Rolling around to a year later and it is Essen 2007. The game has been out for a few months with mixed views and quite a few complaints about the rulebook, which is being revised. Still this seems like a game I will enjoy so I purchase it from the stand, along with a free t-shirt, and it’s back home along with all my other purchases.
A few days later the promised revised rulebook is available online so I now have the opportunity to lean how to play and organise a bunch of people to play with. A few months later and I was finally able to do this. It is the time and people requirement that will make this game an infrequent one. Firstly, as expected, the game will take several hours but not what I would consider an excessive amount. Our first, and only, game took eight hours including the lengthy rules explanation so I would consider six to be the standard when the players are familiar. Secondly I asked a group of people that frequently roleplay to try this game. The open-structure senate phase where there are few exact rules on what can be decided seemed like it would be more familiar to roleplayers than gamers that prefer more structured rulesets. With a date arranged I now had to learn the game.
Checking through the components I found them to be of good quality with plenty of counters. It took me a while to determine that I had all of them though. The rulebook lists out the games contents but on sorting through the components I was unsure on the identity of all of the counters. In particular the list reads 25 track counters which in reality consists of 24 small counters for the player mats plus a larger one for the election track. This large one can be easily confused with the infestation counters and it was only after careful checking that I discovered I had mixed these together. This brings me to a small problem with the game, namely there are not enough of each type of ownership counter. It can be easily calculated from the rules that the demons could control a maximum of 12 sectors (9, which is one short of their winning condition, plus 3 that they could gain at the start of the turn). During the game the 13 counters for each party was insufficient as well as I was one short on the last turn of the game.
As well as the counters the game features a number of decks of cards, ship models to represent the fleets, player mats, some nice black dice, the aforementioned rulebook and a large board representing the galaxy. The board consist of a very nice picture from NASA of the M51 galaxy overlaid with sectors spiralling outward. The board also contains information of the abilities certain sectors grant as well the ministry and rebel abilities. This information located at the end of the board though so people seated opposite to this may not benefit due to the distance. One aspect of the board I was particularly happy with is that it is not at all shiny. There is no chance of lights reflecting off it to make life miserable for a player desperately trying to see the information on the board.
With the components checked it was time to read the rulebook. It is here that Golden Laurel displays a real weakness. I had downloaded and was reading through the revised rulebook but I was still finding ambiguities and unanswered questions despite all the time that had been pit into producing this new set of rules. Still I was able to understand it well enough to play and any questions that came up we just made a decision at the time.
The game itself consists of a number of turns where players representing political parties attempt to gain control of the Republic by controlling 10 or more sectors at the end of a turn, or acquiring all five ministry positions. The demons also win by controlling 10 or more sectors at the end of a turn. Now it is very unlikely that a game with four or more players will see one of them acquiring all the ministries so really the game will very likely be decided by the sector count. There are a total of 60 sectors in the game so even with the full six players there should be no problem with someone reaching the required number of sectors for a win.
Each turn consists of three phases. The first phase, called the Galactic Phase, is for the bookkeeping. During this phase three event cards are drawn that affect proceedings for the current turn. These event cards contain a lot of flavour and tie in a lot with the background information given for the history of the galaxy and races and political parties that inhabit it. A large number of these events will certainly benefit some players more than others including some that favour a particular political party. Each party has one event card that directly benefits them and another that allows them to acquire something from their opposing party. The six parties can be split into three pairs of opposing parties. It is only with these event cards that the opposition becomes manifest though the players can certainly play it out as well if they wish.
After the events three sector cards are drawn to identify the three sectors open for political campaigning by all the parties. These sectors can include sectors already controlled by a party, even the party’s starting sector. There is also a roll for each of these sectors to see if they are infested by demons. So each turn there is a chance one or more sectors belonging to the parties could be lost to the demons. This phase also sees players collecting action cards and senator cards into their hand and adding influence and money to their party from that generated by the sectors.
The second phase is the Senate Phase where all the voting occurs. Every third turn, starting with turn one, this starts with elections of senators to the ministry positions. It is recommended that these are assigned randomly in turn one for new players. The players then make proposals that voted on by the parties, under the direction of the Prime Minister. Proposals include orders for the Republic fleets, prosecutions of senators and general laws applying to everyone. It is this last bit that may make the game fall flat for some players if they are unable to get into the spirit of the game. Voting strength is equal to the total of the diplomacy ratings of the senators a party has. Influence can also be spent to increase a party’s voting strength for a particular proposition. At the end of the phase the Minister of Justice performs the prosecutions. These can result in a fine and stripping of a ministry position or even death.
The third phase is the Intrigue Phase. Here parties attempt to gain control of sectors through invasions and political campaigns. Invasions are handled first and all parties declare where there ships are going before any invasions are carried out. A party can choose any sector for invasion though they will gains bonuses for attacking adjacent ones. Any senators acting as Admiral will also grant a bonus. The neutral republic fleets are also moved at this time and they will attempt to destroy demon infestation and protect sectors from aggression by the parties. Following invasions the parties then try diplomatic campaigns. Again all the parties declare where they will be campaigning first before the campaigns are resolved. The sectors available for a party to campaign in are the three drawn at the beginning of the turn, if they are not infested, plus any adjacent to their own sectors. A senator must perform a campaign and the party gets a bonus for the senators diplomacy rating plus any adjacent sectors under the party’s control. There are also bonuses if the sector shows a symbol matching the party and / or a symbol matching the senator’s race. Note that sectors invaded can be lost in the same turn due to campaigning by another party. Lastly each party spends money on new fleets and to bring out senators from their hand.
If all that wasn’t enough the parties also have a number of actions they can call on. Each player will have a number of action cards in hand they can use including sabotage, blackmail and assassination. Some of these cards will require a senator to perform the card’s action stopping him or her from invading or campaigning later. Oh, and the gender of a senator is important for the seduction card. Some senators will also have in-built abilities they can perform, e.g. assassination. We even had an amusing moment in the game when a player played an assassination card then chose a senator with the assassination ability thus negating the requirement for actually playing the card. A third set of abilities comes from control of certain sectors, marked on the board with a filled in circle under the sector number. These include the starting sectors for each party so that they will immediately begin with an ability, plus a number of the low-numbered inner sectors. Examples are the ability to re-roll one die or collect one money whenever a fleet is bought. Lastly the ministry positions grant abilities such as the Prime Minister’s power to veto propositions or the Minister of Justice’s ability to prosecute without agreement from the senate. There are also corrupt abilities like that of the Minister of Defence who can redirect the Republic fleets.
The corrupt abilities of the ministers are one way senators can gain corruption. Corruption is collected by senators and will eventually aid the demons. Corruption is also collected through illegal acts like invasions or disobeying a law plus other abilities and action cards can result in corruption. One other way corruption is gained is by reneging on agreed trades. Players are able to trade almost anything between them but while instant trades must be carried out future promises may be broken resulting in corruption. Every point of corruption adds one to the chance a senator will be successfully prosecuted so too much corruption will general see a senator up for prosecution and executed before too long. Corruption also acts as a negative to a senator’s ability to influence voting or conduct campaigns. Another reason to avoid corruption is that eventually it will turn into shadow tokens and the number of shadow tokens in the game benefits the demons. Shadow tokens aid the demons by adding to the roll that they will infest a sector and makes them stronger when resisting an invasion. Shadow tokens will also benefit a senator though as they add extra dice to any actions he performs providing a nice little bit of temptation for him.
The last aspect of the game is rebellion. One player may decide that he is doing badly and rebel against the senate. He loses all access to the senate so cannot vote or gain ministry positions but he cannot be prosecuted and is not subject to its laws either. He also gains big bonuses for conducting invasions and campaigns and all his senators gain the assassination and sabotage abilities. On the downside he is only guaranteed to keep one of the sectors he controls when he rebels and he is now a legitimate target for all the other parties to invade.
With all these different aspects to consider the game can seem somewhat daunting, especially with the open nature of the senate and trading as well as the deficiencies in the rulebook. With the right group of players though a lot of fun can be had as the galaxy witnesses the birth of the Second Republic or its infestation by the demons.
Posted Sun Feb 24, 2008 11:19 pm