Tom Clancy's Politika Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Overview
  • Object of the Game
  • Game components
  • Playing board
  • Pieces
  • Production and Event Cards
  • Action cards
• Setting Up the Game
  • Choose Factions and Duration
  • Place Influence Tokens
  • Place Representatives
  • Distribute Money and Cards
  • Place Uprisings
• Playing the game
  • Production
  • Movement
  • Trade
  • Alliances
  • Challenges
  • Uprisings
  • Buying cards
• Special abilities
• Ending the Game

Overview

Object of the Game

Politika is a game of strategy and negotiation for three to eight players. Each player represents a faction vying for political control of modern-day Russia after the death of President Yeltsin. The goal of the game is to accumulate more influence — the support of the people and major institutions — than any other player after a specified number of turns.

Influence is measured in influence tokens. Each of the 23 regions on the game board holds three tokens. Each player begins the game with an equal number of tokens randomly placed on the board. Over the course of the game, players attempt to remove the tokens of other factions and replace them with their own.

Game play normally lasts six turns. At the end of the final turn, players count their tokens. The player with the greatest number of tokens is declared the winner of the game and in control of the future of Russia.

Game components

• 1 playing board
• 16 representatives (2 for each player)
• 320 influence tokens (40 for each player)
• 3 uprisings
• 30 production cards
• 16 event cards
• 56 action cards
• 8 faction cards
• 1 pack of money
• 8 dice

Playing board

The playing board of Politika is a map of modern-day Russia, which has been divided into 23 distinct regions. Each region contains three influence tokens at all times. These tokens represent political power within the regions.

Each region has an indicator on it which represents its relative production value in dollars (rubles being worthless). Five dots indicates that it will appear five times in the production deck; one indicates that it will once.

Six of the regions are tinted differently. These are the separatist regions, and are important to the Separatists faction (see below under Special Abilities).

Pieces

Each player has two pawns, or representatives, of the same color. These pieces represent the player's ability to gain political power. During every turn, each representative can move once and challenge once.

Each player also has a collection of colored squares or influence tokens. They represent that player's political power within the regions and the uprisings.

There are also pieces which represent uprisings. They represent areas of political unrest which players can try to control. If you have control, you can use them to block production in regions. There are three uprisings, called the bourgeois, labor and student uprisings.

Production and Event Cards

At the beginning of each turn, the current player turns over the top production card. Each production card has three regions represented on it, indicating which regions produce for that turn. Mixed in with the production cards are cards that tell players to turn over event cards, which upon being turned up take effect immediately. Generally, the event card continues in effect until the beginning of the drawing player's next turn, when it is discarded.

Action cards

At the end of each turn, players have the opportunity to buy action cards. These allow them limited-duration advantages in challenging, defending and production. They cost $20,000 each, and may be traded freely among players. Once an action card is played, it should be discarded next to the action card deck.

Setting Up the Game

Choose Factions and Duration

Players must first choose which factions they want to play during the game. Eight factions are available:

• Church (white) — a strong political force, but most of their work is behind the scenes.
• Communists (red) — represents the old guard, complete with political machine.
• KGB (black) — the KGB as we know it disappeared with the Soviet Union, but many of the same people are there.
• Mafia (purple) — just like our own, their goals are money and profit, no matter what.
• Military (green) — like most generals, they want a stronger military force, particularly now that the Russian Army is on the verge of collapse.
• Nationalists (brown) — they want to return to a unified Soviet Union under a strong fist, and are riding a wave of discontent.
• Reformers (blue) — represents the party of Yeltsin. They wish to maintain control and continue the capitalization of Russia.
• Separatists (yellow) — the separatist movement, which wants to allow ethnic regions within Russia more political autonomy.

Only one player can play a given faction. Each faction has a special ability, which is described in the rules below and which is summarized on the 8 faction cards. The simplest way to choose is to shuffle faction cards and hand them out randomly. Players take their faction cards and lay them face-up before them.

At this point players should choose how many rounds of play the game should take; six is standard.

Place Influence Tokens

Next, players count out the appropriate number of influence tokens and place them face-down in the middle of the playing board. The number of influence tokens with which each player begins the game is determined by the number of players, as follows:

• 3 players: 26 tokens each
• 4 players: 20 tokens each
• 5 players: 16 tokens each
• 6 players: 13 tokens each
• 7 players: 12 tokens each
• 8 players: 10 tokens each

Leaving the tokens face-down, players shuffle the tokens, then move them by threes into each region on the playing board. Three groups of three tokens are placed aside, still face down, and assigned to the three uprisings.

If four, five or eight players are taking part, two tokens will be left over; if seven players are taking part, six tokens will be left over. These excess tokens are removed and given back to the appropriate players, then the tokens on the playing board are turned over. The tokens assigned to the uprisings are inserted appropriately.

Place Representatives

The next step is to determine which player will move first. This is done by rolling one die each (ties re-roll as necessary).

The high roller places one of his or her two representatives on any region on the board. Proceeding around the board in a clockwise fashion, each player places a representative in any region not already containing a representative. When the last player is reached, he or she places both representatives. Then placement continues back in a counterclockwise fashion, ending with the high roller.

Distribute Money and Cards

One player is designated as the bank and issues $50,000 to each player. In addition, players that had excess tokens returned receive $30,000 for each such token.

Another player is designated as the dealer. The dealer shuffles the action card deck and deals three action cards to each player, beginning with the high roller. Players may look at their cards at this time. The remainder of the action card deck is then placed face-down on the appropriate slot on the playing board.

Place Uprisings

Next, the dealer shuffles the production cards, then turns over the topmost production card. This card is used to indicate where to place the three uprisings. They are placed on the board in the following order:

• Bourgeois uprising: first region listed on card
• Labor uprising: second region listed on card
• Student uprising: third region listed on card

If the card turned over says to draw an event card, ignore it and draw another production card. This process is repeated until an actual production card is turned over.

Finally, the dealer collects all the production cards again, shuffles them and the event cards, and places the two decks face-down on the appropriate slots on the playing board.

Play is now ready to begin.

Playing the game

Beginning with the high roller, each player in clockwise order:

1. Turns over a production card
2. Moves representatives and uprisings
3. Trades and sets up alliances
4. Makes challenges
5. Buys action cards

Production

The first thing the current player does is turn over the top production card onto the discard pile. For each space on the card, if any player has at least one influence token in that space, he or she receives $10,000. A player does not receive extra money if he or she has more than one token in that space.

Some production cards indicate that you should draw the top event card. An event card becomes effective immediately, and the next production card is turned over. If an event card indicates that it is active for a round of play, it is placed before the player who drew it, and is not discarded until the beginning of that player's next turn, before that player draws the new production card.

Movement

Players may move two types of pieces on their turn: representatives, and any uprisings where they have influence.

Representatives that start in regions where the player has no influence may only move one region in any direction. Representatives that start in regions where the player or his ally (see below, under Alliances) have some influence can be moved any number of spaces through regions which contain influence tokens of that player's or ally's color, but then must stop once they reach a region where the player has no influence.

For example, if a player had a representative in Kamchatka and no influence in that region, he could only move it to Sakha and Primorskiy. If, however, he had influence in all three regions, he could move to Sakha, Primorskiy, Taymyria, Evenkia, Irkutsk or Chita.

Up to three representatives may share the same region.

Players may also move uprisings in which they have any influence. They may move each uprising one region in any direction for each influence token of their color in that piece, regardless of the influence the player may have in those regions. However, they may not move through regions already containing another uprising.

Only one uprising may be in a region at a time.

Trade

During the trading phase, the current player may exchange action cards, money and influence with the other players — the rate of the exchange is determined by the players (players can give freely if they wish). Players exchange influence by changing one of their tokens on the board to one of the other player's color. However, the current player may only change one influence token in this way per turn.

Alliances

During the trading phase, players can also set up alliances. An alliance is indicated by swapping influence tokens and placing them on the faction cards before them on the table. Players may only be in one alliance at a time, and alliances are broken by challenging an ally, or forming an alliance with another player. When an alliance is broken, the two former allies must re-exchange influence tokens.

An ally's influence tokens act as your own for the purposes of defense and movement. A player can move through spaces of ally control as if they were their own, and if attacked in a region containing ally tokens, those tokens add defensive dice.

Challenges

Once the current player begins issuing challenges, the trading phase is over, and no other items can be given to or received from the player. In an challenge, players try to change one of the influence tokens in a region where they have a representative. They indicate which one they wish to change, and they and the owner of that token (the defender) roll dice to determine the winner.

Players may perform one challenge with each of their two representatives. Challenges may not be shared; that is, one representative cannot perform two challenges while the other performs none.

Challengers buy their dice, as many as they like, for $20,000 per die. Defenders receive one die for each token they have in that region. If they are in an alliance, they also receive one die for each token their ally has in that region.

The order of challenges is:

1. Challenger buys dice
2. Challenger (and other players who so choose) plays action cards to modify the dice
3. Defender (and other players who so choose) plays action cards to modify the dice
4. Challenger rolls
5. Defender rolls

Once the dice are rolled, each player totals theirs. If the challenger has the greatest total the influence token is changed to the color of his choice. This is usually his or her own color although not necessarily. Defenders win ties.

Certain action cards allow players free challenges in specific regions. These must be played during their challenge phase, and as with ordinary challenges, they may buy extra dice.

Uprisings

Uprisings are special pieces that players can use to limit production. Any region containing an uprising does not produce any money. Players can therefore move uprisings around and use them to block other players' production. As mentioned above, a player can move an uprising as many spaces in any direction as they have influence tokens in that uprising, but not through spaces that already contain another uprising.

To try and control an uprising, you must have a representative in the same region as the uprising. The representative then makes a challenge against one of the influence tokens in the uprising, much as it would against the region itself. The tokens used to determine defensive dice are only the ones in the uprising, not the ones in the region.

Buying cards

Players end their turn by buying as many action cards as they can with their remaining money. They may buy none if they wish. Action cards cost $20,000 each.

Special abilities

As mentioned above, each faction has its own special ability. They are:

• Church: extra defensive die if your representative is in the region
• Communists: one of your representatives gets an extra challenge with one die
• KGB: on your turn, you can peek at another player's hand
• Mafia: on your turn, steal $20,000 from another player
• Military: can move any uprising one space on your turn. If you have control of the uprising, you may move it one additional space.
• Nationalists: uprisings where you have complete control give two extra dice for making challenges
• Reformers: on your turn, receive no less than $30,000
• Separatists: receive double production from the separatist regions

Special abilities are not transferrable to allies.

Ending the Game

After the number of rounds chosen at the beginning of the game, players count up the number of influence tokens they have on the board, including those contained in uprisings. They then add one to this total for every $30,000 they have, rounded down. The player with the greatest total is declared the winner.

Should there be a tie, the remaining players use their influence totals to vote for the winner (from those tied for first place). If all players are tied, the game ends in a draw.