I’ve owned Empire of the Sun for over ten years.

I’ve opened the box.
I’ve punched the counters.
I’ve unfolded that beautiful, intimidating map.

And every single time, about an hour into reading the rules, my head started hurting.

At the time, the idea of mixing card-driven mechanics with traditional counters was completely new to me. I understood cards. I understood counters. Putting them together into one coherent system? That felt like learning a new language without a phrasebook. Eventually, the game went back into the box with a familiar thought:

“I’ll come back to this someday.”

Today is the day!

Fast forward to 2026, and I’ve decided it’s finally time.

I’ve made a commitment to sit down and properly learn Empire of the Sun—not just read the rules, not just watch a video or two, but actually understand the system well enough to play it confidently.

More importantly, I’m going to do it in public.

This series of blog posts is my learning journal as I work through the game step by step. I’m not approaching this as an expert. I’m approaching it as a player who knows this game has a reputation for being “crunchy,” but also knows that beneath that crunch is a very elegant design by Mark Herman.

This is not a comprehensive rules explanation.

This is:

• A breakdown of how I’m approaching the rules
• What concepts clicked, and which ones didn’t—at first
• How learning the game in layers made it less intimidating
• Honest thoughts from someone learning the system from the ground up

I’ll be focusing on mental models, not edge cases. Big ideas first, details later.

A Fair Warning

I will make mistakes.

I will misunderstand rules.
I will realize, three posts later, that I got something wrong earlier.
That’s part of the process—and part of the reason I wanted to document it.

So if you already know Empire of the Sun, I ask one thing:
be kind 😄

If you’re learning alongside me, even better. Pull up a chair.

The upcoming posts will cover things like:

• What kind of game Empire of the Sun really is
• Why Strategy Cards are the heart of the system
• Why supply and air power shape everything
• How offensives actually work
• And why Japan is always racing the clock

If you’ve ever owned a game for years without really playing it—this series is for you.

Let’s finally push some cardboard.