Overview
Heads of State is a board game for 2-5 players set in 16-18th century Western Europe (Britain and Ireland, France, the German States and Spain) in which players represent influential families over the course of many generations. By collecting and playing sets of Attribute cards, players create and place nobles in territories within these countries. At the start of the game players are free to create nobles anywhere but as all the board fills there is competition to get your nobles into the few remaining vacant territories. Once all the territories are filled, the only way to create new nobles is to “remove” existing ones by collecting and playing Treachery cards, and each country has its own method of doing so: the guillotine in France, the gallows in the German States, the axeman in Britain and the Spanish Inquisition in Spain. There is also an Assassin card which can operate anywhere on the board. Victory Points are earned by various means which leads to a choice of game strategies. You earn VPs for having the first noble in an area; having a noble in every area of a country; being the first or second most dominant player in each of the 4 countries; having at least one noble of each rank (Baron, Count, Earl, Marquis, Duke, Prince and King); and for having the most of each rank of noble at the end of the game.

The Board
The board is a map of Western Europe showing the 4 previously mentioned countries. Each country has several provinces and a capital. Each of these areas contains one or two boxes, each with the icon of the noble that may be placed in that area. The larger territories have two boxes which are arranged vertically with the higher ranked noble in the upper box, thus allowing you to quickly see who has the superior noble. This is useful when scoring because when determining player influence the superior noble gets more points of “influence” than the minor noble ( 2 or 1 point of influence respectively in the provinces, and 4 or 2 points respectively in the capital). If only one noble is present in a province or capital they score the maximum points available.

The Card Decks
There are 2 decks of cards which drive the game. Firstly the Attribute deck of 100 cards containing 8 types of cards, representing the prerequisites for becoming a noble: Gold (wealth), Hereditary Titles, Science (education), Duelling Skills, Troops (help from the army), Bishop (connections with the Church), Castles and Palaces. Each rank of noble requires a specific set of these cards as found on the supplied Noble Creation Chart, with higher ranked nobles requiring larger sets of cards (for example, to create a lowly Count the player just needs a Gold and Bishop card, whereas a King requires all 8 cards. There are also Courtesan cards which count as wild, although there are limits as to how they can be played (no more than one in a set, and none for Kings).
Secondly there is the Treachery deck of 29 cards: 4 guillotine cards for France, 4 axeman for Britain, 4 Gallows for the German States, 4 Spanish Inquisition for Spain, 7 cards that are combinations of each of these (e.g.: guillotine / axeman), and 7 assassins. These cards are used to remove opponents’ nobles.

The Play
During play, six Attribute cards and two Treachery cards are available for drafting face-up. Alternatively, players can choose to take the top (unturned) card from a deck. Abbreviated Attribute decks are used when playing with fewer than 5 players to speed up the play.

On each turn a player has a choice between either taking 3 Attribute cards, flushing the face-up Attribute cards and taking 1 card, or taking 1 Treachery card and 1 Attribute card. When a Treachery card is NOT taken, and when a player has the requisite set of Attribute cards, they can also choose to create a noble in an empty box on the board. When a Treachery card IS taken the player has the option of playing one or more Treachery cards, with the aim of killing another player’s noble(s). Country-specific Treachery cards always hit their target, whereas Assassin cards have a 75% chance of success. In both cases a pair of such cards is required to remove a noble from a capital. If successful, players may then play one or more sets of Attribute cards to fill the recently-vacated spot(s) on the board (and would generally choose to rather than leave it open for others to grab)!

The game is played over 3 rounds, each representing 100 years. Each round ends when the Revolution card (shuffled into the last 11 cards in the Attribute deck) appears. At the end of each round VPs are awarded for having the first and second most influence points in each country. The disparity between first and second place varies between the different countries (for example, first and second places in the German states score 6 and 5 points respectively as compared with 10 and 2 points in France). However, during the course of the game VPs may be earned for achieving other things and this has a significant effect on game dynamics. During round 1, there is a strong incentive for players to rush to create nobles in as many areas as possible, in order to gain the VPs available for creating the first noble in each area. However, players might choose to forego some of these initial VPs and concentrate on collecting sets of Attribute cards which would allow the creation of higher ranked nobles, which will later help in winning control of countries.

During round 2 the board is starting to fill up. Players may also have enough nobles to consider chasing the big VPs that are awarded to the first, second and third players to have at least one of each of the 7 different noble types. Alternatively players might choose to forgo these and concentrate on chasing the end-of-game points for having the most of each type of noble. Players might also choose to chase the VPs awarded for holding nobles in each territory of a country, or might just concentrate on shoring up their influence in a country or on limiting the influence of others. In order to do any of these things players may have to stop picking up multiple Attribute cards and instead start taking Treachery cards to remove other player’s nobles and create their own. All of this takes time especially if you don’t get the country-specific Treachery card you require (or that one Attribute card which never seems to appear)! Meanwhile other players might continue filling the remaining empty spaces on the board…

Treachery dominates round 3 as players manoeuvre for control of countries, for the most of each type of noble, and to collect whatever last scraps of points are available elsewhere. As with previous rounds, players are not certain of when the Revolution card will be drawn and the game ends.

Overall Impression
I like area control games and games in which there are multiple paths to victory, so Heads of State has great appeal to me. The changing dynamics throughout the course of the game adds interest as players are encouraged to chase different things as the game progresses, and are inevitably drawn towards the use of Treachery cards. It should be noted that the “take that” element with the use of Treachery cards will not appeal to everyone, although personally I enjoyed that aspect. In summary, Heads of State is a game with plenty of player interaction and many strategic options that should find a wide audience. Personally I like Heads of State a lot, and rate it a solid 8/10.

Nb: Edited for clarity