Mac Gerdts

Walther M. Gerdts, known as Mac Gerdts, is the designer of German-style board games such as "Imperial", "Imperial 2030", "Antike" and "Hamburgum". His games introduced the concept of a rondel rather than dice as a mechanism for play. This is designed to prevent players from repeatedly taking the same action in quick succession without paying a cost.
Like many German board games, all of Gerdts' games include a mechanism designed to keep game length roughly within the specified time constraint. In Imperial, the game ends when a nation reaches the 25 point on the counting chart. In Hamburgum, the game ends when six churches are constructed.