Politix
Politix Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Different card types in the game
The cards in Politix can be divided into three main categories: politician, action and voter cards. In addition, each party has a party symbol card. The right-wing party symbol is a SUV, left-wing's a bus and centre party's a tractor.
Each player starts the game with one politician card that represents a Finnish politician. This card is placed face up in front of the player. In the course of the game, players persuade people to vote for their party using the abilities of their politician.
The action cards are cards that are drawn from the draw pile and played during players' turns. There are two different types of action cards: politicking cards and special action cards. Players use politicking cards to gather voters for their party, whereas special action cards have various effects on game play.
In Politix, there are four different politicking cards: debate, twistin'n'turnin, charming and intimidation. In addition to these four cards, there are also wild cards called coffee and cake cards. A coffee and cake card can be used in place of any one of the four politicking cards.
The voter cards consist of six different groups of people: farmers, white collar workers, blue collar workers, hippies, blondes and angst-ridden youth. Different politicking methods work better or worse for different groups. Among the voter cards there are also four event cards: doping scandal, beauty contest, depression and time of reason cards. These cards represent different events and changes that happen in the society and affect the effectiveness of different politicking methods.
Setup
Before starting the game, players decide which politician they want to play and divide themselves accordingly to parties. The choosing of the politicians can be done in any way players want. However, if possible, players should choose their politicians in such a way that there is an equal number of players in each party. In a five player game, players should use the special rule stated at the end of these rules.
The players in the same party sit beside each other and the party symbol card is placed in front of them. After this the action cards are shuffled and placed in the middle of the table as the action card draw pile. Each player takes four action cards from this deck into his hand.
Next, the voter card deck is shuffled and placed down as the voter card draw pile. Eight voter cards are drawn and placed face up in the middle of the table. During the game, players try to collect these cards from the table – the collected voter cards represent the voter base of the party. All event cards that are drawn during the setup are set aside and new voter cards are drawn instead.
At the end of the setup, there should therefore be eight voter cards face-up on the table. Event cards drawn at this point are shuffled back to the voter card draw pile.
The starting player is randomly selected. Now the game can begin.
Gameplay
On each turn, a player has two options. The player can either:
a) Draw 3 action cards from the draw pile, or b) Play action cards from his hand.
The above two actions are mutually exclusive. Players take turns in clockwise order.
At the end of a turn, if a player has more than ten cards in his hand, he must discard enough cards to satisfy the ten card hand limit.
During the game, the players try to persuade different groups of people to vote for their party. This is done by playing politicking cards. If a player chooses to play cards on his turn, he can play any number of special cards from his hand and in addition any number of politicking cards of one type. For example, a player could play the Burnout and Nuclear energy special cards and in addition three debate cards, all on the same turn. However, a player could not play for example both debate and charming cards on the same turn!
Different voters react differently to different politicking methods. The voter cards have a specific number of different politicking symbols; these symbols show how hard persuading is using the corresponding politicking method.
Example: Blondes have three charming symbols shown in their card. This means that in order to get a blonde behind your party by charming her, the player needs strength of three in charming.
When persuading, a player must first choose which voter group the player is targeting and what kind of politicking method will be used. For example, a player could choose to persuade white collar workers using debate. The player then plays any number of debate cards and coffee and cake cards from his hand. The player's total debate power is the sum of the cards he has played and of the modifications from the different cards on the table. The cards that can affect the player's politicking strength are party symbol cards, special cards and event cards. If the player's politicking power is at least as great as there are corresponding symbols in the voter card, the player can take the card from the table and place it face down to his party's voter pile.
Example: Ben tries to persuade angst-ridden youth using intimidation. On Ben's turn, there are four angst-ridden youth cards on the table. Ben has the Anarchist agenda special card in front of him that gives +1 bonus for persuading angst-ridden youth, and in addition there is also the depression event card on the table which gives +1 intimidation power to all players. As Ben's skill of intimidation is +2, he has power of four to intimidate angst-ridden youth to start with. Ben plays one intimidation card from his hand and therefore has altogether power of five in intimidation towards the angst-ridden youth. Ben gets therefore three angst-ridden youth cards from the table, because to get one angst-ridden youth, one needs only power of three in intimidation, and "3+1+1=5".
A player can also try to obtain more than just one voter card during his turn in the case there are more than one card of the same group on the table. Each additional card of the same group make the persuading harder only by one!
Note that if a player decides to persuade voters, he may only do it by playing politicking cards of one type. A player may also never persuade more than one voter group during his turn. Also, to get voter cards from the table, the player must always play at least one politicking card; the player may never take voter cards without playing any politicking cards! If a player plays action cards, he may not draw cards on the same turn, not even if he did not play any politicking cards.
Immediately after the player has collected the voter cards from the table, the player replenishes the voter cards back to eight cards. If at this point an event card (doping scandal, beauty contest, depression or time of reason card) is drawn, it is placed on the table face up. If there was already an event card on the table, the new event card is placed on top of the old card. The player then continues drawing cards until eight voter cards are in play.
At some point the voter card deck runs out and no more voter cards can be drawn. The players continue to play the game however, as long as there are voter cards on the table. The game ends immediately after the last voter card is picked up.
Note also that special action cards are always played for one of the players: either for you, for one of your fellow party members, or to one of your opponents. The special action card is placed beside this player's politician card and the effect of the card is in use from that moment on. Most of the special action cards include a symbol representing a voter group indicating which voters the special action card affects and also a symbol that describes whether the effect is positive or negative.
Example: Tarja plays the Nuclear power card to Sauli; the card is placed beside the Sauli-politician card. Sauli gets now -1 modification for the persuasion of hippies in future rounds.
The special action cards include also Burnout and Gone with the wind cards. By playing a Gone with the wind card a player can remove any one special action card from one of the players (not the party symbol). A Burnout card is played for one of your opponents. The player who has the Burnout card continues to play normally, except when he draws cards: Instead of drawing three cards, the player who is burnt out draws only two cards. This player can choose to rest on his turn and discard the Burnout card. If the player chooses to rest, he cannot play any cards on that turn nor draw new cards. Burnout card can be discarded also by playing the Gone with the wind card. Note that each player can have only one Burnout card at a time.
Used politicking cards and removed special action cards are put into a discard pile.
If the draw pile runs out during the game, the discard pile is shuffled and is used as a new draw pile.
During the game, the fellow party members may not discuss the cards they have in their hands, nor show them to each other. Players can, however, examine the voter cards that their party has collected during the game.
End of the game and scoring
The game ends immediately after one of the players has persuaded the last voter card from the table. The parties now compare their party's voter cards and determine who the winner is. The winner is the party who has collected the most of those voter cards that they have the least. If two or more parties have as many of the cards that they have the least, they compare the number of voter cards which the parties have the second least, and so forth. The idea in the game is therefore, not only to collect as many cards as possible, but also to collect cards as equally as possible from different voter groups. In the case of a tie, the party that had fever turns in the game is the winner.
Example: at the end of the game, the right-wing has collected voter cards in the following way: 6 white collar workers, 5 blondes, 4 blue collar workers, 2 hippies, 2 farmers and 1 angst-ridden youth. The left-wing has again collected the following cards: 6 angst-ridden youth, 5 farmers, 5 hippies, 3 blue collar workers, 2 blondes, and 1 white collar worker. Both of the parties have equal number of cards in the group they have the least and the second least, but as the left-wing has 3 cards in the group they have the third least (blue collar workers), whereas the right-wing has only 2 (hippies or farmers), the left-wing party wins the game.
A special rule for five player game
When playing the game with five players, dividing players equally between parties is not possible. In this case, players should divide themselves between two parties; the first party has two players, whereas the second party has three players. The first party takes six random voter cards (not event cards) and places them to their party's voter pile. The second party should not see these cards. These cards represent the base support of the party. In a five player game, the first party's first player starts the game, after this comes the first party's second player's turn, and only after this is the second party's turn.