ThomasIsUnderrated
01-10-2006, 02:53 PM
I purchased this game as a Christmas present for myself a few weeks ago. It's fun, educational, and relatively inexpensive (about $25). It's fine with just two people or a group.
Basically, each player controls one ideology: Capitalism, Communism, Fascism, Imperialism, or Islamic Fundamentalism. A player's starting ideology determines how (and with what limitations) that player can try and take over the world. Each player then has to develop his starting country (determined by ideology. i.e. the Communist player starts with North Korea) AND start spreading the ideology to other lands. This is primarily done by using economic, political, or cultural influence cards to establish control. (Drawing these cards is the only random element found in the game.) These cards can also be used to "purchase" advancement cards, which in turn can be used to obtain stronger advancement cards and WMDs, which are used to attack and defend against the other players. The winner is the player who reaches a certain global influence level first.
All of this is done in phases:
Resources Phase (getting new influence cards)
Trading Phase (trading in cards to (hopefully) get more of the kind of influence you desire )
Development Phase (adding influence to countries you control; purchasing advancements and WMDs)
Foreign Phase [adding influence to countries you don't control; new, independent regions are added during this phase (note: if a region wasn't assigned to an ideology at the start of the game, it's up for grabs, so you can take over everything from Sweden to Iraq :moo: )]
Conflict Phase (attacking others)
Diplomacy Phase (the best part of the game - making treaties, declaring war, etc. with the other players. For example, during this phase, Capitalism and Imperialism could decide to join forces against Fascism.)
Assessment Phase (players assess their current global influence)
The phases repeat until there is a winner.
TIU Rating: 4.5 out of 5 gavels
Basically, each player controls one ideology: Capitalism, Communism, Fascism, Imperialism, or Islamic Fundamentalism. A player's starting ideology determines how (and with what limitations) that player can try and take over the world. Each player then has to develop his starting country (determined by ideology. i.e. the Communist player starts with North Korea) AND start spreading the ideology to other lands. This is primarily done by using economic, political, or cultural influence cards to establish control. (Drawing these cards is the only random element found in the game.) These cards can also be used to "purchase" advancement cards, which in turn can be used to obtain stronger advancement cards and WMDs, which are used to attack and defend against the other players. The winner is the player who reaches a certain global influence level first.
All of this is done in phases:
Resources Phase (getting new influence cards)
Trading Phase (trading in cards to (hopefully) get more of the kind of influence you desire )
Development Phase (adding influence to countries you control; purchasing advancements and WMDs)
Foreign Phase [adding influence to countries you don't control; new, independent regions are added during this phase (note: if a region wasn't assigned to an ideology at the start of the game, it's up for grabs, so you can take over everything from Sweden to Iraq :moo: )]
Conflict Phase (attacking others)
Diplomacy Phase (the best part of the game - making treaties, declaring war, etc. with the other players. For example, during this phase, Capitalism and Imperialism could decide to join forces against Fascism.)
Assessment Phase (players assess their current global influence)
The phases repeat until there is a winner.
TIU Rating: 4.5 out of 5 gavels