A society has many intricate parts that include many interactions between individuals and groups. In particular, an economy includes many different actors with their own goals and motivations. The Board Game Hegemony simulates this interaction through the interaction between four groups: Capitalists, the Middle Class, the Working Class, and the State. If you are interested in a video version of this review, watch the video below, otherwise, continue reading to learn more about Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory.
Short Explanation of How to Play
Hegemony is an asymmetric game, meaning that each of the four factions plays differently than the other factions. This dynamic is very interesting because the four factions not only compete with one another, but they need one another to complete their goals. The game has five rounds of four phases: Preparation, Action, Production, Elections, and Scoring. The action phase involves playing cards for actions or discarding those cards to take other actions, while the Elections create a negotiation between players that requires them to schmooze one another for votes, while secret ballots force them to weigh how much influence they want to spend on each individual vote. While I have simplified the rules down to a paragraph, there is a lot going on with the asymmetric gameplay, so if you are intrigued to learn more in detail, my YouTube playlist that includes videos that go over various aspects of the game is included here:
Why it Works/Doesn't Work For Our Family
What Worked: This game was created as a simulation of a generic political economy. It is a heady game, but my 9 year old loves it and has already learned a lot as she discovered the difference between revenue and capital as well as thinking about how she could maximize her profits for her businesses. The elections are fun, as is considering how to make different policy proposals during your turn. While my 7 year old son has had a hard time getting into the actual game, the worker meeples are really cool, well designed, and there are a lot of them, so he has fun playing with them and creating what he calls “Meeple City.”
What Was Challenging: The asymmetric nature of the game makes it a lot to take in. While I was able to play through the game with my daughter, there is a long way to go before I believe we have mastered the game. She enjoyed games as both the middle class and the capitalist, though I think the game as capitalist went more smoothly for her because the capitalist was more focused and straightforward in its tasks and goals.
Why it Works/Doesn't Work With Friends
The game is a lot of fun and the people I have played Hegemony with have enjoyed it. The two greatest challenges have been: (1) the learning curve for a large game, and (2) the time commitment. Combining the two challenges makes for a very long first session. Even for avid gamers who enjoy board games, the 4 hour+ length of time makes it challenging to get a group together who will be able to play out the full game, and many game players don’t like games that long. The game is significantly shorter with 2 people, but loses some of the interplay that happens between the various factions in a 3 and 4 player game. The gameplay moves quickly and smoothly once you have a handle on the rules (which themselves make a lot of sense since they are based on society), so it does not feel dull during the game, but the learning curve takes awhile and even though the game is moving along, there is a lot that needs to happen and it still ends up being a long game.
Teacher's Corner
I supported this game as a Kickstarter primarily because I thought it was an excellent example of so many of the topics that I teach in my Economics and US Government courses. In my series of Teaching with Games videos, many of the Economics videos that I am creating reference Hegemony. Here is a link to the YouTube playlist for these videos (Note: Some of the videos in the playlist reference games other than Hegemony):
Overall opinion, rating, and recommendation
7 year old son - As of the creation of this post, he is not interested in playing Hegemony. He did try to play with us one time, but was overwhelmed and had a hard time understanding what he was supposed to do. Perhaps he will want to give it a chance in the future, but time will tell whether this is the case. What he did like doing was to play with the wooden meeple characters, so the game has some appeal to younger kids just with the components, but that is a secondary bonus for the child who won’t lose the meeples when playing with them on the table.
9 year old daughter - My daughter loved playing this game. She already has an entrepreneurial spirit, so she enjoyed trying to build companies and make money. We’ve had meaningful conversations about paying taxes, as well as our discussion about Capital and Revenue. She is excited to play this more and learn more from the game.
Mine - I will rate this game Heavy Adult. This game is a lot of fun for me. The topic of running businesses, paying workers, taxes, and proposing bills may not sound exciting for some, but I think the topic is important, and the gameplay works very well. It is an enjoyable, interactive experience. Though the game takes 4 hours at times, the time moves quickly as you are always thinking about your next play or interacting with other people. I rank this game near the top of my favorite games. For people like me, you will absolutely love this game. That being said, the challenges I mentioned earlier are very real. If the rules learning curve or length of time would keep this game from coming to the table, it wouldn’t make sense to get it. The game plays best at 4, but still works well at 3 and 2, and if someone owns the Kickstarter version of the game or the Crisis and Control expansion, they have the materials to play automas for all of the factions except the State. The automas add more levels of complexity that are higher than the base game, which is something that a person interested in them should weigh with this game.
Games with similarities with this one at each rating level:
Casual Family: - Pay Day
Casual Adult: - Acquire
Heavy Adult: - Power Grid / NOTE: World Order is forthcoming
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