Episode 250: Hegemony – Lead Your Class to Victory

Hegemony Lead your Class to Victory, or AKA High School Civics class textbook the board game. Is a heavy economic simulation game, with variable player powers, voting, and action selection. Our initial rules teach took about an hour and that was with us all watching videos of how to play our selected class. This will be the gisty-est or rule gists as all four classes play and score differently and all interact with each other in various ways. When playing two player games, you play as the Capitalist and Working Class. Three player games you add in the Middle Class, and when playing four, you add in the State. Working class controls the workers, Capitalist the companies, the middle class, is a mixture of both, and the State is trying to make everyone happy while trying not going bankrupt.

All the classes start their turn with drawing up to seven cards. The Capitalist also get some companies from a company deck. They are focused on building companies for the working/middle class workers to work in. These companies make goods and services which the Capitalist try to sell for a profit. They are also buying and selling to foreign markets and making trade deals, paying taxes, and each round paying their workers. They score most of their post from moving revenue to their capital.

The working class get multiple skilled/unskilled workers each round which they put into these companies. They are buying services (and sometimes goods) to make their workers happy. That is how they make most of their points. In addition, they have to worry about feeding those workers and paying taxes each round.

The middle class has companies and workers. They are trying to find a balance between producing, selling, and consuming to keep their prosperity growing each round which is where the bulk of their points come from. They too have to feed workers and pay taxes.

The state is trying to balance the legitimacy of the other 3 classes through offering goods and services and quashing social issues that arise every round. Their points come from how well they do this. They also control the public sector that produces good and services and employs all the worker types. Running all this takes money and the State should be looking for ways to make that coin.

The card play in the game is simple. Play a card for its printed power or discard to do any of the class specific actions. One of those actions could be to propose a bill on the Politics table. There you will find 7 different policies each with 3 types of leanings from socialism to neoliberalism and globalism to nationalism. Shifting the policy affect points, salaries, taxes, tariffs, the price of services provided by the state, foreign trade, and immigration. All of these things affect the board different ways and help/hurt the classes. During the voting phase everyone decides if they are for or against a proposed bill, there are voting cubes for the 3 classes that have put in the bag in various ways, 5 a drawn and influence is applied. The State doesn’t get a vote, but they can influence. Getting or being for a passed bill also gets you points. You have 5 rounds of building, producing, paying taxes, feeding workers, elections, and scoring. Every class also get different end game scoring. There is a lot more to this game, but this is the gist. Now lets get back to the table to see if the Pegs felt this was a robust prospering game, or if they are going to go on strike to avoid another play.