Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory Extended Kickstarter Edition - Board Game

Capitalists win again!

Earlier this year (2023), I saw a featured article about Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory (or just Hegemony for short) at BoardGameGeek (BGG). There was an image of the game's box top featured prominently, immediately upon reaching the BGG site. You couldn't miss it. It grabbed my attention right away. So I read about what the game tries to do, and thought, "Wow, what an original concept! Can they pull it off?"Well, the answer is yes, YES! Thanks to a moment of serendipity a few weeks ago at Geekway to the West in St. Louis, the first-ever board gaming convention I ever attended anywhere (with my wife; hers too), I just happened to sit down at a table next to a guy who had a copy of the game. (And this was in a hall containing probably over 1000 people! What are the odds?)We soon gained a fourth player (thus maxing out on players), and were ready to roll! It was the first game of Hegemony for all of us, so the playtime probably was about an hour longer than it would have been with four experienced players. As such, the four-hour playtime (not counting the setup and teach) was longer than I expected—but not in a bad way! I definitely would play again, and am happy to provide my review here.THE GAME'S PREMISEIn short, Hegemony is a simulation of what it would be like to be the capitalists, middle class, working class, or the state itself in a fictional nation that feels a lot like the U.S. or another free-market Western economy—except WITHOUT a fiat currency issued by the Federal Reserve, and WITH a balanced budget more often than not, with an occasional need for funds from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). (I know, the balanced budget part sounds unrealistic, but at least one intervention by the IMF is common in this game; furthermore, you can't simulate EVERY feature of a Western economy! And the U.S. actually did have a surplus back in the late 1990s.)You play one of those four groups, each of which operates asymmetrically in the game—and also wins asymmetrically because it is assigned asymmetric goals. (Lots of asymmetry, right?) Will you lead your class (or the state) to victory (measured by victory points)?THE GAMEPLAYThere are five rounds. Each round, you are presented numerous options (lots of agency here for each player): propose a bill in the legislature (there are seven categories, including taxation, healthcare policy, foreign trade policy, immigration policy, and others), build a company (if you are the capitalists or middle class) and then hire workers for it (possibly including immigrants, depending on the nation's current immigration policy), go on strike for higher wages (if you are the working class), and plenty of other possibilities.The game is largely action-driven (each player chooses from among many options, several of which are custom) and card-driven (each player has a custom hand of cards (some of which other players also may have), each of which has a primary ability and a secondary purpose; you choose one of the two). The game designers actually consulted real-life political scientists, economists, historians, and others to help create a realistic backdrop and immersive gameplay. A separate book that comes with the game (basically the "lore"—but based on real life rather than fantasy or sci-fi) is an excellent primer for anyone wanting to understand more about the flavor and thought process behind the game.The number of interesting mechanics in this game (several I've never seen, experienced, or heard of before) is truly impressive. As just one example, when voting on a bill that one of the three classes (or the state) has proposed for the legislature to consider, you can influence the vote if you want (using media resources; influence is one of the resources in the game), which mitigates the luck factor, and you might just get your bill passed, but then all the votes cast by the winning side (represented by red cubes for working class, yellow for middle class, and blue for the capitalists) are temporarily out of the game (though there may still be votes of your class left in the grab bag—just not as many as before), making it harder for you to win the next vote.There are ways to get more votes (cubes) into the bag, but the bottom line is it will be difficult to get more than one bill passed per round. (Note, however, that there may only be one bill under consideration in a particular round (or even none); it depends on whether any of the classes have decided to incur the opportunity cost of proposing a bill during the round.) Passing a bill is important because in each of the five domestic policy categories, there is a neoliberal policy available (usually capitalist-favored, depending on the circumstances), a moderate policy (usually favored by the middle class), and a socialist policy (usually favored by the working class). There are also nationalist, moderate, and global-oriented policies available in the two foreign policy categories. When you pass a bill, you move the policy one notch to the left or one to the right (out of the three notches available—or up or down for foreign policies), thereby (for example) changing a neo-liberal policy to a moderate policy. Thus, radical or reactionary change is not possible, except with one particular card if you have it in your hand.With four players (the only option involving the state playing, unless you have the Crisis & Control expansion, which provides three automas (artificial intelligence players, using cards rather than a computer), with one automa per class), the state must deal with two event cards each round. These are challenges the state must deal with to avoid losing legitimacy with one or more of the three classes. Higher legitimacy yields more victory points for the state each round.I could go on regarding the gameplay, but the point I'd like you to take home from this review is that when playing this game, you really do feel like you are shaping an established, modern-day Western nation, and that your class (or the state, if you're playing it) has just enough asymmetry to make winning the game possible. Although I happened to win the inaugural game I played (as the capitalists), it really came down to the wire and my win margin was slight. It was truly anyone's game going up to the very end.THE PROSThe production values are truly impressive. I am talking Scythe-level (Stonemaier Games) quality here when it comes to the artwork, game components, and overall feel when playing the game. They did not cheap out on this one. The graphic design is also impressive.The version we played was the "Extended Version," which includes the Crisis & Control expansion: (1) three automas for solo play or to add one or more players, if you wish (substituting for a human capitalist, middle class, or working class player); (2) five additional action cards for each player (these cards are more interactive and can more directly impact the other players); (3) the Crisis Response mini-expansion, which provides alternative ways for the IMF to intervene; (4) the Hidden Agendas mini-expansion, which gives each player a secret objective; and (5) the Alternative Events mini-expansion, providing alternative event cards for when the state is playing.A Historical Events mini-expansion is also available (not part of the Crisis & Control expansion). In addition, if you want to upgrade the cardboard currency tokens, metal coins designed for the game are available.If you majored in history, political science, or economics, you will truly appreciate what the designers of this game have accomplished. I'm quite surprised someone could pull it off, frankly. And even if you are a math or science person—or a tradesperson for that matter—you will quickly grasp what's going on and find the simulation interesting and worthwhile. Children and teenagers truly could learn a lot in several school subjects (all at once) from playing just a couple of times. This game has immediately made it into my top five.The game is definitely epic in scope and feel—one of the most thematic game experiences I've ever had. You can tell stories about the experience afterward, and have some great memories. Twilight Imperium 4 (TI4), though a much different game, gives you a similar feeling, though I can't say Hegemony is THAT epic, given that the playtime is only a fraction of TI4's. This is not an all-day affair!THE CONSThis game's weight (learning curve and complexity of the rules) is medium to heavy (currently 4.05 out of 5 on BGG), which you may or may not like. Me, I'm just fine with this level of complexity. Many folks (many!) are not. And whether you like heavier games or not, there is a fairly steep learning curve any way you slice it. As I noted at the outset above, we added about an hour to our first-time experience just learning the game (including setup time).There is a lot of wonkiness going on here ("wonky," per Merriam-Webster: "characteristic of, relating to, or suggestive of a wonk: such as preoccupied with arcane details or procedures in a specialized field"). You may not enjoy (or you may even hate) politics and economics, and the theme may be an immediate turnoff for you. This game likely will tend to "speak" to a more limited crowd than, say, Cat in the Box, Wingspan, or Pandemic—all games I have played and enjoyed, by the way.It seems the game plays better with three or four players, rather than two. Playing solo seems interesting (I haven't had the experience), but there is no automa for the state player (if you have automas, which only come with the Crisis & Control expansion).THE BOTTOM LINEI've got to hand it to the game's creators on this one. Bravo. This is a true achievement in board game design.That said, in this "golden age" of board gaming we still find ourselves in, tastes vary ever-so-widely, and there are segments of the board gaming world that would hate this game, just as there are those who would love it, or who would simply say "meh."You have to consider what the game is, and what it's trying to accomplish (as I've tried to describe above), and then decide if it's for you. As I mentioned above, it's instantly made its way into my top five. But then, that's just me and I'm only one board gamer.