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Alliances

Fight for world dominance

Control the world by winning a trick-taking card game! Each trick represents a conflict on about control over a country. There are three suits for political, economic and military power. Countries are represented by tiles on the table and carry defense values in all three suits.

Four play in two teams: In the State of Nations Phase you bid for the number of controlled countries (=number of tricks taken) and for the dominant color of the campaign = trump. In the Conflict Phase the leading player chooses a country based on the rules parameters and then you play a trick for the targeted country. You follow suit or play a special card or any card. With the trick you win the targeted country, if the trick value is higher than the defense value of the country. After 12 tricks the Aggressor Team wins the campaign, when the bid has been met. With two won campaigns you win the game.

In a game for two players you set aside tricks won in a drafting phase and you draw a card until the reserve stack is empty. If you did win more tricks you determine the dominant, trump color for the campaign.

In a game for three one player represents the Empire, the other two the rebels; at the start you exchange cards according to rules parameters and you play a campaign as usual.

Alliances is an ambitions, somewhat overloaded variant of the trick-taking game mechanism; there are too many mechanisms for a basically simple game and the event cards can tilt the game over to change-regulated. If you like trick-taking card game variants, you will find Alliances an interesting and unusual game offering many variants.

Players: 2-4

Age: 10+

Time: 45+

Designer: Elad Goldsteen

Artist: Antonis Papantoniou, Giota Vorgia

Price: ca. 20 Euro

Publisher: Golden Egg Games 2013

Web: www.goldenegggames.com

Genre: Trick-taking card game

Users: With friends

Version: en

Rules: en

In-game text: no

Comments:

Trick-taking variant with bidding on the result

Winning the trick does not automatically win you the land

A bit too many mechanisms

Of interest for fans of trick-taking card game variants

Compares to:

First game of this mechanism mix

Other editions:

Currently none

Chance (pink): 2

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 0

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 1

Communication (red): 1

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0