Game: Succession: Intrigue in the Royal Court

Thread: It's good to be the King's best friend

merb101 — 2008-11-19T15:56:24+00:00

By MICHAEL ERB
www.newsandsentinel.com

The old King is stepping down and is set to name a successor to the throne. Five people stand in line to become the next ruler of the land.

You are not one of them.

In the board game “Succession” by Your Move Games, players take on the roles of five characters who seek to cement their place in the royal court by becoming the loyal henchman of whoever ascends to the throne. That’s right; you want to be the new king’s (or queen’s) best friend.

To do so you must gain favor with the person you believe most likely to be named as the King’s successor, while also gaining them favor with the King himself.

“Succession” is a game of bidding and manipulating, both those in line for the throne and the other players. Throughout the game you play Intrigues which cause candidates to gain and lose favor. Intrigues can either succeed or fail based on the number of votes they get, both through the playing of Influence cards and the paying of gold. If there are more votes for the Intrigue, the effects take place. If there are more votes against, then the Intrigue fails.

Most Intrigues cause a gain of Standing for one candidate, and loss of Standing for another. The main game board shows the five candidates for the throne — Galahad the Knight, Ulysses the King’s son, Arianna the King’s daughter, Archie the Bishop and Venetia the Merchant. If at any time one of these characters gains 10 Standing with the King, they are named as his successor and the game ends.

But causing candidates to gain and lose standing also causes them to give Credit and place Blame. The game takes an interesting twist by allowing the player with the highest number of votes to assign Credit and Blame, so even if a player is defeated by the combined votes of several players, if they have the highest number of votes (per player), they can take action this round.

Credit allows you to gain favor with one of the candidates, while Blame costs you favor. This level of favor is important for two reasons: You get gold from each candidate each round based upon how much they favor you, and the only way to win is to have the highest favor with the candidate who is named as the successor.

The players choose one of five characters to play — Ambassador, Squire, Royalist, Taxman and Wizard — each with their own board and own special abilities, such as receiving more gold or paying less for votes. The player boards show their favor with each of the candidates.

In addition to Influence and Intrigue cards, players can also play Events. These affect the players, allowing them to steal cards or influence from other players or to affect the voting.

The really cool twist of this game is the social aspect. Every round and with every action the players are all engaged, as the rules encourage you to constantly wheel and deal. Have a card that can cost another player standing with a candidate? Then how much gold is it worth for you to use it on someone else? Selling votes, Influence, Blame, Credit and just about any kind of back-stabbing, political maneuvering you can imagine is a major and very fun part of “Succession.”

The components of the game are really nice quality and the artwork is done by Phil Foglio who is well known for his cartoons and work on different fantasy games and Dragon Magazine. The writing and artwork combined give the game a really tongue-in-cheek feel, but the gameplay is very deep and engaging. Played with the right group, this game is both hilarious and brutal in just the right combination.

For more information on “Succession” or other products from Your Move Games, visit www.yourmovegames.com and for more game reviews and discussion visit my blog at http://merb101.livejournal.com.

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staremperor — 2008-08-24T22:07:41+00:00

Back of box

Thread: Re: Big Fun for Bad People

Chad_Ellis — 2008-06-18T20:02:41+00:00

Thanks for the review, and I'm glad you liked Succession so much! It's my first shot at game design, so it will always have a special place in my (evil) heart.

Perhaps the best thing about Succession is that the people who like it best (i.e. evil people with a sense of humor) are ideally suited to take advantage of the fact that we over-printed Succession and thus cut the MSRP to just $15.

Thread: Re: Big Fun for Bad People

Hendal — 2008-06-18T17:08:36+00:00

Gonna Have to check into this one, with a line in there like

'DO NOT PLAY IF YOU CAN'T LAUGH AT THE SPECIAL OLYMPICS.'

How can you go wrong with this game, I can tell it is not one to play with the wife, but then a lot of my fovorite games are like that.

I will look into this one! How long does a game take?

Thanks for putting this one on my radar,

Game On'

Thread: Big Fun for Bad People

VixenTorGames — 2008-06-18T01:55:13+00:00

Board gaming is one hell of an unfair market. Hundreds of games get made every year. One or two always come out swinging and do really well, bunches more hang in there and turn a profit, and some get completely forgotten. And to make matters worse, some of those really hot games suck like the vacuum of space, and some of those that get forgotten are wicked awesome.

Take, for instance, Succession, from Your Move Games. This is a ridiculously fun game full of deal-making and back-stabbing, and yet almost nobody has ever heard of it. That's a damned shame, because if you break this out at a game night, your friends will love the game, and if you play it well, they will be hiding your body in the desert (which, now that I think of it, may not be a point in the game's favor).

In Succession, the king is about to die, and he's about to name an heir. The problem is, there's no chance it'll be you. You're just some scrubby hanger-on. But all is not lost - if you can get the next heir to like you the most, you'll be in a position of power that will let you get away with doing stuff like hiding fire ants in your enemies' underwear drawers or lighting bags of dog poop on their front porches (if there's a use for power that's better than making other people miserable, I don't want to know about it).

But the trick is, everyone at the table is trying to beat you to the punch. The squire is a big favorite with Galahad, the king's knight, the royalist is in good graces with both the king's son and his daughter, and the tax collector is cozied up to Archie, the bishop. So your character has two jobs - choose a candidate and become his favorite ass-kisser, and then get that candidate to become king.

Neither is an easy job, because while you're out sending flowers to the king and putting the merchant queen's name on the card, someone else is trying to sneak aphids into the bouquet. And if they do succeed in screwing up your grand gesture, they may even wind up taking the credit for sending the flowers in the first place!

The politics of Succession is played out in intrigues and votes. Players take turn starting intrigues, like hiring bards to sing songs about senile kings and then beating the crap out of the bards for offending the senile king. Candidates for the throne will have their standing with the king rise or fall, and the candidates will, in turn, give blame or credit for the intrigues to the players. The truth is completely irrelevant here. You might actually hire the bard in Ulysses's name, blame him for the bad song, and credit Archie for beating the piss out of him, without either candidate having even been in the country when the concert happened. And then you can spin it so that Ulysses blames one of your rivals for getting him in dutch, and Archie thanks you for working out the whole deal, whether you did anything or not.

It gets a little confusing, and may take a couple rounds to work out all the rules, but pretty soon you'll be making underhanded deals and selling your friends down the river. You'll steal credit for plans in which you never had a hand, then blame someone else for things you did. You'll lie, you'll cheat, you'll steal, and if you do it all really well, you'll win.

And then your friends will be hiding your body (hopefully that doesn't bother you too much).

My son and daughter love this game, and invented a new term for how they intended to pay me back for repeatedly cheating them out of successful endeavors - weasel-poo. Don't ask what that means, I just know that my daughter has made it very clear that she owes me one million weasel-poo. I figure I'll be paying back that debt when she's in high school and I keep having to tell her, 'you're not leaving this house wearing that!'

My wife, on the other hand, hates this game. She absolutely refuses to play it. That's something to keep in mind - not everyone is cold-hearted and devious enough to enjoy Succession. It requires the ability to detach the part of you that helps old ladies collect their social security checks from the part of you that steals the money after the checks are cashed.

So as much as I love Succession, it comes with a warning, something like, 'DO NOT PLAY IF YOU CAN'T LAUGH AT THE SPECIAL OLYMPICS.' If you're too nice, you'll just wind up with hurt feelings. But if you can put aside your instinct for hugging baby kittens and volunteering with the mentally handicapped, you can have a grand ol' time.

Summary

Pros:
Great political maneuvering
Intense deal-making
Great art by Studio Foglio (they do Girl Genius, and they rock)

Cons:
Not for people burdened by things like conscience and sense of fair play
Components leave a little to be desired

Thread: Re: How to get replacements for ruined parts?

masdero — 2008-05-17T22:45:11+00:00

I sent you a PM

Thread: Re: How to get replacements for ruined parts?

Chad_Ellis — 2008-05-17T18:42:07+00:00

Hi,

My apologies. We've been having a lot of problems with our webmail. You can always email me here or at my personal address - chad.ellis at comcast.net.

Regards,
Chad

Thread: Re: How to get replacements for ruined parts?

masdero — 2008-05-17T14:04:06+00:00

I sent them another email and I got an automated message:
Thank you for contacting us!

If you wish to talk to us directly, or if you do not receive a reply within 48 hours, please call us at (617) 739-1491.

It would be a nice thing to call them using skype but unfortunately my spoken English is not as good as my written one.

Thread: How to get replacements for ruined parts?

masdero — 2008-05-17T13:33:20+00:00

I wrote lots of emails to "Your Move Games".
I asked them if I could receive replacement parts because when I bought the game it looked like a glue tape was applied on punchable cardboards and then pulled away.

After months, I never received an answer.

Did any of you ever contact them and DID receive an answer?

Thread: Re: Rules?

ekted — 2008-05-05T19:59:03+00:00

Added to the wiki. These rules are pretty good, and I like the humor. However, the program used for typesetting has a strange way of inserting whitespace. It doesn't break some words in legal places to avoid large spaces. It doesn't distribute space evenly across each line.

Thread: Re: Rules?

gnoccarello — 2008-05-05T10:31:16+00:00

Here: http://www.yourmovegames.com/Successsion_Rulebook.pdf

Thread: Re: Fixing imbalance

Lou-Dawg — 2008-03-09T02:28:35+00:00

Chad_Ellis wrote:

3) Blind bidding too random.
Barrow Amun-Re sacrifice bid:
1st - normal rules, power to assign credit/blame
2nd place get two cards
3rd place get one
pass - gets 2 gold

This is another one of those design questions that I don't think has a right or wrong answer but goes to player preferences. It's incredibly painful to bid 24 on an intrigue and then find either that everyone else bid 0 or else that someone bid 25 -- but that's part of the tension of the game.

Your specific suggestions would also have some problems, at least how I see it. On some intrigues (i.e. one that only affects one candidate) you will often prefer to come in second and get two cards rather than have control of credit/blame. That would feel very odd to me. I also don't like the idea that someone could put in a "value" bid of six or seven with the expectation of drawing two cards.

Best regards,
Chad

If you think blind bidding is too random (which I agree with), then negotiate your bids. It isn't explicit in the game, but there is no reason you can't declare to the group what your plan to bid and try to 'sell' your bid for cards or future favors. There is also no reason you can't lie about what your bid will be I think it adds to the theme of the game and if everyone participates you will have some idea about what the bid will be.

Thread: Re: Why so popular all of a sudden?

cturnitsa — 2008-03-01T03:04:29+00:00

Wouldn't it be great if more small publishers made their way to Toys R Us?

It would be even greater if more people, friends and families could find their way to getting ANY games and playing them together.

Thread: Succession - An Intriguing First Session

gildor — 2007-11-26T22:52:50+00:00

Although all 3 players were playing this for the first time, one of my two opponents is quite the strategist and it was immediately apparent that the 10 minutes he spent before the game intently studying the rules had paid off. He chose the Wizard, I chose the Squire, and the third player chose the Taxman.

Right off the bat, the Wizard got a huge advantage, playing an intrigue that gave 1 standing to any number of candidates. He gave 1 to all 5; the Taxman and I figured this was fine and both voted Pass 0. Big mistake. The Wizard took credit for all 5, vastly increasing his income, which would allow him to use his special ability of buying an extra card for three gold on every turn for the rest of the game.

I played the Squire poorly, never realizing that since his votes always cost two less, it never makes sense to vote less than Pass/Fail 2, since this is free. I focused on Galahad, though his ability of Pass +5 to positive intrigues and Fail -5 to negative intrigues seemed negligible once we started having votes with values of 30+. I got him to 6 before a -2 Intrigue soured his chances.

The Taxman was getting his wits about him most of the game. He had high standing with Venetia, but Venetia did not advance very high in standing herself.

Midway through the game, the Wizard played Wealth Tax, Redistribution of Wealth, and Share the Wealth one after the other to devastating effect. He then had the most gold, and was still getting two cards per turn, while the Taxman and I were drawing 1 and had no cash reserves. The Wizard then began currying favor with Arianna with virtually no opposition.

We agreed to end the game at 9PM. The Wizard won, having 4 influence with Arianna. Next was the Taxman with 2. I had 2 as well, but came in 3rd because I had no gold and the Taxman had 10.

The Wizard loved the game (not surprising). I enjoyed it, but will enjoy it much more when the strategy starts to sink in. The Taxman had a mediocre reaction, but agreed that he might like it more on a second play. We all agreed that having 5 players would also make the game much more fun.

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dan4th — 2007-11-18T16:08:00+00:00

Thread: Re: 5-player variant

beri — 2007-09-21T20:45:52+00:00

I haven't actually tried this variant yet, but I'll see if I can do so soon. You're right about the Wizard being potentially weakened, but it might not be a huge problem. An extra card is an extra card, and most of them are worth at least 3 gold, if not more.

Thread: Re: 5-player variant

mlvanbie — 2007-04-19T21:45:30+00:00

I think that the effectiveness of the variant depends on the players. Some groups have all of the players bid modest amounts all of the time (which I think was intended) but in other groups players bid big or small/not at all, saving their cards for the big win (which ends up pretty random and not fun for those that rarely draw good cards and then use them on the wrong bid). I think that this variant works for the latter type of group. (And if more than two players play that way, then everyone needs to do so.)

Thread: Re: 5-player variant

Chad_Ellis — 2007-04-19T15:31:45+00:00

Interesting ideas!

There's no doubt that resources can get tight, although it's debatable whether this is good or bad. One of the things I like about Succession is that it's not "just" a negotiation game and that the scarce resources of money and cards really ARE scarce. This is an important aspect to the strategy of assigning credit and blame, because you have to balance the changes you'd like to make to the game state with the need to replenish your resources.

In other words, if you go all-in on a big intrigue and have credit for four candidates and blame on the fifth to assign, the scarcity of resources gives you a strong incentive not to just take the credit and assign blame to whoever is in the lead. Instead you'll probably want to syphon some of the other player's resources in exchange for sharing the good with them.

On the tweaking of abilities, I'll just share a story from the launch of Succession back at GenCon Indy '04. We ran a $1,000 tournament with free qualifiers, so we ended up with seventeen people (IIRC) who won their individual qualifier game in order to make it to the finals. Before starting I took some rules questions and we talked about the game. A few people said that they thought the Player Character abilities weren't balanced and that they'd won in large part because of which character they got, so we took a quick poll to see who had won with which character. It was as perfect a distribution as possible, with no character having less than 3 wins or more than 4.

That's not a huge N, of course, and it's certainly true that the turn-triggered abilities (Wizard and Taxman) are relatively strong in 3-player games compared with 5-player games, but I'm not convinced they need to be changed. (That said, if you're adopting your variant it may make sense and just be easier to track to have him gain one extra per turn.)

I'm taken with the idea of drawing a card at the end of a turn. While I like resource scarcity in general, it's certainly true that players with no cards in hand can end up feeling like they're not really playing -- empty hands also contribute to the few circumstances where a player can safely win a big intrigue on the cheap. My main hesitation on this one is that the Wizard's ability seems a lot less powerful if everyone is drawing two cards per turn. What has your experience been?

Best,
Chad

Thread: 5-player variant

beri — 2007-04-15T06:36:51+00:00

When playing with 5 players, I find that resources in Succession are far too stretched. Each player gets a bunch of money and a card on their turn, but after that, nothing - maybe nothing for another half-hour until the game comes back to them.

With a 3-player game, this is fine. With 4, it can work. With 5, though, it gets pretty thin.

So, here's my variant.
Each turn, rather than all the candidates paying one player, one candidate pays every player.

So if it's Arianna's turn to pay, every player gets their income from Arianna. So most everyone is getting 1-3 gold per turn.

How to decide who plays when? Here's an easy rule. Galahad pays on the Squire's turn. Ulysses pays out on the next player's turn, then Arianna, Archie, then Venetia. You should be back to the Squire, and Galahad.

You can still decide who goes first randomly, and everyone still gets their normal starting patronage.

Additionally, we find the Taxman too weak in a 5-player game. Instead of his normal ability, I propose he just receives an extra 1 gold each turn. I'm not sure if anyone else needs to be tweaked.

As another variant, I found that drawing one card every five turns is really quite a stretch. I recommend this: every player starts with 1 card in hand. On your turn, draw one card at the start of your turn, and one card at the end. So, after you take your turn and play your cards, you'll still end up with one card in hand. I think starting with only 1 card in hand may be pretty limiting, but it's necessary to keep the game length close to the same.

So, those are my thoughts.

Thread: Re: Fixing imbalance

Chad_Ellis — 2007-03-20T13:43:16+00:00

First off, thanks for the invitation to comment on this thread!

It's always hard to critically evaluate a game of one's own design, but I can definitely see where you're coming from and I'm happy to share my own thoughts.

chaosbreaker wrote:
1) Event card power variance too great.
Don't use any or some events cards.
or
Make all event cards 1 or 2 gold coins.

When I was making Succession, one of the tradeoffs I had to make was between balancing Event cards and making them exciting. It's clear that some of them are very powerful, but I don't think that's the main problem -- to me, the main problem is that they can be WAY too powerful in combination.

Sometimes, for example, one person will play a card-drawing Event card and draw another one, and then use Big Jerk, Little Jerk to take a third one from someone else, etc.

Rather than add a gold cost to playing the cards, I'd consider a house rule that caps the number of Event cards you can play in a turn or else pick the most powerful ones and say either that you can't play more Event cards once you've played one of them or even that playing one of them ends your turn.

2) Influence card variance too great.
Remove the highest and lowest cards from game.

This I disagree with. As Ynnen said, part of what makes bidding interesting is the lack of perfect information. "Influence 4" might be a below-average card, but if you're the Wizard and you spend 3 gold to draw it you're still probably glad that you did. Meanwhile, the fact that someone with just two cards in hand might still hold 17 Influence is, in my view, an important part of the game.

3) Blind bidding too random.
Barrow Amun-Re sacrifice bid:
1st - normal rules, power to assign credit/blame
2nd place get two cards
3rd place get one
pass - gets 2 gold

This is another one of those design questions that I don't think has a right or wrong answer but goes to player preferences. It's incredibly painful to bid 24 on an intrigue and then find either that everyone else bid 0 or else that someone bid 25 -- but that's part of the tension of the game.

Your specific suggestions would also have some problems, at least how I see it. On some intrigues (i.e. one that only affects one candidate) you will often prefer to come in second and get two cards rather than have control of credit/blame. That would feel very odd to me. I also don't like the idea that someone could put in a "value" bid of six or seven with the expectation of drawing two cards.

4) Game too long
Remove all or some event cards.
Place a unused card in sixth position from the bottom. Thus removing 5 cards from play to hinder card counting and making the end game harder to estimate. Something game end game triggering in mechanism in Alhambra or Queen's Necklace.

What do you think?

If I had to choose Succession's biggest weakness I would definitely say it's that it's way too group-dependent. I recently sent a review copy to a Norwegian gaming site and they liked it so much that four people in the test group bought their own copies, but then another group will play and have an awful time.

This relates to the time question because I think that's something that each group has to address on their own (assuming that it took too long but they liked the core game enough to want to fix it). When we launched Succession at GenCon a few years ago we ran something like fifteen games in a beginner's tourney and none of them went much more than an hour, including teaching the rules. Then I sent Greg Schlosser a review copy and one of his complaints was that the game took way too long -- over 3 hours.

In short, for most groups Succession takes about 45-90 minutes, which I'm happy with. If your group takes a lot longer it may be because you're negotiating every detail (that's what happened with Greg's group -- people would negotiate which candidates were going to be affected by every intrigue!), but I don't think there's a generic fix.

Best regards,
Chad

Thread: Re: Fixing imbalance

ynnen — 2007-03-20T00:11:12+00:00

Some interesting ideas, but one of the problems with trying to fix a game like this is that imbalance is actually one of the keys to negotiation. If everything is roughly equal, there is no need to wheel and deal or negotiate -- instead of a game of diplomacy, coercion and filibustering, you get a game of mathematics...

Granted, some of the abilities and events are farther out of sync/balance than others -- enough so that even clever negotiation and diplomacy can't account for wide disparities in value and effect. I do like the idea of perhaps some cards having a greater cost involved to offset their greater power. But how much and which cards would be tough to say.

I think ultimately, though, the game would work extremely well "as is" with a group of social, outgoing, gregarious gamers who can take it as well as dish it out, and don't get too caught up in over analysis... If you can get a high energy game of Succession in an hour or less, I don't think there's much need for tweaking.

Unfortunately, I don't think I have a group of players I could pull that off with... In order to get this to the table again with the gamers around me, some sorts of tweaks would probably be needed. So much, in fact, that we'd almost be better off just playing something else.

Thread: Re: Great Concept, Demanding Game

chaosbreaker — 2007-03-19T21:53:22+00:00

I have some fixes that I have in mind for this:

http://boardgamegeek.com/article/1399138#1399138

Thread: Fixing imbalance

chaosbreaker — 2007-03-19T21:51:46+00:00

I bought this game on Tanga because I love negotiation games.

After reading ynnen'review on BGG and Shannon Applecline's on rpg.net.

There are some issues that I like to address:

1) Event card power variance too great.
Don't use any or some events cards.
or
Make all event cards 1 or 2 gold coins.

2) Influence card variance too great.
Remove the highest and lowest cards from game.

3) Blind bidding too random.
Barrow Amun-Re sacrifice bid:
1st - normal rules, power to assign credit/blame
2nd place get two cards
3rd place get one
pass - gets 2 gold

4) Game too long
Remove all or some event cards.
Place a unused card in sixth position from the bottom. Thus removing 5 cards from play to hinder card counting and making the end game harder to estimate. Something game end game triggering in mechanism in Alhambra or Queen's Necklace.

What do you think?

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11186.phtml

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/109044

Thread: Re: Why so popular all of a sudden?

FlyingArrow — 2007-03-09T22:27:46+00:00

I saw this game at ToysRUs today. That was kind of surprising considering it's a small publisher.

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Rokkr — 2007-03-09T07:21:40+00:00

The Wizard character sheet

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Rokkr — 2007-03-09T07:18:20+00:00

The Taxman character sheet

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Rokkr — 2007-03-09T07:14:57+00:00

The Royalist character sheet

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Rokkr — 2007-03-09T07:11:49+00:00

The Squire character sheet

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Rokkr — 2007-03-09T07:08:29+00:00

The Ambassador character sheet

Thread: Re: Why so popular all of a sudden?

jostrand — 2007-03-07T01:39:05+00:00

ginn5j wrote:
It was the deal on Tanga a couple of nights ago.

Aha! Now that makes sense. I have been Tanga free for a few months and I hope to stay "off the wagon" (or is it on?). No wonder I didn't catch on.

Thread: Re: Why so popular all of a sudden?

ginn5j — 2007-03-07T01:24:53+00:00

It was the deal on Tanga a couple of nights ago.

Thread: Why so popular all of a sudden?

jostrand — 2007-03-07T01:21:59+00:00

I was surprised to see a game like this pop up as #8 for the Hot Games. Is there some podcast, blog, or hot deal that I am missing?

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Rokkr — 2006-12-29T18:48:05+00:00

Rule book cover

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thoia — 2006-12-22T21:10:49+00:00

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thoia — 2006-12-22T21:06:52+00:00

Event cards

Thread: Re: Rules?

gnoccarello — 2006-12-20T09:38:23+00:00

Chad_Ellis wrote:
Yes, we're working on a major website upgrade and the rules will be available for download in PDF form.

Sorry to have missed this question for a while.

Best,
Chad

Chad, any news?

Thread: Succession at Anonycon

Chad_Ellis — 2006-12-18T17:06:34+00:00

I was a vendor at Anonycon last weekend. Anonycon is a small CT convention with a focus on RPGs. I wouldn't have invested the time and money of going as a vendor except that it was held about ten minutes from my Mom's house so it was almost free beyond the $100 dealer booth fee.

One upside to a slow con is that you can actually play some games. Max, the host of Anonycon, had picked up Succession a while back but had never played and wanted to get a game going. He dug up two boardgamers and we took advantage of the quiet Sunday morning to play.

I let everyone else choose their characters first, which left me with a choice between Squire and Wizard. I always love drawing extra cards (what Magic geek doesn't?) so I took the Wizard.

I was a bit sad at my opening hand, which had both copies of Petty Thief. I didn't really want their first impression of the game to be all about the few "take that!" cards, but what can you do? Ironically, both people I played Petty Thief on replied with Surprising Turn of Events which was kind of funny.

As a result of my thievery I ended my turn with the Influence 9 card, which let me go big on the next player's intrigue that had all the candidates gaining.

Now normally I think it's a huge mistake simply to take all of the credit. Doing so paints a big bullseye on your face and leaves you with no gold or influence with which to fight on future intrigues. Sadly, however, the new players either didn't understand what standings were worth (my top offer for Venetia was four gold...and she gives you three gold!) or else they just like to negotiate hard (the same players would later demand six or seven gold per standing when they were handing out the credit) and in the end I just took it all.

I didn't get punished for it, per se, but on his next turn the Ambassador (the only person who hadn't tried to win the previous intrigue) also had an "everybody gains" intrigue and got the credit extremely cheaply.

The Royalist ended up behind the rest of us, but as tends to happen this made her less of a target for blame and she got in cheaply on Good Graces so she (OK, technically he) was able to catch up into a reasonable position.

On the main board, Archie was pushed up aggressively by the Taxman (Max), which had the rest of us wanting to keep up and pushed Archie up to threatening levels of standing with the King. Arianna was at 5 and the rest of the candidates were at 2, having been given a bit of beatdown.

On my turn it seemed like I ought to be able to go for a win, but it would have been very risky. I was at 5 with Archie but so was Max/Taxman and he had a lot of gold. My hand was three intrigues, none of which were positive, Good Graces and Second Hand Goods. I debated a lot of plays, including just using Second Hand Goods to get Enough of You in order to prevent anyone else winning or Surprising Turn of Events to protect myself from something like Big Jerk, Little Jerk, but in the end passed. (I hoped that my hand was good enough that if anyone had BJLJ they would just take one of my good cards.)

The Royalist then made a natural move, playing an intrigue that would boost Arianna two places (three with her bonus) and put her in range of becoming the successor. The Royalist was at 4 with Arianna already (as were most of us) but she was low on Archie so the only chance of winning was through the king's daughter.

We all wrote down our votes and then he played Mood Swings, doubling the standing change to four -- five with her ability -- which would be enough to make Arianna the next Queen. Sure enough, his all-in bid had won control of the intrigue (and made it pass), pushing him up to standing five with Arianna, giving him the win.

Thread: Thanksgiving family game

Chad_Ellis — 2006-11-28T15:02:58+00:00

So I'm at my aunt's house and my other aunt comes up to me and says, "You really don't have to, but Justin just loves Succession [gameid=succession: intrigue in the royal court] and he almost never gets to play so he's really hoping that you'll play with him."

Gee, let's see. The first game I designed/published, one that I love playing anyway, and my 12-year-old cousin has been waiting for Thanksgiving for the chance to play? Tough call.

We recruited my brother, Harold, and my other cousin, Jesse. Harold has played a couple of times and Jesse has actually volunteered for my GenCon Indy crew and played a bunch of times.

I let everyone else choose their characters; Justin chose Squire, Jesse quickly pounced on the Wizard (gotta love drawing extra cards) and my brother took the Royalist, presumably because he wants to play the hot chick. :P That left Taxman and Ambassador for me. I rarely play the Ambassador (personal taste and preferred strategy) but decided a change was in order and Taxman went back into the box.

Normally when I play Succession my strategy is to be in second place on standings and in the lead or close to it on resources. That makes me less of an obvious target for blame, makes it harder for other players to win intrigues on the cheap and means that if it looks like the game is moving towards conclusion I can always make a play for victory.

As the Ambassador, however, I thought a different approach might be in order. The Ambassador lacks the offensive powers of the other players but being immune from blame reverses a lot of the game's normal dynamics. Usually a player who goes "all-in" with resources in order to improve his standings just gets into trouble. He's out of gold and influence so he can't compete on subsequent intrigues (at least 'til his next turn) and he's a natural target for blame.

The Ambassador, however, is immune to candidate blame, so once his standings go up they can only be knocked down by A Friend in Need -- at absolute worst he can get hit with it twice if someone feels it's important enough to use Second Hand Goods to get it back, which should only ever happen if you're clearly winning.

That means that the Ambassador can (and likely should) be played very aggressively. You can afford to overpay slightly when buying credit from someone who won control of an intrigue and you can afford to go all-in yourself, even if that means you're "exposed" for multiple turns.

A side-note to all this is that because the Ambassador can't be kept in check with blame, people will often be slightly inclined to use their "take that" cards on the Ambassador, particularly if he's doing well. Aggressively spending your resources helps prevent that by making you immune to wealth punishers and a less appealing target for cards that attack your hand.

True to my strategy I voted zero on Justin's first intrigue (I doubted I could win if I went all-in) but made a generous offer for some of the standing.

On Jesse's first turn he made a personality-based error and used Big Jerk, Little Jerk on Harold. Harold is all about the payback, so even though Jesse just took an Influence card from him I knew he was likely to incur Harold's wrath. Meanwhile we had an unusual situation with Arianna taking clear lead among the candidates and every player achieving high standing (4 or 5) with her, making it likely that the game would come down to tiebreaks.

On one of Harold's turns he finally got his revenge, playing Fortune's Fool on Jesse. It was classic Harold; by far the sounder play would have been to use it on himself as it was his last card, but he made Jesse dump a pretty full hand and draw two unknown cards.

This left me with a window for victory. I collected my patronage and played Holier than Thou on Arianna (and Archie, of course). Harold was out of cards as was Justin, while Jesse just had the new ones he'd drawn, and I was high enough on resources to win the vote and still be ahead on tiebreaks unless Jesse's draw had been high-influence.

It was not to be. Jesse's calm reaction to my play gave me a hint of what was coming and I could only nod and smile when he played Enough of You to cancel my vote. None of them had any influence cards but Justin's Squire ability let him vote Fail 2 which was enough to prevent the game from ending and to let him catch up to us at 5 with Arianna and to gain standing with Archie!

A few turns later, with the game still very much in doubt (Harold was the only one who could really be considered a longshot to win), dinner was served. Family activities, followed by my 4-month-old waking up from her nap kept us from completing the game.

Thread: Re: Rules?

Chad_Ellis — 2006-09-15T19:57:56+00:00

Yes, we're working on a major website upgrade and the rules will be available for download in PDF form.

Sorry to have missed this question for a while.

Best,
Chad

Thread: Rules?

ekted — 2006-09-03T14:16:44+00:00

Are the rules going to be available at any point?

Thread: Re: Great Concept, Demanding Game

Chad_Ellis — 2006-05-04T20:57:23+00:00

Thanks for the review. I think you really nailed it on Succession being group-dependent. That's definitely been one of my biggest learning experiences as a game designer. In any case, I'm glad you had fun!

Best,
Chad

Thread: Re: Great Concept, Demanding Game

Timotheous — 2006-05-03T22:42:44+00:00

It's certainly a game I'd like to play again. Perhaps I played with the "wrong" group (for some definition of wrong), but the biggest problem I had was lack of cards. With 5 players and 4 cards in your hand, there's just not enough to go around, it felt. Maybe I should try with fewer people.

Thread: Great Concept, Demanding Game

ynnen — 2006-05-03T17:24:21+00:00

OVERVIEW: Succession: Intrigue in the Royal Court, is a no-holds barred game of bluffing, negotiation, bribery and bidding by Chad Ellis and Robert Dougherty of Your Move Games. It's designed for 3-5 and is listed at 90 minutes game time.

Your Move Games really crammed a lot into the box, providing a very good value for the price point (about $25 US online). Overall, I love the game from a conceptual standpoint, and while the mechanics support the concept quite well, Succession ends up being a bit long for what it is, and is highly group dependent -- you simply can't afford to play this with folks who refuse to "leave it at the table" after a game of duplicity, backstabbing and deal-breaking. That said, if your group enjoys power brokering and diplomacy, Succession offers a top notch free-wheeling and clever gaming experience.

THEME: The aging king must choose the successor for the throne. In a humorous twist, that ain't you. Nope. You're not important enough to be king. But you are important enough to influence who will become king. Ah, and that's where the game lodges the players.

You are not one of the candidates looking to become the king. Instead, you are a sycophant or stod trying to ride the coattails of whoever ends up being crowned the king. Through spreading rumors, manipulating opinion and taking credit for other people's efforts, you are trying to convince the candidate who eventually is crowned the king that you're responsible for their rise to glory. Or at the very least, that the other players were trying to sink them and never liked them anyway.

COMPONENTS: The Succession components and bits are top notch. The box is colorful, has a nice heft, and is sturdy. Inside, you'll find a full-color rulebook with lots of art and examples, a large main game board, five separate player boards (one for each player), a deck of full color, sturdy cards, a bunch of cardboard counters to track various information through the game, and finally some paper and pencils.

The components feature appropriately silly/outlandish cartoonery by noted illustrator Phil Foglio, and certainly goes a long way toward evoking the theme established by the rulebook and the mechanics. The individual player boards are each 8.5" x 11" -- requiring a bit of room at the table. At first I thought they could have been made much smaller to manage space better, but after a few games realized they're necessarily large so you can easily gauge other player's progress and status w/o making it too obvious!

My only complaint with the otherwise excellent components are with the cardboard counters. The counters are thick and feature coated full-color art on one side, but are untreated/printed cardboard on the back. Aside from making sorting the 110+ chips a pain after each game as they get flipped over (despite the nice insert), the real problem is with peeling. I don't know if it's the cardboard compression or the tooling, but as I popped the pieces out of the sprue, a good quarter of the pieces started to peel and pull away from the printed side.

GAMEPLAY: The core mechanics and gameflow for Succession is actually pretty straightforward. The rules are simple, leaving it up to the players to add depth and nuance via their diplomacy and negotiations.

The Basics: The core concept is that there are five Candidates vying for the throne. Over the course of the game, players will gain or lose Standing with the candidates. Standing is the measure of how much the candidate trusts you or feels you're responsible for his position -- the higher the better. Throughout the game, different Intrigues will come into play which can affect a Candidate's status with the king, either drawing him closer in line for succession, or pushing him further away. Any time this happens (or even might happen) the Candidates will Credit some players for helping them get closer to the throne, or Blame players with foiling their plans and hurting their image.

The Characters: Each player will assume the role of a different court suck-up, each with a different ability and different initial standing with the five candidates. The relative power and value of the player characters can change a lot depending on the number of players and even the seating order. The five player characters are:

The Squire: Gets a 2 vote "credit" for every vote cast, essentially giving up two free votes every time he votes.

The Taxman: Earns 3 extra gold at the beginning of the game, and at the start of his turn.

The Royalist: May spend 3 gold any time she gains standing to gain one additional point of standing with a candidate.

The Wizard: May spend 3 gold to purchase an extra card on his turn.

The Ambassador: Never takes "blame" for something that goes wrong during an intrigue (and that's a big thing).

The Ambassador clearly seems the most powerful character in each of the games I've played, though that can be compensated for by throwing additional skulduggery, backstabbing and menace his way. The Wizard and Taxman are clearly the weakest, in my opinion, as they only gain a benefit on their turn. A recent 5 player game only lasted 8 turns, meaning the Wizard and Taxman (who went last in the turn order) only got to use their ability ONCE for the whole game. It's quite likely the other abilities came into play far more often.

The Candidates: Adding another wrinkle to the whole thing is that each of the five candidates start out with different initial claims to the throne, and each candidate has a special power. I've listed each candidate's starting position in parentheses as (X/10) showing how far toward the 10th spot (which ends the game and crowns the new king).

Sir Galahad: (3/10). Any vote that would hurt his standing automatically has 5 phantom votes cast against it, while any vote that would increase his standing has 5 phantom votes for it.

Ulysses: (7/10) The king's son is a screw-up. He can never gain more than 1 standing at a time, and whenever he loses standing, he loses 1 additional space.

Arianna: (1/10) The king's daughter won't be overlooked for long. She never loses more than 1 standing from a bad event, and whenever she gains standing, she gains 1 additional space.

The Arch-Bishop: (2/10) His standing never goes down from intrigues (only events) meaning he has a slow, but fairly steady climb upward.

Venetia: (2/10) The merchant is trying to buy her way to the throne. Whenever someone gains credit for Venetia gaining standing, she pays them 3 gold.

Playing the Game: Each turn is comprised of only three parts - Drawing a card, Earning patronage and the Main Phase.

Players get to draw a single card from the deck, or have the option of skipping their Patronage and Main phase to discard down to zero and draw back a full hand of four cards. The cards feature all manner of crazy events, voting power and Intrigues. During the Patronage phase, players earn money based on their standings with the different candidates. The more ingratiated you are with a candidate, the more money they throw your way for helping them out. Each candidate pays out a bit differently, too (being on Ulysses or Venetia's good side is more lucrative than being the Bishop's lap dog).

Cards and money are important, as they help drive the action in the Main Phase, which is were Succession really happens. A player can play different odd events to much with the game (such as steal cards from another player or choose a candidate to gain standing, etc), but the real deal is the Intrigue cards. Each intrigue card is a special situation which can modify candidate's standings on the board. The person playing the intrigue will often have several options on which candidates to affect, and whether they gain or lose standing.

After this has been determined, players secretly write down their vots YES (to let the intrigue pass) or NO (to prevent the intrigue from taking effect). The votes are then revealed and changes to standing take place. Any candidates who gained or WOULD HAVE GAINED standing from the intrigue will credit one of the players with their success. Any candidates who lost or WOULD HAVE LOST standing will assign blame. The one player who made the greatest total vote (usually paid in Vote cards and gold) gets to assign the Credit and the Blame, regardless of how he voted -- he's the spin doctor for that intrigue.

Once any one of the candidates reaches the 10th spot on the succession track, the game ends. The player who is in that candidates good graces (ie, the highest standing with that candidate) wins the game.

BUT IT'S NOT THAT SIMPLE: Ah, if that were all there were to it, Succession would be a fairly light game of mathemathical manipulation. But it's a game of player manipulation. The biggest hurdle for players to overcome to get the most out of the game is to realize that EVERYTHING is up for negotiation. It's stated early in the rules that players can exchange cards, cash and promises to get things their way. But not just for votes. Here are a few examples:

Example 1: I am about to play an intrigue that allows me to improve one candidate 1 standing and knock another candidate down 1 standing. I announce that I'm about to play the card, and will entertain offers on who should benefit. I may state that I'll let Arianna go up +1 if a player gives me 2 cards or 5 gold. And I'll target the candidate of their choice to lose standing to the first player to give me 3 gold. Player C offers 6 gold if I give the +1 bonus to Ulysses instead, which I say I'll accept unless Player D matches the offer.

Example 2: I really want this to pass. I agree to give each player who votes Yes with at least 2 votes, but no more than 5 votes, 1 gold. I don't want them to bid too much, otherwise I won't get to control the spin. Since it's not a promise I can keep at the moment I make the deal, I don't necessarily have to uphold my end of the bargain. However, I see the resolution passes and only 1 person voted within my parameters, so I decide to give him the 1 gold.

Example 3: After the intrigue and voting above, I find myself in position to hand out credit and blame. Someone will gain Credit (+1 standing) with Arianna, and someone will take Blame (-1 Standing) with Ulysses. I could just take the credit myself, but want to extract some money. I offer the Credit to the highest bidder, but if the bid doesn't come to at least 5 gold, that person will also take the blame. Player B offers me 1 card to simply ignore him regarding the blame. I accept, and now state I'll accept similar bribes -- the last player to give me 2 gold or a bribe will get blamed. But the credit is still up for grabs. Thinking I've earned enough from the Blame bribes, I decide to screw 'em all and keep the Credit for myself after all.

RANDOM COMMENTS:

- It's neat that each player and candidate has a unique starting positions and power, but it can make things more difficult to track. Often we'd find ourselves in the middle of negotiation, only to realize we had misjudged the effect of a particular intrigue, etc.

- Succession demands A LOT of its players. Since everything is open for negotiation, the haggling quickly overshadows other elements of the game. After all, the haggling is the game. However, the haggling can take a long time -- some sort of time limit should be imposed.

- Turn order can really screw the last player in a five player game. You need to be tentative with your involvement early on, as you only have 4 cards and 7-10 gold to hold you over until your next turn. If you're last in the order, you may not have much impact on the outcome of votes early on, lest you leave yourself exposed and unable to participate.

- It feels like a game of surges. On your turn, you're flush with voting power -- you just drew a card and earned your cash. If everyone else is mostly tapped out, you can usually "get away with" whatever your intrigue plans are for the turn.

- The event cards vary in power and utility a great deal. It feels a bit like old school Games Workshop effects, as found in Talisman, Blood Bowl (via the original handicap system) or Dungeon Quest. Some are incredibly potent and powerful all the time, some are marginally useful. With so few cards being drawn (4 to start + 1 per turn, for somewhere between 5-8 cards/person per game) this can make for some lopsided hand strengths. In a shorter game, this isn't a problem. But to have a 90-120 minute game determined by an incredibly powerful card draw late in the game can be disappointing.

- Throw the game timeframe of 90 minutes right out the window. If folks really get into the negotiation element, the game can either fly by or grind to a halt. I hesitate to say there would even be an "average" as the game length and level of interaction is completely in the players' hands. The first game I played took just about an hour. The last game we called after two hours -- it started to get a little long in the tooth.

- There are almost too many opportunities to hurt candidates. Since the 10th spot on the Succession chart is the main time clock (although if you go through the entire deck, the game also ends), you'll invariably find folks pulling close candidates back to prevent someone else from winning. So while the candidates make slow progress up the chart, leaders are quickly pulled back to the rest of the pack, further lengthening the game.

- While negotiation is a big part of the game, luck is pretty significant with the card draws. Some cards are clearly better than others (an 8 vote card is always better than a 5 vote card, etc). If you draw a weak hand, your options are limited.

- I can't see discarding your entire hand to draw four new cards to be a viable option except in some really bizarre circumstances. Since you don't get any cash that turn, you're giving up the option to play cards and a lot of voting/negotiation ammunition. But it's nice to have the option if you've been hammered mercilessly (to the point that patronage would earn no cash).

YOU MIGHT LIKE SUCCESSION IF YOU LIKE: Basari, Cash & Guns, Cosmic Encounter, Dragon's Gold, Fantasy Business, Illuminati, Junta, Mall of Horror, Munchkin

THE BOTTOM LINE: 7/10 -- I really dig the concept and implementation of the game. Great production qualilty (except the peeling cardboard coins). Clever interplay of mechanics and concepts. Everything is for sale -- how you play or apply a card, how you cast your votes, who you assign blame to... everything can be manipulated for a price or the right favor. You need to carefully balance your position so you don't peak too soon and appear that you're doing too well, or you'll get crushed. A lot more nuance and subtlety than I think most people will give it credit for.

Arbitrary and ruthless player targeting is a big part of the game -- so be warned. Grumpy players who hold grudges shouldn't play. Has some of the wheeling/dealing and evokes a slight Cosmic Encounter vibe with me (a good thing). It's certainly not for everyone due to the negotiations and backstabbing, but with the right crowd, Succession should be a smash hit.

Thread: SUCCESSION: INTRIGUE IN THE ROYAL COURT -- REVIEW

gschloesser — 2006-03-13T15:23:00+00:00

Designers: Robert Dougherty and Chad Ellis
Publisher: Your Move Games
3 – 5 Players, 1 – 2 hours
Review by: Greg J. Schloesser

I frankly don’t know much about Your Move Games, but was happy to have the opportunity to play and review a couple of their games. The two that I received – Succession and Space Station Assault – both appeared intriguing, and I was immediately impressed by their professional appearance and components. That’s a good start!

Succession follows a similar storyline as King Me, a Mayfair / DaVinci games title. The aging king realizes that his time on this earth is approaching its end, so he is seeking a successor. Five major candidates are in contention for the throne, and it is the player’s job to make sure they have the most influence over the candidate who ultimately rises to the throne.

Each player assumes the role of a character in the fantasy kingdom, each of whom has a special power which can assist him in his quest to be the “power behind the throne”. This power is depicted on an extremely large player mat, which also depicts a drawing of the character and five tracks which record the influence the player has in each of the five candidates.

The center “candidate” board depicts tracks for the five candidates, each numbered 1 – 10. If any of the candidates reaches the goal of “10”, he/she ascends to the throne and the player with the most influence on that candidate emerges victorious. Candidates each begin at a specified location on their respective track, with some being closer to the throne than others. However, each candidate also has a special characteristic that can affect his progress towards becoming king. For example, Ulysses – the king’s son – begins at level ‘7’ on his track, just three short spaces away from the throne. However, his nickname is “useless”, and he loses two steps on the intrigue track each time he drops a space. So, he can plummet fast. Arianna, on the other hand, is the king’s daughter, and as such, can generally do no wrong in his eyes. Whenever she gains in standing, she increases by two levels. Further, she can never drop more than one level as the result of an intrigue. Her drawback? She begins at the lowest possible level – the “1” space – on the ascension track. It seems the king has a difficult time envisioning his “little girl” as leader of the kingdom!

The driving force of the game is card play. The deck consists of three main types of cards: events, influence and intrigue.

Event cards: These are used to enact the specified action listed on the card. A player may play as many of these as he desired on his turn.

Influence cards: These depict a numerical value ranging from 4 – 9 and are used when casting a vote during an intrigue.

Intrigue cards: These cards represent “rumors, scandals, and good reports”, and are used to call a vote which will affect one or more candidates either favorably or unfavorably. In addition to flavor text, each card will also list the card’s effects, provided it is approved by the players. Generally, this has the effect of increasing or decreasing one more candidates standing on the Ascension track. Each intrigue card also has an “influence” value, so it can be used in the course of a vote instead of being played as an intrigue card. Further, some intrigue cards indicate that money cannot be used during the subsequent vote, while others double the value of money used as votes.

Whereas money management is critical in many games, card management is essential here. Players begin the game with four cards, but usually only draw one new card each turn. Thus, if a player expends numerous cards during the course of his own turn and during the cycle of elections, he will soon find himself depleted of cards. Conservation is a key concept, and deciding when to play the cards and which elections to influence are critical decisions.

While card play is the driving force, negotiation and deal-making is the game’s heart and spirit. A flurry of offers and deals are discussed during the prior to and immediately after the intrigue votes. Players will attempt to make deals when a vote is pending, hoping to buy or sell their votes for various considerations. After the vote players will again attempt to make deals to convince the player who has the privilege of assigning credit or blame to assist or hinder certain characters. Money, cards, future considerations – all are currency in the negotiation process. While the negotiation process is very open-ended and fluid, it can also be time consuming and cause the game to bog down. Indeed, this is the game’s biggest stumbling block, as the constant series of negotiations grow wearisome.

On a player’s turn, he follows the following sequence of play:

Draw. The player may either draw one card and continue his turn, or discard his entire hand of cards and draw four new cards. If he chooses the latter option, his turn ends immediately after drawing his four new cards and he takes no further actions. This is harsh, but is sometimes necessary if a player has only one or two cards … or none at all … or if the cards he does possess are not advantageous.

Patronage. Each player collects income based on their influence in the various candidates. This amount increases as their influence with the various candidates increases, and is clearly listed on their player mats.

Main. Card play. Players may play, in any order, as many event cards as they desire, and one intrigue card. Event cards may be played both before and after an intrigue card is played, but generally not during. Some cards require the expenditure of money in order to be played.

Once an intrigue card is played, players will then vote on whether the effects of the intrigue card should take effect. Prior to actually recording their votes, however, players are free to negotiate and make deals in order to swing the vote in the direction they desire, and target the candidates who will be affected by the card’s effects. At some point, players will actually vote. This is done by each player recording on paper whether they are in favor or opposed to the motion, as well as how many votes they are casting. Influence cards, intrigue cards and money can be used for votes, but since there can be as many as five votes per round, players must expend these resources wisely.

If an intrigue vote results in its passage, the effects are enacted. Usually, this means the player who initiated the vote gets to increase or decrease the standing of one or more candidates. The candidates who are affected must be determined prior to the actual voting.

Once the appropriate candidates standing on the Ascension chart are adjusted, those candidates who were affected are going to give credit … or blame … to someone! For each candidate affected, the player who cast the most votes in the election gets to decide which character will gain or lose standing in that candidate’s eyes. This will generally result in yet another round of negotiating and offers, as players attempt to gain credit and/or avoid blame. After offers are accepted, the controlling player then assigns credit and/or blame to the players whose offers he accepted.

An example is in order. Let’s say the “You’re my Hero!” intrigue has been played and the subsequent vote has resulted in its passage. The player who played the card will then get to increase one candidate’s standing by two levels, and decrease another candidate’s standing by one level. Which candidates are affected will have been determined prior to the actual vote, and, of course, would have resulted in intense negotiations and usually the exchange of considerable wealth and perhaps cards.

Continuing our example, let’s say that Archie the Bishop increased in standing by two levels, while Galahad the Worthy Knight decreased by two levels. The player who cast the most votes – whether or not he was on the “winning” side – will get to assign credit for Archie, and blame for Galahad. This, of course, will generally result in that player being able to extort handsome offers from the other players, who are eager to gain influence in Archie, and hopeful to avoid a decrease of influence in Galahad. The offers and counter-offers are made, until the controlling player accepts the ones he desires. At this point, one player is allowed to increase one level of standing on the Archie track on his player mat. A less fortunate player loses one level on the Galahad track on his player mat.

Once a player has played all of the event cards and/or one intrigue card he desires, play then passes to the player on his left, who repeats the same turn sequence. This cycle continues over and over again until one candidate reaches the “10” space on the Ascension track, or until the deck of card is depleted.

If the game ends with a candidate reaching the “10” space, the player who has the most influence in that candidate is victorious. Ties are broken in favor of the player who has the most voting power remaining (influence, influence and money).

If the game ends with the card deck depleting, than the candidate who is closest to the throne is named king. The winner, as above, is the player who has the most influence in that candidate.

It is fairly well known that I tend to enjoy deal-making and negotiation games. As such, I am pre-disposed to enjoy Succession. And, to a degree, I do. The relatively open-ended nature of the negotiations provides room for clever negotiation tactics and creative offers.
This deal-making process is intriguing and fun … up to a point. The problem is that it is SO open-ended that they can go on and on and on. I couldn’t locate a target time listed on the game box, but the games in which I’ve been involved have all lasted 2 hours or more, which is FAR too long. The “twice-per-player turn” negotiation process grows tiresome, and most folks are ready to abandon the game at about the 1 ½ hour point. It is the same feeling I get whenever I play Traders of Genoa. It simply contains too many negotiations.

Fortunately, the designer, Chad Ellis, has recognized that this could be problematic, so the first variant suggests using a timer for negotiations. Although I generally do not enjoy using timers in a game as I feel they give the process a “rushed” feeling, there are a few games in which they are useful and appropriate. Diplomacy, Machiavelli and Advanced Civilization are three such games. Perhaps this is another one.

The concepts here are interesting, and the free-wheeling negotiations can be amusing. In addition to the negotiations and deal making, there are many decisions to be made in terms of candidates to back, cards to play, money management, and more. There is also opportunity for clever plays and maneuvers by properly timing the use of the cards you possess. Sadly, this all comes crumbling down due to the sameness of each turn, and the constant repetitiveness of the negotiations and deal-making. It is simply TOO much of a good thing. If the negotiations could be controlled with a time limit without adding too much of a “rushed” atmosphere, the overall experience will likely be far greater. I’m just not willing to give the game any further play time.

Thread: Re: First games... finally!

Jedit — 2006-03-02T21:53:25+00:00

Yeah, it was fun ... but I realised after the fact that we'd only been assigning credit and blame for successful intrigues.

BTW, I tried sending this to you as an Evil Army report but got a bounce. Can you PM me your current addy?

Thread: Re: First games... finally!

Chad_Ellis — 2006-03-01T16:23:06+00:00

Sounds like a great couple of games! I need to make time to play Succession again. We're so busy developing Battleground here that I haven't played my own creation for months!

Thread: First games... finally!

Jedit — 2006-03-01T12:25:09+00:00

Well, after almost a year of cajoling I finally got those bastards I game with to try out Succession. Players were myself, Leivur Langgaard, Bogi Hojgaard and Runi Joenssen.

First game I was Squire, Leivur was Ambassador, Bogi was Wizard and Runi was Royalist. Things unfortunately did not fall Runi's way and he was rapidly reduced to an income of 1 per turn. He was able to offset this with a lucky draw that put him back in the good graces of a couple of candidates, but he was never able to recover. Leivur brokered deals to take the blame on one or two occasions, but nobody used the strategy of charging other players money to *give* him the blame.

The game ended about two-thirds of the way through the deck when I was able to use A Friend in Need to discredit everyone else with Arianna and take advantage of them having paupered themselves the turn before to try and stop Leivur winning. I took my income and with the aid of an Influence card was able to push Arianna to 10 with an Intrigue.

Having spent so long listening to them going "Yeah, maybe... but can't we play Betrayal at House on the Hill again?" every time I suggested playing Succession, they of course thought it was great and wanted to play again.

In the second game I was Ambassador, Bogi was Squire, Runi was Wizard and Leivur was Royalist. This was a much more interesting game for two reasons. Ffirst, we drew nearly all the Intrigues that improve a candidate's standing in the first half of the game and the ones that decrease it in the second half. Second, Runi used the Wizard's card drawing power to ruthless effect and with the aid of a few lucky draws managed to net himself an income of 21 per turn by the second time around the table.

A certain amount of the game was spent with the three of us trying to stop Runi pushing a candidate to 10, while simultaneously pumping our own standings. Bogi was selling the Squire's innate 2-bid to Runi for 1 gold, which didn't help; meanwhile, Leivur was getting in deep with Archie.

The game was finally decided by the last card of the deck, which was drawn by Bogi. The card itself was irrelevant - but if there'd been one more card, Runi would have got an additional turn and 17 gold and the outcome would not have been in doubt. As it was, Bogi was the only player who couldn't win. Runi had 13 gold, I had 11, Leivur had 5, but Bogi had 16 after income. Venetia, Arianna and Arianna all had 8 standing; Galahad had 7, but nobody had an Intrigue left that could boost standing except Runi and since Bogi was both richer and on better standing with Galahd he wouldn't have played it if he could. I had the highest standing with Venetia thanks to a timely Friend in Need (that card really is very swingy), Runi and Leivur were tied for standing with Archie, but Leivur was ahead in standing with Arianna. This made Bogi kingmaker; on the basis of money, he could back anyone to victory in the vote-off. He could also essentially give me the win by passing his turn; Runi couldn't buy Archie the candidacy without spending himself below Leivur and losing that way.

Instead, Bogi played an Intrigue that would knock Venetia down to 7 standing. I had to oppose this or lose, but if I did oppose it it would cost so much money that I couldn't win anyway. I voted Fail 0, thinking I was done regardless because Runi could support the Intrigue with enough left over to beat Leivur out for the candidacy vote. However, Bogi had played the Intrigue with the intention of drawing Runi's money out and had in fact thrown everything into a Fail vote. Runi could have won had he played less cautiously or if I had tried to defend my position, but because he'd only put in enough to ensure the Intrigue would succeed even if both Leivur and I put in everything he lost it. I was left with just enough money to outbid the pair of them combined and make Venetia the candidate.

Thread: King: Archie, Winner: Wizard.

beri — 2005-12-09T10:45:37+00:00

Tonight was an interesting game of Succession.

Vince - Taxman.
Erik - Royalist.
Barry (me) - Wizard.

The Taxman has been quite powerful in previous 3-player games, so Vince picked that right off the bat. I chose the Wizard, to try a different strategy.

I sat back, avoided playing the political game, and just used the Wizard's power to get a massive hand of cards. I paid very little attention to the standings. My goal each round was to look at my cards, and ask myself, 'can I win this round?' If not, I just performed minor actions and let the Taxman take his turn.

Finally, it looked like I was in a bad position. I was low on the standings all around. I had cards in my hand that could boost me up to 5 with Arianna or Venetia, but the Taxman already had those two at 5, and I didn't have the gold to outvote him when it came down to the tiebreaker. We played until there was one card left in the deck...that's when I saw my opening.

First: Good Graces, to gain one standing with Venetia.
Second: Good Graces, to gain one standing with Archie. (I was now the highest with Archie.)
Third: I played an intrigue which caused Archie to gain 2. Everyone thought I was foolish when I put all my resources into this vote, all my gold, leftover cards, and even used Enough of You on one player. I voted Pass 29, I think, and they voted Pass 0 and Fail 0.

Then I played Fortune's Fool on Erik. He discarded his hand and drew two new cards...or rather, he drew the last card in the deck. When the last card is drawn, the game ends at the end of the current player's turn. It was a nasty, evil move, but it resulted in the Wizard having the highest influence with Archie, Archie having the highest influence with the king, and me coming out of nowhere to win the game.

Crazy. It does prove that there's more than one strategy to this game - my idea of drawing cards and trying to rush the end of the game ended up working, but it wouldn't rely on it.

Thread: Re: Session Report

Chad_Ellis — 2005-11-02T14:14:28+00:00

beri wrote:
How in the world did you empty the deck in six turns?

Also, I don't understand your clarification on Venetia. When would she be giving credit without moving up? Are you saying she gives money for events, as well as intrigues?

Credit and blame are assigned regardless of whether an intrigue passes or fails. Thus, Venetia could be assigned to gain standing with the king, not gain standing because the intrigue failed and then still give out credit and money to whichever player receives the credit.

Thread: Re: Session Report

beri — 2005-10-24T00:42:03+00:00

How in the world did you empty the deck in six turns?

Also, I don't understand your clarification on Venetia. When would she be giving credit without moving up? Are you saying she gives money for events, as well as intrigues?

Thread: Re:User Review

DocStout — 2005-04-23T20:12:29+00:00

Alexfrog wrote:
Great review as usual.

One thing:

TomVasel wrote:
Archie can never lose favor from intrigues but can from events, and thus never assigns blame

I learned this differently, where if we was chosen to lose favor then he assigns blame, but he just doesnt move down.

Can anyone confirm which way is correct?

The rules specifically state that Archie never assigns blame. I guess he lives by "Judge not, lest ye be judged."

Thread: Re:User Review

Alexfrog — 2005-04-15T21:12:11+00:00

Great review as usual.

One thing:

TomVasel wrote:
Archie can never lose favor from intrigues but can from events, and thus never assigns blame

I learned this differently, where if we was chosen to lose favor then he assigns blame, but he just doesnt move down.

Can anyone confirm which way is correct?

Thread: Re:Session Report

Chad_Ellis — 2004-11-04T14:13:33+00:00

dotburn wrote:
One contrasting comment to component quality for our game was that some of the cardboard chits separated from the cardstock into three layers requiring some glue repairs. The player mats also suffered from warpage out of the box. The artwark on the chits is very appealing.

Hi dotburn. I'm sorry you got a bad copy of the game. Please let me know which boards/chips are bad and I'll send you replacements. (I pm'd you details.)

Best regards,
Chad (Designer/publisher of Succession)

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2004-11-03T17:27:24+00:00

I frankly don’t know much about Your Move Games, but was happy to have the opportunity to play and review a couple of their games. The two that I received – Succession and Space Station Assault – both appeared intriguing, and I was immediately impressed by their professional appearance and components. That’s a good start!

Succession follows a similar storyline as King Me, a Mayfair / DaVinci games title. The aging king realizes that his time on this earth is approaching its end, so he is seeking a successor. Five major candidates are in contention for the throne, and it is the player’s job to make sure they have the most influence over the candidate who ultimately rises to the throne.

Each player assumes the role of a character in the fantasy kingdom, each of whom has a special power which can assist him in his quest to be the “power behind the throne”. This power is depicted on an extremely large player mat, which also depicts a drawing of the character and five tracks which record the influence the player has in each of the five candidates.

The center “candidate” board depicts tracks for the five candidates, each numbered 1 – 10. If any of the candidates reaches the goal of “10”, he/she ascends to the throne and the player with the most influence on that candidate emerges victorious. Candidates each begin at a specified location on their respective track, with some being closer to the throne than others. However, each candidate also has a special characteristic that can affect his progress towards becoming king. For example, Ulysses – the king’s son – begins at level ‘7’ on his track, just three short spaces away from the throne. However, his nickname is “useless”, and he loses two steps on the intrigue track each time he drops a space. So, he can plummet fast. Arianna, on the other hand, is the king’s daughter, and as such, can generally do no wrong in his eyes. Whenever she gains in standing, she increases by two levels. Further, she can never drop more than one level as the result of an intrigue. Her drawback? She begins at the lowest possible level – the “1” space – on the ascension track.

The driving force of the game is card play. The deck consists of three main types of cards: events, influence and intrigue.

Event cards: These are used to enact the specified action listed on the card. A player may play as many of these as he desired on his turn.

Influence cards: These depict a numerical value ranging from 4 – 9 and are used when casting a vote during an intrigue.

Intrigue cards: These cards represent “rumors, scandals, and good reports”, and are used to call a vote which will affect one or more candidates either favorably or unfavorably. In addition to flavor text, each card will also list the card’s effects, provided it is approved by the players. Generally, this has the effect of increasing or decreasing one more candidates standing on the Ascension track. Each intrigue card also has an “influence” value, so it can be used in the course of a vote instead of being played as an intrigue card. Further, some intrigue cards indicate that money cannot be used during the subsequent vote, while others double the value of money used as votes.

Whereas money management is critical in many games, card management is essential here. Players begin the game with four cards, but usually only draw one new card each turn. Thus, if a player expends numerous cards during the course of his own turn and during the cycle of elections, he will soon find himself depleted of cards. Conservation is a key concept, and deciding when to play the cards and which elections to influence are critical decisions.

While card play is the driving force, negotiation and deal-making is the game’s heart and spirit. A flurry of offers and deals are discussed during the prior to and immediately after the intrigue votes. Players will attempt to make deals when a vote is pending, hoping to buy or sell their votes for various considerations. After the vote players will again attempt to make deals to convince the player who has the privilege of assigning credit or blame to assist or hinder certain characters. Money, cards, future considerations – all are currency in the negotiation process. While the negotiation process is very open-ended and fluid, it can also be time consuming and cause the game to bog down.

On a player’s turn, he follows the following sequence of play:

Draw. The player may either draw one card and continue his turn, or discard his entire hand of cards and draw four new cards. If he chooses the latter option, his turn ends immediately after drawing his four new cards and he takes no further actions. This is harsh, but is sometimes necessary if a player has only one or two cards … or none at all or if the cards he does possess are not advantageous.

Patronage. Each player collects income based on their influence in the various candidates. This amount increases as their influence with the various candidates increases, and is clearly listed on their player mats.

Main. Card play. Players may play, in any order, as many event cards as they desire, and one intrigue card. Event cards may be played both before and after an intrigue card is played, but generally not during. Some cards require the expenditure of money in order to be played.

Once an intrigue card is played, players will then vote on whether the effects of the intrigue card should take effect. Prior to actually recording their votes, however, players are free to negotiate and make deals in order to swing the vote in the direction they desire, and target the candidates who will be affected by the card’s effects. At some point, players will actually vote. This is done by each player recording on paper whether they are in favor or opposed to the motion, as well as how many votes they are casting. Influence cards, intrigue cards and money can be used for votes, but since there can be as many as five votes per round, players must expend these resources wisely.

If an intrigue vote results in its passage, the effects are enacted. Usually, this means the player who initiated the vote gets to increase or decrease the standing of one or more candidates. The candidates who are affected must be determined prior to the actual voting.

Once the appropriate candidates standing on the Ascension chart are adjusted, those candidates who were affected are going to give credit … or blame … to someone! For each candidate affected, the player who cast the most votes in the election gets to decide which character will gain or lose standing in that candidate’s eyes. This will generally result in yet another round of negotiating and offers, as players attempt to gain credit and/or avoid blame. After offers are accepted, the controlling player then assigns credit and/or blame to the players whose offers he accepted.

An example is in order. Let’s say the “You’re my Hero!” intrigue has been played and the subsequent vote has resulted in its passage. The player who played the card will then get to increase one candidate’s standing by two levels, and decrease another candidate’s standing by one level. Which candidates are affected will have been determined prior to the actual vote, and, of course, would have resulted in intense negotiations and usually the exchange of considerable wealth and perhaps cards.

Continuing our example, let’s say that Archie the Bishop increased in standing by two levels, while Galahad the Worthy Knight decreased by two levels. The player who cast the most votes – whether or not he was on the “winning” side – will get to assign credit for Archie, and blame for Galahad. This, of course, will generally result in that player being able to extort handsome offers from the other players, who are eager to gain influence in Archie, and hopeful to avoid a decrease of influence in Galahad. The offers and counter-offers are made, until the controlling player accepts the ones he desires. At this point, one player is allowed to increase one level of standing on the Archie track on his player mat. A less fortunate player loses one level on the Galahad track on his player mat.

Once a player has played all of the event cards and/or one intrigue card he desires, play then passes to the player on his left, who repeats the same turn sequence. This cycle continues until one candidate reaches the “10” space on the Ascension track, or until the deck of card is depleted.

If the game ends with a candidate reaching the “10” space, the player who has the most influence in that candidate is victorious. Ties are broken in favor of the player who has the most voting power remaining (influence, influence and money).

If the game ends with the card deck depleting, than the candidate who is closest to the throne is named king. The winner, as above, is the player who has the most influence in that candidate.

It is fairly well known that I tend to enjoy deal-making and negotiation games. As such, I am pre-disposed to enjoy Succession. And, to a degree, I do. The relatively open-ended nature of the negotiations provides room for clever negotiation tactics and creative offers.
This deal-making process is intriguing and fun … up to a point. The problem is that it is SO open-ended that they can go on and on and on. I couldn’t locate a target time listed on the game box, but our game lasted nearly three hours, which is FAR too long. The “twice-per-player turn” negotiation process grew tiresome, and at about the 1 ½ hour point, I was actually ready for the game to end. It is the same feeling I get whenever I play Traders of Genoa. It simply contains too many negotiations.

Fortunately, the designer, Chad Ellis, has recognized that this could be problematic, so the first variant suggests using a timer for negotiations. Although I generally do not enjoy using timers in a game as I feel they give the process a “rushed” feeling, there are a few games in which they are useful and appropriate. Diplomacy, Machiavelli and Advanced Civilization are three such games. Perhaps this is another one.

There is much to like here. In addition to the negotiations and deal making, there are many decisions to be made in terms of candidates to back, cards to play, money management, and more. There is also opportunity for clever plays and maneuvers by properly timing the use of the cards you possess. If the negotiations can be controlled with a time limit, the overall experience will likely be far greater.

Lenny, Keith, Darren, Steve and I vied to gain influence in the five major candidates, and to maneuver our top candidate onto the throne. Lots of ups and downs, as candidates rose on the chart, then fell. Ulysses initially gained another slot to the “8” level, but plummeted quickly thereafter. Eventually, both Galahad and Arianna rose to the “9” spot. Keith went all out for the victory, spending every card and gold piece he possessed, but we combined to out-vote him 36 – 27. Steve had saved 10 gold, but was unable to play an intrigue card.

On my turn, a series of events had to fall perfectly into place. I had quite a bit of money, but no intrigue cards in my hand. I drew one card to begin my turn, but to no avail. I used a Petty Thief event card to steal a card from Darren, which was the ONLY card being held by any player. I was still hoping for an intrigue card, but, alas, it was an event card. To my astonishment and joy, the event card was the Second Hand Goods card, which allowed me to spend two gold and take any card from the discard pile! Of course, I selected a favorable intrigue card, which I used to call a vote. Only Steve possessed any voting power to oppose the motion, but it wasn’t enough, so I prevailed 15 – 12.

I elevated Arianna to the throne and, of course, made sure I received the credit for her ascension. This was enough to gain the victory and become the power behind the throne.

Ratings: Steve 7.5, Keith 7, Greg 6.5, Lenny 6, Darren 6

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2004-11-03T17:27:24+00:00

Thread: Session Report

dotburn — 2004-11-03T17:27:24+00:00

Succession: Intrigue in the Royal Court

We played with 5 players running just over two hours with the taxman beating out the royalist due to the taxman drawing the last four cards gaining enough points to edge out a tie over the kings daughter. This was all of the players first try at the game.

Early on in the game we overspent trying to take control of the blame/credit which left resources very tight for most of the game for everyone but the taxman and the ambassador. Given a lack of resources around the table, it was very advantageous to be the ambassador since you did not need to worry about getting the blame and you are in a good position to accept blame in exchange for favours.

The game was a very tight race at the end where most people seemed to have a chance to win near the end.

One contrasting comment to component quality for our game was that some of the cardboard chits separated from the cardstock into three layers requiring some glue repairs. The player mats also suffered from warpage out of the box. The artwark on the chits is very appealing

Overall I give this game a rating of 7 so far. This may go up over time if multiple plays prove that multiple strategies exist for the same characters. I do not see picking this one up for myself.

Thread: Re:First Playing

Chad_Ellis — 2004-10-28T13:13:53+00:00

SkookumPete wrote:
gschloesser (#62101),

Good summary, Greg. However, you state "Once the appropriate candidates standing on the Ascension chart are adjusted, those candidates who were affected are going to give credit … or blame … to someone!" Credit and blame are assigned regardless of whether candidates are actually affected -- i.e. even if the vote fails.

That was actually a change made during playtesting. Originally my thought was that blame would be assigned regardless, but credit only if a candidate actually gained standing. (It felt more right that way conceptually -- you don't get credit for trying and failing, but if you try to screw me, I'm angry whether you pulled it off or not!)

We made the change because the loss of credit made it almost impossible to go in big against an intrigue, which is an important strategic option. (One tactic I've used if I have the most vote power is to play an intrigue that hurts my favorite candidate and helps the rest and then vote against my own intrigue. This lets me knock down someone else who is high with that candidate but still have valuable credit to auction off (or keep) and avoid an unfortunate change in candidate standings.)

Thread: Re:First Playing

SkookumPete — 2004-10-27T17:45:02+00:00

gschloesser (#62101),

Good summary, Greg. However, you state "Once the appropriate candidates standing on the Ascension chart are adjusted, those candidates who were affected are going to give credit … or blame … to someone!" Credit and blame are assigned regardless of whether candidates are actually affected -- i.e. even if the vote fails.