This is the fifth in a series of InsideGMT articles from Paul Hellyer about his board game Tsar, currently on GMT’s P500. You can view the previous article here.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at how players make decisions in multiplayer games. In Tsar, all players are part of the same government and play in a semi-cooperative style, with shared resources and overlapping policy goals.There are no player turns and there’s only one hand of cards that all players share, with each card indicating who decides what.
A detailed sequence of play provides structure. Each round is broken out into six phases each with its own alphabetical “Group Code” and a “Phase Card” that guides play during that phase. On the left, you can see the Economics Phase Card with the “B” Group Code; this is the second phase in the game, following the Quarter Setup Phase. The first two steps on this card are merely instructions with no decisions (any player may execute them), and then players play the two Economics Phase Cards in the hand, which vary by season. Those cards have the same “B” Group Code as the Phase Card, and they’re subdivided into Groups B1 and B2, to indicate which one you play first. When the Economics Phase is complete, players reveal the next Phase Card, the “Action Phase” shown above on the right. The Action Phase is the busiest phase of each round, with cards subdivided into Group Codes C!, C1, C2, C3, and C4. Sometimes you’ll have more than one card with the same Group Code. When that happens, one player gets to decide which is resolved first—more on that in a moment.
Although the game has no player turns, you’ll follow a player order whenever a decision involves multiple players. “Player Order” is a defined term that centers on the Character who currently occupies the “Favorite” slot on the game board, which means the Character who’s closest to the Tsar. Like all Character Cards, this one will belong to a particular player Faction. Player Order begins with the player who controls the Favorite and moves clockwise around the table; “Reverse Player Order” begins with the player seated to the Favorite’s right and moves counter-clockwise around the table, ending with the Favorite.
A few cards simply rely on Player Order to guide decision-making. When the War Supplies Coded Card is played during the Russo-Japanese War (Era II), each player has an opportunity to equip troops or squadrons as long as resources are available, with the Favorite having the first opportunity. By contrast, The Tsaritsa Holds a Reception Card operates in Reverse Player Order, to the Favorite’s disadvantage.
The player who controls the Favorite sometimes gets to resolve cards entirely on their own. Tsar uses the Russian word for Favorite: Фаворит, abbreviated as Ф. On cards, Фаворит Decisions are indicated with the “Ф” label. The Livadia Palace Card shown above is one example. The Favorite alone decides whether the Tsar remains near the capital or leaves for a vacation in the Crimea, which means moving the Tsar Marker and restoring it to its ♥ side. Usually, this decision is a minor one in the game, but sometimes the Tsar’s location can make a critical difference to other cards resolved later in the Action Phase. The Favorite also gets to make sequence of play decisions when two or more cards have the same Group Code, and the choice can sometimes be meaningful. Notice that War Supplies and Livadia Palace are both in Group C1 and both use Russia’s limited supply of Transport Points (indicated by the green square icons). If you want to ensure that the Tsar goes to Livadia, you would choose to resolve Livadia Palace first.
Most Фаворит Decisions are minor and routine, often relating to everyday governance or the Tsar’s movements. Weightier Фаворит Decisions usually come with built-in restraints, and the Preferment Phase is a good example of the latter. Its Phase Card is shown on the left. Although certain cards in the Action Phase allow other players to place Characters, most Character placement happens in the Preferment Phase, which is decided by the Favorite alone (there are no cards in the Preferment Phase other than this Phase Card). There’s one restraint here that’s obvious and another that’s more subtle. The first is that the Favorite has to use their limited supply of Influence Cubes to make these moves, as indicated by the cube symbols. (Notice that these cube symbols are absent from the Livadia Palace Card, so not all Фаворит Decisions require the use of Influence.) The more subtle restraint is that the Tsar holds the Favorite accountable for the smooth running of the government. To get the most competent government, the Favorite will have to focus on the Characters’ abilities rather than their factional affiliations. If the government suffers from incompetence, the Favorite will begin to lose Favor through penalties that appear on cards, and a loss of Favor will ultimately mean losing the Favorite position.
Sometimes Favor penalties place more direct constraints on the choices the Favorite makes. The Ball at the Winter Palace Card (front side shown on the right) lets the Favorite decide whether to hold the ball or cancel it. Holding the ball gives the other players an opportunity to “Protect” their Offices, making them more difficult for the Favorite to reassign in the Preferment Phase, so naturally the Favorite isn’t going to like the first option. But cancelling the ball comes with a Favor penalty of -1. The Favor Tracker runs from zero to 7 and resets at 4 when there’s a new Favorite, so the Favorite can’t afford many of these penalties before losing the position.
Players other than the Favorite also get to resolve many cards by themselves. “Assigned Decisions” are made by players whose Characters control certain Offices, as indicated by specific labels on some cards. The Drought Card shown above is assigned to the Minister of Agriculture. If the Character holding that Office belongs to your Faction, you get to choose one of the three options on the card. The first option (“Improve irrigation measures”) is the best solution, but to choose this option, your Character has to be especially skilled, as indicated by a “««” label on the Character Card. If you’ve got that skill and choose option 1, the Tsar rewards you with two Influence Cubes, as shown by the “Effects” for option 1.
While Drought is about good governance, Corruption in the Foreign Ministry is the opposite. If the Foreign Minister belongs to your Faction, you can steal Gold for yourself—something you’ll need for victory if there’s a revolution, or something you might do to create economic problems for the Favorite. But if you choose option 1, you’re going to lose any Influence Cube that was “Protecting” your Office, making it easier for the Favorite to take the Office away from you. Through Influence bonuses and the removal of Office Protection, Assigned Decisions have their own way of holding you accountable to the Tsar, working like a milder form of the Favor bonuses and penalties that apply to the Favorite.
The Industrial Progress Coded Card from Era I is another Assigned Decision, and one that’s important to scoring. Option 1 (“Promote Mechanized Farming”) simultaneously advances industrialization and grain production, both of which are scoring goals in this Era. At first glance, that might seem like a lot of power for one person. But in gameplay, you’ll discover it’s not so simple. Option 1 has the ★★ requirement, so you can’t choose it unless someone previously decided to assign this Office to a ★★ Character. Also, you have to spend two transport points and three industrial cubes to execute option 1. Because this card is in Group C2, someone else may have already exhausted those resources before you resolved this card. Moreover, these obstacles are not unexpected—this Coded Card stays in view the entire game and its timing is fixed, so other players can start trying to enable or block option 1 several rounds in advance. Cards like this one that relate directly to scoring tend to require advance planning, in which various players may participate in different ways. Figuring out how to manipulate future events is one of the skills you’ll develop as you master the game.
Finally, let’s consider the most interactive type of decision: Council Decisions, which are indicated by the “Council” label. In a Council Decision, all players have a chance to bid for their preferred options using their Influence Cubes, and the Tsar will accept the option that garnered the most Influence (with the Favorite deciding ties). The State Visit Card shown above is an example. Options 1 through 3 are “Influence Options” that each require a minimum of one Influence Cube and have certain requirements and spending; option 4 is the “Default” option that you’ll apply if the other options fail.
Like the Industrial Progress Card, Council Decisions often involve advance planning to meet the requirements and spending for certain options. To send the Tsar on a state visit, he has to be available (i.e., in Tsarskoye Selo) and in good spirits (♥), and you’ll need to have at least 1 Gold in the Treasury. If someone already sent the Tsar somewhere else this round (like Livadia Palace), you’ll skip the Council procedure and apply the default because it’s the only possible option. Default options never have requirements or spending, so you’ll never get completely stuck.
When the Council procedure begins, players are free to make binding agreements about how they will use (or not use) their Influence Cubes. Depending on the players, these negotiations might fail or might never begin—agreements are entirely optional. Next, the players may place Influence to support a particular option. A separate Council Mat with numbered spaces is provided for this purpose (shown on the left). There’s only one round of bidding and it’s done in Player Order. Next, the Favorite or a player who holds a particular Office might be able to remove Influence. For example, the State Visit Card lets the Foreign Minister remove 1 Influence.
In Council Decisions, Player Order strongly disadvantages the Favorite. Unless the Favorite succeeds in reaching an agreement or has enough Influence to overwhelm the other players, they’ll have to risk using Influence on an option that might fail. Moreover, if the Favorite places Influence on an option that the Tsar ends up rejecting, the Favorite loses a Favor point. This often forces the Favorite to abstain from Council Decisions if agreement fails. As you can see by now, holding the Favorite position is not necessarily desirable. It’s merely asymmetrical, with advantages and disadvantages.
In the next InsideGMT article in this series, we’ll examine non-player automation and the solitaire system.
Previous InsideGMT articles:
The Historical Figures in Nicholas II’s Regime
Deciding the Fate of the Tsarist Regime
Author: Paul Hellyer