If there were any changes I'd make, it would start by simplifying the maintenance/production rules and redesign all of the counters to read better at a distance.
Who still plays this game?
I have found a few recent blog posts from gamers who played this game in recent years. I do not own an original copy of the game (this was a joint effort to translate) and have cited photos from these blogs for illustrative purposes only.
Sigplayer (a.k.a. Michael): https://slgplayer.exblog.jp/27265273/
Who made this game?
Game design credit goes to Toru Nakajima (中島徹) and Tadatoshi Ishii (石井忠俊) of the Keio HQ Simulation Game Club of Keio University in Tokyo. They completed the game's design in October 1982*** and Tsukuda published it soon thereafter. The designers wanted to make sure that the game didn't look or play like a similar game in the USA***** (probably Star Fleet Battles). I don't know if these two designed any other published games.
When the simulation game boom started in Japan in the early 1980s, the most experienced wargame designers were amateur fans printing small runs of games in loose small press groups called dōjin circles. Several dōjin circles were formed in university game clubs, like Keio's HQ Club.
Tsukuda (as Tsukuda Hobby) launched their line of bookcase style "hobby games" in 1982 and turned to these amateurs for creative work.
THQ was the first group to work with Tsukuda, followed by Keio HQ in fall 1982****, mere months before this game was published. The dōjin circles acted as design studios for Tsukuda in what seems like a similar relationship between game studio and publisher in the modern video games industry.
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| A recent sign inviting new Keio University students to join the HQ Simulation Club (source) |
The Keio HQ Simulation Game Club still exists today as the Head Quarter Simulation Club at Keio University in Tokyo. The club still designs games, often crediting the entire club rather than individual designers for the work. You can follow the club's activities on Twitter.
Yoshifumi "Lone Star" Sakatani of Star Fleet: Base Tokyo also served as advisor on the game. Instead of a game club, Base Tokyo was probably a chapter of the STARFLEET association of Star Trek fan clubs that was founded in 1974. Tsukuda's other Star Trek Board Game
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| Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (Tsukuda Hobby, 1983) |
Tsukuda Hobby developed another Star Trek simulation game at the same time: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (Tsukuda Hobby, 1983) based on the 1982 movie of the same name (actually, the gameplay seems to be completely unrelated to the film). The designers of Invasion of Klingon Empire wanted to make it clear that they were not involved in the creation of the Star Trek II game***** (Star Trek II was designed by Kazutoyo Ishii (石井一豊)******, who could be a relative of Tadatoshi Ishii).
Unlike Invasion of Klingon Empire, this game simulates journeying through deep space to explore the unknown and engaging in tactical scale battles with one or a few ships on either side.
Tsukuda's Star Trek RPG: Enterprise
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| Enterprise (Tsukuda Hobby, 1983) |
Tsukuda Hobby's main interest in the Keio HQ Simulation Club is to enlist the club's talents to create role-playing games****. Keio HQ member Yutaka Tama (多摩 豊) wrote the pioneering Enterprise: Role Play Game in Star Trek, published in a big box with a rule book, scenario book, dice, and full-color character cards. As far as I can tell, this was the first standalone role-playing game designed and published in Japan for a domestic audience*******. "Lone Star" Sakatani served as advisor on this game as well.
Enterprise did not have further material support after the first boxed set, but the core game system was re-used for Crusher Joe: Role Play Game in Crusher Joe (Tsukuda Hobby, 1984).
Tama mentioned The Invasion of Klingon Empire as "Mr. Nakajima's Star Trek" in his "Designer's Notes" section of the Enterprise rule book. He laments that the game loses the charm of Star Trek as, being a strategy game, the focus is on the ships and the galaxy instead of the characters.You can read Robert Saint John's translation of the Tama's Designer's Notes here: https://groknard.blogspot.com/2009/02/enterprise-rpg-tama-yutakas-designers.html
Tsukuda's oversized miniatures
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| Star Trek Miniature Series 1: Dreadnought and Heavy Cruiser (Tsukuda Hobby, 1984) |
Tsukuda was also a manufacturer of plastic model kits and they sold several sets of plastic gaming miniatures based on TOS ships, like the one seen above. Each model came with a clear plastic stand that would fit easily on a large game board. These may have been the same models that Lou Zocchi sourced and sold through GameScience, but I haven't confirmed that.
The miniatures are ostensibly made for
The Invasion of Klingon Empire, but they are far too big to fit on the game's tiny hexes or to be used at a strategic scale. The miniatures wouldn't work with
Star Trek II as they are from the wrong time period and
Enterprise doesn't have any rules for starships. This is puzzling as Tsukuda produced smaller miniatures to work on their other board games, such as tiny plastic tank figures for use with
Tiger I (Tsukuda Hobby, 1982). So, they produced these miniatures that do not work with any of Tsukuda Hobby's
Star Trek games.
End notes:
* Published in Yoshifumi "Lone Star" Sakatani's article "Star Trek Designer's Comments," Tactics, No. 7, January 1983.
** As seen in the 1970 novel by James Blish, Spock Must Die!, Bantam Books.
*** As seen in the "Designers' Notes" chapter by Nakajima and Ishii in the Star Trek: The Invasion of Klingon Empire instruction manual.
**** As seen in "Interview: Tsukuda Hobby's Masaaki Suzuki," Simulator, No. 3, March 1983, 15-16. ***** As seen in "Cross Review," Simulator, No. 3, March 1983, 8.
****** I can't find designer credits in the Star Trek II game itself, but credits are in the article "Game Guide New Releases News," Tactics, No. 11, September-October 1983, 65.
******* One earlier Japanese RPG was published as a magazine article "Donkey Commando," Tactics, No. 3, May-June 1982, 28-38.
