The Historical Figures in Nicholas II’s Regime

This is the first in a series of InsideGMT articles from Paul Hellyer about his board game Tsar, currently on GMT’s P500.

The human element is a key part of Tsar’s simulation: the historical figures responsible for Russia’s fate during the reign of the last Tsar Nicholas II. The game aims to capture their talents and weaknesses, ambitions, and personalities.

At the center of the game is Nicholas himself. Although he’s not a playable character, you’ll interact with a simulated version of him as you govern the country in his name. Players use Influence Cubes to persuade him to accept their preferred policies, and one player at a time is the Tsar’s “Favorite,” to whom he turns for advice on appointments, scheduling, and routine governance. The game board’s Favor Tracker measures the Tsar’s attitude towards the Favorite and the Tsar Marker that tracks his location has two orientations for his emotional state, with one side showing “♥” and the other “♡.”

Nicholas’ personality gradually reveals itself as you play the game. His reactions are conveyed through the Favor Tracker and Tsar Marker, while the relative Influence cost of different options gives some insight into his policy preferences and openness to persuasion. He’s not the bloodthirsty tyrant that his contemporaries sometimes imagined him to be. Violence and suffering tend to upset him. On the other hand, he’s predisposed to autocracy and resents it when you pressure him to adopt political reforms. But you can pressure him—like the real Nicholas, he’ll often give way to his advisors, for better or worse. Underneath the crown, he was a rather ordinary person who didn’t have many ideas or plans of his own.

So it should be no surprise that the Nicholas in this game is easily distracted and a bit shallow. He often leaves the problems of government behind as he vacations at his hunting lodge at Spala in the fall, at his Crimean palace in the spring, and on his imperial yacht in the summer. His “♡” condition can be cured with a trip to any of these places. And while he’s away, he’ll remain ignorant of certain problems: many Favor penalties are conditional, based on his presence in or absence from the capital. So if you see a lot of Unrest Cards coming up, it might be a good time to send the Tsar away. But you also need him to do certain tasks himself, usually ceremonial in nature, such as making state visits or blessing the troops. The Tsar makes only one trip per round, so you have to handle this worker placement mechanic carefully. In one instance, the Tsar himself will decide to leave the capital: if he’s unhappy with your performance during wartime, he’ll take personal command of the army and his Tsar Marker will become stuck at Stavka (Russian military headquarters). Here we see Nicholas for once going beyond mere ceremonial duties, but as in real life, the results are regrettable: military leadership (as measured by the game’s “Stavka Rating”) immediately plummets, while his absence from the capital destabilizes the government.

Wherever he is, Nicholas tends to be distracted by family matters. His son’s hemophilia becomes a source of anxiety, and members of the wider Romanov family have an upsetting tendency to marry unsuitable partners against his wishes. He’s very fond of his unpopular wife the Tsaritsa and blind to her faults. Her meddling in government affairs can create openings for the players, but the regime’s reputation suffers for it.

Unlike the Tsar, the Tsaritsa (Alexandra) is represented by a Character Card, which brings us to another part of the game. Players control different Factions within the Tsarist regime, and each Faction comes with a set of Character Cards that players can place to gain decision-making authority. Alexandra belongs to the Dynasty Faction. The game board has one Character slot for the Favorite and four Character slots in the “Camarilla”; together, the Characters on the board represent the Tsar’s closest advisers. Through their positions in the Camarilla, Characters earn Influence Cubes for their Factions.

Different Characters have different attributes, reflecting the historical persons they’re based on. One of these attributes is the Character’s “Adviser Rating,” shown in a red circle. The game board tracks the sum of all the Adviser Ratings from Characters on the board, and that “Total Adviser Rating” affects many of the outcomes on cards. When the rating is low, corruption and disasters follow. Alexandra has an Adviser Rating of -1, reflecting her poor judgment. This contrasts with her more popular and wiser mother-in-law the Dowager Tsaritsa, who has a rating of 2.

Why, then, would a player want to put an incompetent Character like Alexandra in a position of power? As in real life, the answer is that you might gain a personal benefit at society’s expense. This is one of the key dynamics that drives the political simulation in Tsar and recreates the same problems with cronyism that bedeviled Nicholas’ autocratic regime. Even in solitaire games, players have strong incentives to promote and protect their own Faction’s Characters and exclude others, whereas the best government would require players to embrace talented Characters from other Factions. And in Alexandra’s case, there are considerations that go beyond Factional affiliation: she also tempts the Favorite with Favor and Influence bonuses, regardless of the Favorite’s Faction. So while she’s especially useful to the Dynasty Player, any player in the Favorite’s position would be tempted to have her on the board. Whether you give in to that temptation or follow a more responsible and cooperative approach is your choice: either strategy comes with its own set of challenges.

Pyotr Stolypin, who served as Russia’s Prime Minister from 1906 to 1911, appears in Tsar as a Character for the Pragmatism Faction and has the distinction of being the most competent Character in the game. His Advisor Rating is 3 and he has an “Office Rating” of ★★. Characters with an Office Rating of ★ or ★★ can be attached to Office Cards, giving their Factions control over certain areas of government like the Ministry of War or Ministry of Industry. Characters with ★★ ratings unlock Office Bonuses (such as a boost to your Stavka Rating), and during card play their ★★ rating sometimes unlocks more desirable options. But other Factions may not appreciate Stolypin’s talents. In 1911, he was assassinated at the Kiev Opera House, and many people suspected that his political rivals within the government had a hand in it. In the game, this incident is recreated through the Plot Against Stolypin Card (Coded Card 65), set in motion when Stolypin is placed on the game board. Through their Influence Cubes, players can decide to halt the conspiracy or let it proceed. His elimination might make way for other players’ Characters, but needless to say, it would be a setback for the stability of the regime.

The competency of most Characters falls between the two extremes of Alexandra and Stolypin. Here we have the Autocracy Character Dmitri Trepov, who has an Office Rating of ★★ and an Adviser Rating of 1. Trepov was Governor-General of St. Petersburg during the 1905 Revolution, and is now remembered for his order to the soldiers to “spare no cartridges and use no blanks.” His approach to managing dissent reveals itself if you attach his Character Card to the Minister of Interior or Minister of Industry Office Cards. For decisions assigned to these ministers, the available options sometimes depend on the Character’s Factional affiliation. For instance, if the Minister of Interior is a Reform Character when crowds of protestors surge towards the Winter Palace, he will order troops to stand down; Trepov or other Autocracy Characters will order the troops to open fire.

Of course, the game would be incomplete without the most infamous member of Nicholas’ entourage: Grigori Rasputin. Although he never held any official position, Rasputin leveraged his connections to the Imperial Family to gain powerful influence over government appointments and policy, and his shameless corruption and scandalous behavior was ruinous to the regime’s reputation. Contemporary observers were mystified as to why the Tsar and Tsaritsa trusted him, but after the revolution, records revealed that the Tsaritsa—and perhaps the Tsar himself—were convinced that Rasputin was the only means of keeping Tsarevich Alexei alive. The Tsar’s only son inherited the gene for hemophilia through his great-grandmother Queen Victoria, and there was almost nothing that doctors of the period could do to help him. But soon, the family noticed dramatic correlations between Rasputin’s interventions and Alexei’s recovery from nearly fatal bleeding episodes. Most likely, Rasputin merely exercised his consummate skill as a charlatan, but the Tsaritsa believed his claims of divine power. In the game, this situation is recreated through the interplay between Rasputin’s Character Card and a Coded Card for the Tsarevich. If the latter is drawn while Rasputin is on the game board, the Tsarevich recovers—otherwise, the Tsarevich dies, which has serious implications for the regime’s future.

Aside from the Tsar, his family, and his entourage, other historical persons make occasional appearances through event cards. These people include foreign royalty and leaders such as the Kaiser, King Edward VII, and the President of France. As prompted by the first card shown below, the player who controls the Foreign Minister can invite the Kaiser for a state visit, which may facilitate the scoring goal of securing Port Arthur for Russia (via Coded Card 20). The Tsar’s enemies also show up. Maxim Gorky, Rosa Luxemburg, Vladimir Lenin, and Joseph Stalin are among the people who will challenge the Tsarist regime. The second card below will cause a humiliating setback for the regime if its Total Adviser Rating isn’t high enough to counter Stalin’s threat.

In the next InsideGMT article in this series, we’ll take a closer look at the historical events in Tsar.

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