Friends
Alter
Spezial
Who holds the reins?
Mega Corps
The big companies, of course
Our world is complex, but must that be so or could it be different? This game shows several possibilities and pulls the legs of several conglomerates, or does it? How do we know that governments rule the world and not the conglomerates? This game points out how it could be! Imagine the Mouse Company coming from a democratic China and producing the best games in the world. Or Windoze treading new paths and investing in oil and Nonnintendo leading the way in the software sector. The game shows us that media rule the world, they decide if a country is a democracy or not. If you want to change the world invest in media, no wonder that Mokia rules the world.
Obviously, the game’s topic is economy as ruler of the world and who is leading the economy has the most influence on our world. But economy cannot be conquered in passing, good and diligent groundwork is essential to be in front! At the beginning you have to decide which branch of business you want to start with, do you want to make films or produce computers. Based on this decision you choose your favorite MegaCorps. A representative of this MegaCorp is thrown in a cup with all the other representatives and one is pulled out to decide the starting player. The owner of this representative receives the Active Player card. Then the representative is thrown back into the cup, because we need to draw one again to determine who controls ASEAN and draw again to determine who controls the African Federation, the respective MegaCorps markers are placed on the board on the spot next to these countries.
This brings us to the board; It shows a grid of columns for industry branches and rows for countries. There are 12 industries, each has 5 boxes in different countries. And there are 12 rows for countries, mostly big industrial countries like China, Japan or India, but also country conglomerates like EU or the above mentioned ASEAN. Each country row has a different number of industry boxes. Some countries are controlled at the beginning by already-printed in MegaCorps markers.
Then event cards are drawn from the stack, the number you may draw depends on how many countries you control. If you do not have any countries to control you draw to cards. If you exercise control over one country you are limited to drawing one card, and should you control 2 or more countries you do not draw a card at all. The remaining cards are the draw pile for the game and also function as a kind of round marker, but more of that later.
The number of MegaCorps owners determines the number of cards that can be in this deck. Should four MegaCorps rival for power, 16 event cards make up the Event Deck. Each player has a start capital of 40 Euros and a mercenary for use in his wars. Finally, before the fight for power can begin, we place two of our own MegaCorps markers = companies on the board. The first round goes clockwise from the starting player, the second one counter-clockwise, till each player has placed both company markers. Thus, you have two company markers within different industries at the beginning of the game, hopefully those that bring the most revenue and therefore are promising to invest in.
As already mentioned, the power struggle is played out in rounds that all follow the same scheme: At the start of the round the start player draws 1 Event Card and follows its instructions. No other player is allowed to draw an event card, only the starting player may do so! Then each player in turn has one of six possible actions. When each player has finished his action, the round ends and a new round is started by handing the Active Player card to the player next to the current starting player. Before I describe the possible action I need to mention that in each round the action Payout can only happen once!
Now the possible action of a round in detail: The first of these actions is buying a new company. This costs four Euros and you choose a free spot on the board that is neither nationalized nor syndicated to place your MegaCorps marker.
The next possibility for an action is Payout, only possible once in a round, as already mentioned above. This earns money for the MegaCorps, earning money from your companies can happen in three ways during the game, payout is one of them. The others are playing an event card to that effect and finally, at the end of the game, there is a payout for all companies and industries, but more on that later. Back to payout: The player who decided on payout determines the industry that pays out, and of course he will choose the branch where he has most companies and is represented alone, if possible, as payout not only earns him money, but also for all opponents. The amount paid out depends on the number of rivals in this industry.
But note that each free spot is considered a rival as well as opposing companies present. When the number of rivals has been counted, you check the payout bar on the board for the multiplier to use on your number of companies in this industry. Say, you have 3 opponents in the media industry, so you multiply your companies in this industry by 6. These three factories earn you 18 Euros revenue; the other companies earn 6 Euros, as they only have one company in the industry. After Payout you receive the Paid card; you cannot choose another payout while you hold this card.
But as things are not always what they seem and everyone has their fingers in every pie, the selection of actions also offers the possibility to initiate a government intervention. This intervention has the purpose to steal companies from other MegaCorps in certain industries. But you can only choose this action if you control a country yourself. You choose a company in your country to remove it from the control of its owner. How this is done is determined by the government in this country, whether it is a democracy, a dictatorship or a so called Kleptocracy.
In case of a democracy the MegaCorps marker is taken off the board and its owner is refunded his investment of 4 Euros. If it is a Kleptocracy you steal the company from the MegaCorps and simply replace it with your own MegaCorps marker. The player controlling the country simply attains control over another company by stealing it from another MegaCorps, the other player is not refunded and loses his investment. If the country is a dictatorship, the company is nationalized by the government intervention; this company does not earn any revenues for anybody and is also not counted as an opponent in the Payout action.
A fourth choice of action, for defense purposes, is the hiring of mercenaries that go to war for the MegaCorps. You just have to announce that you hire a mercenary. It is of paramount importance for this action that you have a minimum of one company in the defense industry, because for each company in this industry you receive one mercenary for free. If there are nationalized or syndicated companies present in the industry, you pay 1 Euro per mercenary you want to hire. You can also negotiate with the heads of other companies in the industry if they are willing to sell one of their mercenaries; the sale price is jointly determined by both parties
And what would you need mercenaries for but to launch a war? Therefore the fifth possibility for an action in a round is to launch a war. With the help of war you try to free other countries from the control by opposing players or to obtain control over still uncontrolled countries. To choose this action you must have a minimum of one mercenary. You choose the country you want to go to war against. All mercenaries of the defending country are involved in this war as well as all your own mercenaries. Nobody else but the attacking and defending parties is involved in the war, but other MegaCorps can offer assistance in the shape of mercenaries to the warring parties.
And how do you war? The attacking player adds all his attack points – these come from the attack points of the country that you use to attack with and from your mercenaries. The defender does the same and adds the defense points for his country and the values of his mercenaries. If the attack value is higher than the defense value the attacker wins the war and takes control of the attacked country and places one of his MegaCorps markers there. If the defense value is higher, the attacker loses and the defender retains control over his country.
Regardless if you win or lose the war, some or all of your mercenaries are lost, depending on the actual situation: If only the attacker used mercenaries, he loses one of his mercenaries. Should both parties have used mercenaries, the player who has used the smaller amount loses all of them and the other player loses this amount, too. For instance, if one party used 3 mercenaries and the other party 5, both parties lose 3 mercenaries.
At the end of the war there is an immediate government intervention, if the loser owns a company in the country.
The last action you can choose in your turn is to pass.
Players hold event cards either from the start of the game or get one when they are start player. These event cards need not be played immediately when you receive them, you can use the cards whenever you deem it necessary. Once used, they are effective immediately.
The game ends when the event cards are used up. Then a final payout happens, all industries are paid out once again. Whoever has now most money, wins the game.
Top and foremost, my criticism goes to the rules of this game, I find them inscrutable and not well-laid out. Some topics are mentioned superficially and three pages later the topic is intensively taken care of. This is irritating and uses up a lot of time. I have tried to present the game in a more structured way, but not completely – I have restricted myself to the most important parts of the game, to the elements that govern the game, everything else you can read up during the game.
Another point for me is the different valency of industries, some industries are more important than others. One of these industries is the media industry, which influence election. They determine who has control and so can decide outcome of the game. Another of these industries is defense, as you must have a company there to get a free mercenary or to be able to hire mercenaries. This makes the game unbalanced and you can see rather early in the game who is going to win.
A positive element of the game are the event cards, they change the flow of the game and introduce interaction. Especially in the first five to seven rounds players restrict themselves to investing and don’t scheme and that loses the game a bit of fun. And that is especially important as fun and interaction are rather lacking in the flow of the game, because of the way the rounds are structures – one player has his action, then the next – there is little communication and that detracts from the attraction of the game. On the other hand, you cannot always use the card in an optimal way and you rarely get cards that work well for yourself – which sometimes causes playing of the cards just to get rid of them without using their full potential. And, interestingly, the option stated at the end of the rules that you make any trade with any player any time do barter, buy, sell or swap was not used at all in our games, we all played mostly to ourselves.
The same imbalance governs the distribution of powers as regards the EU and China, both defense and attack powers of these countries are so big that they surely will never be attacked, which directs the game in a certain direction. I think, if you control EU and China you do not have to worry about war and will probably very far advanced in the final scoring. My conclusion is, the game was marketed in a stage far from finished, there are too many small defects and there are far more possibilities in the mechanisms than have been brought into play, developers have only scratched the surface, there is not much depth in the game. Which definitely is a pity, as the topic is fascinating and could have yielded a much more complex play. So you end up with the feeling that something is missing despite the loving care that went into funny details like the names of the MegaCorps.
Spieler : 3-6
Alter : ages 13 and up
Dauer : approx. 90 min
Autor : Greg Costikyan
Grafik : David Monette
Vertrieb A. : Pegasus
Preis : approx. 35,00 Euro
Verlag : Z-Man Games 2009
www.zmangames.com
Genre : Placement game
Zielgruppe : With friends
Mechanismen : place companies for optimal revenues
Kommentar:
Interesting topic
Funny details, like the company names
Rules badly structured
Distribution of powers is imbalanced
Vergleichbar:
Economy games as regards to topic, otherwise placement games with optimization and event cards.
Atmosphäre: 2
Isabella Schranz:
An interesting topic; not optimally transferred to the game board. But try it all the same, it has a certain attraction.
Zufall 4
Taktik 3
Strategie__ 1
Kreativität
Wissen_
Gedächtnis
Kommunikation
Interaktion 1
Geschicklichkeit
Action